Page 42 of Wild For You
“Sorry. I… uh… need to get that. It’s my mom. If she’s calling, she won’t stop until I answer,” I tried to explain, but Andrew’s warm smile had already slipped away.
“It’s fine, Kelsey.” I couldn’t tell if he was angry and disappointed like I was, or if he now considered what had been about to happen a mistake, but I sure as hell hoped he’d try again later. Andrew was so hard to get a read on sometimes that I prayed the interruption hadn’t put him off of kissing me all together.
The shrill sound started up again, and I hesitated, our eyes locking once more, before I spun around and scurried toward the bedroom.
I answered the call just before it ended and started up again. The woman was relentless.
“Hi, Mom,” I greeted as I yanked the phone, and the charging cord pulled from the wall, falling on the floor with a lightthump.
“Finally. I thought you were ignoring me.”
“No, I was just in the middle of something.”
“And what’s so important that you couldn’t answer your mother the first time?”
Inhaling deeply, it took all my strength to refrain from telling her what I really thought about her importance.
“Just busy.”
“I see. Anyway. I was calling because I’m in Nashville and hoped we could go out to dinner tonight.”
That was code for she was hungry and had no money to buy food and probably needed a place to stay too.
“I can’t tonight. I’m sorry.”
“How about tomorrow?” she asked quickly. Her desperation was clear.
“Mom, I’m off on a project for work,” I stretched the truth, hoping she didn’t start asking questions. If she knew I lost my job, she would somehow blame me… or my father, since the Bears had been his favorite team. And there would definitely be no sympathy coming from her, but she’d probably weasel money out of me at the same time.
“Oh, wonderful. I’ll just stay at your place while you’re out.”
I’d been worried about this before, when she called a couple of days ago. I couldn’t remember for the life of me then if she knew where I lived, but to my utter glee, the man working the desk when I called to add Jackson to my approved list—so he could check on my place—reminded me she was on the Do Not Allow Entrance List with security. And the funny part was that she gotherselfadded to the list without any requests from me.
She had, in fact, been to visit me right after I moved in two years ago. Security found her propositioning men in the elevators and mailroom the one and only time I allowed her to come see my new place. She’d thrown an exasperated fit, demanding to be taken to her daughter’s apartment, but instead,they called me down to let me know she was no longer allowed to roam the property alone.
So now I knew she couldn’t go into the building without me escorting her.
If she was ever found wandering around the building again, they were going to call the police and fine her.
My glee simmered down when I realized too late that meant I would be the one who’d end up paying the fine.
“Mom, you know you can’t,” I murmured, rubbing my forehead to stave off the pounding that was starting inside my skull.
“Don’t you think you could call security and let them know I’m watching your place while you’re out of town? I’m sure they’d understand.”
There was no chance in hell of that happening.
“Um… I’m actually subletting my apartment while I’m away for this job,” I lied.
“Oh. Well, where are you? Maybe I could meet up with you there.”
I was absolutelynotletting her anywhere near Andrew. She’d be obsessing over the man the moment I introduced them. Or worse, she’d hit on his dad.
Talk about embarrassing.
My mom was a hopeless romantic, always immediately in love with whoever she was sleeping with at the time. Could be one night; could be one month—it didn’t matter. If there was a man in the picture, her heart told her he was the one. And when the man ended things, she would go through a depressive state that usually lasted days on end, with her in bed rewatchingclassic romance movies. But not a week later, she’d doll herself up and go out to find her next conquest.
It was a vicious cycle I memorized at a young age. She didn’t even have to tell me what was going on in her personal life when she decided to call, in order for me to know where she was in the sequence. It was how she asked for a large sum of money, which meant she wanted to impress the guy. Or if she asked to stay with me, which meant she was past that part and had already been dumped. And I knew when we were in the starting-over process, because she’d ask if I wanted to join her for some shopping—my treat, of course.
