They’re not wrong, though.
We are the intruders.
We robbed them of their most eligible prize. There are too many southern-belle bitches to keep track of, who rue the day Richard Price ever laid eyes on my mother. Everyone assumed that when the most eligible bachelor in the South would finally tie the knot, he’d pick one of the blue bloods circling around him like vultures. Not a single mother from Brooklyn who lived paycheck to paycheck. Mom might no longer have to scrub toilets for a living, but all of Asheville still sees her on her knees, in one form or another. Either as the slut that screwed her way to the Price fortune or the white-trash maid who should have never left the ghetto.
The worst thing about all of this is that a part of me wishes that she had turned Dick down when he proposed all those years ago. Poverty compared to self-respect is a no brainer for me. I’d rather be poor as shit than have to bow down to any man.
Fuck, most would look down on me with the same sneered disdain if they thought they could get away with it—which I make sure they can’t. I might be my mother’s son, but while she believes in turning the other cheek to her defamers, I’m more of an eye-for-an-eye kind of guy. Fuck with me, and you get what’s coming to you.
If I get wind that some socialite called my mother a whore, then I go out of my way to turn her precious little daughter into one.
Some bitch jokes over brunch how my mom used to be a hotel maid back in the day, and I have her son shine my shoes in front of everyone.
An envious prick talks trash about my mom on her knees with his golf buddies, then I make sure to take pictures of his wife on hers servicing me.
You come for mine, and I do everything in my power to destroy you.
If Dick spent less energy on busting my balls, and more of it in protecting his wife from shit like this, then maybe I wouldn’t have to be the one cleaning house all the time.
I push the dorm’s door wide open, and I’m hit by a sweet breeze of cold, pre-dawn air, cooling my sudden rage. Every time the weather turns cooler, it reminds me of home. Of snow and rain, and all that good shit New York provides. North Carolina is hot and humid, and so fucking polite that it grits on my nerves. With their sweet southern twang and fake smiles plastered on their faces, its inhabitants cut you down to size and slander your good name all over town. Back in Brooklyn, we told assholes what we thought right to their faces without all that sweet-talk, cynical bullshit.
Even after the horror that my mom had to overcome, the thought of leaving New York never once crossed her mind. Only after Dick put a ring on her finger did she consider it. Under false pretenses and promises, we packed up our stuff and moved to Asheville, completely unaware that we had just traded living amongst dumpster-diving rats for Cartier-wearing snakes. Dick doesn’t do squat to protect her against such vile creatures. Instead, he just throws her to the wolves without a second thought to her mental wellbeing, expecting her to cope under their venomous scrutiny.
The fuck is that about?
You call that love?
Fuck him.
He doesn’t know the first thing about love. If he did, if he cared about my mom at all, we would be living in New York, where she felt safe. It was our home, and he stole that away from us for his own social and financial ambitions.
And now someone is threatening to steal my home a second time.
If I consider myself a vengeful force to be reckoned with, then The Society just one-upped me.
I shake my head, not wanting to go there, and rush to my truck. One fucked-up scenario at a time is all I can deal with right now. Thankfully, the twenty-minute drive cools my thoughts a bit while the tunes playing on the radio are enough to keep me distracted. Of course, when I finally get to the Price estate, the rancor that lives and breathes in me on the daily resurfaces.
It’s my own damn fault. I could have left the minute I graduated high school and taken the scholarship that NYU offered me. But instead, I stayed. I stayed because, as much as I wanted to leave, my wish to protect my mother in any way I can is still too strong for me to ignore. She’s the only person in this world that I love more than myself. And even though I’m the shittiest son ever to have walked the earth, she still looks at me like I’m the best thing that ever happened to her. No diamonds, luxurious home, or fancy vacations that Dick showers my mom with can ever compare to what some low-life that ruined her innocence gave her.
To her, I will always be a blessing.
To Dick, I’m nothing but a curse.
As much as I love my mother, I’m with Dick on that one.
I stroll inside the house, and the minute I pass by the living room, I instantly feel like scum. Mom is all curled up in a ball on the couch, a book on her lap with the side table lamp on.
Shit.
She stayed up, and it’s all my fault. Lately, she insists on staying up, vigilantly waiting for my return whenever I don’t reply to her texts. It’s as if she knows something messed up happened to me, and she’s worried that one night I won’t come home at all. I’ll never tell her the truth of what happened last spring, but her intuition is so strong when it comes to me that I don’t have to utter a word for her to know something isn’t right. Truth be told, that’s the real reason why I’ve been acting so damn aloof toward her. If I can keep her just at arm’s length, then maybe I can fool her into thinking I’m just being a cunt for cunt’s sake. I’d rather have her believe I’m just an asshole than a fucking murderer—the lesser of two evils in my book.
I grab the wool blanket at her feet and pull it over her. I lean down and kiss her forehead, her sweet smile immediately making an appearance on her face. It’s as if she knows I’m home and safe, even in her slumber. And that’s all she ever wants me to be—safe. It kills me that I’ve caused her concern, but if she knew the shit me and the guys are involved in, it would send her to an early grave. I can’t have that.
I turn to head for the kitchen for a three a.m. snack and warm up her homemade gnocchi. Sure, we have cooks and maids to do our shit for us now, but every once in a while, Mom takes over the kitchen just so she can feel like her old self. Not the pampered queen Dick insists on having. The fresh basil and tomato sauce goes down like sunshine and rainbows. I wolf it down with some ice water since I drank enough alcohol at the Greek row party to last me for a couple of days.
I grab a bottle to take with me up to my room but halt to a stop before I cross the foyer.
Dick is cradling my mom to his chest, taking her upstairs back to their bedroom. He’s still in his pressed white-collar shirt, black tie, and black slacks, which is his preferred attire while handling business. The douche must have been in his office working until the late hours while I was partying.
Even from afar, I can still hear him hush sweet nothings in my mother’s ear, and she cuddles in further to his chest, her sweet smile now hidden away from me. His deep chestnut eyes are half-mast in tenderness, looking at his wife in his arms, but the minute he feels my presence, they turn to the icebergs I’m familiar with.
“You could have called,” he reprimands with an ingrained scowl to his lips.
I hate that he’s right. I could have, but I didn’t. His upper lip curls in disgust when he sees my face is as unrepentant as ever.