Hot and Bothered (Sin and Tonic Book 4)

by Athena Wright

  I knew I sounded unconvinced, even to my own ears.

  But maybe it was a good thing for me to talk to them. To get some kind of closure. I’d never actually spoken to my mother and father since the day of the wedding. They had no idea how well I was doing. They had no idea how I was thriving.

  If nothing else, I could show them I was managing just fine without them.

  “You sure?” Evan asked.

  I pressed my lips together and nodded.

  “Yes. I need to see this through.”

  26

  I clutched my messenger bag, fingers curling tight around the straps. It was the bag Evan had bought me that first day, along with the dress and ballet flats I was wearing. I’d paid him back the moment I could, of course, but I still felt like I was in his debt.

  That feeling only increased tenfold as I walked into the restaurant to find my mother and father already seated and looking at menus. They had insisted on choosing the place. It was one of their favorites, of course, which meant I’d never be able to afford any dish they served. My parents would no doubt insist on paying for me. Which meant I’d be relying on them. Again.

  Seeing their faces again reminded me I’d had to rely on other people my whole life.

  I had messaged them to suggest we meet at a restaurant that was less upscale, but they’d ignored my suggestion, simply texting me a time and a place. They’d never taken my opinions into account before. I didn’t know why I’d expected them to start now.

  I took a steadying breath and forced my hands to uncurl, easing my tight grip on my bag. I told myself over and over again that I could do this. I could face them and stand my ground. I was a different person now. I wasn’t the obedient little girl stuck under their thumb anymore.

  I walked over to their table. They looked up from their menus. Their facial expressions didn’t change. They still had that same cool, composed, and slightly haughty air to them.

  “Alice.” My father stood and put a hand on my shoulder, patting a few times.

  “Father,” I said in return, nodding my head in greeting. I hoped my voice didn’t sound as shaky as I thought it did.

  My mother stood as well and leaned forward to press her cheek to mine with a kiss noise. I returned it.

  “Thank you for coming,” my father said.

  “Take a seat,” my mother said primly.

  There were no bear hugs from my father, no bright smiles from my mother. Not that I’d expected any.

  Once we were all seated, I waited for them to start.

  My father was as aloof and distant as always, already going back to perusing the menu options even though he must have known what they offered, considering he had business meetings here at least once a week.

  My mother contemplated me with a shrewd expression, her lips pressed together.

  Neither of them spoke. I didn’t want to break first, didn’t want to be the one to end this stalemate, but I hated the silence. My shoulders rose higher and higher with every passing second, until they nearly touched my ears.

  “What did you want to talk about?” I finally asked.

  “I think you know,” my father replied, not even looking up from his menu.

  There were lots of reasons they could be upset with me. Running away from the wedding, foremost, but also for telling my sister off and refusing to come home.

  I supposed it was all the same. I’d disrespected them, humiliated them.

  “I know you’re mad at me—” I started to say.

  My mother let out a sniff, too ladylike to be a snort, but close enough to tell me I’d just made an understatement of the century. My father gave her a sharp look. She frowned at him, but pressed her lips together and went silent. My father cleared his throat.

  “We’re disappointed in your behavior,” he said. “We’re disappointed in the decisions you’ve made.”

  I opened my mouth to apologize, as was my first instinct whenever my father gave me that displeased look. I snapped my mouth shut before I could. Maybe I had disappointed them, but I’d only been acting in my own best interests. I wasn’t going to apologize for doing what was best for me.

  But I did feel bad about one thing.

  “I know I must have made you worry. I didn’t plan on it. I just—” My mouth went dry.

  How could I explain how trapped I’d felt, how the only way I could think to escape was to run away? How could I explain that the thought of marrying someone I didn’t love made my chest clench like it was being squeezed between two vises? How could I explain that the thought of living the life they’d chosen for me made me want to scream until my throat bled?

  Maybe I didn’t have to explain. Maybe I didn’t own them any explanation.

  “The only thing I’m sorry for,” I started, “is not having the courage to tell you no.”

  Both their eyes went wide.

  “I always tried to do everything you told me to do,” I said. “I always tried to please you. But not anymore. I’m going to live my own life from now on.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother snapped. “What kind of life are you living? Working at a bar?” The disdain in her voice was obvious. ”Living with god knows who, doing whatever you want without a single thought for how your actions have affected us?”

  “Why didn’t you ever care about how your actions affected me?” My voice rose with every word. “You’ve never asked me what I wanted. You’ve never cared about my thoughts. You’ve never cared about my feelings. You tried to marry me off for some business merger!”

  My mother began to reply, but my father held up a hand to stop her. She pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest.

  “There’s clearly been a misunderstanding,” my father said. “We never wanted to force you into anything. You never told us you didn’t want to marry Jacob. We thought you two were happy together.”

  I inhaled sharply, held my breath for a second, then let it out slowly.

