Page 40 of Lyrical

Pull off his balls with pliers, gag him with them, then stuff his body into the trunk of his piece-of-shit car that started whenever the hell it felt like it.

It was nearly ten, and Daniel was still in bed. He’d never been a late sleeper unless he was up exceptionally late studying. Or unless he was out exceptionally late with a tall, billowy, blonde bitch who giggled at his every breath.

I peered out my back window, hoping to see Michelle out there with Sasha. It’d give me a new direction for my psychoness. Or maybe I should just ping-pong between Mike and Michelle. Oops… couldn’t forget about Miss Sweet Thang.

I did laps around my family room. I was in a lovely mood that morning. I should’ve called Chase, but I didn’t want to do that to him. I needed to calm myself down. I needed to switch from coffee to valium.

No, what I needed was to have a nice mother-son chat and alert him to the dangers of women like Cassie. The ones who will suck out your soul and leave you withering in agony.

Fuck, Jillian. Settle down and focus.What was I most pissed off about? I had to prioritize. Check off one task at a time before moving on to the next. Cassie, gone—check. Michelle, put in her place—check. Mike, do something about your damn car or I’ll kill you—check.

I didn’t have a chance to get Daniel alone during the party since he had a parasitic wood nympho leech stuck to his side, but I’d accepted that since I’d planned to have him to myself afterwards.

Afterwards never came. He drove Cassie home in Mike’s car, since imagine that—it started. And when he called me later, he’d mentioned that Cassie was very upset about something, practically on the verge of tears, and would I mind if he stayed with her a while? He hadn’t felt right about leaving her alone in that state. I couldn’t even say I needed the car back becauseit wasn’t my car,and when I’d questioned what the emergency was, he said he’d fill me in later.

“I really have to get going, Mom. She needs me right now.”

I didn’t buy it for shit. Yes, I suppose I’d feel horrible if it was a true tragedy, but why did I have this nagging sensation that it was a broken nail turned dire, and my son was just too damned considerate to walk away?

The door creaked open a little after eleven, and Daniel stumbled out of the room. If I didn’t know he abstained, I’d have sworn he was hungover.

“Any coffee left?” he asked, running his hand through his stuck-up hair.

“Yes, but it’s cold.” He nodded, going into the kitchen and grabbing a mug. “I thought you didn’t care much for coffee.”

“It depends. I’m in the mood for it today.” He poured a cup of the four-hour-old brew and stuck it in the microwave.

“Rough night?” I quickly decided that was rhetorical, and I really didn’t want to know what he was doing with Cassie until 3:00 a.m. “It’s easy enough to make a fresh pot. Stale coffee tastes nasty reheated.”

He shrugged. “I can’t tell.” He pulled it out after thedingand downed it all. “Sorry about last night, Mom. I have some time today, but I might be pretty out of it. It was hard to fall asleep when I got home.”

Hmm…. My curiosity wrestled with me and won out. I changed my mind; I wanted to know after all. That way I could gauge Cassie’s level of hold over my son.

“Was it something serious to keep you out so late?”

“When I brought her home yesterday, she realized she’d left the back door open for the past two days. And when she couldn’t find her cat anywhere she broke down. I couldn’t leave her like that, Mom. I had to stay and help her look, keep her calm.”

Hmm…. Too ambiguous. If she really lost her cat, I could understand the reaction. But leaving a door open in winter? Suspicious. It felt staged. Maybe she didn’t even own a cat.

“But then around midnight we heard the meow, so happy ending.”

“The cat was outside the whole time?”

“No, in the laundry room downstairs. Cassie figured she was hiding because she’s leery of strangers.”

Hmm…. “Glad to hear the cat’s okay, but then what happened? It was still another few hours until you got home.” Shit. Why did I ask that? I didn’t even want to think about it.

“She was still very worked up over what could have happened. I can’t say I totally got why she was that emotional when it ended well, but I wanted to respect her feelings even if I didn’t understand them. Thought you’d appreciate that, Mom.”

I just smiled. That’d show me for teaching my son to be a gentleman. I should’ve stressed that there was a difference between respecting a woman who was deserving of it and one who just pretended to be. The latter wasn’t worth fucking up your life.

“It also got me thinking that for the duration I’m living here, I don’t want to be disturbing you all the time, especially when I come home late like that. What if I moved my room down to the basement? I could just come and go through the garage instead of the front door.”

Was he planning on making a habit of this? The rec room.Love nest. Soundproof. Ah, no. “It’s one thing to have the occasional party, but having a bedroom down there would be too cold in the winter.”

“It’d be all right.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

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