Page 21 of With Spite

“Why?” she asked.

She always asked this.

And I always gave her the same answer.

“Because I was forced to do enough child labor when I was a kid that the place literally gives me hives.”

Silence.

My mother did one of two things when she tried to manipulate you.

She talked her ass off, trying to push you into a corner until you did what she wanted. And if that didn’t work, she would go silent to make you feel bad for some bullshit, made-up or imaginary, affront that you inadvertently said or did to her.

She was exhausting, and I’d been dealing with it for my entire life.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for my dad, I’d have left this stupid town so my mother wasn’t so damn close.

She wasn’t a good mom, and I couldn’t pretend anymore.

Hence my refusal to work at The Mercantile.

My brothers and sister weren’t at that point yet, but one day they would be.

And for Harvey, that was probably closer than ever.

Mom hated Romina.

Despised her, actually.

Mom hated that Romina’s family was caring and loving and put on huge spreads every single holiday, taking away her child without meaning to.

The moment that Romina and Harvey married, my mother would lose her shit.

“Okay, good talk,” I said and hung up when she continued to stay silent.

Romina and Candice both burst out laughing when I hung up on her petty, childish antics.

“I wish Harvey had half your balls when it came to your mother,” Romina groaned.

I snorted. “Harvey has been keeping the peace for too long. He has no clue how to stand up to her, even if he wants to.”

“It’s partially Hux’s fault anyway,” Candice said. “He’s always purposefully pissing her off to keep the peace between everyone else and Vera. He’s conditioned Harvey, Heidi, and Hampton to shut their mouths.”

“True,” Hampton said unapologetically. “He can get away with things that we can’t, though. If we tried to talk to her like he just did.” Hampton gestured at me with his half slice of pizza. “Then we’d have our heads torn off. She’d go to Dad and complain, and Dad would be forced to stand up for her. Then everything would go downhill.”

“Why is it, do you think, that you can get away with what the others can’t?”

Just as Candice asked that, the back door closed and Bells entered.

He walked right up to Heidi and dropped a kiss to her upturned mouth before answering Candice’s question.

“Because Hux has a devil-may-care attitude.” Bells sat down in the only empty spot between Candice and Romina and grabbed a slice of pizza. “He doesn’t care who he pisses off, what the consequences are, and who gets caught in the crossfire. You could all burn and he’d call it ‘acceptable cannon fodder’ and move about with his life.”

“Hey,” I said in affront. “I love my family.”

“You love your family,” he agreed. “But if you thought it was in their best interest to burn, you’d let them.”

He had a point.