Everyone laughed except Hunter who still seemed overly invested in the purity of my plastic clone.
“Um… excuse me… Mr. Beckett?”
I turned in search of my father before realizing that the security guard, standing in the doorway, was actually speaking to me. I didn’t recognize him and, from the look of his nervous shifting, he’d never seen me in person either.
“Yeah?”
“Um… sorry to bother you, but your mom is outside. She wants to see you.”
My jaw dropped open in surprise.My mom?Well this certainly was news worthy of interruption. Glancing to the guys, I found them sporting the same disbelieving gape.
My response required maximum clarity. “Sorry, what’s your name?”
“Carter.”
“Well,Carter.” I was just being a dick, exaggerating his moniker for effect. But Carter deserved it after the bomb he’d dropped. “That’s just flippin’ awesome news. I can’t wait to see her again.”
His face brightened. Apparently he thought he’d done good coming in here to bother me with his bogus news.
The series of words that shot from my mouth hit their intended target. “Especially since my mother has been dead for the past twenty-four years.”
Poor Carter. The hopeful expression on his face was no more. Now he resembled a man who’d just been clocked in the nuts with a twenty-pound weight. “I…I, oh god.”
“Exactly,” I said, turning my back to him and wiping my hands of the conversation.
Much to my surprise, Carter wasn’t giving up easily. “It’s just she… she asked me to give you this.”
I craned my neck in his direction only to find him boldly stepping forward with an envelope in one hand and what appeared to be a photograph in the other.
“Dude.” Dane cut in front of Carter, blocking him from reaching me. “Not cool. Shit like this happens all the time… fans trying to talk their way in. You’ve been had. Next time you get something like this bring it to the head of security. Don’t bother Bodhi with it. Now go. And don’t bring fan stuff back here again, got it?”
Carter backed off immediately. “I … I’m sorry. She showed me this photograph of her holding a baby and Bodhi’s father was in the picture, so I guess I just assumed she was telling the truth. I’m really sorry.”
What the fuck? My father? Now, I was more than just a little curious about the photograph he was holding.
“Hey,” I called out to his retreating frame. “Give it to me.”
Carter turned around, appearing horrified by his misstep. He knew well that I could get him fired but what was the point? I was certain the security guard had learned a valuable lesson and would never again get within fifty feet of me. After placing both the photograph and the letter in my hand, he hurried out the door as if he feared the knob would knock him in the ass on the way out.
“What was that all about?” RJ asked, leaning over my shoulder to get a look at the photograph in my hand. I shrugged him off, finding a vacant corner for this little blast from the past. After all, it’s not every day a guy gets a letter from his dead mother.
The background noise faded the minute I laid eyes on the photograph. My brain struggled to make sense of what it was seeing. The woman in the picture looked identical to the woman in the photograph I kept of the mother who’d died giving birth to me. Yet here she was staring vacantly into the camera, holding a baby who looked suspiciously like me. It was as if she’d somehow checked out of the entire scene.
My father, a good five to ten years older than the woman, stood off to the side, his arms folded in front of him, a scowl hardening his disgruntled expression. It was clear by their body language that these two people didn’t much like each other. None of it made any sense.
With shaky fingers, I pulled the letter out of the envelope and read the first two lines before slumping against the wall in shock.Bodhi, I know what your father told you about me, but it was all a lie. My name is Marni Easton and I’m your mother.”
2
Bodhi: Twinkie Issue
Three Months Later
Sitting with my back propped against the bathroom door, I pressed my feet firmly to the wall, as if that extra little bit of resistance would somehow keep my female pursuers from busting through the barrier and devouring me. Minutes earlier, alone in the aisle of a grocery store, I’d come face to face with my worst nightmare—a giddy girls soccer team.
Okay so maybe not my worst nightmare. It’s not like I’d just survived a terrorist attack or anything but, regardless, my heart was pounding. Sure, my pursuers wore braces and were armed with only their unmatched enthusiasm, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous. And now here I was—trapped like some hapless victim in a slasher flick who’d chosen to hide from the chainsaw masochist instead of running. I was such an idiot. When had the ‘hide in plain sight’ approach ever worked in anyone’s favor? The world was filled with people who ran.
I know what you’re thinking—that I’m over-exaggerating the threat to my person but, I can assure you, the risk was real. I, of all people, knew what little girls were made of and it wasn’t sugar and spice and everything nice. Oh no, they were made of skin-shredding nails, high-pitched squeals, and impromptu fainting spells. As far as I was concerned, I was lucky to get out of the cookie aisle alive.
