Giana gave Holden a questioning glance before shaking her head and focusing on me again. “We need to talk.”
“I’m all ears, Kitten.”
Her cheeks flushed as pink as her sweater before she glared at me. It was as if that nickname snapped a new persona into place. I watched as she went from sort of cowering and shy to standing taller, shoulders back and chin up.
“After the stunt you pulled yesterday, my ass is in hot water, and we need to discuss media protocol and on-camera etiquette.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes as I got back into position for another rep of squats.
“I did my time over the summer,” I said, and then I pushed the weight up, beasting out my next ten reps with her still standing beside me. When I racked up the weight again, sitting up, she hit me with a patronizing smile.
“Well, clearly, you didn’t comprehend any of it.”
“I comprehended just fine.”
“After yesterday, I beg to differ.”
I shrugged. “So, I suck at being on camera. Just don’t put me on. Simple as that.”
“No, not simple. You’re a star defensive player with a lot of media requests. And you don’t suck on camera. You were like a fish in water any time I had you interviewed last season.”
“Times change, Kitten.”
She gritted her teeth. “Stop calling me that.”
A teammate somewhere behind me let out a soft meow that made another bubble of laughter burst through the weight room, and I fought to hold back my own.
Giana sucked in a hot breath through her nose before pointing a finger at my chest. “You have a mandatory PR meeting with me tonight after team meetings. The coffee bar by the student union. Eight PM sharp. If you’re late, you’ll have Coach Sanders to answer to — understood?”
Appreciation simmered in my chest at the sight of her standing her ground, at how she raised her voice just a notch and tipped her chin at me while she waited for my response.
“Yes, ma’am,” I purred, and I couldn’t help it.
I glanced at her skirt again.
To her credit, she ignored me if she noticed at all, turning on her heel and sashaying a few steps before she was almost hit by Hernandez doing a tricep strap workout. She dodged his fists just in time, nearly stumbling into a leg extension machine before she did a little spin and avoided that, too.
I watched her pinball the entire way out of the weight room, and didn’t realize how much I liked the distraction of her until she was gone.
And the only thing left to think about was Maliyah.
Clay
“You’re just going to love him, Clay,” Mom said through the phone, the sound of dishes clattering in the background telling me she was working on dinner.
I was on my way across campus after a grueling day of camp to meet with Giana for our little PR refresher, and I was not in the mood to hear about Mom’s latest boyfriend.
But I didn’t have a choice.
“He’s a real gentleman. And he’s serious about business.” She paused. “And about me, which is refreshing.”
I tried my best to harness a smile even though she couldn’t see me, mostly so it would help me sound like I believed her. “He seems great, Mom.”
“You’ll see. When you come home for Christmas.” There was a pause, and then, “So, tell me about you. How’s football?”
I sighed before answering the question, which I really was grateful for. I knew Mom was in a good place because she asked, because she didn’t spend the whole call wailing about herself and her problems. Not that I minded when she did that, either. I was there for her no matter what.
Still, after so many times repeating the same narrative, I had a hard time believing this man would be any different from the rest.
My poor mother was stuck on a spinning Ferris wheel of heartbreak she couldn’t get off of ever since my dad left when I was eight.
The cycle went like this:
Mom would meet a new guy, usually at Le Basier, the ridiculously overpriced restaurant where she waited tables in Los Angeles. Mom was a looker — I got my sharp green eyes from her, and my naturally tanned olive skin — and she’d always bring home the kind of guys who were enamored by her beauty. She was charming on top of it, which usually meant the men slipped willingly into her web and were content to be consumed by her energy.
The problem was that once the relationship started getting real, once the shine wore off and they realized my mom could be a lot to handle, they left.
And they always left her with even more scars than she had before.
Dad leaving Mom messed her up. It messed both of us up — especially when he quickly moved on to another woman, had two kids with said woman, and built a completely new life that didn’t include us. Add that to her already traumatic dating life before Dad, and you could say Mom had her reasons for acting a little… much at times.
Most men couldn’t take it. They couldn’t sit with her in the hard times, couldn’t hold her hand through the panic attacks or give her words of affirmation when she so desperately needed them. When her jealousy and paranoia swept through her like a hurricane, they didn’t batten down the hatches and ride out the storm alongside her.
They took the fastest escape route out of town, leaving her to manage the damage.
And in their parting words, they made sure to make her feel like the crazy one, the nag, the jealous bitch, the psychotic, untrusting woman. Never mind the fact that they gave her plenty of reasons to feel those emotions.
But in the end, it was always me there picking up the pieces.
And that was when I braced for the other side of my mom.
When she was happy, when things were good, Mom was the brightest light of sunshine. She was enigmatic and fun to be around, motivated and driven, passionate about everything. She’d be invested in my life, in keeping our home clean and put together, and most of all, in her relationship with whoever the guy was.
But when they left?
She was a disaster.
Mom had always been a drinker, ever since I could remember. The difference was that when I was younger, when it was her and dad, that drinking was usually a bottle of wine between them — one that led to them laughing and dancing in the kitchen.
But Mom drinking A.D. — after Dad — looked a little different.
It was entire cases of beer consumed on her own. It was crying and screaming and clinging to the toilet as I held her hair or pressed a cool washcloth to the back of her neck.
And that was another part of the cycle that repeated itself — happy drunk when she was with someone, and a drunken mess when they left her.
Sometimes, in the worst of the breakups, she’d turn to drugs. Sometimes, she’d let depression take her under. Sometimes she’d get so close to being fired that I wondered how she’d stayed with the same place all this time. She’d blow through her savings, get into so much trouble that she needed to ask her only son for money, and then make me feel guilty if I didn’t give it to her.
And I would — every time.
It didn’t matter if I had to clear out my savings, work a summer job, or sell my PlayStation.
I would never turn my back on my mom.
That was a given, something I’d felt strongly ever since she didn’t turn her back on me when my father did. She wasn’t perfect, but she’d always been there, and for that alone I’d give her the last penny in my bank and the shirt off my back, too.