Page 81 of Spicy Ever After
Help me.
Her expression softens—by a lot—and she nods too.
Margaret leans forward, and Merrick puts a supportive hand on her back.
See? The best.
“Dad? Can you mute game for a minute? We need to talk about something.”
Mom and Dad exchange a look of alarm as Dad lifts the remote and mutes the TV.
“Everybody okay?” Mom asks, sitting up straight. She’s looking back and forth between my sister and her fiancé. And it hits me that she thinks this is about them.
Margaret waves a hand. “Everything’s fine, Mom.” Merrick nods in affirmation, wrapping his arm around Margaret and smiling like he’s got the secret of life all figured out.
Maybe he does.
“It’s just that Hattie has something to tell you two, and she needs a little help getting started.”
Both parents jerk their gazes at me. “What’s up, Hats?” Dad asks, looking wary. “Your classes giving you trouble?”
The question throws me because my classes are always giving me trouble. That’s nothing new. I don’t like them. They are stupid and boring, and if it were up to me, I’d never log onto my university ULink account again.
But I know this is not up for discussion. Mom and Dad want me to earn a degree, even if it takes me a solid Bronze Age to do it.
I open my mouth to answer, but this isn’t what I want to talk about, so what comes out is less than optimum. “You know that asking me two questions at a time is really rude and confusing, so why do you keep doing it?”
Mom and Dad both jolt like the sofa cushions are charged.
Yep, that was the wrong thing to say.
Mom frowns. “What’s rude and confusing is that response, Harriet. Your father asked a simple question?—”
“Two questions?—”
The parents speak at the same time.
“This isn’t an attack, Hats?—”
“Do you think this is helping?”
I cover my ears and screw my eyes shut. Too much. Too loud.
“Whoa. Hey—” Margaret intervenes. “Everybody take a breath.”
She looks between my parents and me, making sure we’ve heard her. I make a show of taking in a big inhale through my nose and letting it out through my mouth.
Okay, maybe it helps. A little. It also makes me realize I’m pretty nervous about this.
“Mom and Dad, maybe save your questions for a few minutes,” Margaret says before turning to me. “Now, Hattie, maybe you could start by telling them what you did yesterday.”
There’s that little jolt again, both of my parents stiffening, but they say nothing. And this is exactly why I need Margaret here. Unlike me, she knows just what to say to them to keep them from spiraling. Which, of course, keeps me from spiraling.
We listen to her. All of us.
Shit. What am I going to do when she and Merrick move to Colorado?
But I have to shove that worry aside right now or I won’t be able to deal with what I need to deal with today.
