Stripped Bare (Stripped #1)(46)

I flattened my lips together. Oh boy. She was in a delightful mood, wasn’t she? She made West’s bar girl, Tish, look like a baby bunny or something.

“How have you been, Mom?”

“You’d know if you called more often.”

“We speak three times a week. How many more times do we need to call each other?”

“Called by, Mia. Not on the phone.” She shook her head as she poured boiling water into a white-and-blue china teapot.

Excellent. We were having tea in her nice set. Even more things to hate about tea.

“I work a lot, Mom. It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, yes, I know. You work too much. I keep telling you to stop messing around with careless, young men and find yourself a nice, steady gentleman to take care of you.”

I stared at her as she set the tea tray in the middle of the kitchen table and motioned for me to sit. “I don’t need a nice, steady gentleman to take care of me. I can take care of myself.”

“Then to keep you company.”

“I have my friends to keep me company.”

“It’s not the same, Mia.” She poured the hot tea into her teacup, holding the lid of the pot in place. “You’re twenty-five.”

“Precisely. Not forty-five. There’s time left in the old, ticking egg bombs yet.” I politely refused the tea. I couldn’t deal with two of my least favorite things in one hit, given the mood she was in.

She hmmed as she sipped from her teacup. “That reminds me. Darren called for you yesterday.”

I frowned. Twice in two days? “Did he say what he wanted?”

“No. He seemed insistent upon talking with you though.” Her teacup clinked against the saucer. “Has the dirty dog called you?”

Dirty dog. That was something I’d never heard her say.

“Yep. I sent him straight to voicemail.”

“Good. Although I do want you to find out what he wants so he stops bothering me.”

I wouldn’t have said one visit was a bother, but then again, this was my mom. “Sure.”

She looked up, piercing me with her gaze.

“I’ll just go call him right now...” I plucked my phone from my purse and walked into the front room. I took a deep breath before I unlocked my phone.

Lord, the woman sucked all the oxygen out of the room, didn’t she? Or maybe she just sucked my oxygen out. It was no secret she was trying to kill me.

At least it felt that way.

I tapped in the passcode for my phone and frowned. One new message from West.



West: Can you talk?



I hit Reply.



Me: No. My mother is making me call my ex-boyfriend.



I waited for a moment for his response, but when it didn’t come, I opened my contacts, scrolled down to DoucheNozzle, and hit Call. I wasn’t surprised in the slightest that Darren answered immediately.

“Hey. I thought you weren’t going to call me back.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I confirmed. “Then you bugged my mom and she bugged me. Don’t think I’m calling because I want to be.”

He was silent for a few seconds. “Mia, I just want to talk to you.”

“I can honestly say this feeling isn’t mutual.”

“Can you listen for five minutes? We need to at least be civil for the wedding next weekend.”

“You should have thought about that before you parked your car in some other chick’s garage, shouldn’t you?” I snorted. “We don’t have to be anything, Darren. You have to escort me down the aisle, take a few photos with me, and then that’s it. We don’t have to speak at all.”

“Be reasonable, babe.”

“Call me babe once more and I’m gonna march over to your house and file off your balls.”

“Be reasonable.”

“I forgot how to the moment I walked into your house and found you screwing another woman over your kitchen table.”

More silence. “That was an accident. A mistake.”

“Penises don’t slip and fall into other people’s vaginas, Darren. Especially when there are usually clothes covering said penises and vaginas. Unless they happened to fall off too.”

“Yes, well.” He coughed. “I miss you.”

“Good. I’d miss me too. I’m freakin’ awesome.” Nothing like blowing your own horn. Toot toot, motherf*cker.

“You...don’t miss me?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“Well, no. Guess not. I f*cked up,” he said quietly.

“Yup.”

“I just thought you’d be ready to talk. I was kind of hoping to work things out.”

“Nope.” I smacked my lips together.

Was he drunk? I hoped he was drunk. He better have been drunk.

“We’re supposed to be going to the wedding together, Mia.”

“No, we’re not. Allie added two plus-ones the day we broke up.”

“Why did she do that?”

I grinned. “I asked her to.”

“Oh. And you’re taking someone?”

Truth? Lie? Truth? Lie?

Ah, f*ck it. I’d open my mouth and see what came out.