“Seriously?” I ground out.
She shrugged a cheeky smirk on her face.
Mom gasped. “I pushed you out of my vagina, you little shit. Just wait until your father hears about this.”
I groaned, dragging my hands down my face.
“You’re hismom?”
“I am.” Mom grinned. “Dani. Nice to meet you.”
“Echo Weston.”
They shook hands and I suddenly wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
My mother cocked her head. “How do you know my son?”
“Oh, I don’t,” Echo said. “I, um, well, I—”
“She decided to follow me home. Kind of like a stray dog.”
“Archer!” Mom said at the same time Echo retorted, “Rude.”
“I didn’t follow you home.” She squared her shoulders. “I was piss—ah, concerned you might kill yourself or someone else, so I wanted to make sure you didn’t do that. And now that I’ve made sure the world is safe from your dumb-assery, I shall get on with my day.”
“Oh, sweetie, you really shouldn’t be driving down here alone,” Mom said, then turned to me. “You need to make sure she gets back onto the freeway.”
“I was about to do that, Mama, when you came flying out here talking about your bathing suit area.” I sighed. “Can we put a pin in this conversation so I can get Che Guevarette back on the road?”
“Wow,” Echo breathed out with a huff and stomped back to her car.
“Archie,” Mom admonished. “That wasn’t nice.”
“Wasn’t it?” I challenged, shoving my helmet on my head and throwing my leg over my bike.
I backed out, then fired her up and guided Echo through the back streets pulling over the side of the road just before the freeway entrance.
For some unknown reason, she pulled in behind me, so I turned off my bike and climbed off, removing my helmet and walking back to her car. She rolled down her window.
“You need something?” I asked.
She pressed her lips into a thin line, then took a deep breath. “I just wanted to say that I might have come in a little hot back there.”
“Ya think?”
“Look, I’m sorry. I used to be an ER nurse and the things I’ve seen would make you think twice about what you and your friend did back there. At least, I hope they would.”
“Used to be?”
“What?”
“You said, ‘used to be.’ Why aren’t you a nurse anymore?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t a nurse anymore.”
I pressed a palm to my eye socket. “You just said you used to be an ER nurse.”
“Yes. And I’m still a nurse, just not an ER nurse anymore.”
