“Maxx,” Tess begins, turning around to look at him as she crosses her arms over her stupidly sharp suit and gives him a once-over. She looks like a politician again, or like a very office-conscious model. Pretty sure most authors don’t write in shoes that cost a cool grand and throw out the positioning of the spine. Seeing as she flip-flops between that mussy creative look and this, I’m guessing she has a meeting with her editor or something today. “Do you have a girlfriend yet at that university of yours?”
I go completely still as Tess’ gaze flicks my way. With my eyes, I plead for Maxx to keep a secret. The last thing I need is for Bio Mom to find out about Maxine. If she knows I saw my sister—and will continue to see my sister—things between me and Tess are going to get real sour, real fast.
“Not really,” Maxx replies carefully, mulling the words over as his eyes find mine again. Tess giggles—legitimately giggles—and then gives the three of us a coy look that very likely means something I’m going to hate.
“Are you interested in anyone in particular?” Tess continues, her gaze flicking between me and Maxx. Parrish makes a sound behind me, somewhere between a sigh and a scoff.
“Mom, this isn’t going the way you think it is,” he says, but she waves him away with a hand, her eyes glinting mischievously.
“You can’t protect your little sister forever,” Tess replies with about as much subtlety as a dump trunk. There’s nothing about that sentence I like. It smacks of this wistful dreamy quality, of a life where I’ve always been here, where I’ll always belong, like Parrish really is my big brother instead of … whatever it is that he is.
“Protect my little sister?” Parrish echoes as I glance back to find his face rife with confusion. He blinks a few times, and it fades away into a scowl. He gives me such a strange look, one that’s brimming with red-hot … something, that I’m not even sure how to respond to Tess’ statement. “Oh, that’s right. Mom, Maxx and Mia are dating.”
“It’s Dakota,” I snap back, my cheeks flaming a brilliant crimson as Tess nods her head once and Maxx lets out this sexy little male laugh that very clearly communicates his discomfort with the situation. Pretending Maxine doesn’t exist is one thing, but I cannot and will not pretend to date him. “And we are not going out.”
“We should probably talk about the rules anyway,” Tess says, giving my crop top a displeased flick of the eyes. “But I won’t embarrass you in front of the boys.” She gives me a wink, and I’m instantly reminded of that meme from the movie Mean Girls. ‘I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom.’
Cue internal groaning.
“Thanks?” I reply, with a very clear question mark at the end of the word. Back home, the rules for dating were pretty simple: hit age sixteen, introduce your love interest to the grandparents, and suffer a humiliating lecture on safe sex. I have no idea what Tess’ rules might be, but I can take a guess: I’m not going to like them.
“No boys in your room unless the door is open; that’s one I should probably mention straight-off though,” Tess muses, and Parrish narrows his eyes to slits. He seems to do that a lot when he’s having trouble controlling his emotions. But I already know that rule, obviously. She freaks out if she finds that Chasm’s closed the door during our study sessions.
“No worries on that one. I really do have to go,” Maxx says, but I feel that strange heat in my chest, the fire that demands I rebel against this woman who claims to be my mother but really, in all reality, is just a stranger to me.
Besides, I’m so salty about the talk show thing that I could be sprinkled on fries.
“Why can’t I have a male friend in my room?” I query, as if I don’t understand the implications. “What about a female friend?”
“Well, no girls for Parrish and no boys for you,” Tess says, as if that’s the most reasonable statement in the whole world, as if it’s just a ‘duh statement’.
“What if I like girls, too?” I ask, because I do consider myself about a two on the Kinsey Scale of sexuality, meaning bisexual with a stronger preference toward boys. “Can I still have girls in my room?”
“Shit,” Maxx murmurs, rubbing at his mouth to hide his smile. He gives me a sidelong look which I ignore in favor of staring at Tess.
She looks completely dumbfounded by my question.
“I …” Tess starts, while I just stand there with my hands clenched tight by my sides. I cannot even believe that she cares so little about my wellbeing that she’d force me to participate in a talk show, of all things, when I explicitly told her that I didn’t want to do it.
