Hooked #4 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 4) by Claire Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

sniffed. “You are okay, aren’t you honey? You don’t normally call
this late.”
    At the end of her sentence, I could almost hear her
say the words: “You never even call at all.” But she didn’t. I could have used
this against her as well. Neither of us dialed the phone. It was the way we
worked. Too much had happened.
    “You’re not pathetic, mom. I was just calling to say
hi.” I felt all the strain, all the terror in my heart begin to dissipate as I spoke to her, listening to her voice. “Sometimes, I just have
to hear my mother’s voice. Sometimes, that’s the only thing that I need.”
    “Well,” my mother spoke. She was dumbfounded, I
knew. “It’s good to hear your voice, as well.” Her cries had begun to
dissipate. There was nothing for us to discuss. We just sat on the line,
listening to each other breathe.
    “I opened up a different dance studio,” I told her.
Just to fill the air with words.
    “Did you, honey? That’s wonderful. Is it still in
your—“
    “Wicker Park. Yeah. It’s right by my apartment.”
    “Oh, darling. You don’t still live in that dreadful apartment.”
    “I do, mom. But Boomer keeps me company.”
    “You’re seeing someone?”
    “Sort of. A few different guys,” I answered, lying. It was always the lies between us. I
felt us falling away from the honesty that had been at the beginning of our
conversation. I swallowed.
    “That’s the way to live, isn’t it?” my mother
answered. “When your father and I were dating, though. I just knew. Instantly.” She sniffed.
    I thought about that; how she’d never told me that
part of the story before. All she’d ever told me was that my father had forced
her to stay, when she could have been anyone, she could have been anything.
She, like me, was so beautiful; she wore her heart on her sleeve. But she got
that sleeve caught on something in Indianapolis, Indiana. And now, she was
going to die there.
    “Do you ever think about what would have happened if
you hadn’t met dad?” I asked. It was an outrageous question, one I never should
have versed. I bit my lip while I waited.
    My mother sighed. “I think about it all the time. But in an off-hand way. Like, would my skin be more wrinkled
if I’d lived in Florida? What if I’d never had a baby? Would I have better
sex?” My mother cackled. I’d never heard her speak in such a way. I closed my
eyes and tried not to giggle. “But no. I couldn’t imagine my life without him,
actually. He was the love of my life. And then we produced you. And you, Molly Atwood. You are the love of my life now.”
    I swallowed, feeling the weight in my chest once
more. I peered out into the night, wondering about all the lost souls out
there, all of them living alone, without anyone to care for. “I love you too,
mom.”
    We hung up the phone not long after that. I
suggested she have a few of her old friends over, but she said she wanted to
get caught up with some Dr. Oz shows she hadn’t seen yet. I nodded into the
phone, feeling assured. Feeling so happy, really. I
felt, in those moments, that whatever I did, however I messed up, my mother
would be by my side. There wasn’t anything to worry about, really. I had a
support system, just down south.
    I clambered into bed, feeling my consciousness
falling away. I wrapped my arms around myself and daydreamed until I couldn’t
think anymore. And then I fell asleep.

 
    CHAPTER
SEVEN
    The next morning, I prepared myself for the young
girls’ first dance class. It was going to be at four o‘clock in the afternoon.
These younger girls were five and six years old, and they were dizzy, lost
little girls who couldn’t quite plié yet. But we would get there. After all,
I’d started when I was four. And my mother stated I’d looked more like a
spinning turtle than anything else, until my legs grew in.
    I went to the studio and looked around at it sadly,
spinning in a circle, looking at the broken mirror I’d strapped to the