Swing and a Mishap (Summersweet Island 2)

My hands pull out from under my mom’s as I drag them across the counter when I sit back on my stool, cross my arms in front of me, and sigh.

“Honestly? I just didn’t give a shit at the time, and then I forgot. She was the last thing on my mind.” I shrug. “She asked me not to say anything until she was ready, and I just wanted her the fuck out of my condo at that point. I told my agent and publicist I didn’t give a shit and I didn’t want to hear about anything unless it was something negative I needed to handle. Since I never heard anything, it literally was the furthest thing from my mind. I told you guys and Nick, and I guess I just assumed she told people and it would have gotten around by now.”

Another few minutes of silence go by, and my heart starts beating faster, waiting for my mom to give me the words and tell me what to do to make this better. She breaks the silence by smacking her hands down aggressively on top of my counter.

“I didn’t raise you to be a pussy, did I?”

Well, that certainly wasn’t what I was hoping for.

“Jesus, Mom. Please don’t say that word ever again,” I mutter, my eyes flickering up to see her staring at me pointedly. I should have known we’d be quickly moving on to the giving me shit and telling me when I’m being an idiot portion of the evening.

“Your sisters have bigger balls than you,” she complains with a huff.

“Savannah, yes, but Sophia? Come on. That’s just insulting.”

Turning away from me, she marches over to my freezer. Flinging open the door, she starts grabbing the containers she just put in there, piling them in her arms until she has them all, slamming the door closed, and then walking back over to the counter.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking back the comfort food I brought you,” she replies with a breezy smile, shoving each plastic container back into the insulated bag she brought and then yanking the zipper closed. “You don’t deserve comfort until you find your balls, march over to that young woman’s house, get down on your hands and knees, and beg for her forgiveness to her face.”

I twist around on my barstool when she puts the strap of the bag on her shoulder and starts walking out of my kitchen, bitching at me over her shoulder the entire way.

“Spilling your guts after all this time in a bunch of messages online… I’m gonna need to get a bumper sticker that says Honk if your kid is as dumb as mine!”

“She won’t talk to me!” I remind my mom as she waves me away with her hand over her shoulder, her back still to me as she opens my front door.

“Stop being a pussy, march your ass over there, and talk to her!” she shouts back, not even bothering to look at me or even say goodbye as she walks right out my front door, yanking it shut so hard behind her a framed picture of our family from last Christmas that was sitting on a small table in the entryway topples over and smacks down onto the table.

“Well… I probably deserved that,” I mutter when I’m alone again in my cottage.

It only takes me a few seconds of silence before I’m scrambling off my barstool and racing around the cottage, trying to find my golf cart keys. I drop them three times, because my hands are so goddamn sweaty, while I curse and mutter at myself for once again being such a dumbass. My mom is right. When Wren wouldn’t talk to me, I should have marched my ass over to her cottage and made her listen. Which is exactly what I’m going to do right now.

If I can find my fucking wallet. Where the hell did I put my wallet?

After five more minutes of frantic searching, my cottage now looking like it was tossed during a robbery with pillows, cushions, and mail spilled on the floor, and a few chairs toppled over, I finally find my wallet. There’s another knock at my door, and I pause from pulling it out of the crevice of my love seat, letting out an annoyed sigh as I turn and march across the living room.

If I would have also picked up my phone from where it was still lying face down under my kitchen table while I searched for my keys and wallet, and if I would have also checked social media when I grabbed my phone, I would have seen that in the last hour since my mom’s visit, every single one of my messages had been read.

“I know I’m a pussy! You really didn’t need to come back and call me a pussy again. I got it the….”