Page 67 of Sinful Promises

“What?”

“You know what happens when you start thinking.”

I chuckled. “What? Can’t I think anymore?”

“Not when it comes to your fucked-up mother.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about. What if the reason why Mother always moved around was because she’d been doing it since she was fifteen and she knew no different?”

“See . . . I think the opposite. If you’ve been moving around forever, wouldn’t you want to settle down and find a place to call home?”

Oh my god. I jabbed at my pasta with my fork. I’d been doing exactly what my mother had done. I too had become a nomad, and hadn’t even thought about settling down. Other than my random promise to myself yesterday.

“Hey, you still there, or have you fallen asleep in your pasta?”

I huffed. “I’m here.” Deciding not to share my connection, I said the other thing that had been on my mind. “You know what else makes sense?”

“That you should get right back on a fucking plane and return to Roman?”

“What? That makes zero sense. No. I was thinking that the reason why Mother never remembered my birthday was because of what happened to her on her birthday. She hated them.”

“Hmm.” Zali went silent. She rarely did silent.

I gulped at my wine and immediately wished I hadn’t. Hoping to quash the bitter taste, I bit into the garlic pizza instead. In contrast to the chardonnay, it was delicious.

“Daisy.” Zali rarely called me by my name. It was usually ‘babe’. So, I prepared for the lecture that was coming by shoving a forkful of food into my mouth.

“One of the things I hate the most is when people blame something they did as an adult on something that happened to them as a child. Wouldn’t it have made more sense if she’d made every single one of your birthdays the most memorable days of your life?”

“Oh, they were memorable all right.”

“Not in a good way. And that’s what I mean. Regarding the moving around—that shit makes no sense. She should’ve given you a beautiful home and made it the most incredible, loving experience possible.”

“You missed your calling, babe. You should’ve been a therapist.”

“Fuck no. Could you imagine it? I’ve got no patience for that shit. I’d be standing over my clients with a whip like a dominatrix, demanding they talk.”

“You’d be a very sexy dominatrix though.”

“Hell yeah. But seriously, babe, using that it-happened-to-me defense is pure bullshit. I mean, spin it around. When you have kids, are you going to forget their birthdays because you never had any fun ones?”

“God no.”

“Exactly. You’ll be giving them a pony and jumping castles and fucking topless waiters at their eighteenth birthdays. And you’ll make birthday cakes that’ll give your kids a sugar high for a month. You better make sure I get an invite to every one of those birthdays, by the way.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself. I’ve gotta have kids first. Fuck, I’ve gotta find a man first.”

She didn’t respond, and although I already figured what she was thinking, I hoped she didn’t voice it.

“I think you’ve already found your man, babe.”

Shit. Too late. “Anyway, my pasta is going cold.”

“You can run from him, babe, but you can’t hide.”

“What? Oh no. You’re cracking up. I think the line’s faulty.”

“Ha ha. Very funny. Ring me tomorrow. Love ya.”

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