Ripped (Real, #5)(48)

My eyes widen. Glancing around for the quietest, most private space I can find, I peer into the men’s restroom, find it empty, and close the door, leaning against it so no guy can come in while I talk.

“Hello?” I answer.

God. I sound like a chicken shit. Like I’m guilty of something.

I’m guilty of lying and more. So much more.

“Pandora?”

“Mom. What’s up?”

“She misses you, she wanted to say hello.”

My eyes turn to the tiny window and a slice of moon outside. Hmm, looks high enough. “It’s past her bedtime.”

“I know, she couldn’t sleep because I’d promised she could talk to you today and I was caught up in a call, but we’re calling now.”

“Right,” I say, thinking, No, actually you’re letting her stay up late watching movies as an excuse to check up on me at this hour and make sure I’m not screwing up my life again.

“How are you?” she finally asks.

“Good, Mom,” I mumble, staring at the toes of my boots. They don’t look so badass anymore.

“You’re keeping busy with work? Staying smart about your choices?”

“Of course,” I lie, dragging the tip of my boot down a square tile.

“You know, it’s hard for me to give Magnolia the attention you’ve accustomed her to.”

“I’ll call more often.”

She sighs, clearly displeased but conceding. My stomach hurts. She’s the only one who knows exactly what I am and what I can do and how easily I get broken. I “gauge my value by her love,” according to Dr. Finley, the therapist who suggested I accept my mistakes, as well as the mistakes of the people in my past, and move forward.

I thought I did.

I thought I had.

Hell, I thought tomatoing Mackenna would be the last “f*ck you” I had to say in terms of my past.

I was so, so wrong. Maybe I should consider saying something else instead.

“Are you all right? Where are you?” my mother presses.

“I’m in . . . Kentucky,” I lie.

“You’re decorating in Kentucky?”

I wonder if she’s onto me and worry my lip a little while I worry in my mind. “A bachelor’s apartment. I’m using my usual eclectic combination. Steel, dark woods. It kicks ass.”

“Language,” she chides, but she laughs a little.

We end up talking a little bit. She’s not perfect, my mom. But she’s the only one who knows how much I’ve screwed up and hasn’t hightailed it out of my life.

She never lets me forget that.

Then I get to talk to Magnolia.

“I miss you, Panny, I have forty-seven things now.”

“Wait, let me guess! We’re going to dress like gorillas and bang our chests out on the sidewalks?”

“No! But that will be forty-eight!”

I smile with happiness, but the guilt I usually feel when I’m happy slowly creeps in.

I’ve f*cked up. And Mackenna’s right, I’m mad mostly at myself.

“You’re my hero, Pan,” she then says, her voice dreamy as if I really am something special.

“You’re mine,” I whisper. She squeals, sends me kisses, and we hang up.

I stare at my bracelet, then tuck my phone into my back pocket and breathe deep. When I finally get out, the girls are at the guys’ booth, Tit exactly in my spot.

I don’t like the rush of possessiveness I feel when I see her busy talking with Mackenna. I don’t like how possessive I feel of his eyes and his smile and the hand he has spread out casually over the back of the seat . . . where I had been sitting. I have a spectacular urge to go and tell Tit to take her hand off Mackenna’s shoulder and park her ass somewhere else. Shit. I’m so over my limits of normal involvement here, I shake my head at myself and head over to the bar. Best to stay away from him.

Dealing with my mother always leaves me raw, and I don’t want Mackenna to improve on that.

“See that guy?”

I turn to the low baritone to my right, and a guy—thirty-something-ish, with a black cowboy hat and a huge-ass belt buckle—tips his head in a certain direction. When I follow the aim, my eyes land on you-know-who. You-know-who’s silver-laser-beam is staring straight at me from across the room. “You’re asking me if I see him? Does anyone not see him?” I counter.

“He your man?” the cowboy asks.

“In my nightmares, sometimes.”

But Cowboy isn’t appeased. “He sure looks like he thinks he is,” he drawls.

“Ignore him. He thinks he’s many things. God is one of them.”

“Bitches with him agree.” He points to the girls trying to catch Mackenna’s attention at the booth, but nothing seems to make those eyes go away—not even the frown I send his way before I give him a first-class view of my backside as I turn around to order myself a drink.

Why not?

Safer to let the tequila put me to sleep later rather than Mackenna.

“You nervous? Whatcha got there?” the cowboy asks, peering down at my bracelet, which I hadn’t realized I’d been playing with.

“Something that always reminds me how human I am when I look at it,” I say, brushing his hand off. “Don’t touch it, nobody gets to touch it but me.”