Page 15 of Fierce-Hyde

Tori put her finger to her nose to say right on. “I’m not moving back there. I never asked her to move there when I did after college. That was her choice because she thought it’d be fun to live there.”

Tori went where she found a job. The weather was nice and she had another friend there and they roomed together.

Her mother, who was good at thinkingnothingthrough, quit her job and relocated. They lived together for a short period of time and Tori moved out, then a few years later moved to Durham when she reconnected with Raina.

It was hard to start over with her job and she took the first one she got. She liked it, but it wasn’t for her and then moved to the one she was in now.

“It’s not so much fun with you gone, I’m sure she’s thinking,” Raina said. “But you’ve been here a few years now.”

“I know,” she said. “My mother is good at bringing up the past. If it’s not a job that she is changing then it’s men. A few months ago she called crying that the power was shut off on her and she didn’t know why.”

“Did she not pay the bill?” Raina asked.

“Nope. She said she never got it, but I doubt that. Even if one month was lost in the mail, they don’t shut the power off rightaway. You get a lot of notices. I know. I’ve helped enough clients through those things.”

“What happened?”

“She clicked on something to have the bill electronically delivered to her and forgot she did that. So when it came, she thought it was spam. It never occurred to her after a few months that she hadn’t paid the bill. I can see maybe one month, but not three. She called me before she called them.”

Raina shook her head. “I hope she had the money to turn it back on.”

“She said she didn’t, but I wasn’t giving it to her. It’s not my problem if she has enough money to live and if she had extra for a few months and chose to spend it on stupid crap rather than realize she hadn’t paid a utility bill. I helped her set up a payment plan and now the payment comes out automatically each month. She has to balance that she has the cash, but if she doesn’t, then she bounces checks.”

“You’d know if she has,” Raina said.

“And she has,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve gotten calls about that too. I’m not sure what more I can do for her. I’ve got it set up so most of her bills come out automatically. Car payment, insurance, utilities. She makes enough if she budgets and she doesn’t. She’s fifty-nine going on fifteen at times when it comes to life decisions.”

Which just made her think of Hyde again and how he acted immature around her too.

Unless he was truly a dick.

But Raina insisted he wasn’t like that any more than she was the way she acted around Hyde.

“She always has you to fall back on,” Raina said. “Or she thinks she does.”

“She normally has some guy in her life helping out but doesn’t right now. So she’s struggling there emotionally too. It’s draining.”

Her mother liked someone else to take care of her. When Tori’s father left when she was a young kid, her mother spiraled out of control and things just fell apart at home.

No ten-year-old wanted to be the one to keep reminding their mother to get groceries or put gas in the car, when holidays and school events were coming up.

But she’d stepped up at an early age and got her mother on track and into a good routine.

Life was simpler when they followed the plan.

Which was how she chose to live her life now to not have any surprises.

Yet she was full of them the past few weeks it seemed.

“I’m sure she’ll find someone else,” Raina said, smirking.

“She’s not fussy when it comes to those things.”

“Unlike you,” Raina said, laughing. “I think you’re fussy with men because of your mother.”

She shrugged. “Probably. I think I’ve kind of given up trying at times too. I wasn’t lucky enough to have someone come to my defense at a work party.”

Raina smiled. “It was more than that and you know it.”

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