Page 63 of Time to Bounce

“Well, actually, see…” She thought about it for a long moment. “I guess maybe you need to give me more details.”

She was hoping I didn’t know the full extent of what she’d done.

Maven made a sound of anger, ready to launch herself at my phone by the looks of it, but Shasha caught her before she could make a single move toward me.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with one finger—the middle one because telling my mom to go fuck herself would’ve been frowned upon by my dad—and said, “The cameras, Mother. I know about the cameras.”

She inhaled sharply. “I really can explain.”

I waited for her to do just that, but after a few long, awkward moments she hadn’t said anything, and I snapped.

“Mother, now’s the time to tell me if you’re going to tell me,” I snarled. “Or I won’t have anything to do with you. Ever.”

“I just wanted to know you were okay!” she cried out.

“You can’t do this anymore,” I said. “It’s unhealthy, and if I took the police officer’s advice today, I could’ve had you arrested. This is beyond disgusting behavior. I’m an adult! You can’t keep doing this.”

She started to wail, and I knew I’d never get anything out of her.

Knowing that, I listened for a solid thirty seconds longer than I wanted to before I hung up.

I shoved my phone across the table and closed my eyes, leaning my head back to stare at Gable’s stupidly gorgeous ceiling.

I loved it.

I loved everything about his house—even though I hadn’t been inside it since it’d been finished—I knew it’d look fantastic just like the outside.

I had gone through it once with Maven when they were putting up the walls.

I liked the design concept.

He’d done away with the open floor plan that all the other brothers had done.

He’d gone more cottage feel with his inspiration, and the entire house looked like it could be in the middle of an English countryside.

There was a lot of stone and darkness to it, but despite all the darkness, it looked open and airy—from what I’d seen.

The ceiling above our head was actually made of stone.

The porch itself extended out over our entire group and had plenty of room to spare.

It was cool and shielded us from the sun that refused to let go despite it being October.

“Are you listening, my good girl?” Gable whispered in my ear.

I blinked, then brought my head back up to see that while I’d been resting it on Gable’s bicep, they’d apparently been talking all around me.

I was good at that—disassociating.

When I was younger, I’d become increasingly good at it as I tried to find a foothold in a world without my sister.

Eventually, it became a way to escape after my dad’s death.

“I’m processing,” I admitted.

“Okay,” he said. “In the meantime, they asked if we wanted to go eat with them.”

The pizza had never happened.

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