Kissing Me Harder, Stepbrother novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Cheryl

Mom didn't yell on the pier.

That was the worst part.

She walked the last fifty feet in her salon clogs with a foil tray of brownies for the crew.

She handed the tray to the gaffer.

She looked at my wet dress and Lennon's wet shirt and the hat on the boards.

"Gigi," she said. "Salon."

Then she turned around and walked back toward Main Street.

Lennon took a step after her.

Captain put a hand on his chest and stopped him.

"Not you," Captain said quietly. "Not yet."

The salon was dark except for the light over chair one.

Mom sat in it, facing the mirror, still in her smock.

I stood behind her in my wet dress. We looked at each other in the glass.

"How long?" she said.

"A week."

"A week." She laughed, not a happy laugh. "I've known him a month. You've known him a week, and you're kissing him on my husband's pier."

"It's the city's pier."

"Don't be smart with me tonight."

I sat down in chair two.

"Mom. Nothing happened before last Sunday. I'd never seen his face. You know that. You sent me his picture."

"I know that." She pressed her hands flat on her knees. "Do they?"

She picked up her phone and turned it toward me.

The comment was from this afternoon.

"Watch, the mom's next. Stepbrother, stepfather, it's a family business."

"There's four hundred like that," she said. "I read them all. Every night, in bed, while he's asleep."

"Mom."

"Do you know what it was like when your father left?" Her voice cracked. "This town talked about me in my own chairs for a year. Women I'd colored for ten years. I'd stand behind them with the foils and hear them whisper."

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