  He was right. I’d never actually said the words out loud. After all, I liked Jacob. He was a good guy. He’d treated me right. There was no reason why I shouldn’t have married him, except for that I just plain didn’t want to, and that should have been reason enough.

  But it was true, I’d never spoken those words out loud. I hadn’t even thought them to myself until the day of the wedding. I’d had doubts and worries, I’d been uncertain, but I hadn’t seriously considered the fact that marrying Jacob wasn’t what I wanted. I’d really only come to terms with it on the day of the wedding.

  Could I really blame my parents for not knowing something I hadn’t even known myself?

  The rest of the dinner went much more smoothly than I’d imagined it would. By the time the server brought our food they’d stopped talking about what I’d done and started making small talk, mostly gossiping about their circle of friends or the charity projects my mom was involved in. Maybe they wanted to pretend everything was normal.

  When I said goodbye, I thought they’d tell me to come home, but they didn’t. I didn’t really understand why they wanted to meet in the first place.

  When I got home, Evan launched himself off the sofa to come over and greet me.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  I toed off my shoes and threw my bag on the table.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully.

  “What did they say?” he asked.

  “At first it was all about how they were disappointed in me,” I said.

  “You know it’s not up to you to make them happy, right?” Evan said.

  “I know.” I dragged him back over to the sofa and flopped down, pulling him with me. I rested my head on his shoulder. “My father said something that made me second-guess everything.”

  Evan put a hand on my knee and rubbed soothingly, waiting patiently for me to continue.

  “I never actually told them I didn’t want to marry Jacob,” I said. “I’ve never really said no to them about anything. I always just did what the
y wanted. I was upset at the way they treated me growing up, but is it really their fault if I never spoke up? They probably thought I was perfectly happy. I never gave them a reason to suspect otherwise.”

  Evan made a soft sound, and I could tell he was holding his tongue until I’d finished, even though he clearly wanted to chime in.

  “I didn’t even know what I really wanted,” I said, lowering my eyes to look at my hands wringing in my lap. “How can I blame them for not reading my mind? Maybe I brought all of this on myself.”

  “Is that what they told you?” Evan asked.

  “No, they didn’t say anything like that,” I said.

  He tipped my head up with gentle fingers on my chin.

  “Do you regret it?” he asked. “Do you regret leaving everything behind?”

  “No! Never.” I shook my head vehemently. “If I hadn’t left I’d be married to someone I didn’t love. I’d be stuck in a life I hated instead of making my own way like I am right now.” I cupped Evan’s cheek. “I’d never have met you.”

  He turned his face toward my hand and pressed a kiss to the center of my palm.

  For the next week, I couldn’t stop recalling that dinner with my parents. They had briefly admonished me for my terrible life choices at the start, but they hadn’t harped on it the way I thought they might have. I’d assumed I’d be in for an earful, and I’d expected I would have had to defend myself at every turn.

  Instead, they had kept the conversation light and surface-level, never delving into any subject that might spark more conflict. They hadn’t mentioned Jacob and his family, they hadn’t mentioned my sister, they hadn’t mentioned the wedding.

  Maybe they weren’t as upset with me as I’d thought. Maybe they were hoping to reconcile and this was their first step. I had no intention of moving back home again, but it was looking like I wouldn’t have to cut off my parents completely.

  Maybe it was possible to live my own life and still have a relationship with my family.

  27

  A loud ringing woke me and Evan from our slumber. I groaned and rolled over, peeking my head up to see what the commotion was.

  “Who’s calling this early?” Evan grumbled as he flailed an arm at his bedside table.

  I wondered what could be so important it couldn’t be said through text.

  He answered the phone in a groggy voice. He shot straight up, swinging his legs out of bed and planting his feet firmly on the floor.

  “Got it,” he said tersely. “I’ll be right there.”

  I sat up straight, too.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed.

  “It’s my mother.” He tugged on his jeans and threw a t-shirt over his head.

  “Is she okay?” I also grabbed my clothes on the floor and shimmied into a dress.

  “She’s probably okay.” Evan sounded doubtful even as he said the words. “It’s Christie I’m worried about. She doesn’t handle it too well when Mom gets like this.”

  “Gets like what?” I asked.

  Evan shoved his wallet, phone, and keys into his pocket. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Wait, I’m coming too,” I said.

  “No,” he shook his head.

  “Why not?” I asked, confused.

  “You don’t need to see this,” he replied.

  Now I was even more worried.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you need to be there for your sister then I want to be there for you.”

  “Alice.” He breathed out heavily through his nose.

  “I’m coming.” The words were more demanding than any I’d ever spoken before, and I was almost surprised at myself.

  “Fine,” he said curtly, a strained line between his brows. “You can come. But just—”

  “Just what?” I asked when he stopped abruptly.

