Kiss and Break Up (Magnolia Cove, #1)
Ella Fields
For Taryn
Who knows my heart and seems to like it anyway
There’s no knife sharper than that of betrayal
Peggy
My tongue skated across my teeth for the millionth time since yesterday, feeling the smooth enamel, the freedom that had become my mouth.
“You keep staring at them, poking and prodding the way you’re doing, and soon enough, you’re not going to have any teeth left to lust over.”
My lips smacked closed, and I spun around, glaring at my mother. “Two years, Mom. Almost two whole freaking years of tasting metal. Let me lust a little.”
“Another day, then I want to see you doing something more productive with the last few weeks of summer break.” She adjusted her hold of the laundry basket on her hip, then scowled. “And watch your damn mouth.” I smirked as she walked away, then groaned when she called out, “Meet me in the car; our appointments are in fifteen minutes.”
“We’ve barely been home an hour. I haven’t even had time to check my updates yet.”
“Updates smupdates. Your hair needs a trim, and my grays are showing.”
She had about five gray hairs, but if Phil, Mom’s boyfriend, or I tried to remind her of that, she’d give us the hairiest eyeball known to mankind. The truth was, she enjoyed going to the salon every month. As much as our lives had changed over the past eight years, certain things from our previous life, like pampering oneself, never would.
My phone beeped for the second time as I was stuffing my feet back into my boots. I plucked it from my waistband, moving the layers of puffy material to reach it. Not very practical, but a lot of my skirts didn’t have pockets, and I wasn’t a big fan of purses.
I kept any change I had in my bra. While I unlocked my phone, I gave my chest a pat, checking I had a twenty in there.
Dash the Demon: What gives?
Dash the Demon: Freckles, this isn’t funny. You said twelve. It’s now one o’clock, in case you can’t tell the time.
Dash the Demon: … but you can. Which means you’re actually ignoring your pledge to the cause.
With a huff, I blew some curls from my face and responded.
Me: Going to salon. Need a trim, Jim.
Dash the Demon: Who the fuck is Jim?
Dash the Demon: Never mind. You’re the worst kind of person. I hope they cut off all your hair and leave you bald.
Laughing, I locked my phone and barreled down the hall as Mom’s car started up.
Checking the door was locked, I pulled it shut behind me, then jumped down the three steps off our porch, and bounded over to her Honda CRV.
My phone beeped again in my lap, but I ignored it.
“Dash isn’t happy?” Mom asked as she backed out onto the street.
I pulled down the visor, checking my teeth again. “When is Dash ever happy?”
She laughed as she straightened the wheel, tires crunching over the pebbles that’d escaped the newly lined driveway next door. “True.”
Dashiell Thane had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. He wouldn’t have been my first choice, but then again, since he learned how to talk and use his words and that scowl as a weapon, I never really had a choice.
One of the earliest memories I had of him was from preschool. He’d tipped ice-cold water from the water station over my head, then said I’d formally been initiated as his best friend. I hadn’t wanted to be his best friend, but whenever I’d screamed that at him over the following years, he’d give one of those infuriating smiles and simply say, “Like I care, Freckles.”
And that had been that.
I had no say, and if I was being honest, sometimes it still bothered me. But as the years swung on, I’d somehow grown to care about the asshole. He was the brother I never ever wanted.
“I’m dying to know if that boy has caused May to go gray yet,” Mom said with a dry lilt to her voice.
Once upon a time, our mothers, May and Peony, had been best friends. They’d met in college, and before they graduated, they’d made a pact. Marry rich and never settle for love. The crazy idea had worked, though my mother married a man almost twice her age, my dad, while May had scored a guy ten years her senior with the looks to go with it.
May didn’t care about her husband’s affairs with any woman wearing a skirt or blouse too tight at his company because she’d been smart and hadn’t fallen in love.
However, she was rather fond of their gardener, Emanuel, a man eight years her junior, though she’d never admit it or leave Mikael, her husband, for him. That would mean giving up everything she loved.
Money.
“Probably,” I said through a yawn, eyeing the small row of shops up ahead. “But it’s not like anyone will ever see it.”
Mom’s lips pursed and what sounded like a sigh slipped out as they parted.
Mom met her boyfriend, Phil, when I was ten. Phil taught English at the public high school, treated her like a queen, and drove a secondhand white truck with a dent in the bumper he still hadn’t fixed all these years later.
We’d moved out of my father’s mansion by the bay a month later, and even though she did seem to love Phil, we hadn’t moved in with him. He didn’t live with us either, though he was often at our place. Somewhere along the way, I guess my mother had grown tired of being a kept woman, and that was when the rift between her and May had formed.