It was turning out to be one weird week. First that dramatic and exaggerated end to their months-long mission, and now Kyle's mom wanted to talk to him. Alone. At her office.
Kyle had only gone through this twice before. The summons was serious business. First they'd talked about Kyle moving out of the house. It had been a discussion filled with pertinent arguments why he should stay home. It hadn't worked. One week later, he was out.
The second time, it was about convincing Sam and Jerry not to move out, too. Maxi had barked at the worst tree possible. He couldn't wait for all his brothers to get out of that house.
But now that they were all out and minding their own business, what could she want? It was September so too soon to try to convince him to come home for Christmas. Not knowing was very troubling.
Possibilities swam around his head as he took the elevator to the thirtieth floor of the office building where Maxi spent most of her days. With all her kids out of the house and her husband running amok after someone very capable of killing him, she'd understandably buried herself in work.
Maybe she just wanted to catch up. But then they'd go out to lunch or something or speak on the phone. Maybe she wanted to lecture him about how often they talked because he tried cutting it down to as rarely as possible. Maxi had initially called every day, even more than once per day, but he'd made it clear he wasn't about to change his calling habits just because he was out of the house.
After what happened in France three years ago, things had changed.
What he'd first taken lightly, namely Maxi's assault on him for failing to save Sam, started to sting after a while. And he realized he hadn't forgiven his mother for it. Because Jimmy was right and she had to accept that her actions had consequences. She couldn't just abandon him, be an okay mother for two years, do that, and then expect them to be great.
He still loved her, she was his mother after all, but the desire to keep her safe was gone. Parents were supposed to sacrifice themselves for their children, not the other way around. And he was so done with sacrificing.
The elevator dinged and pulled him out of his brooding thoughts. With a sigh, he stepped off and headed down the corridor that led to his mother and what was most likely an awkward conversation.
"Kyle!" Mrs. Schmidt, Maxi's secretary, joined her hands in joy.
"Hi, Mrs. Schmidt," he answered, focusing on the woman next to her. He'd never seen her before.
With a thick braid of reddish hair, freckles and glasses, she glanced at him as if he were just another guy on the street. Thank God.
"Have you met my daughter, Sarah?" Mrs. Schmidt stood from her seat and bounced around her desk to clasp her chubby hands on her daughter's shoulders.
"Mom," Sarah hissed, her pale blue eyes still on Kyle, this time with a look of embarrassment in them.
"No, not really." Which Mrs. Schmidt of course knew since there was no one else but her who could've introduced them. "Hi."
"Hey," she mumbled, breaking out of her mother's clutches.
"Maxi and I had a running joke when you were younger," Mrs. Schmidt continued as if she totally couldn't tell she was embarrassing her daughter. "That we should fix you and my Sarah up and get you both out of the house more."
"Mom!" Sarah said, her fists clenching.
Kyle smirked because the scene was too funny and it reminded him of a time when things were a lot less complicated.
YOU ARE READING
Lose Control (The Jewel Project #5)
Adventure"It's never going to end, is it? The rivalry, the hatred, the madness. Not even now. Not even after so many years." It has been three years since the last jewel was recovered, and the Agency seems to have put the project to rest. They have a new tar...
