Page 39 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Twenty minutes later, I’m opening the door to my first-floor apartment when I come to a screeching halt.

My mother is sitting on the brown leather couch I got at the flea market and Snow is sitting right beside her.

While my sister springs up from the seat at my arrival, looking visibly relieved, my mother takes her time.

First, she takes me in, my messy hair and flushed face, my wrinkled uniform and my scuffed sneakers.

Then she pulls the cigarette out of her red-painted lips and blows a puff of smoke that immediately gets my back up; only then does she deign to rise.

I enter and shut the door behind me before looking over at Snow. “Go to your room.”

Snow swallows, already stepping away from Mom, but she still asks, “Are you sure?”

“Now,” I tell her.

She swallows again but her relieved breath is unmistakable as she nods and practically flees.

As sassy as my sister is, she’s a nervous wreck when it comes to the rest of the world, including Mom.

Other than using Snow as a pawn in her twisted games against me, my mom also has a tendency of going off at the slightest of provocations, especially when I’m involved, so Snow tries to keep the peace.

Back when I was trying to get Snow to live with me and Mom wouldn’t let her go, Snow would try to appease Mom by promising visitation.

Like we were in some sort of a custody battle.

We did not have the money for that, and I don’t think a judge would grant a twenty-year-old with a high school degree and a strip club job custody of her little sister.

In any case, Mom put up as many roadblocks as she could, if only to screw with me, and Snow retreated even more into her shell.

All of this turned out to be moot though when her heart condition was revealed, and Mom let her go like she never wanted her in the first place.

Snow knows to call me if or when Mom shows up on our doorstep, and I’m sure she must’ve tried to but Mom probably didn’t give her a chance.

“You know, you like to pretend,” my mother says, still smoking, cocking her hip to the side, “but you’re not her mother.”

It’s been a few months since I last saw my mother.

She looks the same as she always does, all made up and pretty with red hair and green eyes.

Like me, she has freckles but hers don’t overpower her face like mine do, and they almost make a pattern on her nose and cheekbones, unlike mine that look like they exploded into a million pieces.

Anyway, my mother is very fond of her make-up and dresses.

Looking pretty is important to her, and no matter what, she puts a lot into her appearance.

Even during the days when she’d laze around the house after my biological dad was gone, she’d make sure to do her hair and put on lipstick at least, on the off chance she might run into someone while getting the mail.

She likes when people notice her, especially men.

She specifically likes men noticing her when they shouldn’t.

Like when she’s out and about with the man she’s supposed to be with at the time.

I guess that’s how she met Jeremy, while being out and about with Dad, looking pretty.

I overheard her saying that when they fought about him.

In any case, I refuse to rise to the bait and instead say, “What are you thinking? You can’t smoke in here. You can’t smoke around Snow. You know that.”

Yes, she does. Not because she was there when the doctor laid out all the rules, but because I told her when she came around the first time after Snow’s surgery.

She was smoking then too, and I had her put it out.

She didn’t like it but fuck that. We’d just almost lost Snow, she could go without her cigarette for a little bit.

My mother, however, takes her time with this one too. She studies me some more, this time with irritation that I can clearly see on her face, before bending down and stubbing the half-smoked cigarette out on the glass table. Great. Just freaking great.

Shaking my head, I toe off my sneakers and go to clean up after her.

Pick up her cigarette and the empty glass of juice that I’m sure Snow must have gotten for her.

This isn’t the first time I’m doing the same.

I spent my entire childhood and teen years picking up after her in the hollow pursuit that if she saw me taking care of her, maybe she’ll take care of me back.

Maybe she’ll even come to love me back but of course that never happened.

While I have very little hope of it ever happening, I’m glad this gives me something to do while I wait for her to reveal why she’s here.

I’m sure it has to do with her constant phone calls I still haven’t taken.

I walk to the kitchen just off the hallway, and she follows me. “It’s been months since her surgery. One cigarette wouldn’t kill her.”

