Page 107 of Fierce-Hyde

He debated mentioning the Fierces again, but it wasn’t a secret either. “I don’t know that Ryder’s parents would have let it go. I think they would have been still trying to push us toward the other.”

She laughed. “I’ve heard they are stubborn that way. But I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t force people to feel something that they might not.”

“No,” he said. “You can’t. What I feel for you is what drives me to put my foot in my mouth all the time.”

“Glad to know I’m just as flexible as you now.”

33

BEING REALISTIC

Almost two weeks later, Tori got a call from her mother first thing in the morning.

“Hello,” she said. “Everything okay, Mom?”

“I got fired,” her mother sobbed into the phone.

She let out a sigh and looked at her watch. She had work to get done and a meeting to prepare for, but she’d give her mother some time too. “What happened?”

“Dan broke up with me again over the weekend.”

She let out a snort. “You said nothing about it.”

Actually she was happy to have not known, but maybe if she had, she could have avoided whatever caused her mother to be terminated.

“Because it was such a shock for him to do this to me a second time.”

She wasn’t even going to ask what caused it to happen. She didn’t really care.

“Have you been missing work again?” she asked.

“I called in on Monday and Tuesday. Today when I went to call in they told me I was terminated. That I’ve exceeded thenumber of times I could call in without a doctor’s note. I said I’d get them one.”

“You could get a doctor’s note for this reason?” she asked.

“I would have told them I had a stomachache. I’ve been nauseous and haven’t eaten in days and when I eat, it wants to come back up. That’s not a lie.”

She wouldn’t argue that point. It’d fall on deaf ears.

“What did they say when you told them that?” she asked.

“Someone said they saw me at the store last night and that I couldn’t be that sick. That I was whining about being heartbroken to someone else.”

“Were you doing that?” she asked.

“What I do on my time is my business,” her mother argued. “They have no right to fire me.”

“They actually do,” she said. “I told you over a month ago not to miss too much work the first time Dan did this to you. I think you were already on shaky ground to begin with, right?”

She was positive there were more instances with her mother’s job than the disciplinary action over her posting on social media, but there was no way she was asking details. The less she knew, the better.

“I guess,” her mother said. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I didn’t sign my lease and now I’m not sure what to do.”

“Why didn’t you resign it?” she asked, grinding her teeth.

“Because when Dan asked me back I thought we’d end up together somewhere.”

Her face was twisting over that stupid statement and her head went back on her chair. “Guess that wasn’t smart, was it?” she said.

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