Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 654(@250wpm)___ 545(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 654(@250wpm)___ 545(@300wpm)
“Are you handling me?” Her mom asked with no facial expression and no inflection in her voice, so I didn’t know what she was thinking.
“You lied to me.”
“It was for your own good.”
“Fine!” Lisa pulled her phone from her pocket and turned it on.
“What’re you doing?” Mrs. Davenport asked.
“Calling grandma.”
“No, don’t do that.” For the first time since meeting her, I heard something approaching panic in my future mother-in-law’s voice. “Hayden!” She looked at her husband, who was closest to us.
“I’m staying out of it.” What kind of dragon is this grandma if even Blaire Davenport looks spooked?
LISA
This was no bluff, but it was the first time I’d had the nerve to speak to mom like that. I’m a bit shocked that she hadn’t shot me down already at some point tonight, but I’m guessing that had a lot to do with Cody being there; she was doing her quasi, good behavior schtick.
I know when I’m outgunned, and I was headed hard in that direction. Years of dealing with mom had taught me a thing or two. There’s a time to fight and a time to retreat. I’ve never fought mom on anything, not really, but I’ve struggled against her every step of the way since I was old enough to think for myself.
The one thing I won’t struggle or fight over with her is Cody and my relationship. That, as far as I’m concerned, is off limits, even to her. It’s something I’d made up my mind about the moment I realized that what I felt for him wasn’t something that was just going to go away in a couple of years or something that I’d ever want to end. He was my forever from the moment my heart chose him.
To duel with mom over him the way I do everything else would only cheapen what we have, and she’s such a master at getting things to go her way. I have no doubt that she’d find a way if I show even the slightest hesitation or weakness. So, I have to come out swinging and get the first knocks in before she plants her flag. I’ve got a notebook filled with every argument she can come up with, and there’s only one answer to it all.
Since she’d been beating me over the head with grandpa all evening, she’d unknowingly given me the opening I didn’t even know I would need this soon. Now it’s my turn to bring out the big guns. The only being under the sun that has ever been able to put her in check. Grandma.
Othelia Astor is, well, a mix of everything you could imagine a wellborn high society maven from old-world New England to be. Now in her late seventies, she’d decided sometime around the time I turned twelve or thereabouts that she no longer had to conform to society’s norms. She’s been giving grandpa fits ever since then.
According to my understanding, the last time I overheard him tell her that she’d lost her mind, she’d missed out on the bra-burning when she was younger, and this was her heyday. Anyone getting in her way would be stomped on with her Jimmy Choos. If mom is a fashion icon, grandma is her muse.
Not only there, though, but in every which way you can imagine. She’s mom multiplied by a thousand with a little middle-aged crazy thrown in for good measure, according to grandpa. I could see from the look on mom’s face when I got up to leave the room that she was dying to bring me to heel, but she knew better. If she stopped me from calling grandma, there’d be hell to pay, as she found out when I was five.
“Cody, come with me.” I’m not leaving him in there for her to say who knows what in his presence. I’ve already got a boatload of damage control to do after everything he’d heard tonight.
“Excuse me!” My football jock had turned into Mr. Darcy all of a sudden. He wasn’t fooling me, though; I knew he was still upset even though he was trying hard not to show it.
I couldn’t take the time to explain or to answer all of the questions he must have going through his head. I need to deal with the mom situation first and foremost before I find myself on a plane back to Maryland. Then he’d really be sorry. This is kind of an ‘at the crossroads’ moment of sorts for me. At eighteen, I have choices, something I didn’t fully realize until tonight. I doubt mom realizes how much ammunition she’d given me.
I’ve never been in fear of mom disowning me or going to the extreme if I bucked against her restraints too hard; I’ve just always been afraid to try. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that she wouldn’t want to hurt me. I’m going to use the fact that she had literal spies around me to get what I want, but that deal may not last long. She’s sneaky!