Been there, done that.
I didn’t judge.
“Mom,” I said. “I, uh, need to talk to you.”
Just then I heard the front door slam and my brother’s voice fill the air, followed by June’s.
Seconds later, I heard the soft pitter patter of June’s shoes coming down the hallway.
“We’re in here,” I called.
June showed in the doorway just as my mother got her button done up.
Standing up, she did that little shimmy shake that all women did when they were trying to get everything to fit just right in their jeans, then looked at me.
“What do you need to talk to me about?” my mother asked, grinning at me.
I bit my lip and looked at June, who did in fact know what I needed to talk to my mother about.
She gave me wide eyes and mouthed, “You can do it.”
I could do it.
I just wasn’t sure that I wanted to.
She might or might not freak out.
I raised my hand and pushed a few flyaway hairs out of my eyes, and the movement caught my mother’s attention.
Her eyes widened, and then she was leaping toward me, her hand going toward mine as she all but yanked me closer so she could get a look at my hand.
“What is this?” she whispered, sounding fierce.
“Uhhh,” I hesitated. “I’m getting married.”
She glanced up at me. “To who?”
My parents didn’t really know about my obsession with Sin.
They also didn’t know that the reason I moved around the country was because I was in love with the man.
At least, I didn’t think they did.
But the moment that Sin’s name came out of my mouth, her hands came up to her face and she burst out crying. “I just knew that you were going to marry him.”
I looked over at June in confusion.
“What?” I asked.
When I returned my gaze to my mom, she was swiping at her tears.
Then she rocked my world.
“A man doesn’t go that crazy over someone he doesn’t care about,” she told me. “Imagine if you would, a man slapping me across the face and two men seeing it. One being some man that knows me but doesn’t know me that well. Then one of those men being your father.”
I did imagine it.
My father, obviously, would’ve murdered the man right then and there. The other man would’ve probably made sure that the guy didn’t hit her again, but not much more than that before calling the police.
I felt a lump start to form in my throat.
“A man that doesn’t have feelings for my baby girl doesn’t just up and hurt someone the way Sin hurt Brees,” she pointed out. “We’re not dumb, baby girl. There were major feelings there.”
I blew out a sigh of relief, thinking that this might go easier than I expected if they knew that there’d always been something there for me.
“Not to mention, we’re curious people. And when our baby girl moves halfway across the country to work at a jail, and that same jail is the jail that her savior happened to go to, we tend to put two and two together and get four,” she continued, amusement showing on her face.
My lips twitched. “I never said you were dumb.”
“No,” she agreed, “but you have to admit, you weren’t hiding your feelings very well at all.”
She did have a point.
But then again, I hadn’t really been trying to hide my feelings as much as I was just trying to get to the man that those feelings were for, and at the time, I hadn’t wanted anyone to get in my way.
“Anyway,” she continued, reading my thoughts as only a mother could, “I just let you be, because I knew that you needed this. Whatever that is.” She gestured to my ring.
“It’s forever,” I admitted. “We’ve spent the last few years battling the feelings, and obviously we’re both tired of trying.”
She snorted. “I…”
“Babe!” Dad shouted out down the hall. “There’s someone here with a really massive goddamn cake that I’m sure cost a couple hundred bucks, and I have no fuckin’ clue where to put it!”
Mom sighed as she picked up her cut off the bed.
On it said ‘Property of Shiva’ in worn white embroidered letters.
Shiva was my father’s ‘road name’ that the club had given him.
Upon seeing it on my mother’s shoulders, I suddenly yearned for the same exact thing.
Property of Sin had a nice ring to it, didn’t it?
“Come on,” I gestured to June. “I want to see my favorite people in the world and remind them who the best aunt is.”
“Who their only aunt is,” June corrected me, bumping me with her shoulder.
I scoffed. “Best and only.”
When we arrived back outside to the party, it was to see that quite a few people had arrived.
One of those few people being my grandfather and his wife, Sawyer.
“Papa!” I called out loudly.
My grandfather whirled, still spry for his age, and grinned like a fuckin’ loon when he saw me.