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“Your new assistant is rude. And what was he doing exercising when he should be helping you?” She crossed her arms, dragging her shirt closer around herself.
“He’s a guest, Mom. Why in the world would he be an employee?” I ran a hand down my face.
Her eyes widened. “Oh, I thought for sure he must be an intern or something. They just don’t wear suits these days unless you take them aside and tell them what a proper dress code is.”
I ground my teeth. “Mom, most of the interns can’t afford suits.”
She rolled her eyes, perfectly highlighted with pale blue makeup that made them stand out. “Then they should ask their parents to outfit them properly.”
It struck me all at once that I was getting sucked into old arguments, something that always happened when Mom and I were together without a preapproved agenda. “Why are you here?” I snapped, then glanced pointedly at her Audi.
She scowled and toyed with her wedding ring as she stared into my eyes. The gold glinted in the early morning sunshine. I felt like she was trying to figure out how much of this I would tolerate, and she must’ve made a decision because her lips pursed and she sighed. “To discuss that greedy boy, Tavish Greer.”
“Greedy?” I ran a hand through my hair while my heart hammered in the back of my throat. I had to close my eyes for a few seconds and slowly count to ten or I would’ve told her to get the fuck off my property. “That’s really how you want to do this?”
She took her ring off entirely and shook it at me. “I won’t have my hard work undone.”
“It’s my life, Mom!” I was shouting like a teenager and didn’t fucking care. I wanted to keep going, yell until my throat was raw and I felt better, but I knew if I did it would turn into a huge rant, and she didn’t deserve that much effort. “So, butt out!”
“When we spoke about this subject on the phone, I listed reasonable alternatives. I’m willing to send you anywhere you want to go. I’m willing to ask my friends if they have sons or relatives who would be a good fit for you. There’s even a woman in St. Loren who does matches for families like ours with LGBTQ kids, so that we make sure everything will be the way it should be. Just tell me what it would take, Judah. I want you happy, but happy in the best way.” She forced a smile, but I could tell she’d rather be wringing my neck.
“Families like ours? You mean loaded? Mom, cut the shit. I love Tav. I’ve always loved Tav. This isn’t going away.” There were so many things—worse ones—I wanted to say.
She slid her wedding ring back on and glared down at it. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” I stared at her and could imagine tucking her under my arm like a rolled-up carpet and shoving her back in her car. I needed this to be finished. “You don’t get to have an opinion on who I marry,” I hissed at her.
She sucked in a breath and shook her head. “Please tell me you aren’t thinking about a wedding. He isn’t like you. You aren’t from the same world. This will fall apart. I could see it when you were younger. He was only going to hold you back.” She sobbed as if this was somehow emotional for her.
I backed away because I wanted to do something awful. Say terrible things. I rubbed the nape of my neck and tried to get my thoughts together. “The only reason we fell apart last time was you.”
She rolled her eyes and slipped off her wedding ring again, and this time she tucked it into her pocket. “And you really think you would’ve been faithful to him while you were off at a hundred-thousand-dollar per year university while he was what? Here doing community college?”
“As far as I know Tav didn’t get to go to college,” I said, glaring at her. “He probably would’ve come with me.”
“Right,” she said, her tone flat. “And you would’ve been fine missing out on all those life experiences you had?” Her acidic tone let me know exactly what she wasn’t saying directly. Sex.
“I would’ve been happy with Tav.”
She shook her head. “Your father and I were engaged young because of our families, and let me tell you, what you think you might’ve done and reality are two different things.”
“I would’ve given it all up to be with Tav!” I shouted.
She took a half step back and glared. A visible vein pulsed faintly in her neck.
This was going fucking nowhere, and I could tell by the bullheaded expression on her face she was gearing up to try to talk me to death, but there was no use. She wouldn’t win this. “Where is the fucking contract?”
“Safe.” She shook her head, then scraped her hair out of her face when a strong breeze blew it everywhere. “I will pursue the terms if this doesn’t end.”
“No judge will uphold that load of shit.”
Her nostrils flared. “We’ll see. He won’t have a lawyer to fight it.”
I smiled, taking supreme satisfaction in watching her face fall. “But I will.”
Her expression wilted to one of contempt, then firmed up into a resolved glare again. “You haven’t thought very hard about this,” she said, voice silky. It was the same tone I’d heard her use to dominate the management team at her company. It wasn’t going to work on me, though.
“What haven’t I thought about?” I stared her dead in the eyes, letting her know she wasn’t winning this.
