Page 123 of Panty Dropper

CHAPTER 52

Reagan

“There you are!” I exclaimed as I opened the door. “It’s after one. Where have you been? I was calling you. I even went out looking for you.”

My mom walked into my room and looked around. “Did Blaine leave?”

“Yeah. Four hours ago. Where were you? I’ve been worried.” Logically, I knew she was a grown woman who theoretically could take care of herself. But, when I called her phone and went out looking for her, I’d had flashbacks of all the times I hadn’t known where she was when I was a kid. I’d gotten that same sick, panicky feeling.

“Sorry. I sort of lost track of time.”

She lowered down onto the bed and for the first time I noticed how sad she looked. Heartbroken, actually. Even though I knew that it wasn’t really my fault, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty. “Look Mama, I’m sorry. I know that you really love Blaine and wanted me to—”

“I don’t love Blaine. I never even liked Blaine.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“He’s a condescending prick that thinks his shit don’t stink.”

“Mama!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“What? It’s the truth.”

I stared at her in shock and disbelief. The woman sitting in front of me was not the woman who raised me. I didn’t know who this woman was or what she’d done with my mother. Feeling a little off balance, I decided to take a seat in the chair across from her.

My mom’s head was down and when she lifted it I could see tears in her eyes. “He loves you, you know.”

There she was. Tina was back. “You just said that he’s a condescend—”

“Not Blaine.” She waved her hand. “Billy. Billy loves you.”

“How do you…what are you talking about?”

“I went to see him. At his bar.”

“You went to see Billy? Why?”

Great. Not only had Blaine and my mom shown up at his house and ruined his family dinner. Now my mom had gone and bothered him at work.

She let out a long breath and ran her hands down her jean-clad thighs. “I went because I saw the two of you together.”

“You saw us at his house?” I was wondering what would’ve possibly possessed her to seek him out after that brief interaction.

“Yes, but I’m talking about seeing you two in the pictures that the detective Blaine hired had of ya’ll.” She pulled her phone out of her purse and unlocked the screen before handing it to me.

I scrolled through and saw pictures of Billy and I leaving the bar the first night with Cheyenne. There were shots of us in front of the boarding house, the day he took me to go look at his house. Some of us leaving the law firm together the day he took me for a picnic. Several pics of him carrying me down the stairs on the pier after the crab feed.

I cringed at how embarrassing those were. I had no memory of that night at all.

And then the last ones were of us standing outside the barn after Farm Strong. The final one was when he kissed me. In the moment, it had happened so quick, but the freeze frame looked really passionate.

“Did you show Billy these?”

“No. That’s not why I went. I went because I could see from the pictures that he wasn’t just a fling. I saw the way you looked at him. And the way he looked at you. But I had to look him in the eye and ask him face to face how he felt about you.”

Oh, sweet lord. NO!“Why? Why does it matter how he feels?”

“Because, when you told me to leave earlier, I didn’t. I stayed and listened at the door. I heard you asking Blaine those questions about yourself and I realized that I, your own mother, didn’t know any of those answers.” Her eyes started to fill with tears, but she sniffed them back and squared her shoulders, sitting up straighter. Normally, she really leaned into emotional breakdowns and milked them for all they were worth. So seeing her try and hold one back was new.

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