Reckless Together: A Contemporary New Adult College Romance (The Reckless Series) (25 page)

I stood tall and forced myself to move. As I came into the lobby, Mom was holding on to a wheeled suitcase, and her purse and a shopping bag were slung over one shoulder. Her long blond hair fell over her shoulders in perfect, curly waves. She wore tight, skinny jeans, heels so high no normal woman could walk in them, and a white V-neck T-shirt right out of most guys' wet dreams. She was thirty-eight, but looked no more than twenty-eight, if that. Mom had dressed for college. She looked like she belonged in the Double Deltsie house.

She was talking—flirting with, actually—a guy named Rusty. His girlfriend lived on the third floor. I guessed he was here to see her and Mom had intercepted him. He was carrying Mom's overnight bag for her.
 

I cursed men's weakness beneath my breath. They'd do anything for a woman who knew how to smile just right and had a figure straight off a Victoria's Secret runway.

I hated to do it, but I had to save Rusty. "Mom."

Of course, calling out "mom" was like almost futilely impersonal. Half a dozen heads turned toward me, including hers.

Then it was like slow motion the way she sized me up. It must have been my imagination, because I actually thought for a moment her eyes teared up.
 

"Ellie, sweetie!" She ran to me and pulled me into a gigantic hug that would have been bone-crushing if she'd weighed more than 110 pounds. Her purse banged against me.

She finally let me go, sort of. She held me by the wrists at arm's length and stared at me. "You look beautiful." She glanced at my abs and laughed. "You got your bellybutton pierced. Finally! I like it. Nice ring."

I was being in your face with my bellybutton ring. I had rebelled against her all those years by not getting it pierced because that was what she wanted. Because she'd wanted me to be cool. And I'd wanted to not be seen. I had gotten it pierced at the first Up All Night of the school year. Because by then it was my decision, not hers.

"Thanks," I said. Was it my imagination or did she seem just the slightest bit nervous? Maybe "tentative" was a better word. "Logan gave it to me."

"Logan." She laughed. "He has good taste."

And I hope it stayed that way.

Rusty gaped at me. "She's your mom?" He sounded as stunned as he looked.

I shrugged and pulled the overnight bag off his shoulder. "Yeah."

"Wow!" He handed me the shopping bag as he practically panted over mom.

"She's older than she looks." I couldn't help digging at her.

"Not that much older." Mom couldn't resist defending herself. "I had Ellie when I was very young."

"Don't you have a girlfriend to see?" I said to Rusty. "Come on, Mom. Let's get you settled in." I led her to my room on the second floor.

Logan was right. I had to get rid of this anger toward her. It was bubbling up and twisting things inside me toward ugliness.

"Here we are." I opened the door for her and set her overnight and shopping bags on my bed. "This is my bed. Yours for the night."

Mom grabbed the shopping bag from the bed and held it out to me. "I brought you something."

"You shouldn't have." I didn't reach for it.

She rattled it. "Come on, Ellie. Let me at least play at being mom. I spent a lot of time picking out just the right thing. It's for tonight."

I sighed and grabbed the bag. I didn't want her gifts. She couldn't buy me with things. Reluctantly, I looked in the bag.

"Take it out. Hold it up. Let's see if I guessed right on the color."

I peeled back the tissue paper and hauled out the cutest, most gorgeous little pink dress. I hadn't gotten a new dress in ages and this one was the latest spring style. I must have let my lust for the dress show on my face, because Mom smiled.

"There are shoes, too. At the bottom of the bag. Take them out. Try them on."

"Mom, I don't want these." I dropped the dress back in the bag and held it out to her.

"You do, but you're too proud and stubborn." She crossed her arms and refused to take the bag. "You promised me the full experience. That was the deal we made. Every mom arriving on this campus is bringing their kid a gift. That's part of the deal.

"I promised not to touch Logan. Not to flirt with him. Not to embarrass you." She held my gaze. "If I'm going to keep my end of the bargain, you need to keep yours. Which means you graciously accept the gifts I brought."

She grinned, because she'd won. Like she always won.
 

I'd lost the showdown. I grabbed the bag. "Fine." I pulled the dress out. It still had the hanger. I hung it on the front of my closet and tried not to look at the gorgeous thing.

Then I sat in my desk chair and pulled out the shoebox, gasping when I saw the designer label. "No way. How can you afford these?"

"Alimony, court settlements, and sensational shopping skills." She was watching me with anticipation.

I couldn't help gasping as I pulled out a pair of pink platform sandals. They were absolute perfection. When I slipped them on, they were as comfortable as wearing air. But I would have worn them if they were the cruelest shoes on the planet. They were that cute.

"We'll look perfect tonight. We'll stun those Walkers with our class."

I looked up from staring at my dream shoes, suddenly suspicious, wondering what Mom was planning to wear and how I'd pale in comparison next to her.

I caught Mom looking around the room with a weird, wistful look on her face. "Why are we staying here? Why aren't we staying at Logan's? He has a nice big apartment, so I hear." She laughed again as I tried to measure it.

That was her show-off laugh. She was boasting that she knew Logan. I wondered if it was a threat as well.

I slid the sandals off and set them back in their box.

"Oh, come on!" she said when I didn't reply. "You two are young. He's a college kid. They're as horny as they come. I know you two are practically living together. If you aren't, there's something wrong with you. You don't have to hide it from me. I just hope you're using protection. Heavy-duty protection."

