Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
“I get it.”
“We’ll find something fun to do later.”
“We better,” I tease.
Once the house is empty, I turn on music and clean the kitchen, then go up to our room. I play guitar for a while, then shower. Just as I’m about to leave the house, the door opens and Ollie comes in.
“Hey, Ollie. You’re back early.”
“Like I said, we’ll find something fun to do today. I only really needed to go to one class. It won’t kill me to miss the others.”
“Ollie…”
“No arguing.”
“I really do need to go see my mom.”
He shrugs. “I can go with you. Or I can wait here until you’re done.”
Rory is the only person I’ve ever brought home, and in the beginning, I didn’t even bring him home. He just showed up. It feels normal to bring a friend to meet your mom, something most people have done, and as shitty as it is, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to be alone with her.
“You can come. She’s…a lot. A fucking trainwreck if I’m being honest.”
“I don’t care. We all have our stuff.”
It’s cute that he rarely curses. “Okay.”
We chat the whole drive to Mom’s trailer—and when did I start thinking of it as hers and not home?
The house is a fucking mess when I arrive—alcohol bottles everywhere, coke on the table. It smells like trash. “Fuck.” My heart drops. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Ollie squeezes my hand.
No, it’s really not. “I need to clean this place up. I’ll bring you home and come back.”
I try to move toward the door, but Ollie doesn’t budge, his feet rooted to the floor. “I’m not going home, Shai. Come on. We’ll get this done a lot faster if we do it together.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t, and…you’re family. This is what family does.”
“In my experience, this is what family does.” I motion around the room.
“Not us. We take care of our own.”
I nod, unable to find the words to thank him. “I’ll be right back.”
I head to her room and find her passed out in the bed. A woman and a man are sleeping in bed with her, and I pull the door closed, then go meet Ollie in the living room.
I’m grateful we have rubber gloves. I get those and trash bags, and we start cleaning. There’s mold on the plates and on half the food in the fridge. With each plate I scrape, each thing I clean, the guilt eats more and more of me. We’re supposed to be together. We’re supposed to take care of each other, yet I’m too busy playing house with Rory. But…I deserve that, don’t I?
Ollie and I laugh and chat, just like we do at home, and it helps distract me from how fucking shitty this situation is. Ollie’s shared with me a lot about how close he and his dad are, how close he was to his mom before she passed away. I know the death of their mothers is something he and Cillian bonded over.
I like listening to Ollie speak while we work, and he does, nonstop, about simple things, earnest things. He doesn’t complain or look down on me, and I’m so fucking grateful.
It takes us three hours to clean the house. Ollie is vacuuming when my mom and her two fuck buddies come out, the guy naked, dick swinging. I’m in the kitchen, so they run into Ollie first.
He turns off the vacuum.
“Who are you?” Mom asks him.
“Ollie,” I say, pushing my way into the room. “Put some fucking clothes on,” I tell the guy.
“Who the fuck are you?” he says, stepping toward me.
Mom snaps out of it and squeezes between us. “Dave, this is my son, Shai. Shai, this is Dave.”
“Get dressed,” I tell him again.
“Fuck you, kid.”
We’re looking at each other over my mom, neither of us willing to back down.
“Come on, baby. We need to go anyway,” the other woman tells him. He stares me down for another moment, trying to intimidate me, but it doesn’t work, and then he’s letting her drag him down the hallway.
“Real fucking nice, Mom.”
“Who are you again?” she asks.
“Ollie. Nice to meet you.” He holds his hand out for my mom, who is wearing nothing but a pair of panties and a short tank top. She shakes it and grins at him.
“New boyfriend already? Maybe you’re more like me than you think,” Mom says, then to Ollie, “I’m Kat.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my…” What is he? He’s my friend, obviously, but he’s something more to Rory and he feels like more to me too.
Luckily, the asshole and the woman come out dressed. My mom kisses them both goodbye, then apologizes about me as if I did something wrong, before closing and locking the door behind them.
“I’m fucking beat.” She plops down on the couch.