Twisted Collide: The new sports romance in the Redville Saints series

Thirteen years later . . .

The early morning sunlight beats down on me from above. I squint my eyes, fighting the brightness, along with the groan that’s dying to release. The last thing I need is for Mom to wake up. I’m not even past the front door, but the walls are thin and she’s a light sleeper.

Today will suck.

Well, not necessarily.

If Mom’s still asleep, I’ll probably slip in unnoticed. That would be ideal. Then I’ll be able to catch some sleep for a few hours. Which I need. Desperately. It’s a well-known scientific fact that I turn into a gremlin when tired.

I tiptoe up the small set of stairs to the door. The ancient lock struggles to accept my key. I cringe, hoping it doesn’t choose today to act up again.

Please be quiet. Please.

No such luck.

The second I twist the lock, the metal screeches loud enough to resurrect the dead. I slam my eyes shut, resisting the urge to bang my head against a wall. The squeak has nothing on the wood as it scratches the floor after I crack the door open.

I must’ve betrayed my country in a previous life.

Unless my penny-pinching mom is sleeping with the TV on full blast at six in the morning, there’s no way she won’t wake up from the noise.

The moment I step past the front mat, I know my prayers have gone unanswered. Mom stands utterly still in the center of the living room, not even turning to greet me. It’s just over seventy-five degrees in here, but she’s still in her flimsy pajamas, her eyes fixed on the old clock above the broken fireplace mantel.

Finally—finally—she turns to me, and I wish she never did.

Boy, does she look pissed.

It feels like the temperature rises ten degrees in an instant. I wish she’d let us use the air conditioner. We’re better off financially than we used to be, but that single-mom, every-dollar-counts mentality has never left her.

Well, fuck.

We’re silent as we face each other, neither of us daring to speak first.

I force out a breath, knowing I can’t smile my way out of this one. “Morning, Mom.”

“Where the hell were you?”

Chills race down my spine. I’ve never heard her speak this loudly—and certainly not at this hour. I wouldn’t be surprised if the neighbors could hear her. I pull my shoulders back, readying myself for the tongue-lashing I’m about to get.

“Mom—”

“Don’t Mom me. I asked you a question.”

And just like that, Mom reminds me that, in her eyes, I’m a constant disappointment.

“I’m twenty-two years old—”

Her hand flies up, and the words I’m about to say die on my tongue.

“Stop right there, young lady. I don’t care if you are twenty-two or thirty-two. This is my house. My rules are law, and coming home at six o’clock in the morning is not allowed in my home.”

For the millionth time since I moved back home, I curse the job market. This is the hardest part of this setup. In college, I got used to being on my own—not having a curfew or my mother to track my every move.

“You knew the rules when you decided to move back in. Right?” she asks, but she knows I know the answer.

We’ve had this conversation many times. Practically once a week. But Mom is the queen of rhetorical questions.

“I mean, as soon as I find a job, I won’t be able to go out anymore, so I just figured . . .”

“And when exactly will that be?” She arches a brow in challenge.

I cross my arms in front of my chest. “Well, without experience, it’s hard.”

Her jaw tightens. She looks like a cartoon character ready to explode. “And when exactly do you plan to do that?”

My brows knit together. “Get experience?”

“Yes. That. Because I’m having a hard time believing you’re trying. I haven’t seen you do anything that remotely looks like you are even attempting to get a job.”

I release a long sigh. This again. She says this every day, and every day, nothing changes. I’m trying. I am. I’ve emailed over one hundred résumés and contacted a recruiter, but nothing has panned out. I’m told the same thing every time—you need experience.

But how am I supposed to get it when nobody wants to give me the opportunity?

“No one wants to hire me. I don’t know what to tell you, Mom.”

She’s quiet for a second, most likely taking in what she deems as my lame excuse, then she shakes her head.

“It’s enough. No more.” She throws her hands up. “I’m done.”

This is typical of her. She excels at drama.

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Josie. You come and go as if you have no responsibility. You don’t work. You act like you’re still in college. You aren’t even trying to find a job.” I open my mouth, but she shakes her head. “No. I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses.”

Finally, she sits, only to begin drumming her fingers on the woven armrest. I feel like I should do something, but I’m frozen in place, waiting for her to throw down the gauntlet of whatever she plans to say to me.

I bite my lower lip. Right now isn’t the time to speak, but I’m finding it hard not to stand up for myself. Maybe if I give myself a little pain, I’ll be able to refrain from angering her even more. The pressure of my teeth isn’t enough to break the skin, but it’s enough to keep me from saying something I’ll regret.

“I saw it.”

Her words pierce the veil of my pity party.

“You saw what?”

She doesn’t blink as she stares me down, not breaking eye contact. “I know all about your little extracurriculars.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Deny it all you want. You won’t change my mind. I’ve been patient enough.” She shakes her head, and a lone tear slips down her cheek so fast, I’m not sure I saw it right. “This isn’t the woman I raised.”

