Page 56 of Wild Flower

“I can!” she sasses back. “You realize you’ve complained about every man you’ve ever dated. You have tells, Becca: secrecy, blushing, that sunny post-fuck glow. Not to mention that you want to deny anything good happened at all.”

“Fine, it was good,” I say, turning to her with a smirk.

“It wasn’t good. It was mind blowing,” Miranda corrects. “Admit it. It was like a long-haired warrior flew you to the top of a volcano and fucked you senseless as lava started exploding all around you, because frankly, the volcano was jealous of the magnitude of your orgasms.”

“You’re ridiculous!” I laugh, my neck and skin as red as Miranda’s fictional lava. “You realize you’re on the clock and I’m paying you for this assault?”

“It’s not an assault when you love it,” she sasses back. “And don’t hire your friends if you don’t want to be asked at work about banging your hot new thang. Now tell me all the details! Where did you go? How long did he last? Was he romantic or beastly? And I mean like smutty dark romance beastly where he definitely falls into a morally grey area, threatening to unalive any man who comes near you and proving his devotion by being an animal in the bedroom.”

“I would hope”—both of us freeze at the sound of a new voice in the room—“that he was a gentleman.”

My stomach drops out.

My mother is standing in the doorway with her signature frown. She has a habit of walking in without knocking, and this time she just witnessed Miranda spouting dirty romance-tropes like it’s her new religion, and me redder than a pomegranate and not denying any of it.

I’m so screwed!

“Mom,” I squeak out, my throat tight as a rubber band. “Uh, we—”

“I heard,” she says coldly, and Miranda shoots me a terrified look like she just stood up at Thanksgiving dinner and told everyone I’m a lesbian. Which honestly, my mother would probably praise. It’s an easier pill to swallow than admitting I slept with two men last night, and I can’t wait to do it again.

“Miranda, could you—” My mother makes a motion with her wrist, dismissing my friend like she’s flicking a fly out of the room.

“Of course, Mrs. Laurel.” Miranda obediently heads for the door. What? Are we sixteen and Miranda’s heeding my mother’s commands? It makes me bristle with how dismissive my mother can be. This ismyshop and Miranda ismyemployee. This isn’t my mother’s house, or backyard, or land. She doesn’t own this property!

“Actually, Miranda,” I say, causing her to stop mid-step. “Could I get you to finish this bouquet for me instead? I’m going to speak with my motheroff premises.”

The last thing I want is a shouting match that can be heard by a potential customer.

“Um, uh—” Miranda hesitates between the two of us, torn between her boss and her boss’s mother. I walk up to her and thrust the bouquet into her fist. She’ll probably have to start over with the way the flowers shuffle and a few fall onto the table.

“I have my cell, if you need me,” I tell Miranda, before nodding to my mother to follow me outside. “Mom.”

I strut out of the shop and into the mid-day sun. It’s surprisingly cooler outside, and a harsh sea breeze whips down the street, tossing my hair like a tumbleweed.

“I need to speak to you about—”

“Not in front of my shop!” I snap. “Notatmy shop!” I stride down the promenade past cafés and boutiques. I decided not to go home this morning and came straight to the boutique to avoid whatever grueling conversation my mother wants to have about Finn and Archer. I know running off last night was childish, but my mother can be so condescending. She brings out the worst in me and it becomes a pattern. Treat your child like she’s fifteen and she’s going to act that way.

It's a lame excuse, I know, I just …

Frustrated, I turn us down a small alley with a giant shark spray-painted across the flank of the building. It makes me wonder if my mother is like that great white, ready to swallow me whole with her righteousness. When we’re finally out of earshot from the street, I turn to face my mother trailing me.

“I’m an adult,” I say, before she jumps into her tirade without letting me speak. “You’re not allowed to boss me around, nor are you allowed to tell my employees—”

“I’ve known Miranda since she was ten,” my mother counters.

“She isn’t ten anymore!” I snap. “She’s an adult also, and we both deserve some respect.”

“Respect like the way you and those two men traipsed all over my property?” Her eyebrows fly up on her forehead. She’s the master of twisting your words and using them against you. “Or are you like Miranda described and interested in morally grey debauchery?”

“She was talking about a romance novel!”

“Was she?”

The sun sears down between the buildings and directly upon us like a knife of heat burning a line in the ground.

“Why are you here, Mom?” My shoulders sag. “I’m pretty sure you can berate me at home. There’s no need to march downtown and make a scene.”

---