Page 13 of Not On Your Life

“You have a point,” she concedes. “It will be hard to come home for holiday and for me to see the grandbabies.”

Oh yes, I almost forgot about the spouse and children I don’t possess along with a career I also don’t have. I’m a disappointment all around.

“But you might enjoy such fancy life. They even do your makeup for free. And they have cute outfits for you to wear.”

I’m ninety-nine percent sure she did not find me a job as areallawyer.

I’ll have to get a new billboard.

“Thanks, Mom, but I’ll figure it out, I promise.”

“I know you will. You are the smartest girl in the world.”

If that were true, I wouldn’t be in this position right now.

“I’ll see you next week.”

“Bring a boyfriend this time,” she says, and then the line goes dead.

Sure. I’ll find a job and a boyfriend in a week and a half. As if I haven’t been searching for the last four months. For the job. I couldn’t care less about the boyfriend thing.

I’ve exhausted every law firm in the Phoenix area. And myself. The only place willing to take me was the shady public defenders working out of the back of a Chinese barbecue. The restaurant and the job were equally suspicious.

I call my best friend.

I need to vent, and she’ll understand.

“You’ll never guess who my new client is,” I say the second Lyndi answers the phone.

“Oh, okay, um…Shawn Mendes? Tom Holland? That girl from TikTok, Charli something?”

“No.” Seriously, where does that woman’s mind go sometimes? “The devil.” I pull into my apartment complex and get out of my car.

“Like the one and only?”

“No!” Haven’t I complained enough about Connor in the last four years that she should never forget? Just because she’s off living her fairytale doesn’t mean the rest of us are. “Connor.”

“Oh! The ogre,” she says, understanding in her voice.

She does still love me. “It was a hunchback, but yes.” I drop my bag in my room and kick off my tennis shoes.

“Okay. Start over now that I know we aren’t talking about a red guy with horns and a tail.”

Technically, I have yet to confirm the tail.

“Herequestedme.” I’m still dumbfounded by it myself. How stupid could he be to put himself in that position? “He claimed he wanted to talk. But of course, I didn’t let him.”

“Seriously, what did he—? Why are you naked?”

I frown at my fully clothed self in my bedroom mirror.

“Please tell me you’re talking to Crew and not your husband.” I grimace.

She and Ward got married two months ago and are still in that honeymoon stage. After what she’s been through raising her son by herself, she deserves the world, and he’s given her that.

I may be a tiny bit jealous.

But there is nothing wrong with being single. Unless I’m talking to my mother.