Page 81 of Burn for You (Slow Burn 1)
She searched my eyes. “I overheard what Trace said to you the other day, out on the sidewalk after you both left. I was wrong about him.”
“Oh, Mama,” I breathed, sorry she’d had to hear that wretched skirt chaser call me a terrible name.
Then she said, “I heard what you told him, too,” and all the blood drained from my face.
That asshole is my fiancé! I’d shouted into his face, loud enough for the whole block to hear.
“I thought you were just being spiteful, which he deserved, don’t get me wrong. But Jackson Boudreaux just asked for my permission to marry you.”
My whole body went numb. So that’s why he wanted to meet my mother. He wanted to ask her for my hand.
I wasn’t sure which would happen first, the fainting or the vomiting.
She smiled. “Don’t look so traumatized, baby, I said yes. It seems awful fast, but who am I to judge? It was the same way for me and your daddy. And you’ve always had your head screwed on straight. I know you wouldn’t want to marry him unless you were in love, even if you have been tight-lipped about it.” Her eyes narrowed slightly as she dared me to contradict her.
Like a deer in the headlights, I froze. I blurted, “Slap, slap, kiss.”
She looked confused for a moment, then her face cleared. “You mean the old romance trope where two total opposites fight like cats and dogs until they suddenly realize they’re crazy about each other?”
After a second of shock so profound it felt like a cannonball had blown through me, I started to laugh. I laughed so hard I started crying. “Exactly!” I howled.
She shrugged. “Makes perfect sense to me.”
And just like that, it was done.
TWENTY-THREE
JACKSON
Though she only lived a few blocks away from her mother, Bianca was in no shape to walk home. I wouldn’t have let her walk anyway, not when I had a car, but she had a blank, stunned look when she came out of the house that made me think she’d stumble aimlessly around the neighborhood for hours before finally realizing she was lost and lying down in the gutter for a nap.
I’ve seen someone hit in the head with a shovel who had more presence of mind than she was displaying.
I held the car door open for her. She inserted herself into the seat with the grace of a zombie, all jerking legs and stiff arms, the opposite of the way she normally moved.
“I didn’t think having me meet your mother would be so traumatizing for you,” I said once I was seated behind the wheel.
Bianca laughed. It was the noise a dog made when you stepped on its tail. “You asked my mother for permission to marry me,” she said.
“I did.”
She looked at me with eyes so wide the whites showed all around her irises. “What would you have done if she’d said no?”
I answered truthfully. “Become one of those panhandlers on the boulevard you said I reminded you of.”
“We wouldn’t get married?”
I wanted to attribute her horrified tone to desperate disappointment that I wouldn’t be her husband, but I knew what she was thinking. And it wasn’t about me.
“I would’ve paid for your mother’s surgery, and then I would’ve found a nice, comfortable bridge to live under.” I started the car and drove off, feeling her eyes on me like laser beams.
After a long time, she asked, “Why?”
r /> Because I’d do anything to have you look at me the way you looked at me when I kissed you, even if it was only for one more time.
Aloud I said, “No one should have to die because they’re broke.”
She studied me in silence as we drove. I liked it, having her attention focused on me like that. It felt natural to have her riding beside me, sharing the same air. I wanted to reach out and take her hand, but didn’t want to push my luck. Instead I turned on the radio.
