scrunched his face as if he didn’t understand the question. “Sweet Home Alabama. What else would it be?”
“Of course, sorry,” Reagan chuckled as she slid her hand around my bicep.
The moment her fingers gripped my arm, warmth spread through me.
As the three of us walked back to the bar and Jimmy spouted off about Abernathy and how he’d showed him the door, I waited to feel the same anger that had me seeing red return. But it wasn’t there. All I felt was hope. Reagan may not have answered me, but with her beside me, I knew that anything was possible. Whether she did or not.
CHAPTER 28
Reagan
“Mom, I’m going to hang up if all you want to talk about is Blaine.” I was so sick of going around in circles with the woman who gave birth to me.
She’d called and texted several times a day, every single day since I’d arrived in Firefly. I’d made it a rule to only respond or pick up one time per twenty-four hour period, but even with those restrictions she was still wearing me down. Nothing I said got through to her. She had wedding tunnel vision, and I couldn’t get her to see the light at the end of it.
I put the phone on speaker and tossed it on the bed as I pulled up my last pair of clean underwear. They were cotton briefs that Blaine not-so-lovingly referred to as my “granny panties”, just because they weren’t a thong and had no lace on them.
“He just wants to talk to you, Fancy. Why did you block him?”
The better question is why haven’t you blocked him?
“Because,” I modulated my tone, trying to keep my composure, “I have nothing to say to him and I don’t want to hear anything he has to say to me.”
“One week, Fancy! You’re getting married one week from today. Blaine knows he messed up and wants to make it up to you, believe you me. He gets it. Just talk to him.”
“Mom, I love you, but I’m done discussing this with you.” The dresser drawer where I’d stored my casual wear stuck so I gave it a hard pull, grunting as it fought me all the way.
“What was that? Are you alone?”
“Yes, Mom. I’m just—”
“Reagan.” Blaine’s voice came through the speaker and I froze. “Is someone there with you?”
I knew he couldn’t see me because we weren’t talking on Facetime, but even still, hearing him speak while I was half naked in my room made me feel violated. I scrambled onto the bed and disconnected the call. I couldn’t believe my mom had stooped to that level.
Actually, I could. Why would I be surprised? I hadn’t been joking when I’d told Nadia that Blaine had got my mom in the breakup, but if this wasn’t proof that he had, I’m not sure what was.
My phone lit up again with my mom’s face on the screen, but I ignored the call.
One more week. I told myself. After “the big day” came and went, I hoped that she would drop this and we could go back to our regular relationship. The one where I called to check on her every Sunday and she complained to me about the doorman not smiling enough, or the dry cleaner ruining her blouse, or the kale in her salad being too limp, or any number of the other first world problems she had time to bitch about thanks to Hal leaving her in the lifestyle she’d grown accustomed to living when he was alive.
Every breath she spent doing anything other than being grateful for her life, for Hal, for the time we got with him, infuriated me. I spent the hour wanting to tell her to shut up. I had to bite my tongue not to say that there were children starving, there was war, people were sick and dying, or any number of other injustices in the world. I knew it wouldn’t make any difference because I had said all those things, many times, but she’d listened just about as well as she did when I told her I wasn’t getting married next week.
When my phone vibrated and lit up again, I put it on silent and decided not to let her call sidetrack me.
Standing back up with renewed determination, I finally managed to wrestle the drawer open. I looked down and saw that I was down to my sole pair of jean shorts, which I’d named my “laundry” shorts. They were shorter