Page 12 of Royally Hacked Belle & Flame
She waits, lips pursed in undisguised anticipation.
“…really enthusiastic about holidays,” I offer. “I didn’t think you’d want to worry about the wedding since it’s Christmastime.”
The corners of her mouth twitch upward, the tiniest hint of a smile. “Well, it’s a mother’s job to care. So. That’s settled. You’ll wear the dress so at least I have photos I can display.”
I blink. “Wait what? Which dress?”
“The dress,” she hisses, enunciating every letter like it’s a threat. “My dress.”
“Um, no. I’m sorry, but I already have a dress.”
She glares. “You already picked a dress. Without me.”
Oh god, here we go. “Do you remember dress shopping for my first wedding? Did you really think that was a good time?”
She scoffs. “It was a cherished memory.”
“It was traumatizing. It gave me flashbacks to bathing suit shopping in middle school.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not. Anyway, I had the dress made in Ireland, I couldn’t just invite you to come along.”
She locks eyes with me, and it’s clear that she is assembling her arsenal of motherly guilt for a siege. “Well, let me see it at least.”
“I didn’t bring it,” I say quickly.
She rolls her eyes. “Obviously. Show me a picture.”
“I don’t have a picture. My camera’s broken.” She frowns at me, and I can feel the lie crumbling. I scramble for something, anything, to throw on the pile. “And also, it’s bad luck,” I add helplessly.
“That’s for the groom, not the mother,” she snaps.
I glance at Nana for backup, but Nana is suddenly fascinated by the twinkling Christmas lights outside the window and refuses to meet my eyes.
My mother’s eyes narrow. “You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re even telling us the truth.”
My stomach lurches. “About what?”
She waves a manicured hand. “All of this! Ireland, the man, your future. You barely call, you barely text. Sometimes you disappear for weeks at a time. It’s not normal, Alixandrea.”
“I’m just busy,” I say lamely. “And we have almost no cell service, I keep telling you that.”
Mom presses on, relentless. “And this man, this Daemon. I’ve never met him. He doesn’t have social media. He doesn’t even have a LinkedIn! Who doesn’t have a LinkedIn in this century?”
I snort, picturing Daemon using LinkedIn, then instantly regret it when my mother’s expression turns even icier.
She pounces. “See, you don’t even take it seriously! What’s going on with you? Is it drugs?”
I feel a headache blooming just behind my left eye. “Do I look like I’m on drugs to you?”
She stands up, angrily pacing around the room. “How should I know? You’re getting married to a man none of us have met, in a country none of us have visited. I just want to meet him, Alixandrea. I want to see the life you’ve made.”
For a second, I feel a pang of guilt. Then I remember: if I invite my mother to my “life,” she will discover that my fiancéis not human and that my immediate circle of friends includes a bunch of escaped Fae convicts and one actual siren.
“I promise, you’ll meet him soon. What if we come back to visit in January?”
“That’s not good enough,” she says, voice trembling with the force of her own sense of injustice.
