Mom seemed annoyed. “What did he say when you told him you couldn’t keep the car?”
“I didn’t talk to him. He’s probably at the arena. They have a game tonight.”
“Oh, we should go!”
“We can’t, I’m working tonight. Okay, let’s go online and see if we can find a flight home for you. I’ll get my computer.”
She returned to the kitchen table with her laptop and quickly found flights leaving tomorrow.
“Tomorrow! But I booked a week off work.”
Amber bit her lip. “Vacation time?”
“No, just time without pay.”
“Mom! How can you afford to do that? You didn’t even have enough money to pay for a round-trip ticket.”
Mom’s face drooped. “It didn’t seem like that big a deal. I only work part time, anyway.”
“I know.” Amber sighed and rested her head in her hands. What was she going to do with her mother? Mom was like a child who’d never grown up. Married at nineteen while still living with her parents, she’d never had to do anything on her own. Amber, on the other hand, had had to grow up fast when her parents had divorced when she was seventeen.
“I’m booking the flight for tomorrow. I think you should go back to work on Monday. We don’t really have room for you to stay. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”
Easton rose from the table. “Tough love.” He patted her shoulder and disappeared down the hall to his room.
She’d heard that from him before when she’d complained about her mother. He’d told her to either cut her mother loose or stop bitching about it. She hadn’t been able to cut her loose. The reason tough love was called that was because it was…tough.
She worked her shift that night at the Sin Bin with no fear of any of the Aces coming in until after the game. She tried not to pay attention to the game on the big-screen TV in the bar, focusing on work, but it was impossible not to be aware that they were getting spanked by the Los Angeles Kings, the constant shout of “He scores!” met with silence in the arena and groans in the bar.
After a sleepless night on the couch, Amber dug deep for enough mental toughness to have the conversation she and her mother needed to have.
“I can’t do this anymore, Mom.” She set two mugs of coffee on the table. “You need to start taking responsibility for your own life.”
“What do you mean? Do what?”
“I can’t keep sending you money and paying off your credit cards.”
“But you’re almost done with college now. You have a full-time job lined up.”
“Yes. But I have student loans to pay off. I have to buy a new car.”
Mom made a disgusted little noise at that. Amber ignored it.
“At some point I’ll need to find my own apartment. That won’t be cheap.”
“Amber! Listen to yourself. Duncan can give you all of that.”
“No, Mom. I don’t want that. I don’t want to depend on a man for everything. And then…end up…” She choked on the words. “I don’t want to end up like you.”
Mom stared at her with hurt eyes. Then she swallowed. “I understand.” She pushed back her chair. “I’ll go finish packing.”
Amber closed her eyes, her mouth trembling. Was she being a bitch to her own mother, refusing to help her? Or was she really helping her in a different way? Her mother was forty-five years old. Surely she could figure out how to look after herself. But if she hadn’t by now, would she ever? Worst case scenarios materialized in Amber’s imagination. Could she really turn her back on her mother if things got that bad? She wasn’t sure. But she had a feeling that becoming the strong, independent woman she wanted to be wasn’t going to happen until she dealt with this and stopped letting her mom use her.
She drove her mother to the airport in strained silence. Dammit, Duncan was still paying for this rental car and she needed to return that too. She would become intimately familiar with public transportation.
They said goodbye at security with tense hugs. Then Mom said stiffly, “I’m sorry to have been a burden on you the last few years.”
Guilt smacked her in the face. “Mom, I love you.”
Mom sniffed. “I love you too.”
Was this manipulation? Intended to make her feel guilty and cave? Or was she sincere?
“Bye, honey. Good luck with your new job. And with Duncan.”
“Mom—”
“I know, I know, you think things are over between you. You don’t think I could see how upset you are by that?”
Amber blinked.
“You looked heartbroken, honey. I just hope you’re not giving up on him because you’re too stubbornly independent to realize that you actually love him. Because independence and not relying on a man are admirable qualities, but being too afraid to love someone or have a relationship with them is just…cowardly. And that has nothing to do with how much money he has.”
Mom turned and walked into the lineup for security.
Amber stared after her. What the…What?