ANNASOPHIA
Waiting for Patel to come back on the phone, I watch Stud Guy and Alexandra exchange smirks and roll their eyes. Their goofy smiles ignite the nerve-endings in my jittery fingers and my cuneiform. They don’t have a clue the gun is empty. I cock my head infinitesimally toward the closed door. What the hell was Patel doing?
“Come on, Mom,” Stud Guy whines. “My arms feel like tree limbs. Tie my hands to the headboard if you want—”
“What I want is for you to shut up.” Please do not let Magnus or Jennifer or Molly hear us talking and come investigate.
“Aww, Mom.” He flexes his grapefruit-sized pecs, confident I’ll swoon, I assume.
“Stop calling me Mom,” I yell, locking my jaw a second later. God, what if Magnus appears and bursts into terrified tears? What if Molly flies across the room, teeth bared, and takes a hunk out of Stud Guy’s ass? Would the stones glittering in Alexandra’s right nipple blind the dog first?
That pierced nipple—with no signs of redness from recent mutilation—makes me want to turn away. I wave the gun’s barrel at the ceiling. “Pay attention.”
“Oh, lighten up, Mother.” Alexandra lowers her arms half an inch and winks at me with eyelashes so caked with mascara, I’m in awe her eyelids don’t fall off. “Maverick’s teasing.”
Maverick? I bite my lip. With a name like Maverick, no wonder the guy’s a sexual predator. I move the Magnum’s barrel up and down a couple more times, train the gun again on his horse-sized balls, and look away from Alexandra’s breasts. “FYI, Mav, I dislike teasing.”
His Adam’s apple convulses. His wide smile wavers and slips off his suntanned face. He makes an O with his thumb and index finger. “Got it.”
“I doubt that, but there’s always hope—even for idiots.”
A shadow passes across his gray eyes, and his jaw tightens.
Not the first time he’s been called an idiot. Under other circumstances, I might feel guilty for the insult. Under present circumstances, I congratulate myself on my remarkable restraint. When did my daughter get her body defaced? Where’d she meet this loser?
“FYI, O Brilliant Mother, I invited Maverick into my boudoir.” She purses her lips on the first syllable in a show of sophistication that falls so far short I want to cry. Her lipstick is the color of fresh blood.
In the dim bedroom, devoid of the feminine frills and dolls and stuffed animals she once adored, black scarves drape lamps and pillows. Everything goes so still I can hear atoms bump into each other. My heart, a solid boulder, crushes my lungs and cuts off my breath as she turns her head over one shoulder, lifts her chin, and bats her eyelashes at the ceiling. Her long, chestnut hair cascades in waves down her back. Her small, firm breasts and thick pubic hair detract from her made-up eyes and over-painted lips.
Maybe—no, for certain—because I am her mother and love her even in this frozen moment when my mind refuses to accept what my eyes take in—I think this familiar stranger looks young and innocent. So why don’t her pristine, snow-white sheets carry a single drop of blood?