Page 61 of Time to Bounce

None of the other Semyonov siblings had chimed in, and I felt somewhat bad. “I’m sorry for not saying hi.”

I smiled at Dima, practically leaning over Gable’s lap to do so.

His hand went to my ass, and a fire I hadn’t realized was already burning in my belly sparked back to life.

“Hey, honey.” Dima winked. “I think you have more important things to talk about right now.”

He might’ve had a point.

I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. “Y’all want to hear more about my childhood?”

Maven was the only one I’d ever told about my near kidnapping.

But I went ahead and filled them all in on what happened with my sister’s kidnapping.

Then I explained how my parents were when they’d recovered enough from their gunshot wounds to come back home.

“When I was a pre-teen, my mother refused to let me leave the house, so I started doing a food strike,” I explained. “I refused to eat and lost fifteen pounds before she let me go back to school.” I paused. “I was in high school then, so she freakin’ hated it.”

“Tell them what happened when you tried to go to college,” Maven urged.

I felt my eyelid start to twitch.

“My dad had passed away, so it was just her caring for us. And my mom seemed to cling even harder to me and Gavrel. He was in an online college taking criminal justice courses at the time, and she just… lost it. In between me going to college, and Gavrel putting his life on the line in the military, she couldn’t function. I went to my first day of classes, and my first professor told me that I was needed in the registration building, because there was something wrong with my financial aid.” I curled my toes in my sandals. “According to admissions, my financial aid was pulled last minute, and I either needed to pay, or not go to college.”

“What did you do?” Gable asked, looping his arm around my shoulder.

I leaned into him, something inside me loosening out at how he was treating me.

God, I needed him. Did he know how much?

“I called the bank, had them up the limit on my account, and paid for the classes outright,” I answered. “Used my entire savings to do it. From that point on, I refused to go back home without Gavrel. Gavrel let me use his GI bill to cover the rest of my schooling since my mom kept finding new and inventive ways to make the college not want to let me through the door.”

“Your mom sounds like a bitch,” Dima muttered.

I thought about that for a long time before saying, “My mom is a bitch.”

I snatched my phone out of my dress pocket and quickly looked up, then dialed her number.

I found it after a few scrolls of my phone log and hit call, then put it on speaker.

Maven grinned wickedly at me. “Let me talk to her.”

I pointed at her. “No.”

She snickered as she leaned back in her chair.

Shasha pressed a kiss to her forehead before looping his arm around her shoulders and tugging her closer.

Maven went willingly.

My best friend loved her siblings, even if she was still slightly overwhelmed at times with their presence.

“Hello?” my mother answered cautiously.

I counted to five before I said, “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

There was a long pause before she said, “Not that I know of.”

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