Page 19 of Girl Going Nowhere

I’m not. He gave me Maia. My reason in life.

“He changed your life without having to live with the consequences of his own actions. If he’s not punishing himself, why should you?”

Her question sparks something in my chest. I’ve never thought of it that way before.

“What do you want in the person that could make you change your mind about settling down?” she asks, spooning more yogurt into her mouth.

Sitting back, I think about it while staring at my half-eaten food. “I read somewhere that the male version of you is your perfect match. Which makes sense, if you think about you and Hector. You two are basically the same person, even with the age gap. You’ve always been an old soul.”

Emily’s eyes dance with humor. “If that’s true, then Brodie is yours.”

Before I can help myself, my cheeks heat at the thought of the flirty man back in New York.

My friend doesn’t miss the look. She hums, studying me a little too closely for comfort with those paralegal eyes that see everything. “Interesting,” she says slowly, nodding as if she knows something I don’t. “Let me ask you this. If it were one of your other roomies who admitted they had feelings for you, would you use living there as an excuse not to at least try?”

Dante would never admit he has feelings for me, so there’s only one person she can be referring to. And the truth is, I might take the plunge if Brodie were the one who told me he had feelings that went beyond physical attraction.

Still, I lie. “I don’t know.”

Emily hums. Instead of pushing, she picks up her yogurt again with a subtle shrug. “Let’s just focus on having a fun girls’ weekend. It’s been too long since we’ve done this without husbands or babies interrupting us. I have appointments for us at the salon, and I think Hector made reservations at that new Italian restaurant I was telling you about.”

I offer a stiff smile, hoping she looks past it because I want to enjoy my time with her. No drama. No lectures. No thinking about the boys back home. “Sounds like fun.”

CHAPTER TEN

Dante

The laundromat onThird Avenue is a rundown piece of shit where many homeless and druggies come for warmth at night, which means it’s the last place my mother should be calling me from.

As soon as I step in, the scent of piss and body odor assaults my senses. I search the room for the woman I could barely understand on the phone because of how hard she was crying until I see her sitting in the corner by herself.

Walking over, I kneel in front of her until she breaks from whatever mental trance she’s in. Her brown eyes are red and puffy, but otherwise, she looks fine.

“What happened?” I ask.

Beside her is a stack of clothes, mostly pieces I recognize from her wardrobe. I’ve had to move her enough times to know what the inside of her closet looks like. There are a few articles mixed in that look like men’s underwear, making my nose twitch.

“Mom?”

She sniffles, reaching out to brush my face like she used to when I was younger. “My beautiful boy always comes to save me when I need him to.”

Sighing, I pat her hand and stand up. “I left work early because you scared me. What are you doing here? This place looks like it should be condemned. Don’t you have machines in your building?”

Guilt drops her lips into a frown. “It’s complicated, baby boy.”

Christ.Here we go again. “What’s so complicated about using the machines at your building? They do regular maintenance on them. I made sure of that before I co-signed the lease.”

Which Brodie told menotto do, considering what happened last time. When Mom bailed on her apartment to move in with some lowlife that was barely any better than my sperm donor, it was me who had to pay the fees for the broken lease. I told myself I wouldn’t help her again if she pulled that bullshit, but I couldn’t say no when she showed up battered and bruised after a run-in with my father.

“I don’t really like that apartment anymore,” she finally tells me. “The woman across the hall is always reporting me about noise complaints.”

For fuck’s sake. “What noise complaints?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Mom. What noise complaints? Is your TV too loud? Are you fighting with somebody? Tell me. Because we both know it’s not you who’s going to get penalized for it if it keeps up.”

That guilty frown deepens. “I didn’t want to tell you like this.”

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