The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,142

public enemy number one.”

My stomach dips. A lump forms in my throat as his words hit home.

“Really? Why?” I whisper.

“Don’t know why. My mom’s little gossip circle calls her a home-wrecker.”

“She’s not,” I protest and look him in the eye earnestly. My mother’s a lot of things, but she’s not that.

“How do you know what she is? Are you a fan?” he asks in amusement.

“She’s my mother,” I grit out.

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.” He winces

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s just what everyone else thinks.” I do really hate my mom sometimes. But for some reason the idea that anyone else would makes me want to cry. It’s always just been us.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that—it’s just dumb gossip. I don’t think any of them have even met her. Just seen her picture all over the place.” He peers at me. “I see it, though. The resemblance.”

“That’s because she recreated me in her image. Take the makeup off and throw some water on my hair, I don’t really look like this.”

My mother’s always telling me that girls like us have to use what we’re born with. Except, I wasn’t born with what she was. She’s a bombshell. I’m her skinny, frizzy-headed daughter. When I’m not dressed like this and people see us together, there’s always a double take when I call her “Mama.”

It’s not just that, without her head to toe makeovers, I look like a Fraggle. It’s because she’s only sixteen years older than me and we look more like sisters than mother and daughter.

She treats me like a sister, too. It’s fun when that means we stay up late and watch Grease and paint our nails. But most of the time, I wish she would check my homework, tell me no, and give me a curfew. Instead, she brings me to parties like this.

Dressed like this.

His eyes widen as he puts it together.

“You kind of look like her. The hair… your eyes.”

“You think so? I’m convinced she stole me from a hospital somewhere.”

He bursts out laughing. It’s so easy and uninhibited and I can tell he laughs a lot. Even though he’s just had a fight with his mom, he seems really relaxed. That relaxes me.

“She says I look like an owl with these on,” I confess sheepishly and pull my glasses off.

His laughter dies. “Then, she must never have seen an owl before. And, don’t you need them to see?” He sounds offended.

“I do… it’s just that she says I look better without them.” I say the words like they don’t matter. But they do, so very much. It hurts to know that the way I look drives my mother crazy. So much that she’s always trying to change me.

“I’m not sure how you look when you’re squinting like a creep ’cause you can’t see, I think you’re pretty right now.”

I drop my face again, this time to hide my smile.

“No one’s ever called me that before,” I admit shyly. Even my mother only ever says, “You’d be pretty if…”

“Then everyone else needs glasses.” He says that so easily. I turn to face him fully for the first time. He starts to say something, but then his eyes widen suddenly and he looks back at the door.

I follow his gaze and sigh in relief when the knob doesn’t move. I can hear the distant noise of the party, but that’s been there all night.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“Did you say you’re the Fly Girl—I mean, your mother is here?” The alarm in his voice brings my eyes back to his.

“Yeah.” I nod.

“Oh, shit. My mom’s gonna flip.” He’s wide-eyed as he looks back toward the door.

“But, it’s just a party, isn’t it?” I ask in confusion. Granted, it’s the nicest party she’s ever taken me to, but we walked right in.

“The Listers are here.”

“How do you know about them?” I ask. That lump in my throat is back and my heart’s beat thumps wildly.

“The fight your mom had with his wife at the All-Star Games last year was all anyone talked about for months.”

I look to the curtain and feel a sense of terrible foreboding coming over me. I heard Mama tell one of her friends that if she ever got within ten feet of him again she would “light his ass on fire.”

My stomach drops and I stifle a fretful groan as I imagine what’s happening outside this room. “It was nice to meet you. But maybe you should do what she said and