Betting On It

by Violet Blake

  “Will do,” Jessica said. “You guys will make up. You’ve been friends as long as you and I have, and it would be awful if you didn’t.”

  As much as I wished that would happen, I didn’t count on it. I sucked down the rest of my drink, waved the server over, and we ordered another round.

  “He’s been taking the week off,” Emily furnished. “I know you’re wondering.”

  I ducked my head and nodded.

  “Mom said he needs to get things sorted out, relax, stop living for work, and get in touch with his inner shadow self or some shit,” she continued.

  That sounded like Cecilia. Very Jungian.

  “I hope it helps,” I said. “But if you don’t mind, I’m not ready to talk about any of it.”

  They nodded, and that was that.

  ...

  Saturday was the first day since Disaster Day that I didn’t have anything planned. No work to do, no sex to have, nothing.

  Which did little to help keep the blues away. I’d missed the morning runs with him, the texts during the day, everything. I gave Eva the Waterford vase he’d sent to my office so I wouldn’t have to look at it. I hadn’t had the motivation to get out on the trail at all. Weariness gave way to that familiar feeling of needing to get the anger out. Worse than it’d been when I’d first come to town, I had to run until I no longer had enough energy to feel pissed off. Hurt. Destroyed.

  At 7:30 I put pulled on my running outfit, stepped into my sneakers, and set my ragey playlist to repeat. After popping in my earbuds, I hit the sidewalk, making my way over to the track where a lot of the neighborhood moms went during the daytime.

  Ripped straight from the pages of Forrest Gump, I ran until I didn’t want to run anymore. By ten, I was nothing but sweat and soggy clothes, and, fuck, I was hungry.

  Eating lunch and taking a nap were top on my to-do list. Maybe I’d paint for a while. Anything to forget the bizarre events of the last week, especially the last twenty-four hours. To say I was shocked that my mother hadn’t called to gloat about her coup was vastly understated.

  So imagine my surprise when I jogged up to my building and saw none other than the devil herself waiting for me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dressed in a power suit, she was so very out of place in the 100-degree July heat in front of my subpar building. She exited the backseat of her black Town Car and approached me the same way a lion tamer would approach an angry beast.

  What. The. Fuck.

  “Good morning, Blair.” Her smile turned to barely disguised revulsion when she got a close-up view of my dripping self. “I see you’ve had quite a run.”

  I stared. What else could I do? I was too tired to run away. “I did.”

  “What do you say we go inside? You can shower, and I’ll take you to lunch.” She patted her hair, a razor-cut silver bob that hit her jawline.

  Chalk that up to the very last way I wanted to spend my Saturday. I’d rather lay in bed, unshowered and slothy and listening to Taylor Swift’s greatest breakup songs than spend the afternoon trying to make nice with her.

  “It’s very hot out here,” she said. “Would you invite me inside so we can talk about the campaign?”

  “I have plans today. And every other day until the rest of eternity.”

  “I flew all the way from Boston to see you. We have an issue to discuss.” She made it sound as if she’d just walked all the way from Jerusalem.

  I started toward the front steps. “You should have called me first. I have a life, you know.”

  “So you’ve told me.”

  “Then I don’t need to remind you that you cut me out of your life? Funny that you seem to be the one trying to wedge yourself back in, isn’t it?” I keyed in my combination on the front door and turned.

  “Wouldn’t it be disappointing to your coworkers if the big account they just landed disappeared?” She examined her manicure and flicked an invisible bit of dust off of her nail. “All because you wouldn’t let me come in and talk?”

  Just when I thought she couldn’t get any lower. “Wow. You kiss your constituents’ babies with that mouth?”

  She shook her head. “When you hear what I have to say your appreciation for me will change.”

  I opened the door and moved out of the way so she could enter. She at least had the grace not to make comments over my decay-chic decor. I unlocked my door and let her inside. “I’m going to take a shower. Make yourself at home.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and took a seat at the table.

  This was insanity. When would I get away from her and her controlling ways? As long as I lived on the planet Earth, or granted her wish of me being dead? Probably never.

  I guess I should’ve searched for the silver lining. Instead of spending all day crying over Sawyer, now I could have a nice fight with my mom.

  I showered and dressed in a black knit dress. Barefoot, I walked into my kitchen and found her still seated at the table, her hands folded neatly on the surface.

  “You have a lovely place,” she said.

  “It’s awful. But it’s mine, and I earned it.”

  “Think of what you’ll be able to buy now that you’ve been promoted. And I’m sure you’ll see quite a few bonuses from my account.” She might as well have declared me a saint, too, for the way she spoke.

  “I would’ve been promoted even without your account,” I said.

  “I’m sure that’s true.”

  I walked to the cupboard and grabbed my box of lavender stress relief tea. “Would you like some tea? Water?”

  A stake to the heart, perhaps?

  “Tea would be lovely. Thank you.” Again with that smile.

  I slammed the kettle on the stove and turned the burner up to high, thankful my house was at least clean. Breakups did that. Staring at the simmering kettle, I focused my irritation everywhere but her.

