“Yep.” My stomach clenched at the memory of that conversation. “She also made some comment about how I shouldn’t be such a goody two-shoes considering who my family is.”
“What a cunt,” Frankie gasped, staring at me wide-eyed.
A bubble of laughter spilled out of my mouth.
“Sounds like you dodged a bullet,” Gray mused. “You don’t wanna work for some bitch—especially when she’s orderin’ you to putyourass on the line for some shady shit that she could deny havin’ anythin’ to do with later.”
“Yeah.” I agreed with him completely, but it didn’t help the anxiety that tightened my chest.
I’d never been fired before. I was a hard worker, and peoplelikedme. I’d always been successful at everything I did. Being fired felt like failure, even if the logical part of my brain knew that it was a good thing I was no longer working there.
Thankfully, living out of two suitcases in apartments provided free of cost had kept my overhead so low that I’d banked most of my income since I started. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have a cushion to fall back on. I could take my time deciding next steps. Maybe consider my time at home a little vacation.
“Well, you came home on the right day,” Frankie announced. “Brody’s birthday party is tonight.”
“Shit,” I mumbled, leaning my head against the seat. “I forgot to call him. Wait—Brody’s birthday isn’t until next week.”
“But the party’s tonight.” Frankie grinned.
Going to a party on the day I got fired for the first time was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do, but I shot Frankie a weak smile anyway. It would be good to see all of my cousins. We’d drifted apart a little since we’d become adults, but after growing up in a tight-knit family that saw each other nearly every day, those bonds held strong.
And if I was honest with myself, I knew that the rest of them hadn’t drifted anywhere. It was me who’d moved away. Everyone else had stayed local, joining the club like our fathers, creating lives that were still intertwined. I was the odd man out, and I knew it. That was why I couldn’t skip out on Brody’s birthday. I was the one who left, so I was the one in charge of reconnecting again.
“Just—” I grimaced. “Don’t tell everyone I got fired, okay?”
“Of course not,” Frankie replied with a scoff.
“Nobody’s business but yours,” Gray agreed. “Mom and Dad know you’re home yet?”
As we turned onto a road more familiar to me than my own face, I leaned forward to look out the windshield just as my parents’ house came into view.
“No, they don’t.”
Gray smiled.
All was quiet as we parked out front and climbed out of Frankie’s SUV, but before we’d even unloaded my suitcases, my mom was racing out the front door barefoot. She gingerly step-skipped toward us over the uneven ground, her smile so wide I could practically see her molars.
“My baby,” she sang, throwing her arms around me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Surprise!” I replied, sinking into her hug. The scent of her hair made everything in the world disappear.
The thing about my mom was that she gave the best hugs, and she didn’t let go until the other person did.
And I couldn’t seem to let go.
We stood there in the drizzling rain while Frankie and Gray brought my bags into the house, and I didn’t pull away until I realized that without a coat my mom was getting soaked.
I could barely see her through my wet glasses as she held me at arm’s length and looked me over.
“Well, whatever it is, you’re in one piece.”
I let out a hiccupping laugh. “Yeah,” I croaked.
“Everything else can be fixed, sweetheart. Come inside.”
Chapter 2
Sebastian
