Page 14 of The Jackpot Screwer
“My baby is having a baby. Oh sweetheart, I’m so happy for you.”
“Melinda, honey,” Dad sighed. “You’re not supposed to listen in on private conversations, you know that.”
Mom extricated herself from me and turned to Dad. “Oh, you’d have told me later anyway. You know you would.”
“He promised,” I protested.
“Son, I swear, I would never.”
Mom waved him away and plonked herself next to me and took my hand in hers. “He would’ve sweetheart; you know he would. Now, tell me is Bronte taking her vitamins and when is her due date? Is she going to move into the apartment with you?”
“Well, you obviously weren’t listening that carefully,” Dad said. “Bronte had dumped his ass.”
Mom gasped and looked between me and Dad before finally settling her gaze on me.
“What for?”
Shrugging I said, “I think she thinks I feel obliged.”
“And do you?” Mom’s eyes were hard and steely, daring me not to shame her.
“No, Mom. Of course, I don’t. I love her. I want us to be a family.”
Mom sniffed and turned to Dad. “Oh Henry, how beautiful is our boy?”
“Yeah, beautiful and fertile,” Dad replied.
“That’s what I wanted to speak to Dad about.” I told Mom. “I wanted to know how to get her back.”
Mom gave me some sort of dreamy smile that I normally only saw after they’d had ‘alone time’. “Oh, your dad is real good with the ladies. I bet he gave you some great advice.”
Closing my eyes, I shuddered. My parents had to be the weirdest fucking people on the planet. They were sex crazy at forty-eight years of age. It wasn’t right.
“I should call Darcy,” Mom said excitedly, bringing me back from my nightmare thoughts.
“No,” I cried. “You can’t. Bronte hasn’t told her folks yet. We agreed to wait. You can’t let her know that you know. Promise me, Mom.”
Mom’s promises I trusted, so much more than Dad’s. I knew she could keep a secret. She’d kept the fact that Ellie and I had broken Dad’s great-aunt’s vase, the one holding her ashes, from him for years. He still thought they were in a safe place and that the stuff in the jar in the cupboard under the stairs was bath salts of some kind.
“I swear,” she replied. “But they’re going to have to find out soon.”
“Yeah, I know, but that’s Bronte’s call, okay?”
Mom nodded and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “We'll help you fix things with her.”
I wasn’t sure how keen I was on that, but I probably needed all the help I could get. Contemplating it, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to find a text from Alaska which opened up a picture of a woman’s hand with a square diamond on her ring finger and the words ‘she said yes’.
“Ah fuck,” I groaned. “That’s all I need.”
“What is it?” Mom asked, peering over at my phone.
Another text came in telling me that he was having a party in three weeks’ time for his and Jen’s engagement party.
“More loved up couples,” I said and showed it to Mom.
“Oh, my goodness, that’s so exciting and he did good with that ring.” She grabbed the phone from me to take a closer look. “That’s it,” she cried. “That’s how you get Bronte back. Ask her to marry you.”
She stared between Dad and me with a starry-eyed smile and we both moaned in unison, knowing for a fact that this was one of those occasions when she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