  “Never mind,” he muttered. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  We hurried to his car. The ride was silent. We weren’t too far away from wherever we were going, because within fifteen minutes we had pulled up into a house in the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood. Evan got out and closed the door behind him, striding up the front steps without looking behind to see if I was following.

  I cautiously followed in his footsteps, not sure what I was going to see.

  When I stepped through the front door, everything looked normal. A typical suburban house. Within moments, Evan’s sister came flying down the stairs.

  “She won’t get out of bed,” Christie said urgently. “I tried everything. She won’t even respond to me. She was fine yesterday. I think this is the start of a really bad one.”

  “It’s okay,” Evan said. “I’m here. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Evan went up the stairs, and his sister followed. Neither of them stopped to explain what was going on. I found myself alone in the front hall, unsure of what to do. I looked around and saw the living room and kitchen. Things were a little untidy, especially with all the dishes in the sink.

  At least that was one thing I could do.

  I did the dishes, took out the garbage, swept the floors, and did a bit of a clean up to put random junk away. I was about to start on the living room when Evan came back down. I rushed to him.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said shortly.

  “Is your mom going to be all right?” I asked, trying again from a different angle.

  “She will be,” he said. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

  He headed out the front door.

  “What about Christie?” I asked, following him out to the car.

  “She’ll be fine, too,” he said. “She just worries when Mom gets like this.”

  “Gets like what?” I hated how cryptic he was being.

  Evan slipped into the driver’s seat and started the car. I quickly hopped in, half afraid he would peel out of the driveway without me. He seemed determined to get out of here as fast as he could.

  “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  “It’s not any of your business.”

  I flinched, taken aback. He grimaced with regret.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have snapped. I’m not upset with you. I’m upset about this whole situation.”

  “Will you please tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  “There’s a reason I don’t really talk about my family,” he said. “There’s a reason I never bring girls home. I don’t want to scare people away.”

  “Nothing you can say will scare me away.”

  “My mother has bipolar disorder,” he said bluntly. ”She’s always had her ups and downs, but it got worse after our father left us, after she discovered he had a whole other family he’d kept secret from us. It sent her into a downward spiral, and she hasn’t really recovered from that.”

  I let out a small sound, trying not to let on how shocked I was. That hadn’t even been on my radar of possible explanations.

  “When she’s on her meds, she’s usually fine,” he said. “But she hates them. She says they make her brain fuzzy, that she doesn’t like the way they make her feel. So she’ll stop taking them and not tell anyone. She’ll be fine for a while, and no one can tell she’s getting worse because she’s good at hiding the symptoms. But then it’ll get too bad to hide and she’ll have episodes like this. She won’t, or can’t, get out of bed. She gets practically catatonic. Or she’ll have a manic high and go days without sleep and have delusions. Or she’ll get angry or anxious and lash out with screaming fits. It’s always a gamble with her.”

  “I’m sorry, “I said. “That sounds really frightening to deal with.”

  “It can be,” he confessed quietly. “My sister and I are both used to it now. It’s like a never ending cycle.” Evan gripped the steering wheel so tight the leather creaked under his hands. “I keep telling Christie she should just move out. That she could come live with me, that she doesn’t need to be in a
situation like that. But she always thinks Mom’s going to get better. She always has hope that this time the meds will stick and she’ll be okay. And then something like this will happen and it starts all over again.”

  I put a hand on his knee and squeezed.

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know how to comfort him.

  “Thanks,” he murmured, adjusting the mirror to avoid looking at me.

  Evan went quiet for the rest of the drive home, and when we arrived at the apartment he started packing a bag while checking his phone every five minutes, probably waiting to hear from Christie. I assumed he was planning on going back and spending the night there.

  “You said your mother will be fine?” I asked, leaving the conversation open for Evan to decide whether or not to answer.

  “She’ll start getting better now,” he said. “It’ll take a few days or weeks, but she’ll come back around.”

  “How?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Because I forced her to take her meds,” he said. “That’s why Christie calls me. I’m the only one who can get through to her. I hate using threats on her, but it’s the only thing Mom responds to. She believes me when I tell her I’ll have her hospitalized. Christie’s too much of a good kid. Threats from her mean nothing.” Evan let out a pained scoff. “I’m the asshole who’ll have her committed.”

  Committed sounded like such a cruel word. Like you were locking someone away against their will. But I supposed that was exactly what it was. If a loved one was hurting or in trouble and either couldn’t or wouldn’t do what it took to get better, sometimes you had to take drastic measures.

  “Do you think maybe…” I trailed off, wondering if it was even my place to say anything. “Do you think that might be a good thing? To send your mom somewhere? Somewhere she can get better?”

  “Shit, Alice,” Evan’s eyes went wide. “I’m not actually going to send my mom to a psych ward.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I’m not that much of an asshole,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that to her.”

  “Wouldn’t they be able to help her?” I asked.