  “You seem well,” she said. “You’ve lost quite a bit of weight, haven’t you?”

  Yeah, well, I’d been on the post-breakup eating-nothing-but-my-feelings diet. “Thank you?”

  “Where would you like to eat, dear? I’m afraid my hunger is still on Eastern Time.”

  The water boiled in the kettle, much like my temper. “I could order take-out.”

  “I’d really like to see the city you live in,” she said. “It would be wonderful to see where you’ve been living, the places you like to go.”

  I squashed the suspicion that she wanted more people to blackmail. “Um, I guess we could go to Fatty’s. You might like their Cobb salad.”

  “Lovely.” She took her phone out of her clutch and tapped on the screen.

  Stab me. Right now. In the jugular, preferably.

  The kettle whistled, and I poured water into the mugs, added the tea bags, and brought them to the table. I sat across from her and stirred honey into my mug.

  “I don’t want you to interfere in my life.”

  “You mean help?”

  “It’s only help if it’s needed,” I said quietly.

  “Is this really what you want for yourself?” she asked, waving her hand across the expanse of my apartment. “You are capable of so much more.”

  My fingers tensed around my mug. “I think I’m doing pretty well for five-ish months on my own, don’t you? There’s no such thing as overnight success.”

  “Perhaps not.” She drank from her mug and nodded. “This is nice.”

  We finished our drinks in silence, and when our cups were empty she stood. “Ready?”

  Resigned to having my afternoon utterly destroyed, I followed her to the car. Mom might pretend to play nice, but the woman was ruthless. It was one thing to pay the price for my smart mouth, but I didn’t want the people I worked with to bear the brunt of it, too.

  At the restaurant she cranked up the charm and asked for a window seat, which the hostess was all too happy to give to her.

  Nobody was immune to her.

  Except me. She asked mundane questi
ons about the city, my job, my friends. All of which I knew were going into her dossier on me to use against me later. I answered as if I were on trial and pleading the Fifth.

  Our meals arrived and she appraised the fare on her plate. “What an excellent choice of restaurant you’ve made, Blair. This is delicious.”

  I gave her a stiff smile—it’s probably the first time she’d ever praised me—and took a bite of my steak.

  “You will love the home I’ve leased for you in Boston,” she said.

  My fork fell out of my hand. People looked my way and I laughed it off, but once the attention went away, amusement was the last thing I could pull off. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s going to be difficult to conduct your campaign if you’re in Colorado and I’m in Massachusetts. What a logistical nightmare that would be.”

  “You can’t—I can’t—no. No way. I was told I would have to commute a few times, but most of what I do would be done from Fort Collins,” I said.

  “True, but I need my family to be a part of this. It never looks good if family isn’t present at these sorts of things. People will talk.”

  “They already talk, Mom. You did a lovely job getting sympathy for yourself, when I’m the one who nearly died. I’m sure that creative brain of yours can come up with something compelling.”

  “Your voice is rising, Blair. Keep it down.”

  I put my napkin down with as much force as I would swatting a fly. “I’m not moving to Boston.”

  “You may change your mind after making the trip a few times,” she said in a voice that only a self-righteous mother could pull off.

  “And when your campaign is done, then what?” Rather, what lengths would she go to in order to keep me under her thumb?

  “I had hoped that you would want to stay. There are plenty of firms you can work for in Boston or New York, especially after you finish with such a huge campaign. Think of all the possibilities. Besides, what do you have keeping you here?”

  “Friends,” I said.

  “You have friends in Boston,” she said.

  “Hmm. You know how many of them called? Zero. Exactly zero of them called to see if I was all right,” I said.

  She drew in a slow, steady breath and let it out. “Forgiveness goes a long way.”

  “I don’t recall any of them apologizing,” I said. “In fact, I haven’t received apologies from anybody. Not Ethan, not you, or Dad.”

  “That’s all you wanted? An apology? Fine, then.” She gave an impatient roll of her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t live up to your expectations when you broke off your wedding. But this is neither the time nor the place to go into that. I came here to have a pleasant lunch with my daughter.”

  She’d said nothing about me almost dying, about using my illness for a photo op to make sure nobody thought I’d been trashed the night before. I schooled my emotion. There were eyes and ears everywhere, and if I caused a scene who knew what would get out? The impact on my job and those on my team would be huge, no doubt. I didn’t want to start the campaign by having to clean up a mess I’d made myself.

  I finished my lunch in silence, half listening to Mom’s stories about what’d been happening in her life since I left, nodding and performing as expected. She’d been smart taking me to a hip, busy restaurant downtown. I’d have no choice but to play the part she’d wanted me to perform.

  We finished eating and she paid for lunch. She wanted to walk through the shops in downtown, every once in a while stopping so she could admire jewelry in a window, or even go inside to try something on. Sometimes she’d stop and answer a text, sharing her amusement over how much the work never stopped.

  I pretended to care. Barely.

  When she’d had her fill we drove back to my place.

  “Thanks for lunch, Mom.” I opened the door.

  “Wait,” she said, reaching for my hand. “We still have to talk.”

  “I’m…I’m just tired. I have a lot going on right now, and I need some time to think,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “but for now I’ve had my fill.”

