Page 49 of Ominous: Part 1
My eyes widen as I meet hers. “Mom, you got nothing for yourself.” I shake my head, arms crossed. I’m in thrifted jeans Mom helped me destroy last year on the kitchen floor of the apartment. Reece bitched about ruining perfectly good clothes, but Mom ignored him. She’s not really into clothes, but she indulges me.
She gives me a small smile, her brown eyes adoring as she looks at me. It makes me feel a little guilty, knowing I’m probably going to lie to her about where I’m going this weekend.
But I’m dying to be alone with him once more. I feel kind of crazy, the way I can’t stop thinking about him. We text constantly, he’s walked me to my classes this week, it’s like a drug, having his attention. I don’t trust him, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Ilikehim.
“Nothing here fits me,” Mom says, wrinkling her nose and glancing around the spacious store. I doubt she even looked. “Besides, Reece got a bonus, and I’m having him take Seb next weekend, so have at it before your brother does.”
I laugh, imagining Reece and Sebastian shopping together. They can barely stand to be in the same room as each other.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I spin around, heading to the glass top counter, and I spy a few shelves of books along the walls behind it. Turning to Mom, walking backward, I point at the shelves, raising my shoulders in question.
She rolls her eyes as she waits in line to check out but just says, “Hurry.”
And I do.
* * *
“Tell me about this boy,”Mom says on the drive home.
I tear my eyes from my phone, where I was just readingthis boy’stexts.
“Um. What do you want to know?”
Mom fiddles with the radio, eyes still on the road. She stops on the Christian radio station, and I have to bite back my groan as she hums to the music until she gets to a stoplight. I hide my discontent, though. She would faint if she knew I was readingmagicbooks.
“When do I get to meet him?”
Oh, God.Never.“It’s not that serious, Mom.” I look back down at Eli’s text.
Him: I’m coming to kidnap you.
Not serious at all.
“Danica said Amanda was complaining you haven’t been texting her much.”
I grit my teeth at the reference to Amanda’s mom.
“But your nose is always in your phone. And you spent all day Saturday watching him wrestle, and didn’t let him come inside to meet us.” She glances at me. “Tell me about him.”
I squirm in my seat, clicking my phone screen off and tapping my nails against it. I don’t want to tell her too much. She’ll look him up if she gets his name, and I like to keep my relationships all in separate boxes. It stresses me out, people I know mingling.
“He’s a wrestler,” I deadpan.
Mom accelerates, the light green. “Okay, smart ass.” She laughs after she says it and I do, too, texting Eli back.
Me: Too serious, too fast.
I don’t mean a word of it.
“What’s his parents do? What does he like? Why do you like him?”
“Mom, Mom, chill out.” I shake my head, my face heating with her questions. “He’s hot, I don’t know. And funny, I guess.” I ignore her question about his parents because I don’t have the answer. “He’s got a nice car.”
Mom snorts. “Be careful with those kinds of boys.”
Eli: Don’t play with my heart, baby girl.
Baby girl.I grow hotter by the second, sweat forming under my arms. “He’s not like… that. He’s nice.”
