“Right,” Mom is saying. “But I never should have gotten in so deep in the first place. I almost missed out on everything good in life. Just because you do excellent work and you love your job, it doesn’t mean you have to work yourself into the ground. No matter how much you believe in the mission of the company you work for, it can’t be the thing that gives your life meaning.”
“I get it. But?—”
“I don’t want you to end up like I almost did.”
“I won’t,” I insist. “I’ll still live my life. I just want to get started on my career path now, while I’m still young, that way Ihave plenty of time to learn and grow and figure things out as I go along.”
Mom doesn’t reply. Our feet are getting rinsed now and massaged again. I feel like we’re bonding, like she’s starting to come around. At the very least, she knows where I’m coming from.
“Do you think you could talk to him later?” I ask. “Warm him up a little for me? I still have no idea which department he’s thinking of placing me in, and?—”
“Oh, sweetie,” she interrupts. “A young, beautiful girl like yourself shouldn’t be so focused on getting cooped up in an office the second you get back home when we’re on this gorgeous island.”
This conversation is rapidly going south. “I’d like to start thinking about my next move, Mom. That’s the responsible thing to do. So I can be prepared for what’s coming next.”
“The talk with your father can wait. He’s not going anywhere.”
I stifle a groan of frustration and attempt to text Sebastian back with one hand.
Could be better.
I tap out, not wanting to go into the details. Although I wonder if hearing about the Brit and the Marlins pitcher competing for my attention this morning would make Sebastian jealous.
Which could work in my favor…
“And did my eyes deceive me, or did I spot that handsome Ted Polansky escorting you along the beach this morning?” Mom says.
I turn my phone facedown, a flicker of panic going through me even though I know she can’t see my screen from where she’s sitting. “What? How did you—were you spying on me, Mom?”
What if it had been Sebastian on the beach with me this morning? Or worse—what if she already knows that I’ve been seeing him?
But no. That can’t be right. If my mom had any inkling about my fling with Sebastian, she would have said something. Still, my heart is pounding at the possibility of getting caught, because it’s not just me who’d face consequences. Sebastian could lose his job. We need to be careful. Paranoid, even. There are eyes everywhere, and my mom is apparently watching me like a hawk.
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Blair. I was having breakfast with your father on our balcony, and I said, that looks just like Blair down there, and who is that young gentleman with her? Of course your father recognized the team colors on his hat right away…”
Her voice fades into the background as my phone vibrates with another text from Sebastian.
I could make it better…
His message sends a hot twinge straight between my legs.
What better way to take my mind off of everything than to let Sebastian screw it out of me? Or whatever else he has in mind to perk me up. I’m not picky.
I reply with a single word:
Yes.
Mom’s still going on and on about putting myself out there and being open to meeting new people. I’ve heard this speech before. Next, she’ll be recounting all the relationships she’d hadby the time she was my age and tsking over the fact that I’m wasting my prime reproductive years, doomed to bear children in my mid-thirties just like her—as if that’s a bad thing. Who knows if I even want to have kids?
Are you free around 5?
Sebastian texts back.
That could be arranged.
I respond cheekily.
"Blair, are you listening to me?"
