She jumped and looked up at me. “I just texted you like ten minutes ago. And again just now. They showed up and I had no idea what to do!”
I took a breath and then released it. The text must have come through while I was driving and I hadn’t heard the update. “I don’t suppose you want to tell her to go fuck off for me?”
Her brows shot up, and I gestured to cut her off before she reminded me that she didn’t use those potty words.
I heard voices behind me. Jordan and my mom were talking. Ugh. I spun and headed back to the living room. Mom was chatting up Jordan. Oh, hell no.
“So you and April work together?”
Jordan, for what it’s worth, was more interested in the jackass sitting on the couch than in my mom’s batting eyelashes.
“Mom, leave him alone.”
She turned back to me, the smile sliding off her face. “You make it sound like I’m attacking him or something.”
I bit my lip. Well, it was her typical mode of attack. I mentally counted to five, then took in a deep, cleansing breath. None of that was working.
“I’m just getting to know Jordan, here, a little better,” she continued when I didn’t say anything. “I didn’t realize you were seeing someone. And since you’ve been avoiding me, I don’t know anything about what’s going on in your life.”
I looked at Jordan in time to see him frown at that statement.
“You used to disappear for months at a time,” I reminded her. “And if I recall correctly, before your latest wedding, I don’t think I’d heard from you for six months. Why are you suddenly so interested in my life?”
My mother glanced over to the couch and exchanged a long look with Gunnar. Then she squared her shoulders and walked over to me. “I’m sorry your feelings are still so hurt. I can’t choose who I fall in love with.”
Great non-apology. So typical. I blinked away the stinging sensation behind my eyes. Her insensitivity to this entire awkward situation got me every time. And really, that was my own fault. I was always hoping, maybe even expecting that she’d become a better person.
But she was the same one who, when I was fourteen, didn’t pick me up from a friend’s birthday party, leaving me stranded for hours at a restaurant after everyone had left. Her Hollywood director third husband had forced her to change her plans and she’d never bothered to notify me. My poor stepmom ended up driving hours out of her way to get me. Rebekah hadn’t gotten there until after midnight, at which point I’d been sitting alone in the dark for hours.
I’d gotten one of my mom’s shruggy non-apologies then, too.
“If you’re stopping by just to say hello”—which I highly doubted—“I have to get going. I have some important business to take care of right now.”
My mom frowned and then reached up and wiped at something on my face before I batted her hand away. “Have you been getting enough sleep? You look tired and your makeup is all worn off. And that mascara—I taught you better than that.” She added another cutesy laugh at the end of her statement and threw another assessing look at Jordan.
“I don’t need a makeup tutorial, thankyouverymuch.”
“Of course you don’t, sweetie.” She smiled and alarm bells went off. She wanted something. She never, ever called me sweetie or any other term of endearment. “I, uh, actually wanted to ask you something.” I knew it.
She stepped toward me and put her hand in my face again. I caught the distinct smell of alcohol on her breath. “Jeez, April, this gloppy mascara is annoying the hell out of me.”
This time, she poked me in the eye with her thumb.
I jerked back. “Ow, shit! Mother, get your finger out of my face and tell me what the fuck you want.”
She did this stupid exaggerated thing where her mouth dropped in horror but she still used her cutesy, fake voice—for Jordan’s benefit, I presumed. “Since when do you talk to me like that?”
I rubbed at my injured eyeball. With my other eye, I noticed that Jordan was beginning to look pissed. I turned back to my mom. “Have you been drinking?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gunnar rise from the couch. He was tall and thin, and I’d once thought him a good-looking guy. But now, standing in the same room as Jordan, he looked like a pre-pubescent teen.
I held up my hand to block out his face. “Stay the hell out of this, Gunnar,” I said before he’d even said a word.
“Apologize to your mother,” he said, ignoring me.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, turning to him. Without warning, my mother lunged at me.