I grip my bottle with more force than necessary and breathe out between my teeth. If there’s one thing we don’t do in the Bastards, it’s interfere in each other’s sex lives. Guess that unspoken edict counts for nothing when you’re the president’s son.
Right on cue, Mom strolls over, like this is an ambush. “Ty, great you could make it.” She kisses me on the cheek. Seriously, like I had a choice. The only excuse for not attending one of Angie Jenson’s get-togethers is if you’re dead.
“So, Jas flew back to Florida?” It’s not an unreasonable question, but I hear the subtext.She screwed you over again, didn’t she?
“She was only here for a week.”
“And she’s not coming back?”
It was a mistake downing a beer so fast on an empty stomach. “Probably not.”
She exchanges a glance with my dad. “Just as well. You don’t need her hanging around, messing with your head.”
“Messing with my head?” There’s a warning in my voice, and anyone else would shut the fuck up. But not my mother, not when she’s on a roll.
“I know you’ve never gotten over her, but now you see what she’s like. She’ll never stay, Ty. She just doesn’t have what it takes to be your old lady.”
“Don’t.” I try and slam down the anger. She’s my mom, after all. And I sure as hell don’t want to cause a scene and have everyone know my business. “Don’t talk that way about her.”
“Ty.” My dad doesn’t raise his voice, but he doesn’t need to. I know. And I don’t fucking care.
I turn on him and stare him straight in the eye. “What?” That’s all I say, and it’s enough. He frowns, as though something is only just occurring to him.
“You still serious about her, son?”
“Jesus, Jett.” There’s a barely disguised note of exasperation in Mom’s tone. “She dug her claws into him and never let go. And before you start”—she rounds on me—“it wasn’t just because of who her mom was. You’ll take over from your dad one day. You think it’s easy, being the president’s old lady? She doesn’t have the stomach for it. She’d hold you back. That’s why I never wanted her for you.”
I turn my back on her and place my empty bottle on a table. If I open my mouth now, the whole fucking street will hear what I have to say. I take a couple of deep breaths, but it doesn’t help the black fury seething through my blood.
“Deep down, you know I’m right, baby.” Mom’s voice is soft, and it’s the final trigger. I swing round, and something in my expression makes her back off damn fast.
“You don’t know shit about her, or what she can handle.” Her dad helped to put her through college, but she won a couple of scholarships against tough competition, no matter how she tried to downplay it when she told me about it the other day. That’s not the actions of a quitter, or someone who falls apart under pressure.
“All right.” Mom lowers her voice, since several interested glances are being thrown our way. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but since you’re still so sure the sun shines out of her ass, I guess I don’t have a choice.”
That does it. “I’m leaving.”
“Ty, wait.” She grabs my arm. “You remember that night when you told us Jas was the only girl for you?”
Since that night is scorched into all of our brains, it’s a fucking stupid question to ask, and I don’t give her the satisfaction of responding.
She releases me and folds her arms. “Viper said he’d go see her. Find out how serious she was about you. If she’d had any backbone, she would’ve told him to fuck the hell off. All she did was pack her bags and jump on the next flight out of L.A.”
What the fuck?
“You didn’t tell me that, Angie.” Dad sounds pissed, but I ignore him.
“Viper went to see Jas?” She never told me that. Why didn’t she tell me? “What the fuck did he say to her?”
“I just told you. She didn’t fight for you, Ty. You need a strong woman by your side, not a frightened little girl.”
My heart’s thudding against my ribs, and there’s a weird echoing in my head. I forcibly unclench my fists.Keep it together.
“She was seventeen.” I grind the words between my teeth.
“That’s old enough. I was that age when I moved in with your dad, and I never took shit from anyone.”
I never liked him. He gave me the creeps.That’s what she said when she found out he was dead.
