A Taxing Affair: Holidates Series, Book 29 by Thea Dawson

Author:Thea Dawson [Dawson, Thea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aeroplane Media Press
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Mark

“Wow.” Melody’s voice is dry. “She must have been a real monster.”

“She wasn’t that bad,” I assure her with a sheepish shake of my head. “She just wasn’t a very good mother. And you did remind me of her, briefly, but you don’t remind me of her anymore.” I focus on her feet, uncomfortable at looking her in the face. “She was kind of a free spirit, like you, but she didn’t have an ounce of your worth ethic. She’d either get fired or quit every job she had because they didn’t ‘align with her energy,’ or she was too busy ‘living in the moment’ to show up for her shift on time.”

I find myself making air quotes with my fingers, which often happens when I talk about my mom. “She’d base major life decisions on ‘cosmic messages.’ She’d ‘manifest’ enough money to feed us and keep a roof over our heads, but that generally meant borrowing money from my aunt and uncle and not paying them back. Eventually, she decided that whatever spiritual path she was on didn’t include raising a child, so she dropped me off at my aunt’s when I was seven, and never came back.”

Melody’s expression is stricken. “Mark, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

I continue with an awkward shrug and get back to rubbing her feet again so I don’t have to look her in the face. “Anyway, that first time we met, just after you rented the studio, it was just a few days after my Uncle Kit had died, and I was pissed off at my mom all over again. She couldn’t even be bothered to show up to the funeral of the man who raised her son for her, and there you were, talking about signs from the universe and body-mind-soul connections and chakras and shit. You just brought back all the wrong memories at the wrong time, and I wrote you off as being another flake like her.”

Hearing the words out loud makes me realize how stupid they sound. I’ve been an asshat to Melody for two years for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with her. I force myself to look her in the eyes. “I am really sorry.”

After a long silence, the corners of her mouth curve up as she puts her other foot in my lap and raises her eyebrows suggestively. I guess my apologies have been accepted.

I smile back and begin to rub the other foot.

It’s just my way of atoning, I tell myself, but that’s a huge lie. I like touching her. I like the warmth of her skin against my palms, I like the light smile and the sparkle in her eyes that tell me she’s enjoying this.

At the back of my mind, the knowledge that I have a date with MJ tomorrow night pinches at my conscience.

I like MJ. I like her a lot despite the fact we’ve never met, and I feel like I owe it to both of us to at least meet her in person and see if our compatibility goes beyond just text messages.

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