I dump her glass in the sink and take a deep breath before turning around to face her. “It actually could. And please don’t use Snow and kill or anything remotely similar in the same sentence, thank you.”

She’s standing with her shoulder propped up against the fridge, looking all kinds of careless and pretty. “You don’t need to coddle her like she’s a child. She was sick, she’s fine now. She needs to live her life, not be afraid of it.”

“I do need to coddle her because a, it’s not coddling, it’s called being cautious. And b, she has a heart condition and if we do want her to live, being cautious is the only way.”

“You’re so responsible now, aren’t you?”

“If by that you mean I know that a coffee table isn’t an ashtray,” I retort, giving in to the urge to provoke her, “then, yes I am.”

At my words, she sneers and her face turns into something cruel and ugly. “If you’re such a big girl, how come you’re out of a job?”

“What?”

She shakes her head at me. “Went to the strip club to ask around about you but apparently you don’t work there anymore.”

No, I don’t. Which is why I have the evening free.

I thought about it afterwards, about what he did, how he had me fired because he talked to George before I could.

As in, I thought about it the next day lying under the covers in my bed while Snow kept coming to check on me because she thought I was sick.

I told her that. I told her that was why I was staying home that day.

Because I’d come down with something. It was a lie, but it wasn’t hard to believe, because it did look like I had come down with something.

My eyes were all puffy and my nose was red.

Plus I felt and looked so weak that it seemed like I could fall apart any second.

In any case, along with his black leather shoes, getting me fired was probably another bullet point on his long checklist of things to do.

It wasn’t a secret to him that I never liked that job.

It made me feel unsafe. I only did it out of necessity.

He also knew that if he broke things off with me, like he was planning on, I wouldn’t quit it.

So he made sure to have me fired. He also made sure that I don’t ever go back to it because I did call George when I could—a couple of days later—and he literally hung up on me.

God knows, what he said to my old boss to make him so scared.

And I know, while on the outside it looks all cruel and assholish, he did all that to help me. In his own twisted way. Which is so very strange because he hates me now but also so very like him.

My safe space made of thorns.

“No, I don’t,” I confirm.

And Mom doesn’t like that. “Now, what are you thinking? That was your highest paying job. How are you going to take care of your sister now? How are you going to keep this roof over your head, let alone deal with all the medical bills and everything else?”

Turns out, I don’t have to.

Because another thing on his checklist was to pay off my debts.

Yeah, he did that too. Along with getting me out of my unsafe job, he paid all of my debt.

All 102,327 dollars. This, I found out two days later, after my call to George.

It left me panicked and I went online to check the state of my finances.

But according to the person I’d called to talk to about this crazy turn of events, my debt was settled the same day everything fell apart.

So basically, another bullet point. And I wish I could say I don’t get it but I do. I so, so do.

He did to help me. He did it because of our connection. He did it despite me sullying that connection. Despite me lying and betraying him. He probably hates that connection now. As much as he hates me.

I don’t blame him.

I just wish I could say thank you. I could go to him and tell him that he changed my life.

He made it better. He made everything better.

And that I love him. I fell in love with him—or rather, realized how much I love him—while riding his boot.

Something he made me do so he could humiliate me and exact his revenge for me being a lying bitch.

“I didn’t like that job,” I tell my mother, and she narrows her eyes at me.

“I hated it. I hated taking orders from the drunk assholes who thought just because I was smiling at them for big tips, I was asking for it. They all looked at me like I was not a waitress but a whore. That job made me feel unsafe, Mom. It made me feel trapped. Like I had no choice.”

Such an interesting word, whore, isn’t it?

Derogatory in most cases but freeing in others.

While the rest of the world made me feel like a whore in a demeaning way, him calling me that felt like freedom.

It felt like I could give wings to my desire for him.

I could feel filthy things for him but still not actually feel filthy.

Still not feel anything but beautiful in his arms.

Even on my knees, naked and crawling, he made me feel desirable. He made me feel like myself.