Wanted to pretend that she wanted it too.
But that time it was different. Because I was being held by someone who definitely wanted me, someone who wasn’t letting me go.
Mom dropped her knock-off bag at our feet, arms open as if to hug me, glancing at Luke in a gesture for him to let me go.
Luke knew our story with Mom. Therefore, he did not let me go.
She awkwardly leaned in and kissed me sloppily on the cheek, her cheap perfume embracing me even though her body didn’t.
“Oh, Rosie, baby,” she cried, pretending that the moment hadn’t happened when she leaned back. “I came as soon as I heard you were home, that you’d lost another one. This is just horrible. Horrible. I knew my babies would need their momma to get through this.”
Cade snorted. Actually snorted.
All eyes went to him.
Not just because such a sound was foreign and never before heard. Gwen was gaping.
“Bullshit,” he said. “You came because you’re outta money, too old to get the attention you want, and too fuckin’ washed up to hide your crazy from whatever guy is stupid enough to fuck you. You came back here because you’ve got nowhere else to go, not because we need you,” he growled. “Clue in. You weren’t here when we buried our father. When Rosie went to prom. Graduated. When she lost one of her best friends. When my daughter was born. My wedding day. My son’s birth.” He listed them off like bullets, aiming to hurt and maim the woman who birthed us. “We sure as fuck don’t need you or want you,” he spat. “You have any fuckin’ respect for this club and for your children, you’ll get back in that piece of shit and never come back here again.”
Mom was gaping at him, with the audacity to look appalled. Hurt.
The truth did hurt. Especially when it was ugly. Especially when it showed you how ugly you were.
Mom wasn’t. The years hadn’t been kind to her, shown by the deep lines around her mouth and forehead, the makeup she slathered on sinking into the creases. Her eyes were a little sunken in, bloodshot. But she was still beautiful, under it. Or at least she had a shadow of something that told the world she used to be beautiful.
She dressed like she still was. She was slim, but more out of malnutrition than anything, her tight black dress molding over bones and tired flesh. It was much too short for a woman her age, even a woman who lived as hard and wild as she did.
Crocodile tears ran down her face. I was sure apologies, excuses, and tragedies were about to come spilling from her lipstick-smudged mouth.
They might have, had the barrel of a gun not settled in a deep wrinkle in the center of her forehead.
“You’ve got about thirty seconds to get out of here before I shoot you,” Evie said, her eyes hard.
I blinked at her. Cade and Luke both stepped forward, as if to do something.
Evie wasn’t worried. “You don’t get to come and spread your poison upon these kids. Upon this day. You won’t do it again. You may not remember how to be a mother, never were one. Nor a good person. But I’m sure you’ll remember that I don’t do empty threats. Today of all days. Death is visiting today. And he’ll welcome another addition. I won’t hesitate to give him one.”
Evie wasn’t lying. I knew that. She would shoot Mom, right there.
It felt strange to me that I didn’t have immense panic at that thought. It was hurt. A lot of hurt. But not at seeing my mother killed in front of me. It was having a mother who put herself here. Took herself away from us, then put herself here.
She blinked at me, pleading with her eyes, expecting me to speak up, to fight for her.
Except that day I didn’t feel like fighting. I hooked my hand into Luke’s belt loop. He immediately turned, sensing my need, and took me into his arms, his body a barrier between me and my mother.
“They ain’t gonna say shit,” Evie croaked. “They got one true mother standin’ here. It’s the one holdin’ the gun. I’ll kill for them, and I’ll kill for myself. So go, bitch, before I decide to spill your blood just to make this anything but the day we revisited the family we’ve lost.”
Mom only had a sliver of hesitation, a painfully short amount, before she turned on her heel and left.
Evie didn’t lower the gun until the engine started.
We all watched her leave.
Mom didn’t look back once.
“I need a fucking drink,” Evie muttered, turning on her stiletto heel and moving toward the clubhouse as if nothing happened.
“Me too,” Cade said. He yanked Gwen into his side, giving me a look before following Evie.
I went to do the same when Luke stopped me, hands going to my face.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Babe.”
I waited. He didn’t say anything else. “Babe is not an answer,” I snapped. “I know you’ve taken to hanging around with men who think it is, but make no mistake, that’s not gonna fly with me,” I informed him.
“That was your mother,” he said quietly, looking to where the Camaro had disappeared.
“No it wasn’t,” I replied. I jerked my head toward the clubhouse. “That was my mother. The woman who was wearing too much perfume and not enough clothes is just someone who gave birth to me and pops in when she needs a break from the party. And needs money, more often than not.”
“Fuck, babe. I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“I’m not,” I replied. “Seriously. I may be damaged in a lot of ways, but that’s not one of them. I don’t have a hole where I’m meant to have a mother because I have them.” I nodded back to the clubhouse once more. “They’ve given me more than she ever could have, even if she’d stayed. So I’m good. Don’t worry about that. I’d be more focused on the crime lords out to get me,” I teased.
He kissed me long and hard. “Fuck, I love you.”
I grinned lazily. “I love you too.”
“I’m thankful for her,” I said to the fire.
Cade and I had gotten through the day. With each of the people who acted as our other halves beside us.
That was until Luke brought me into his arms, lips on my ear. “Think you and your brother need a moment?”
I leaned back, gaped at him for suggesting something I didn’t realize I needed until right that second.
“I love you,” I blurted in answer.
His eyes were oceans. “I love you, baby. To my bones,” he murmured back.
Then he let me go.
Just like Gwen let Cade go when I wandered up to her.
Cade scoffed from his place across from me. “You’re shittin’ me.”
I glanced at him. “Trust me, there’re a lot of things I want to hate her for. I should hate her for.” I took a pull of my beer. “She’s a shitty mom and an arguably worse person. But she designed herself, you know? She majorly fucked up, don’t get me wrong, but I think that’s why Dad loved her. She saw through all the bullshit of how people thought they were meant to be. She created herself for herself. She didn’t follow any rules.”
“Like bein’ a fuckin’ good mother,” Cade spat.
I nodded. “Yeah, that. But if there’s anything I got from her apart from great hair is that ability. That rebellion, I guess. Against that little part of every human that strives to be like everyone else for some illusion of safety that comes with unity. That’s bullshit. She taught me, without even trying.”