After grinding my teeth all night when someone said something insulting to Raya while veiling it as something kind, I won't have a tooth left if my mother decides to play bitch. She never likes any girl around me.
"Oh a scholarship?" Mary Perkins—one of the biggest socialite bitches—had asked Raya. "I'm sure a scholarship is very helpful to a girl in your condition." Yeah. Her condition. Poor is apparently a condition. She made it sound like an incurable disease.
That one word was laced with utter disgust—scholarship. Raya works twice as hard as her screw-up son who only got into college after Mary made a call.
Raya had just smiled and nodded, not noticing the underlying insult. If she did, she didn't let me know.
That is the least of the shit that was said, and I'm determined to make sure my mother doesn't make me blow a fuse. Maybe Dad will help me for a change, seeing as he seems to really have a lot of adoration for Raya.
When I find her, Mom is talking to Johanna Wright, one of the many bitchy women who spoke poorly to my girl. Fortunately, Johanna is so good at giving insults as compliments, that Raya actually thanked her. It broke my heart. She doesn't deserve this shit. She's too sweet to notice how cruel they all are.
"Mom," I say, my eyes on Johanna in warning.
She doesn't miss my menacing gaze, and the bitch in black turns away from my mother to show me the challenge in her eyes.
"Kade," Mom says, but I don't move my stare.
"Johanna," I say, not calling her Mrs. Wright the way she prefers.
She's forty but looks thirty, thanks to heavy plastic surgery. And her husband of choice is one of the most coveted plastic surgeons, second only to Dr. Sterling.
"Kade," she drawls, sounding bored. "Did your girlfriend enjoy her evening?"
I accept the challenge. "She did. Most of the time she was busy being fawned over by the men, so I had to stay close. She's a little too young for this crowd."
First two stabs, talk about her age without talking about it, and point out Raya's beauty and youth.
If you didn't know to look for it, you wouldn't have seen her flinch. But Johanna's eyes have changed. I pissed her off.
Mom's eyes go back and forth, and she waits, curious as to what will happen next. She'll stop me if I go too far and stop playing the game. I prefer to be blunt.
"I see. She does indeed clean up nice. Maybe once she's been around you for a while, she'll fit right in. That should help with the men. You know how they are," she says, smiling artificially.
Yeah. She just said the rich boys like slumming it. Mistake.
I stifle my anger, though it's painful to do. "Has she met Frank?" Mom asks, making me bite back a smile. She's helping. Frank is Johanna's husband, who has a loose zipper he seems to lose control of around pretty girls.
Mom just gave me the opportunity of a lifetime.
"She did. Frank's been drinking, and he's always so much more charming when he's drinking," I say with a small laugh, noting the twitch that instantly develops in Johanna's right eye. "He was studying her facial structure, said he wished he could duplicate it for some of his clients. Then he proceeded to mention how he was happy to see the larger breasts coming back in style."
Johanna swallows audibly, and I intentionally let my eyes flick to the small breasts she had implanted just last year to replace her fuller ones.
I completely embellished that story. Had Frank spoken about Raya's breasts, I might have killed him. But Frank's too drunk to remember what he did or didn't say.
She opens her mouth, probably to say something about how trashy large breasts are, but Frank staggers in and saves the day.
"We need to go, dear," he says with bored tone, clapping my back as he nears.
"Kade," he says, turning his attention to me. "You did good with that one out there. I'm still fascinated by the symmetry of her nose. People pay thousands for noses that aren't anywhere nearly that perfect."
I'll let him talk about her nose.
Johanna's teeth make a sound that has me wondering if she'll need a dentist after this. "Let's go, Frank," she says coldly.
He barely acknowledges her before letting his gaze flicker to my mother, and then he gives her a wink. Mom forces a smile as Frank staggers out, and my fists unclench for the first time since I walked in here.
"I really hate them," Mom grumbles, relaxing as though she just sat through a suspenseful evening.