Andthiskiss? Number three?Wow.It should've been illegal. My knees had gone soft, my brain had gone fuzzy, and for a solid ten seconds, I'd nearly forgotten my own name.
This had been an hour ago, and already I was dying to kiss him again.
Of course, nothing was guaranteed – not a kiss number-four, not a regular date, and certainly not my own sanity if I didn't get a better grip on all of my troubles.
Still, I felt lighter than I had in days – all funny and floaty – in spite of the fact that my buzz from the booze had already faded like mist off the lake.
And speaking of buzzing, I felt my cellphone vibrate in my pocket.
I smiled.Ryder?
We'd keyed our contact info into each other's phones, so it wasn't completely impossible.But would he really call so soon?
When I checked my phone, my smile faltered.It wasn't Ryder.
It was Mom.
My stomach dropped.A call in the middle of the night could never be good. As a million awful scenarios raced through my mind, I answered with a nervous, "Hello?"
"Good Morning!" she said, all sunshine and sparkles.
I hesitated. "Morning? But it's the middle of the night."
"Well, maybe whereyouare."
"You mean…Michigan?"Oh, crap.The blood drained from my face as I recalled that I was supposed to be in Florida.
I was just preparing to backpedal when she said with a little laugh, "Oh, please. If I were in Michigan, I wouldn't be calling on Paris time, now would I?"
My grip tightened on the phone.Oh, no.
It was vintage Mom. Not only had she not been listening, she'd managed to turn the topic to herself in no time flat.
But this wasn't what made me swallow hard enough to choke on nothing. "Paris?That'swhere you are?" I felt sick at the thought. Before the money had run out, Mom had popped over to Paris at least twice a year – usually in the spring and fall.
She had never taken me or Delaney.And forget my dad.
No. She went alone. And I was pretty sure I knew why.
Was she having an affair?
Sure. Except it was with Louis Vuitton, plus a whole lot more. She wasn't a single-shop kind of gal.
And now, from somewhere in Paris, she pulled out her perfect French accent to reply, "Oui oui oui!"
Good Lord.As she said it, I imagined that fifth little piggie – the one in the nursery rhyme who cried"Wee, wee, wee"all the way home – except in this case, the piggie was me, because crying wasn't exactly out of the question.
Beyond horrified, I asked, "But how can you afford it?"
Her good humor vanished."That'sthe first thing you ask?"
"Well, itdoesseem pretty important." But then, deliberately, I softened my tone. "I'm just worried, that's all."
She gave a dramatic sigh. "Don't be. It's fine."
The hell it was.Mom still owed me three thousand dollars, which would've come in extra-handy for paying my rent.
Even so, I felt like a total killjoy. Yes, I knew it was stupid, but old habits died hard, and she'd always been good at making me feel like I was the reigning queen of the Worry-Wart Olympics.
