The Girl Next Door - Emma Hart Page 0,9
all I knew, she was speaking genuine Latin and praying for me.
Both were equally feasible.
“Who did this to you?” Mom demanded. “Oh, God, he left you, didn’t he? He doesn’t want a child!”
“Why is that your first reaction?” I shot back. “He did not, thank you very much! He’s extremely supportive and intends to be there the whole way.”
“You say this like you’re not in a relationship!”
“Of course she isn’t!” Grams dropped her beads and threw both her arms in the air with such vigor I thought she’d throw her back out. “If she were, don’t you think we’d know? The gossip mill in this silly little town would tell us everything! Nothing is secret here, Jasmine, nothing!”
Oh, yay.
I’d awakened the beast.
“She’s twenty-six, single, and now she’s pregnant! From a one night stand I’d bet! Or worse, a Scientologist!”
“Where would I have met a Scientologist in bumfuck, Montana?” I asked incredulously. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“And a little bit racist, Mother,” Mom said.
“Technically, it’s not racist. Prejudiced, mostly.”
“You be quiet, Ivy,” Mom snapped. “You’re not a part of this conversation.”
“Actually, I am the conversation!”
“Everyone needs to calm down.” Dad stood up and held out his hands. “Rosie, that was highly prejudiced. God would be ashamed of you. Be quiet.”
Grams sat upright. “I’ll tell you who God would be ashamed of! Your whore of a daughter!”
“Hey!” I shouted.
“Mother! Do not call her a whore!” Mom said at the said time. “I will not have that in my house!”
“She is a whore!”
I bristled. “Yeah, well, Jesus wasn’t even Joseph’s son, so I guess I keep good company.”
“Why you little—”
“Ivy, do you have to agitate her? You know she was just in the hospital,” Mom said, watching as Dad restrained my grandmother from… well, I’m not sure what she intended to do to me, but she didn’t need much restraining.
She was old, after all.
“She was in the hospital because she couldn’t poop. Which, incidentally, is the last time I saw my sister,” I shot back. “How did we get from me being pregnant to this? Does nobody care about stressing me out? I’m only carrying your grandchild.”
Mom clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, my gosh! That didn’t even cross my mind!”
Great.
She rushed over to me and wrapped me in her arms. “Sweetheart, are you okay? Really? Are you sick? How do you feel? When did you find out? Do you need anything? Oh, my gosh, come and sit down. Simon, get her some water.”
Wow.
Talk about whiplash.
I was bundled into a comfortable armchair as my mother continued to pepper me with questions—all the questions except the one I was waiting for.
Who’s the father?
I answered each one diligently, smiling at Dad when he gave me the glass of water she’d ordered.
Unsurprisingly, it was Grams who asked the million-dollar question.
“Well? Who did this to you?” she demanded, smacking her dark red lips together.
“First, he didn’t do this to me,” I replied. “It was a consenting act between two people which means we’re both responsible for this baby.”
She snorted.
Dad shot her a dark look. “Well? Are you going to tell us?”
I took a deep breath. “Kai.”
Mom frowned. “Your neighbor?”
I nodded. “We’ve been seeing each other,” I said, the lie spilling easily from my tongue. “It’s serious.”
What was I saying?
Grams looked down to where I was fiddling with my fingers. “Serious enough that he’d marry you?”
I heard myself saying, “Yes,” before I knew what I was saying.
Both of my parents looked at me with the same shocked look. “You’re engaged?” Mom asked. “To Kai? Your neighbor? And nobody knew?”
“Tori knows,” I lied, crossing my toes inside my boot in lieu of my fingers. Must text Tori. “But that’s it. We were going to come clean soon, but it never seemed like the right time. Until now.”
Grandma Rosie sniffed, her disdain clear to see in the wrinkles of her nose and her clenched fingers. “I want to meet him,” she demanded. “I want to meet the ruffian who defiled my granddaughter!”
“Not with that attitude you’re not.”
“Why you—”
“She’s right, Rosie,” Dad said, diffusing the situation once again. “Perhaps you should calm down before you meet the boy. Who, for what it’s worth, I think is a very nice young man.”
“Even after he got your granddaughter up the duff?”
“Even then,” he replied. “They’re clearly in a relationship—” Whoops. “—And while we all know you would have preferred her to get married before she had a baby, sometimes things don’t work out that way.”
“And, technically, it’s your fault,” I said to