Page 108 of Burning Daylight
She scoffs, her voice hardening again. “She’s fine, she’s…Brooke. You know how she is, nose in a book, ignoring the world.”
A smile quirks up my lips when I picture Brooklynn in her books. “But everything else is good?”
“She’s taken care of.” She sucks in a quick breath. “Marcus…are you still there?”
My throat swells and a burn radiates behind my eyes.
If she were still the mom I grew up with, she’d ask me how I was. And maybe when she did, I’d tell her about this girl I met. How she’s so beautiful I can hardly breathe, and how doing this is costing me a chance with someone who I’m pretty sure I could love.
Huh.
“Is Brooke there right now?”
She clears her throat. “I’m not at home.”
“Okay, well, she’s being put on a health insurance plan.”
“What?” Her tone flicks higher. “We’re getting insurance? Oh, Marcus, thank you.”
“It wasn’t me, actually,” he says, his gaze coming to rest on me again, a layer of understanding blanketing his view. “This is all Roman’s doing.”
Her tone changes again, until it’s smooth as cream. “Of course it is. Roman’s always been such a good boy.”
Resentment bubbles up like acid, scorching through the cracks she’s caused in my heart.
I lick my lips. “There are conditions, Ma.”
“What do you mean, ‘conditions’?”
My knee bounces faster. “You’ve gotta get some help. Rehab. Wherever we tell you to go.”
I glance at my father because, well, we didn’t exactly talk this out, but he nods, and more gratitude seeps into the moment.
“What did you tell him, Roman?” Her voice is low, a hiss that whips through the phone and latches onto my cheek, stinging like a slap. “Been running your mouth?”
“This is how it works now,” I reply, my jaw tight. “We help you. You get clean.”
“I can’t,” she whimpers.
Blowing out a sharp breath, my shoulders drop in defeat. That was my last card to play, and honestly, I hoped having my dad on the line with me would help the matter.
“Heather,” my dad chimes in. “My lawyer Frederick will be sending a form for you to sign for Brooklynn’s enrollment, and youwillsign it, do you understand?”
A bit of my loyalty shifts and skews with every word my dad speaks.
“Frederick,” she echoes. “Sure, of course.”
“You’ll sign it today,” I push.
She pauses. “Hasn’t taken you long to get that Montgomery bite in you, has it, Ry?”
I exhale slowly, my fingernails pressing crescent shaped moons into my palms.
“I want you to get help, sugar,” my father adds.
The nickname he uses spears through me. It obviously affects my mother, too, because she sucks in a gasp. “Do I…” She pauses. “Do I get to see you?”
My chest twists that she didn’t ask the same of me.
