LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)(43)

I scratched Nugget’s chin, distracted with unpleasant thoughts of her happily pulling a sleigh with someone else holding the reins. “Thank you so much for taking care of her,” I murmured. “She’s really important to me.”

Roman’s strong arm came around my lower back and pulled me closer against his side. Part of me wanted him to let go and return to the house. I didn’t want to feel this raw and scared in his presence. Instead, I stayed quiet. Roman brushed a kiss across my temple.

“No problem,” Kip said, turning back toward the cart and sliding his gloves back on. “Oscar’s sister Hyacinth sometimes brings her horses when she visits from Pennsylvania, and I take care of them too. Anytime you want to visit with your girl there, I’ll be happy to look out for her. And if you change your mind about selling her, my number’s posted on the corkboard in the barn.”

I attempted to smile and nod my thanks, but I probably looked like a psychopath instead.

Roman ran a hand along Nugget’s neck while I cooed at her and let her nuzzle into my hair. He must have sensed my need to be quiet, because he simply stayed with me while I lavished Nugget with attention and baby talk. When we headed back to the house, he held my hand and kept his eyes on the path.

“Nice kid,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry about the job.”

“Yeah.” I shrugged, trying to keep my chin from wobbling. “It was too good to be true, you know? What’re the chances I turn up and the one person I meet has a dream job for me and my horse? Ridiculous.”

“Still sucks.”

I snorted softly. “Yep. Still sucks balls.”

We walked for a few more beats of silence until Roman broke it.

“Know what else sucks balls?” he asked, a suggestive quirk to his lips.

I turned to him, thankful for a reason to stop obsessing over Nugget and my future. “Please tell me it’s you.”

Before he could answer, my phone rang. I recognized the number as the central prison exchange my mom called from. My stomach clenched. I came this close to ignoring the call, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn my own mother away when I was all she had and she was stuck behind bars.

I started to tell Roman I needed to take the call, but he was already giving me a big “fingers crossed” sign before retreating toward the house to give me privacy. Clearly he thought the call was a job lead.

When I answered, I was greeted with the familiar robotic voice of the prison phone system before my mother came on the line.

“Where the hell have you been?” she hissed.

I waited until Roman was far enough away so he couldn’t hear me before I answered.

“Long story,” I told her, not wanting to get into it with her. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop from blaming her for my situation. It was because of her schemes that I no longer had the money Arnold left me to help with Nugget. It was because of her getting caught and sent away that I hadn’t been able to make rent by myself anymore.

And what I hated most about it, was that it was my fault for relying on her in the first place. If I’d just stood up to her the first time she’d roped me into her schemes… if I’d just left home when I turned eighteen and never looked back… But I couldn’t forget all the times my mother had been there for me. The lengths she’d gone to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

The real problem was that I couldn’t bring myself to believe the worst about my mother. She wasn’t a bad person—she was never cruel or evil. She just had issues with morality. And theft. And fraud. And a whole collection of other misdemeanors and felonies. But she was still my mother. And, in a way, everything she’d done, she’d done for me. Even if she sometimes picked a shitty way of going about it.

“Well, you can tell me when you come pick me up tomorrow,” she told me.

I sucked in a sharp breath, the frozen air searing my lungs. “Tomorrow?” How in the world could I have forgotten that? I thought she had another two months at least.

“Yeah, early release. Overcrowding and whatnot,” she said. “You woulda known that if you’d have bothered calling me in the last two weeks.”

Was she serious? “I didn’t have a fucking phone,” I snapped. “Or a place to stay or food for that matter.”

“Christ, Scotty. What the fuck?” Her voice started rising. “You get your ass fired? Shit! Now what’re we supposed to do?”

I felt my entire body begin to shake, and I knew it wasn’t because of the cold. “I’m working on it. I’ve already applied for some jobs in the city, and when I get back from Vermont, hopefully—”

“Vermont?” She practically shouted the word. “What’re you doing in Vermont?”

Crap. There was no way I could let her find out about Roman. If she knew I was hanging out with a millionaire celebrity, her brain would explode with any number of awful extortion schemes. “Following a lead on a job,” I told her.

She paused a moment, giving me room to say more. It was a tactic that had worked on me in the past, but this time I refused to budge. “So you’re not going to be here to pick me up?” she finally asked.

I closed my eyes. The thought of leaving caused my stomach to plummet. But I knew it had to happen at some point. And my mom was family. I couldn’t abandon her.