Entice (The Fighter Romance Series - Book #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

park?”
    “Geez, Mom! I didn’t say that.”
    “Please, Jessie…just for a little while. I’ll get a
job, okay? I’ll move out as soon as I can. I won’t get in your way.”
    I don’t know why I even try. She always guilt-trips
me into doing what she wants. What I have to feel guilty about…I really don’t
know. I wasn’t the one who was a terrible parent. “Okay, Mom. That’s fine. I’ll
get the spare room ready for you. When will you be here?”
    “Tyler bought me a bus ticket. I’ll be there in the
morning.”
    Trying not to let her hear me sigh I said, “Okay,
Mom. I’ll see you then.”
    “Oh wait!”
    “Yes, Mother?”
    “I saw Justin.”
    If there was one name that brought the weight of the
world crashing down onto my shoulders quicker than my mother did, it was that
one. “Mom, I don’t want to hear about—”
    “Honey, he misses you.”
    “Are you kidding? Are you still buying from him?” Justin
was my own personal nightmare. He was gorgeous and intelligent…and he was a
drug dealer and although he didn’t use his own product, he loved his alcohol.
It was an explosive combination that I’d been too young and inexperienced to
see in time.
    “No!” she said in an indignant tone. “That is so
insulting! You know I’ve stopped using.”
    “So you say.” In my defense, it definitely wouldn’t
be the first time she lied to me about her pill use. OxyContin had been her
drug of choice. “If he’s not dealing to you, why were you seeing him?”
    “I wasn’t seeing him. I ran into him. He was at the
bar where Tyler was playing and we started talking. He told me he was happy for
me that I’d gotten clean. Honey, he had tears in his eyes when he talked about
you. He misses you so much. All he wishes for you are good things.”
    I was gagging on the bile that had come up from my
stomach. “Justin cares about two things, Mother, himself and money. You know
how long I struggled with that and how hard it was for me to get away from him
when I finally figured out I couldn’t change him. Why would any mother want her
daughter to be with a man like that?”
    “He’s a good boy.”
    “Are you freaking kidding me? He’s a ‘good’ boy?
He’s a drug dealer, Mother!”
    “It’s a rough economy. He’s just trying to make a
living. Not everyone is handed a good start in life, you know?”
    I growled into the phone and said, “He took the easy
road for him, Mom. He doesn’t want to go to work and have to answer to a boss.
He thinks the rules are for everyone else. He wants to live his life as if it’s
one big party.” I realized then I could have been describing her. She and
Justin were made for each other, really. “If you want a place to stay there
will be two conditions: No drugs and No Justin! Do you understand me, Mother?”
    “You don’t have to yell.”
    “I’m not yelling,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Try this, Mom…since you seem to have an easier time putting things in
perspective when it’s about you. When you think about Justin, remember the time
you were at his apartment and it got raided. Remember the time you did in
jail…away from your kid because of that. Remember that he wasn’t in the least
bothered by letting you take the fall for all of that. He’s not a ‘good kid.’”
You need to get over that. He’s a man, and a dangerous one to boot.”
    “Okay, Jessie,” she said. She had the ability to
morph from a poor, misunderstood old woman to a teenager to a little girl and
back again in thirty seconds flat. She could also be a raging bitch in between
if it suited her purposes. She was what she thought she needed to be at that
moment in time. She was a master of manipulation and whether or not she was
using, she had an addict’s personality. I knew that her living here was a
mistake…but what the hell was I supposed to do? I wouldn’t be able to live
knowing that she was homeless either. I was so tired of all the drama.
    *******
    I needed a