“Only because I knew you couldn’t handle the goodies.” She shakes her chest and her tits bounce against my chest. She pauses and then lowers her cheek against me, breathing quietly. “Thank you, Ethan… for everything.”

I could tell her she doesn’t need to thank me. That I was glad to do it. That I loved helping her. But I’m not. I wish it’d never happened. Instead, I wish she never had to go through all of this.

I mutter, “You’re welcome.” Then lace my fingers with hers and tug her toward the door, ready to take her back to our home and get her the hell away from this place. I’m ready to take her back home.

To our home.

Chapter Thirteen

Lila

It’s been four days since my little episode and for the most part, life has been fairly normal, except for my relentless need to fixate on Ethan. Ever since he found me in the bathroom stall, I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s worse than before, an intense growing obsession. I’m not even sure what it is. The way he looked at me, touched me, spoke to me, joked with me, forgave me, and then took me home. They’re such little things, yet they mean so much. He may be rough, blunt, somewhat perverted, and completely imperfect according to my mother’s standards, but I seriously wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve had the supposed perfect guy before, the one who gave me rings, told me I was beautiful, told me he loved me, that I owned his soul, and that he’d do anything for me. But it was a bunch of shit. Unreal. Perfect doesn’t exist. Realness does. Realness is what I need. And Ethan is as real as anyone I’ve ever met.

I’m trying to figure out what this all means in terms of my feelings for him. I thought I understood love once, but it turned out I was wrong. Could the feelings I have for Ethan possibly be love? I have no idea, but eventually I’m going to have to figure it out, instead of wandering around analyzing everything.

I’m also looking for a job again, one that’s Ethan approved, and I’m still getting used to that fact. No one has ever thought highly enough of me to think I deserved something better. Sure, my mother wouldn’t approve of the job at Danny’s either, but not because she thought I was better than that. She would think the Summers’s name was better, but not my character. In fact, if she was basing it solely on my character she’d say I belonged there, something she made pretty clear during one of her phone calls.

“You did what?” she practically screams into the phone and I have to hold the receiver away from my ear as it rings against her voice. “You moved in with some guy?”

I put the receiver back to my ear and balance it between my head and my shoulder. “Yes, that’s what I said.”

“I know that’s what you said,” she replies curtly. “But what I don’t get is why the hell you did it.”

I’m rinsing off the dishes as I load up the dishwasher. I also vacuumed, swept, and cleaned the toilets, and even though it sucked, I also took a bit of pride in doing it. “Because I needed a place to live.”

“Is this guy rich?”

“No, he’s normal.”

“Normal isn’t acceptable, Lila Summers. Normal will get you nowhere but pregnant and living in a shack and wishing your life was better.”

“Normal is perfectly acceptable.” I smile at myself, saying it aloud, as I scrub some green stuff off the plate underneath the stream of water. “And besides, what makes you such an expert on normal. You don’t even know anyone who is.”

“Your aunt Jennabelle is.”

“I didn’t know I had an aunt Jennabelle.”

“She’s my sister and you don’t know her because she lives in a studio apartment with her three children and had to take a job as a secretary to make ends meet after she left her husband when he started screwing a woman he worked with. And no one ever wants to visit a poverty-stricken, single-parent divorcee who lives in a crappy apartment. If she would have just stuck with her husband and overlooked his one flaw then she wouldn’t live in the run-down part of town with a bunch of drug addicts and criminals.”

“Just because they live in the run-down part of town doesn’t mean they’re drug addicts and criminals,” I say. “And I would love to visit her,” I argue, rinsing off a glass. “She sounds like a strong woman who was brave enough to leave a man who obviously didn’t love her enough to treat her well and she’s been able to take care of herself.”

“She’s poor, Lila,” she harshly snaps like the word is so filthy it has no right to even leave her lips. “She can’t even afford a new car.”

“Neither can I,” I state, sliding some silverware under the faucet and scrubbing the gunk off with my fingers.

“Well, that’s your own damn fault for being so stubborn. You could have everything you wanted in life, Lila. The perfect life, but you keep messing it up for yourself. Instead of doing what I’ve told you to do and come home and live with us until you can get back on track and meet a nice, wealthy guy who will take care of you, you’re living in poverty, probably taking the bus.”

“I’m not living in poverty,” I reply. “Not yet, anyway. Thanks to my normal friend, who’s letting me stay here with him because he’s nice. Money and cars and nice clothes aren’t everything, mother. And I don’t want to sacrifice being around people who I like just to have a glamorous life.” Wow, when did I get to this place? “I want to be around people I care about and who care about me. That’s all I really want in life.” God, I care about Ethan. I really, really do.

“Well, that’s a lovely way to look at life. Maybe you should go visit your Aunt Jennabelle and get a real taste of what life is like,” she says, and then adds, “And what on earth is that noise? That water noise in the background.”

“Water.” I put the plate in the dishwasher.

“Well, I know that,” she snaps. “But what’s it from?”

I turn off the faucet and close the dishwasher door. “It’s from the sink.” I press the power button and wipe off my hands on a towel. “I just got done doing the dishes.”

“You what?” she shouts into the phone so loudly my ear rings. “That’s it, Lila. This kind of behavior is unacceptable.”

“Why? Because I’m cleaning up after myself?” I walk into the living room and flop down on the couch. I have some vanilla-scented candles burning and the whole house has a shiny, polished look to it. It looks good and I hope Ethan will appreciate it when he gets back from work.

“Summers’s do not clean up after themselves,” she snaps. “They hire maids for that.”

“Well, since I’m broke, a maid really isn’t an option.” I sit back in the chair and comb my fingers through my hair. It’s still long and perfectly trimmed just like I was taught to maintain it. “God, with the way you’re acting, you’d think I’d just told you I did drugs or something.”

She laughs into the phone. “Quit being a little bitch and be grateful for everything I’ve done and given to you. Without me, you’d be worse off than you are now. And that’s going to end quickly because I’m coming down to get you.”

“Good luck finding me,” I say, inspecting my split ends. I should really just cut my hair off, like I wanted to when I was a kid. “Vegas is a very big city.”

“What is wrong with you?” she cries. “You’re being rude and inconsiderate. I don’t get it. I don’t get any of this, like why you’re even living in Vegas in the first place.”

“Because it was the first place I pointed to on the map,” I mutter to myself, remembering how I got here.

“What are you talking about?” she seethes hotly. “Are you even listening to me?”

“Nope, not really.”

“Well, you need to,” she snaps. “If you’d just listen to me then you’d quit messing up your life. Being with a guy because he cares about you is going to get you nowhere, especially if he’s some low-life like the guys your sister dates. He’ll end up screwing you over and then you’ll be left alone, probably pregnant and poor.”