It was either going to be that, or I was going to choke him out.
Had his sister, The Primordial survived in space? Yes. Were chances in his favor that he could do the same? Yes.
And could he realistically overpower me with his smallest toe? Most definitely. But I was going to give it my all anyway.
He was going to learn a lesson some way, somehow. He couldn’t just do whatever he wanted.
“Why do I have to go with you?” I asked for about the twentieth time.
The son of a bitch, who I was purposely not looking at for longer than a second or two, repeated the same thing he’d said half the other times I’d thrown the same question at him. “Because.”
That was his answer: because.
Real helpful.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about meeting his mom, and that’s probably more than half the reason why I kept asking. I’d thought about pretending to have a migraine so I could stay, but that was cowardly. I was running at 50 percent capacity now, and maybe I should have insisted, but…
I owed him.
“Hear me out,” I started to say before he groaned.
“We’re five minutes away. You’re dressed. I’m dressed. We don’t have to stay long. I know you aren’t feeling great. It’ll be an excuse to leave,” he told me, sounding ultra-crabby.
I wanted to bang my head, but that would mess up the makeup that I’d had to watch an hour-long tutorial to learn how to put on.
Makeup that he’d left on my bed.
Along with a beautiful dress.
And shoes.
All of which were perfect for me, even the foundation that matched my skin tone perfectly.
I’d been so surprised the night before when I’d come out of the shower and found the bags from the mall sitting on my bed. I wasn’t sure what members of a bomb squad felt like, but it had to have been close to how my heart had pounded as I opened every bag and box. It kept pounding slowly while I’d looked for him and found him in his library.
I was holding everything in my arms when I stopped in the doorway. “What’s this?”
His attention had been focused on the computer on his lap. “Clothes.”
This mother… “For me?”
“They’re not for me, Cookie Monster.”
That didn’t help any. “For funsies or a reason?” I asked, my voice going just a little high.
His fingers flew across the keyboard as his lips moved along with it before he replied, “For tomorrow.”
What was…? Hismom’s.I’d purposely made myself stop thinking about it. The idea of meeting The Primordial’s mom… Alex’s mom… was intimidating as hell. I gulped. “I thought we were going to your mom’s.”
“We are.” He still hadn’t looked up. “You don’t go to her birthday celebration in jeans and a T-shirt,” he said, sounding irritated about it, but that did nothing for me.
I hadn’t been to a birthday party in years. Much less abirthday celebration. Was that a grown-up version of a birthday party? I was pretty sure the last time had been for this nice girl in high school. My grandparents had needed to go to their bank, which had been two towns over, and I’d snuck over there in the meantime. Her dad had made barbeque, and we’d drank root beer out of bottles and played pool. We had been living outside of Phoenix then.
I’d thought about looking her up once or twice, but I hadn’t seen the point.
Only then had Alex’s eyes strayed to me. “I don’t get to wear jeans either,” he’d said like that explained everything.
I had beenspeechless.