I stare at my feet, unable to meet her eyes. “Mom.”

The wail is guttural, and ugly, and so unlike me, but something changed in the past minute. I don’t know what, but suddenly, it feels like nothing will ever be the same.

“I made a few phone calls . . .” Her words trail off, and my head snaps up so that our gazes lock.

“Who did you call?” My voice cracks.

“A few people.”

“Okay,” I whisper, finding it hard to get the word out. My stomach tightens as if something bad is about to happen. Even the air in the room feels heavier.

“I called your father.”

My knees wobble. I’m barely able to hold steady. I brace my hand against the wall to keep upright. Did she just say what I think she said?

“What do you mean, my father? I don’t understand. You know who he is?”

“Yes, I know who he is.” She sighs heavily, eyes never wavering from mine. “But right now, we need to discuss—”

“What the hell do you mean you won’t discuss this with me right now? I deserve to know. Have you been lying to me my whole life?”

Despite knowing that I obviously have a father, she’s never mentioned him before. I mean, sure, a few sentences in passing, but I’ve always known that the subject was a nonstarter.

Any time I’ve asked in the past, she’s changed the subject. Either that or reminded me that she was the only parent I needed.

Father? She’d laugh, shaking her head. I raised you myself. I provided for you when you got sick, when you found a new book you wanted to read, when you needed a laptop for school. You don’t need a father. You have me.

I stagger against the wall. Her words shock me into silence. I don’t know anything right now—how to think, speak, feel.

Most of my childhood, I thought I was the product of artificial insemination. Not that anything is wrong with that; I just didn’t think anything would keep a father away from his kid . . . so, I must not have had one. Mom, of course, nipped that thought in the bud as soon as I was old enough to ask her.

But a part of me still held on to the hope that she lied to me. The part that wanted to believe that my father would never leave me of his own volition.

In my mind, something stopped him.

In my mind, it was never about me.

He always wanted me.

But now, as I stand on Jell-O legs, feeling like the world will swallow me whole, I have to accept that everything I’ve thought of all these years was a lie I told myself. Something to protect my fragile heart.

“I had a father all this time, and you never told me?”

I have a father, and he never wanted me.

“Josephine, I will not get into that with you right now.”

“Wow.” My eyes go wide. “Really, Mom?”

Did she actually just drop this bomb on me and then say she can’t talk about it? Seriously. Am I in the twilight zone?

What the hell is happening?

“Enough.” She tips her chin up, using that no-nonsense voice she ordered me around with for decades. “All you need to know right now is that I spoke to him, and after a long talk, he agreed to help you.”

My head shakes back and forth, and now I’m sure I will pass out if I don’t sit. I cross the room and plop onto the ottoman across from the couch.

“Help me? I don’t need the help of a man who abandoned me.” I laugh, but it’s humorless. I can’t believe she had access to him this whole time and waited until now to contact him. “In fact, I thought you were on the same page. What happened to the woman who insisted she raise me herself?”

“I did raise you.” She shrugs. “We didn’t need him.”

But I did.

I needed him, and he didn’t want me.

Without even knowing my father, I already hate him.

I scoff. “And now I do?”

“I will not sit still as you waste your life away as a…as a…”

“As a what, Mom?” I shake my head, raising a hand up. “You know what? I don’t want to know. All my life, you’ve made decisions for me without ever considering what I want. What’s best for me.”

She crosses her arms at her chest. “There’s a lot you don’t know—”

“And whose fault is that?” I raise a brow. “None of this was your call to make.”

“As your mother, everything regarding you is my call, including this.” She stands, plucks an envelope off the coffee table, and tosses it in my lap. “I expect you out of the home by the time I return from work.”

“Excuse me?”

The envelope tumbles to the carpet, along with every jagged piece of my heart.

“You’re lost, sweetheart. You need change.” She shakes her head, sighing. “He agreed to let you live with him.”

“You-you’re sending me away?”

It’s one thing to know my father doesn’t want me—he’s never met me. Who is he to judge me?

But my mother?

She’s known me my whole life. She held me when I lost my first tooth, when my best friend moved to Canada, when I discovered boys are assholes who break hearts like candy. We’ve never had the best relationship, but still…she’s my mom.

Mom ignores my question. “You’ll finally get the work experience you’ve been going on about.”

“You want me to work with the man who abandoned me for twenty-two years?” I shoot up to my feet, crushing the envelope beneath my heel and twisting it for good measure. “I refuse.”

“That’s up to you, Josephine. You’re an adult, after all…” She pats the crown of my head. It takes every ounce of self-control not to close my eyes and lean into her touch. “…but you’re no longer welcome in my home.”

And just like that, she leaves without even glancing back.

It’s true what they say…

Parents teach kids the most important lessons.

Mine taught me that I don’t need anyone.