For now, she was enjoying having Mandy here, and she lived right above the clinic. That made her Mia’s next-door neighbor. It was nice having family so close.
“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” Mandy asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Aren’t you?” Mia countered.
“You, my dear, stepped into my workplace. Not the other way around.” Mandy grinned.
“Want to play doctor?” Mia teased her.
“Nurse practitioner, and I don’t play doctor.” Mandy always pointed out that she wasn’t a doctor, but she was as close as they got around here. And everyone who knew her loved her. “So, why are you off so early?”
“Damion dumped me.” She pouted as she slumped into a hard plastic chair.
Mandy looked at her in confusion. “Didn’t you dump him like a month ago?”
“I was thinking about it, but then decided to keep him through the holidays. That was a mistake. He’d been cheating on me for weeks, which I was willing to overlook in order to have a man to point at during the holidays. Except he didn’t even show up for either holiday. And he was ‘busy’ on New Year’s. A complete bust.”
“Are we still talking about Damion Paulson? Shorter than average and with that oddly shaped head?” Mandy mimicked the shape against her own head with her hands.
“Yes, and he cheated on me. Me! Would you cheat on this?” She waved her hands over her jacket-covered body.
“In that jacket? Nobody. That jacket is amazing,” Amanda said sarcastically.
“Is it because it’s pink? I’m a woman; I can wear a pink jacket.” Looking down at it, she knew it was far from the latest style. And maybe it did make her look like she was four. But she had thought she had been pulling it off.
“You look like you’re six, Mia.” Amanda chuckled.
“It’s cute and makes me look young. And it was on sale.”
“Young, like a toddler. How big of a sale?”
She shrugged. “Very!”
“Your mom bought it for you, didn’t she?”
“Wrong! She bought it for Kipling, but she wouldn’t wear it. Mine was falling apart, and it fits.” She really only needed one jacket, but maybe she should look for a different one when winter ends, and the winter sales begin.
“Why would you take it if an eighteen-year-old won’t wear it?” Mandy questioned.
“Eighteen-year-olds are fickle creatures. And a free jacket is a free jacket. I also got a sweet pair of boots in matching pink if you’re so interested in colors. I didn’t wear them today because it didn’t snow. But you just wait.” Not that she was going to mention that the tennis shoes on her feet were actually a shade lighter than the jacket itself and matching boots, and she had purchased them herself. What can she say? She was a girly girl at heart. The jacket being pink hadn’t been the worst part of it, that had been the extra fluffiness.
“Your mom guilted you into taking these, didn’t she?”
“Have you seen my mom’s eyes, Mandy? You cannot say no to that woman!” Which was a lie; Mia said no all the time. But the woman had a shopping problem that sometimes came in handy for her oldest daughter, whose café took all her shopping time without giving her much in way of shopping money.
“They are the same as my mom’s, and I have no issue with it,” Mandy stated. In fact, they were the same ones Mandy herself had. Sadly, they weren’t the eyes Mia ended up with. What she wouldn’t do to have those amazing baby blues for herself.
Narrowing her eyes at her cousin, Mia said, “You’re cold, Mandy. She’s your mom.”
Mandy gave her the same look back. “You let your mom get away with way too much.”
“I’m all she has—everyone else moved away. And we all know Kipling isn’t coming back once she graduates from college. Not to mention that I haven’t given her any grandkids yet, and I’m telling you, I have to give hersomething. And now Damion has dumped me, so again I have no prospects. I’m a spinster and shall remain alone until I die.” Mia sighed and looked at the ceiling to keep the tears at bay. Her life sucked.
“You’re just being too picky, Mia.”
“Does Damion ‘lives with his mother’ Paulson scream picky to you, Mandy? Damion ‘hates walnuts’ Paulson is scraping the bottom of the available men barrel within a hundred miles, Mandy.”
“He hates walnuts?” her cousin asked, as if that was of any importance at all.