Page 36 of Fierce-Jax

“It’s not cute. It made the other kids laugh and then they were picking on me and calling me MiMi and DiDi and everything else they could think of.”

Her daughter sounded upset and she worried maybe she should be home to deal with this.

“Sometimes that happens,” she said. “I bet Max didn’t mean any harm by it. Could be he likes you and didn’t know how to act.”

“I don’t like him,” Gianna said firmly. “I told him that too. That he’s mean and he needs to pick on people his own size. He’s fat so it’s not easy.”

“Gianna,” she said sternly. “You don’t say those things. It’s hurtful.”

“So is calling me GiGi. I can’t change my name, but he can change his body. Maybe he shouldn’t eat so much.”

Dillion bit back the laugh. The things that came out of her daughter’s mouth. “Please don’t say that,” she said. “You don’t know his life or if he has something medically wrong with him.”

“Yes, I do,” Gianna said. “His mother and father are fat too.”

Her mouth opened and closed. Good thing they were on the phone so her daughter couldn’t see how dumbfounded she was over this.

“Let me talk to your mother,” she heard her mother say. “I’m sorry, Dillion. I’ll talk to her more about it. I was getting dinner ready and didn’t think she’d go off like that with you.”

“Please do,” she said. “And I’ll make sure I talk to her when I get home. What is going on with this kid? Is it as simple as that? He just shortened her name or did she say something mean to him first?”

She’d never known her daughter to be mean to anyone.

Talkative and hyper, sure.

Not always thinking of what she said before it flowed out of her mouth. Yep.

But not outright mean!

Even when she was at the birthday party and some of the other girls were pointing and giggling at others, Gianna wasn’t part of that group.

She hated to think her daughter would fall into that trap so early on to follow along, but she knew it could happen. That it most likely would at some point.

Everyone falls to peer pressure a time or two. Some more than most.

Like Gianna’s father.

Urgh, it was the last thing she needed on her mind when she was going on her first date since Alec.

“I’m trying to get the facts out of her,. There seems to be some confusion over the timeline of stuff said.”

“What stuff?” she asked. “Things from today?”

“Ongoing. The teacher talked to me about it when I picked Gianna up.”

“They should call me,” she said. “I’m her mother.”

Her mother sighed. “I don’t think it was anything more than they just wanted to make me aware that Gianna had a bad day with a little boy named Max. She wasn’t giving sides or anything like that. Don’t think much of it. I know you’ve got something to do, so put it from your mind.”

“It’s hard to do that if my daughter needs me,” she said.

Was she wrong to do this?

To start dating and putting herself first for once?

“She doesn’t need you like you think,” her mother said, laughing. “She’s being dramatic and defensive. I’ve handled a little girl like that a time or two in my life.”

“I’ve never been dramatic,” she argued.