I stared at her. "Logan's family is here. You know that."

"So you're not denying it?" She studied the room and pointed. "Nice picture of you and Logan. Such a cute couple." She looked directly at me. "No family pictures?"

I shrugged, pleased that she'd noticed.
 

"Whose posters?"

"Bre's."

"Thank goodness. I taught you better taste."

"I'm using birth control," I said. "Does that ease your mind?"

She shrugged. "Slightly. Logan's parents are staying at a hotel."

"Collin and Zave's moms are here, too. They aren't staying at a hotel. They have a full house."

She turned her gaze on me, and for once she was serious. "And you don't want me anywhere near them."

"Do you blame me?" I said.

"I'm not interested in college boys, Ellie."

"Could have fooled me."

"That was a long time ago."

"Less than a year," I said, and stared out the window. "You have a warped sense of time."

"Are you ever going to forgive me?" She sounded truly sorry and almost vulnerable.

I sighed, caught off guard by her show of emotion. "Why
are
you here, Mom?"
 

She hesitated. "Because I miss you, Ellie. You're my baby. All the family I have left."

I felt sorry for her then. She may have been all alone, but I wasn't. I had a great dad and a sister, another sib on the way, a stepmom. I swallowed hard and continued to stare at the street below and all the happy moms out there. Logan was right. Having a family outside of Mom made all the difference. I didn't need her. Not like she professed to need me, anyway. I felt lighter around her than I could ever remember. Like I had choices. But I felt sorry for her, too. Compassion was killer. It would be my downfall.

"I made a mistake and I'm deeply sorry. I miscalculated with Austin."

"You really thought I'd thank you?" I turned to look at her. "Is my life a game to you?"

"Austin is a hot young man. It wasn't like you thought between Doug and me."

I turned back to the window.

"Things weren't all hearts and roses, Ellie. If you'd been around you would have seen that. The honeymoon was definitely over." She snorted. "He traveled a lot…too much. I suspected from almost the beginning he was sleeping with other women while he was on his trips. One-night stands. Code of the road. No one squealed to me." She hesitated. "Then he got cocky. And careless. I found proof. Receipts to strip clubs. Women's phone numbers."
 

She paused and sighed. "What does it matter now? I could show you everything. I'm not imagining or making this up. He was a dog, Ellie. I hid it from you, but that's the truth."

I let her talk. But I refused to let her off the hook by engaging.

She came up behind me and stood. "Austin was there. Funny. Comforting. Understanding. Uncertain about you, Ellie."

"He loved me." The words just popped out.

"Not enough," Mom said. "I recognized the kind of guy he is and will always be. He's like Doug, a philanderer. That's not what you want, Ellie. You're not like me. A guy like that would break you."

"He was faithful to me until you came along."
 

"Was he?"

I felt my heart stop. I went stone cold. A dozen little signs and insecurities popped up. The suspicions. The things I'd ignored. "Yes."

She laughed again. "You hesitated. Because you suspected. Because you know deep down Austin is a dog, like Doug. And that he wasn't faithful with more women than me. Wasn't faithful to you before I came along. I couldn't ever take someone who didn't want to be taken. Give yourself more credit than that, Ellie."

"I loved him!" I fought my emotions, trying to tamp down the anger and the hurt and fight back tears. "You broke me." I immediately wished I could take back my words. I was too vulnerable, giving her too much credit and power over me.

"I didn't break you. You're not broken. You're stronger than that." There was that fierce, protective tone in her voice again, the one from my childhood. The one that tried to force her desire into reality. She put her hand on my shoulder.

I shook it off. "Even if you're right that Austin was unfaithful,
you
didn't have to have sex with him."

"Don't act petulant, Ellie. It doesn't help." She paused again, like she was trying to get control of herself. "You're never going to believe me, but I didn't mean for that to happen."

"You mean you didn't mean to get caught. You called him and asked him over."

She sighed. "No one wants to get caught. Whatever Austin told you, he wasn't blameless. When he came over, he knew what he wanted. He wanted to come over, that was clear. He was eager and ready.

"He came onto me the minute he stepped in the door. And I…I had just found out about another one of Doug's indiscretions. And I took revenge on him, not you. Austin was handy and you were…collateral damage.
 

"It was wrong. I was wrong. If I could, I would take it all back. But the point is, Ellie, it proved to you that Austin isn't who you thought he was. He's a cheater. You can blame me all you like, but you should thank me for that. You were in too deep with him.
 

"I was afraid you were going to do something stupid like marry him and ruin your life. You were way too young and he was way too wrong for you."

I marveled that she could suddenly sound so maternal. That if someone had walked in on the last part of this conversation, missing the part about her sleeping with Austin, she would sound completely reasonable and like a concerned mom.

"I'm going to make it up to you."

"You can't, Mom. It's not possible."

"I think it is, Ellie. That's why I'm here. To protect my baby."
 

Chapter Eighteen

Logan

Logan suffered through an awkward meeting at the airport with his parents and brother. His mom kept watching him and staring at him as if he was a wounded baby bird. Logan hated that. Caleb was full of himself and shit. And his dad was his dad—brusque, arrogant, in a hurry. Harlan rushed off to his meetings with the College of Business. Logan took his mom and Caleb out to their hotel to check in and then they went to a local drive-in for lunch. After that, they went for ice cream at the university-run creamery. The university made premium ice cream and cheese.