  “You might want to get used to me, dear. Soon I’m going to take up most of your time,” she said, satisfaction lighting up her eyes.

  “Isn’t it, you know, better when somebody wants to be with you voluntarily? I can’t see how this whole blackmail thing is going to strengthen our relationship. Really, aside from the power trip, what advantage do you have using me like this?”

  Her red lips curled into a bloody murder smile. “Speaking of blackmail, let’s get down to the bottom of the real reason for my trip.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I hear your cell phone was stolen last month?”

  Dread curdled in my gut, turning my insides to cement. “Yes?”

  “And I’m sure you thought it was just a random mugging?” she prompted.

  I nodded.

  “You should really get to know more about technology, darling. There’s a feature that can wipe out your phone if it’s stolen, making it impossible for people to see what you’ve been up to.”

  The blood drained from my head. Surely she couldn’t mean the texts Sawyer and I had been exchanging.

  “Judging by the terror I’m seeing you know what I’m speaking of. The funny thing about cell phones and cloud storage is that once a thief gets into your phone, it’s not terribly hard to get into the files, too. And if you neglected to disable the stolen phone and wipe its contents like you did, well, it’s a veritable goldmine.”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed, falling against the side of the car. I remembered the one with my face that I’d so stupidly sent. My appendix scar was visible in it, which linked it to all the others. “Oh my God.”

  “You know we’re targets. People would do anything to tarnish my reputation, and you are quite the source of intrigue lately.”

  “What are you saying? That somebody did it to hurt you?” The mugger did seem pretty good at her job. Not that I had anything to compare her to.

  “You, little girl, have no idea the debt you’re in. You have been nothing but trouble for me.”

  Desperation clawed its way out of me. I couldn’t be in her debt. No way. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you. I’ve worked so hard for this, and you can’t take it away now because of a power trip.”

  She rolled her eyes to express how silly she thought I was being. “You call this a power trip, I call it a symbiotic relationship. Although you believe you’ve earned everything you have, let’s take stock.”

  “Mom—”

  “I raised you, sent you to the best school, paid endowments for you to receive the best advantage at school. Against my wishes, I sent you to the college of your choice, and again paid insurance for your performance.”

  “Wait a second. What do you mean you insured my performance? I worked my butt off at school. There was no payment for performance.”

  She waved a flippant hand. “We’ll never really know, will we? You wanted straight As, I made sure you got them.”

  Sick. I was going to be sick.

  “We can go back and forth on this all you want, dear, but the result is not going to change. Without me, and everything I’ve done for you to this point, you are nothing. Now it’s time for you to show some appreciation to me.”

  “By capitulating,” I said.

  “By showing me respect.”

  “I don’t respect people who only spend time with me when it’s convenient. Or who tell me they wish I was dead just for breaking off a wedding to an absolute prick.”

  “Watch what you say, darling. I’d hate to show you how far-reaching my influence is in the brewing industry.”

  She wouldn’t. Actually, she would. Hate? Total understatement for how I felt for her now.

  I left the car and ran up into my apartment. That was the moment I knew that I’d officially been beaten.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Later that afternoon I went to Jessica’s. Because what better way to wal
low in self-loathing was there than help her get ready for a charity auction featuring a painting of my naked body?

  I hadn’t told her about the threat Mom made this afternoon. One thing at a time.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go?” she asked, holding up two earrings to her lobes for comparison.

  “Pretty sure. Just promise me you’ll win tonight. After the whole nude-selfie-blackmail thing, I’m sure even my great-grandchildren will be indebted to her forever.” I was all for giving Mom the finger, but I didn’t exactly want to bring my mama drama into the spotlight.

  “We’ll find a way to get rid of her,” she said, although the fear in her eyes matched mine.

  I sighed. “I’m never going to get rid of her. She’s like the Emperor Palpatine of the Senate.”

  Both her hands squeezed my arms. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “We always do,” I said.

  A few minutes before 6:30 I was back at home, heating up a Party Pizza in my oven. Keegan’s weekly kegger raged upstairs, and even my neighbor across the hall joined in. Oh, the joys of living in a place near campus. Of course, the way things had gone today, the temptation to join them was pretty great. My text notification dinged.

  Jessica: You’re safe. The painting is off the floor.

  Blair. Thank you! I owe you so much.

  Jessica: We’ll talk soon. Breathe.

  Breathing, it turns out, wasn’t so easy. Half an hour later somebody knocked on my door. Jessica had probably ditched the auction. Hopefully she had that painting in hand so I could burn it.

  I got part of my assumption right.

  I opened the door, my lips poised to unleash such praise for Jessica’s awesomeness that she’d probably run away. But instead of Jessica and my painting, I found Sawyer and my painting.

  My heart slammed into my ribs. My breathing ceased. My lips curled into a sneer that would’ve done Billy Idol proud.

  I slammed the door shut and sucked in a room’s worth of oxygen. Best to have panic attacks behind closed doors.

  “Blair,” he said, his voice barely audible over the party going on. “Please open your door. I can’t stand out here with this all night.”