Perception (Club Destiny #6)(43)
Author: Nicole Edwards

Mercedes looked up at him, concern in her eyes. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” he told her, cutting his steak. “At least that’s what my mother is claiming. My dad took a fall, but she assures me it isn’t anything to worry about. I told her I’d fly up to check on them, but she insisted that I not.” That conversation hadn’t gone over well, but when Xander had finally calmed down, he’d agreed. For now.

Of course, at that point, Stella had changed the subject, wanting to know what Mercedes and Shane were up to since she’d apparently heard enough to suit her fancy about Xander’s day to day.

Xander’s parents loved Mercedes. They had asked him more than once whether he was ever going to settle down with her and if he wasn’t, whether or not Shane was going to show better sense than he apparently had. He’d laughed, knowing what he did. Settling down wasn’t the issue. Neither was the notion of settling down with Mercedes.

Xander knew that there were plenty of men and women who had relationship phobias or a constant need to push people away for whatever reason. Xander had none of those. He didn’t cringe at the prospect of getting married, settling down, having kids. It might happen one day. He was even fairly optimistic at thirty-five. He had a good childhood, he was close to his parents, and he didn’t feel the need to come up with some sort of reason he couldn’t get attached.

What he did have a problem with was finding the right woman. They all seemed to take a keen interest in his bank account long before they showed much interest in him on something more than a sexual level. That’s usually about the time he would part ways.

“Maybe you should surprise them,” Mercedes said, pulling him back to the conversation.

“You mean fly up there?”

“Sure, why not? I know you. You’re probably itching to go check on them.”

There was no doubt that Mercedes knew him better than most people. Ever since his mother had informed him that his father fell, he’d been anxious to find out for himself just how his father was doing. However, since it wasn’t something he intended to do tonight, he decided to change the subject.

Because he’d much rather talk about Mercedes, he said the first thing that came to his mind. “How’s your mother?”

Mercedes looked up at him, gracefully laying her fork on her plate then dabbing at her mouth with a linen napkin before reaching for her wine glass. He saw the moment she attempted to shut down, and he immediately regretted the question. But rather than backtrack, he simply waited for her to answer.

“She’s fine. Still in rehab.”

It was the fourth drug rehab her mother had been in during the last two years. The woman was strung out, and she didn’t have any problems reaching out to Mercedes when she’d blown her last dollar on drugs. Mercedes, being the soft hearted woman she was, usually assisted financially, but he and Shane had finally managed to convince her it was time to stop enabling her mother.

That hadn’t been a particularly exciting conversation, but they’d gotten through it after a heated screaming match. But, in the end, Mercedes had agreed with them and then somehow convinced her mother to go into rehab. Unfortunately, her mother was using Mercedes’s money to pay for it, but, as far as Xander was concerned, it was better than Priscilla blowing it on coke.

“Do you think this one is working?” he asked, encouraging her to open up a little more.

“About as good as the last one,” she answered sharply.

He had no doubt that Priscilla was only in rehab to ensure that Mercedes didn’t give up on her completely. He’d heard all the stories. She didn’t share with many people he knew, but she had opened up to him. And Shane.

Priscilla Bryant had had a hard life. Married to a son of a bitch, she had taken the coward’s way out, staying with him so she wouldn’t have to get a job to support herself or her daughter. That was about the only good thing Mercedes’s father had done for either of them, she’d told them.

For the last few years, Priscilla had jumped from job to job, mostly cleaning services that paid little more than minimum wage. But once she got tired of going to work, she just didn’t. And then she’d call Mercedes, ask for money, and Mercedes would grudgingly give it to her, knowing there was no way her mother would ever pay her back.

Xander knew Mercedes was not fond of talking about her family. If at all possible, she preferred not to talk about her mother. She absolutely hated to talk about her deadbeat father who’d disappeared from her life just a few months before Mercedes graduated from high school. According to her, she was happy he’d left. To hear Mercedes tell the story, the abusive bastard had stuck around long enough so that he wouldn’t have to pay child support to Mercedes’s mother and not a moment longer.