Page 124 of Roommate's Guide to Love

“Oh you signed a contract,” Porter says, holding it up. “But nowhere on here does it say anything about money being exchanged.”

“But!”

“He’s right,” I say, taking it from Porter. “Just that you promise to never show your face in this town again. But nope, no mention of money. Sorry, Bonnie. Maybe some other time.”

“What? This isn’t legal!” Bonnie yells before pointing to Logan. “You’re not even a lawyer, are you?”

“I’m not,” Logan admits. “But it was very enjoyable to play one today.”

Everyone starts laughing—everyone but Bonnie, that is.

Take that back. BonnieandPorter.

“You.” She walks around the table, pointing her finger at me. “This has your name all over it.”

“Guilty. But like you said Bonnie, I’m memorable. And I have a feeling you’ll always remember this day. Now, kindly get the fuck out of our bar before I throw your ass out.”

Bonnie turns to Porter. “How dare you do this to me? I’m your mother.”

The bark of a laugh that Porter lets out echoes through the bar. “You haven’t been a mother to me in twenty years, so don’t even try to play that card. And how dare I do that to you? You really are delusional. How about this, Mom? How dare you treat Pops like a piece of shit when he was just trying to build a life for us? How dare you be jealous of something that not only he loved, but brought a town together? You hurt me the day you left. You hurt Pops. He was never the same again, and all because you were jealous of—what? This? How egotistical can you be?”

Porter takes a step forward to her, and as much as I want to step up next to him, I know this is his war. And he’s fighting the battle that’s about to end it.

“For years I didn’t think I wanted a family. I was scared to fall in love, because in my mind, it didn’t last. People leave. You left. If my own mother wouldn’t stay, why would anyone else? You did that to me. But guess what? You lost. You lost your family—every one of them. You lost your grandchild. But I didn’t lose. I won. I’ve found love. I’ve found family. And it’s all despite you. So I want you to leave. I never want to see you again. And I want you to remember this day forever, because it’s the day you losteverything.”

The two stare each other down for another second before Bonnie starts marching toward the door, but not before getting one more look at Porter and Missy.

“You two are both ungrateful brats,” she says.

“Learned from the best, Ma,” Porter says.

“Have a nice life, Bonnie.”

And with that, Bonnie McCoy Higgins turns on her heel, storms out of the bar, and hopefully, out of our lives.

35

porter

“Okay,I’m going to need you to start from the beginning,” I say, setting down my pint glass of beer because I don’t know what the hell just happened over the last hour. “We went over the plans thoroughly, and in none of those was Missy making a grand entrance.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t,” Quinn says. “Though, I do commend your flare for the dramatic.”

Missy shyly shrugs, clearly a little nervous about being the center of attention. “I was raised by Bonnie. I learned to be dramatic from a young age.”

The table laughs at her joke, and as much as I’d love to just laugh this day away, I have so many questions.

“Can we address the elephant in the room? How the hell did you find her?”

“She didn’t make it easy,” Stella says. “My normal channels of digging to track people down weren’t working.”

“And the private investigator I hired was coming up short as well,” Logan adds. “But we knew we were running out of time, and as much as I wanted to keep everything legal and above board...”

“We were running out of time, so he hacked into her email,” Maeve says. “My computer genius husband is an amateur hacker.”

Apparently I’m the only one at the table surprised by this. It’s also making me very curious if Stella is a part-time private investigator, Logan can hack things, and Simon and Quinn being, well, them…what kind of family am I getting into?

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m now a part of, without a doubt, the most entertaining family imaginable.

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