Page 88 of You Saw the Best In Me

“You’re seriously my saving grace,” I wrap my arms around his neck, kissing his cheek as my way of thanking him.

I don’t know how I will manage a whole dinner with her, but thankfully, we’ll be in the same vicinity as margaritas, and I will be getting drunk.

I stumble from Mav’s truck, catching myself on the opened door while he helps my evil spawn of a mother out of the backseat.

We both drank three margaritas to combat our irritation with each other, and it turned into a full-on screaming match on the ride home.

I suggested she just fucking leave now, and she agreed, planning to go in the morning.

We’re oil and water, only getting along when she feels I’m in danger. Now that I’m safe and happy with Maverick, she’s back to being a bitch, just like when I was sixteen and met Asher.

Her behavior then was warranted, but Maverick has been nothing but kind to her, and she has no reason to treat him like trash.

He drove us to the restaurant and paid for dinner, yet she treated him like a servant on the ride home, and I’d had enough.

“Come on, baby girl, let me get you upstairs,” Maverick says, and my mother bursts out laughing.

“That’s what her father and Asher used to call her. Nothing ever changes when the girl is always desperate for attention and a good-looking man,” she spits, swaying around the staircase in an attempt to climb it herself.

“Fuck you, Mom. You resent me because you think I made Daddy leave. He left because you’re an intolerable cunt, impossible to please. Leave us the fuck alone,” I yell as we get to the adjacent apartment doors.

Her jaw hits the floor, and she lets herself into my apartment without another word.

This trip is a fucking disaster, and when we finally close the door behind us, the tears flow fast.

“I don’t understand how she can be so nasty to me. I'm her fucking child,” I cry, and Maverick doesn’t interject.

He holds me in the kitchen while my emotions work themselves out. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom alone to cry alone for a little while.

This was the worst thing that could’ve happened, and I wish I never asked her here. I should’ve known she’d disapprove of Mav, no matter how well he’s taking care of me.

It boils down to one thing: I love him.

Therefore, she picks and picks until she finds the worst in him.

I leave the bathroom, laying in bed, begging the universe to take this night back. I want to forget it all.

I was so excited, so nervous about having her come out here and see how well I’m doing, but all she did was shit on my life.

She said it wasn’t what she pictured for me, right in front of Maverick.

He’s the best thing that’s ever stumbled into my path, and nothing she can say will tear that down.

He may not be the man who wears a suit to every occasion or has eloquent table stories reserved for the elite, but he takes fucking care of me. I don’t want her anywhere near me if that's not enough for her.

“Karina, are you okay?” Mav asks, breaking my trance from the tears that have been flowing since we got back from the restaurant.

“No, I’m not,” I whimper, ultimately defeated from the last six hours.

He doesn’t waste a second, climbing into bed with me and wrapping his arms around me.

“Don’t worry about your mother. We all have people in our lives who don’t deserve our light,” he reassures me, and I can’t help but sob into him.

I thank him for staying impartial, taking my mother’s condescending remarks off the chin, and keeping his composure.

“Anything for you, kitten. I only have one question for you,” he says, holding me tight, but I feel the tension in his body.

This is it, he figured it out, and I brace myself for the fallout.