Page 19 of Over You
“Spencer?” The woman on the other line didn’t sound pissed enough to be my lawyer, so I had no idea who she was.
“Who’s this?”
Silence. “Vicki Dunn.”
“What outlet are you with?Esquire? MTV?”
“I don’t know how to say this. . .”
Flipping my shades over my eyes, I groaned and reclined against the wicker lounge. “Well, figure it out quick. I’m busy.”
“I’m your mother.”
For a split-second, it felt like a stone sank into the pit of my stomach. That couldn’t have been true, so I doubled over in laughter. “Was it Nash or Leo that put you up to this?” Those assholes would pay random people on the street to prank call the sperm bank. It would only make sense one of them would find humor in something this tasteless.
“I read your article inRolling Stone. I had a sick sense before, from your pictures, but the story about the car seat. . .” She choked back a dramatic sob. “I’ve regretted that every day of my life.”
The smile fell from my face. Whoever this lady was, she tried to tug on my heartstrings. Good thing those had been blown to smithereens ages ago. “How did you get my number?”
“A million calls finally landed me with Mickey? Ricky? He said he asked you if I could call?”
Son-of-a-bitch. By now, I paced beside the pool, watching the toes of my Vans move over the patio pavers. Any leech could have read that article and claimed to have been my mother, but something about her voice felt familiar. I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck. That was ridiculous. Familiar. . . “Look, I don’t—”
“You have—you might have a scar on the inside of your thigh. If it didn’t fade.”
That got my attention. I did, indeed, have a small, round scar at the top of my right thigh. Georgia Anne used to tease me and say it was from ringworm.
“This guy I was friends with, he dropped a cigarette in your car seat. I. . . I was only fourteen. I didn’t know what I was doing with a baby, and you were crying and screaming. I just needed a minute, so I walked out of that bathroom.” She paused, and I stopped pacing.
The idea of a mother was as foreign to me as Mandarin Chinese. While she’d grown up and most likely become a mom to other kids, I’d never been anyone’s son. She knew what she was missing. I didn’t have the faintest clue, and it’s hard to mourn something you’ve never had.
“When I came back, you were gone.” She began to weep. “Then I didn’t know what to do.
Funny. She didn’t think to call the police, but she sure made, as she put it, a million calls to find me now. Twenty-four years too late. Now that she realized that baby she abandoned had made something of himself.
“I tell you what, Vicki.” I paused, nodding while I made my way back to the lounge. “Send your address or bank account info—whatever you want—to my label. I’ll stroke out a check for your troubles, seeing as how I wouldn’t be where I am had I not been abandoned.”
“That’s not what I—”
It didn’t matter. I hung up.
The patio door opened, and Nash stepped out wearing some ridiculous pink shirt withPussy Masterprinted on the front.
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s our pre-travel spa day, princess.”
Flipping my shades over my eyes, I reclined against the wicker lounge with a groan. “I’m not going to a fucking spa.”
Nash flopped onto the lounge beside me, and the soft chuff of a police helicopter sounded in the distance. “Hey, dude. Do you remember anything from last night after we left The Club?”
“No.”
“Me either.” He chuckled.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out an empty baggie, huffing before I tossed it to the ground where the wind caught it. It skipped along the patio pavers like a tumbleweed on a desert plane.
“Hey.” Nash snapped his fingers. “Wasn’t Danté supposed to meet us at the rub-a-dub place?”
