Page 79 of Bending The Rules

I bit my lip as his hands went under the hem of my dress and into the waistband of my tights. “Am I really that easy?”

“Easier if I kiss you right here while I do it,” he said, then kissed a particular spot on my neck that made my knees go weak.

“Well this is new,” a voice rang out, making my heart leap up into my throat. Justin and I both cursed under our breath as we sprang apart, quickly distancing ourselves from each other. He shoved his hand into his pockets, and I tried to smooth the fresh wrinkles from my dress.

Neither of us looked at my mother.

“Justin,” she said, with a curtness I’d never heard her use with him before. “Bri ran into a friend from school and her father out in the store. They want to arrange a playdate. You should go handle that.”

“Yes ma’am.” He quickly strode past her, and I looked up just in time to see him mouth “yikes” over her shoulder before he went back out into the main part of the store. I could feel my mother’s eyes on me, damn near burning a hole in my side, and I pushed out a deep sigh before I finally shifted my gaze to hers.

“Antoinette Michelle Ross,” she started, arms crossed. “I amappalled.I understand that you’re a young woman in her sexual prime. You have needs. But that is why you keep a portable companion in your bedside drawer – it isnot alicense to be cavorting with Justin Wright in the back of my store while you have a fiancé! Have you lost your mind little girl?”

“Mama, I—”

“What ifhehad been the one to walk back here, trying to surprise you, and found you letting your “friend” put his hand up your skirt?”

“Mama, if you—”

“You know, I’d noticed a trend with those Wright boys, but I thought Justin was different. I remember back in the day, their daddy took their mama from one of those Debarge boys, and I guess he just passed that right down—”

“Mama!” I shouted, which finally got her attention, and her scowl deepened as the unspoken question of “who the hell are you yelling at little girl?”practically flashed in neon lights over her head. “I… I’m not engaged anymore.”

A stupefied look crossed my mother’s face for a few seconds before it was quickly replaced with disappointment. “Because you were running around on him, frolicking around with Justin?!”

“No,” I said, dropping my gaze to the floor. “Um… It’s been a while.”

I lifted my head to see she that she was frowning hard, trying to figure out what I was talking about. “What is “a while”, Toni?”

“Since before I came back to help with the store.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “So… months ago then?”

I didn’t want to nod. I didn’t want to confirm that I’d been letting her believe something that wasn’t true for that long, but… I couldn’t keep it up forever. Especially now that she’d caught me letting Justin… put his hands in my cookie jar.

“Why on earth wouldn’t you tell me something like that, Toni?” she asked, propping her hands on her hips, and giving me the kind of withering look only a mother could.

And my response felt weak as hell as I shrugged, casting my eyes down at the floor yet again. “I just… I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

“I – disappointed?? Little girl—disappoin—how the hell did you think lying would make me feel, Toni?” Tears pricked my eyes as my mother took a step toward me, deep frustration clear in her expression. “You are smarter than that, Toni. You’re a grown ass woman, and you’re going to look me in my face and tell me youliedto me for months, to keep me from being disappointed about a broken engagement?”

I shook my head. “Not about the broken engagement though. Not… really.”

“Thenwhat?”

“The reason for it,” I managed to say, despite the fact that my tongue felt tangled in knots. “If I told you Russell and I broke up, you’d want to know why, and I… Mama, I couldn’t figure out how to say it to you.”

She threw her hands up. “What is the problem here, Toni? I know I raised you to be able to talk to me. You’ve never been secretive, never kept things from me. So what could you possibly be so ashamed of that you felt like you couldn’t tell me?”

“It’s not that I’m ashamed, it’s—”

“Did you cheat on the man?”

“Mama—”

“Did he cheat on you?”

“Mama—”

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