Page 15 of The CEO I Hate (The Lockhart Brothers #1)
MIA
“ I ’m here,” I called as I walked through the front door of my parents’ place.
The short drive up to Valley Village was always picturesque with the tree-lined streets.
The neighborhood reminded me of the nineteen fifties with its manicured parks and block parties where everyone brought different variations of potato salad.
We hadn’t grown up here, but my parents had moved into one of the ranch-style houses when I was twenty-one, and they’d spent the last seven years adapting to the overly cheery neighbors and perfectly trimmed hedges.
Everyone had some sort of welcome sign on their porch, now including my parents.
They didn’t know it yet, but it was obvious to me that they’d joined a cult. The HOA kind of cult.
I kicked my shoes off in the foyer, leaving them perfectly aligned on the mat so my mother wouldn’t get on my case about that. As I bent down, I spotted a pair of shoes I didn’t recognize. They were far too big to be my father’s. Plus, he’d never worn a penny loafer in his life.
My face fell. Yeah, I’d suspected a setup, but it was still disappointing to be proven right. “Crap,” I muttered under my breath .
“There you are,” my mother said, bustling down the hall like she was on a specific mission: marry me off before the wine cooled.
Her hair was pinned back, and she wore a frilly apron over her blouse and skirt.
Worst of all, she was wearing blush. I grimaced.
She only did that when we had company. “What took you so long?” she demanded.
“Me? You said about six. It’s seven minutes past.”
“You’re only a five-minute drive,” my mother complained. “Is it really that hard to be on time?” She took me by the arm, practically dragging me down the hall. My feet stuck on the hardwood floor—their own quiet resistance.
“There is this thing called traffic,” I pointed out as we drew toward the dining room.
She looked me up and down. “You didn’t have anything nicer to wear?”
I’d shown up in jeans and a T-shirt. “You didn’t tell me I needed to be dressed up.”
“Is dinner with your parents not enough of a reason to look nice?”
I bit my tongue. Hard. Mostly to stop myself from pointing out that she was the one treating dinner like a matchmaking interview.
“Well,” my mother said under her breath. “Just be extra chatty. Hopefully, your personality will shine through despite the band T-shirt.”
“Extra chatty for who?” I muttered. We reached the dining room to a chorus of laughter.
An unfamiliar man sat in the chair next to my father, who’d apparently broken out the good scotch.
Damn, my parents were really excited about this one.
And since anyone they liked was pretty much guaranteed to not be my type, I could already tell it was going to be a long night.
“Mia,” my father said, getting to his feet to give me a hug .
“Hi, Dad.” I slid into his arms, trying not to make awkward eye contact with the stranger.
“This is Peter Porter,” my father said, pulling away to introduce the man. The receding hairline and heavy jowls told me he was at least a couple decades older than I was. “He’s one of our clients.”
I politely reached for his hand. “Nice to meet you, Peter.” Please don’t say, “You’re prettier than your parents described.”
“Great to meet you too, Mia.” He beamed at me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I shifted back around to my seat on the opposite side of the table.
“Peter’s a manager at a manufacturing facility,” my mother said, like she was announcing his pedigree at a dog show.
“It’s actually my grandfather’s company. Peter Porter’s Potties and More,” Peter said. “He’s the original Peter though.”
“Wow,” I said. “What a great company name. A lot of…alliteration.”
“Good, stable job,” my father pointed out.
“Makes more money than you’d think,” my mom added quietly as she passed behind me with a basket of rolls and a large bowl of Caesar salad.
Dear God.
They wanted me with a man whose entire bloodline was built on toilets. I piled up my plate with salad. Maybe if I stuffed an entire roll in my mouth, I wouldn’t be expected to respond for at least a couple of minutes.
“And Peter will one day inherit all of Porter’s Potties,” my mother said, way too loud and way too proud. “Isn’t that right? ”
“Porter’s Potties and More ,” Peter cut in. “That more is very important. We do a lot of business on toilet parts. Handles. Bowls. Wax rings. Flanges. Bolt caps. Tanks. Tank lids.”
The list went on.
And on .
I stared at my parents like they’d lost their damn minds. I was about to lose mine .
“Fill valves. Overflow tubes. Seats. Seat lids,” Peter continued, undeterred.
I jumped to my feet. “You know what I just remembered? I have to grab something for Jake.”
I didn’t wait for a response and hurried back out into the hall. For a moment, I considered setting myself on fire in the driveway. It felt more dignified than going back in.
“Mia?” my mother called. “Can’t it wait until after dinner?”
“I’ll just be a minute,” I said, slipping out to the garage. If Peter continued on like this for the rest of dinner, I’d end up forgetting to look for the yearbooks just so I could make my escape as quickly as possible.
I made my way to the massive shelves where my parents had stacked our boxes from childhood.
This place didn’t have an attic, so the garage had become the space where old junk came to die.
Thankfully, my mother, in her obsessive need to label everything, had separated my boxes from Jake’s and labeled them by year.
All I had to do was find the high school years.
Bingo!
I hauled a box off the shelf. It was heavier than I’d anticipated, and it thumped down at my feet. “What the hell do you have in here, Jake? ”
The answer turned out to be about forty pounds of brass basketball trophies, participation ribbons, and dusty proof that my brother had once been the king of everything.
I opened the box, rifling through his old jerseys and medals and trophies. I pulled out some glass award wrapped in bubble wrap and winced. Please don’t be broken . At the bottom of the box, I finally spotted what I was looking for. Yearbooks!
The first one I pulled out was from senior year. People had written in every page of Jake’s book. Notes, signatures, inside jokes…every single page was filled out.
Jake had been popular .
Not in the arrogant, quarterback-who-peaks-at-prom kind of way. No…he was the guy who remembered your birthday, who helped freshmen carry books, who could talk to anyone and make them feel seen. He lit up a room.
Back then—and even now—it was harder for him to see it. I ran my thumb over one of the messages. Don’t forget about karaoke night!! You promised!!! A tiny string of hearts had been drawn beside it.
I wondered if Jake even remembered this version of himself.
I closed the yearbook gently. Then, because I wasn’t about to let myself spiral, I flipped to the class photos.
Lockhart…Lockhart…
Yes, there he was! My finger brushed over his face. Well, well, well…look who knew how to smile back then.
Dammit. You know what? He still actually looked really good.
I grabbed the rest of the yearbooks intending to take them with me.
Hopefully, there’d be something more embarrassing inside one of the other ones. Like a bad haircut. Or visible frosted tips.
But I wasn’t holding my breath.
I heard laughter coming from inside and I cringed when I heard my mother mention coming to check on me. I looked at the switch for the garage door and contemplated making my grand escape before she dragged me back to the dinner table.
Except my shoes, bag and car keys were sitting next to the front door.
Dammit!
Clutching the yearbooks to my chest, I pushed the door open with more force than necessary and my mother squeaked in alarm and glared at me.
“There you are, Mia. What were you doing out there? Peter was just telling us a wonderful work story. Come back to the table, now .” My mother turned on her heel and strode back to the others calling out in a singsong that made me want to gag, “Found her.”
I rolled my eyes and set the yearbooks down by my shoes so I wouldn’t forget them. I really needed to set up escape contingencies, but realistically, how much could one person say about toilets?