Call me the second you get this. ASAP. Please. – Mom
April tossed her phone into the passenger’s seat of her car then pinched the bridge of her nose. The last thing she needed after a stressful day of boutique retail was to deal with one of her mom’s classic freak-outs over nothing. In fact, she could think of nothing worse to end the day with than listening to her mom rant about the gossip harpies of Cascade Falls, or about how men weren’t gentlemen anymore, or… well, whatever other infinite problems the woman could find to bitch and moan about.
Exhaling deeply, she slipped out of her heels and into her comfy driving flats. Then, she tossed her work shoes in the backseat. It wasn’t fair to ignore her mom; the woman worked a lot, and she had no one to go home to at the end of a hard day. Neither did April, mind you, but it had been a difficult couple of years since her dad died. She’d really made the effort to talk more with her mom while she was in college, but now that she was out, her mom seemed to think she did nothing with her life and demanded her attention at all hours of the day.
Just because she worked part-time didn’t mean she wasn’t busy. She would call back—of course. She always did. If the text message didn’t sound frazzled enough, the eight missed calls waiting for her on her phone were a surefire sign that the proverbial shit had hit the proverbial fan.
She’d decided that she’d call once she was home. Work had been chaotic today, and just sitting in the parking lot in front of the specialty makeup store where she was a part-time assistant manager was fueling the lingering rage from a harrowing day of sick calls from associates and disgruntled whining from customers. She needed to get home, get out of her tight clothes, and open a bottle of wine before she tackled whatever was bothering her mom.
And April did exactly that. She whizzed through the late-night traffic, dodging slow drivers and daredevil cyclists, straight back to her modest one-bedroom apartment in the heart of downtown. Three times the size of her childhood town, Cascade Falls, Bowmansville was a veritable metropolis by comparison. Full of ad execs and starving students alike, she’d lived there since she graduated from the university there, taking the first job she could find in retail that had promises of advancement.
Well, here she was, three years later, twenty-five and a part-time assistant manager. Fat load of good her fancy business degree was doing her.
Once home, April shed her work clothes and dove into a pair of comfy yoga pants. While she’d initially only wanted a glass of wine, she opted to uncork the whole bottle and take that with her instead. After all, her crummy work hours meant she had a whole two days off before she was needed back at the store. She could stand to get a little tipsy while watching her late-night thrillers on TV. After she dealt with her mom though.
Grumbling, she plopped down on the sofa and dialed her mom’s number, the wine bottle cradled to her chest. Springtime had finally rolled in, and she’d left her windows open all day to make the most of it. However, now that the sun was down, she was freezing. More grumbling ensued, as she tried to cover herself with her fuzzy green blanket, her phone pressed to her ear by her shoulder.
“Darling!” Her mom’s thunderous voice answered on the fourth ring, and April winced. “How are you? I was getting worried! Do you know how late it is?”
“I had to close the store,” April argued, shuffling around to get more comfortable, her wine sloshing in the bottle. “You know how it is. I just got home.”
Her mom ought to know exactly how it was; the woman had run a high-end fashion boutique—now in three locations around Cascade Falls and the surrounding townships—ever since April was a girl. If anyone knew the struggles of a retail worker’s timetable, it was her mom.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter, darling,” her mom trilled, as April reached for the remote on the dusty coffee table. “I have wonderful news!”
“Really?” She set the remote back down, surprised.
“No need to sound so stunned, April.”
“I’m not,” she insisted before taking a small swig of her wine. “Tell me everything.”
There was a brief pause, as if the woman was drawing a breath, before she announced, “I’m engaged!”
It took a few seconds for the news to sink in, and when she was finally ready to speak again, April found her mouth dry, her throat a little tight. “E-Engaged?”
“Yes!” April wasn’t even aware her mom was seeing anyone, let alone doing anything serious. This was the first she’d heard of it in… well, ever. “I wanted to keep it quiet because I wasn’t sure if we were going to go anywhere, and then all of a sudden he’s flying me to Cuba—” What?! “—and booking me spa days! You know how desperately I need the time off, what with the business and all.”
“Right.” April sat up and set her wine aside, deciding this conversation needed absolute focus. “So… Who is he, exactly?”
“James Palmer,” her mother squealed, and in that moment, April’s heart plummeted right down to the pit of her stomach. Her body went numb, and flashbacks to her night with his son Van Palmer raced through her mind. “Oh, honey, you remember him… I think you went to school with his son—”
“James Palmer, as in the guy who runs a motorcycle gang?”
“Club,” her mom stressed, and April could almost see her rolling her eyes. “He owns a motorcycle club.”
To April, it was all the same. Semantics didn’t really matter when her mom was marrying the town’s resident rich scumbag, whose son April had had an unforgettable night with after prom. Her face flushed with embarrassment, and she tried to find an appropriate response to give to the news. She was supposed to be happy. Her mom was always happiest when she was with a man, but this… was difficult to stomach.
“Mom…”
“I know this a lot to process,” her mom said gently, and suddenly her stomach had started to cramp. Was she going to be sick? Was that nausea she was feeling? “It was unfair of me to just… spring it on you over the phone. Why don’t you take some time off from that little job of yours to come down and meet him? He really wants to get to know you before the wedding.”
As desperately as she tried to fight it, in the end, April agreed to take a month off to go back to Cascade Falls. After all, her mom planned on selling her trendy three-bedroom apartment to move in with James Palmer—ugh—and she needed help with the renovations. Plus, without really saying it, she insisted April meet her soon-to-be stepdad. There wasn’t much room to wriggle out of it, as hard as she tried.
In one week, she’d be back in Cascade Falls, awaiting an uncomfortable reunion with the womanizer, Van Palmer—of all people—who would, by the end of the summer, be her stepbrother.
At this point, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but she was damn glad she’d opted for the whole bottle of wine over a single glass.
She was going to need it.