Life & Love of the Tormented

Seventy One

  I walk Carter down the hallway once he's thrown a t-shirt on and we enter into the kitchen where Mum is sat reading a magazine.

  "Morning!", I announce as I enter. Carter's hands hold my waist as he enters behind me.

  "Morning? It's 2pm!", Mum exclaims when she looks up from the pages at us.

  "Right... We - ", I begin.

  "I do apologise. I should have introduced myself earlier but I was so tired from the drive up. We fell asleep as soon as I got here", Carter cuts in, telling a little white lie to save us all the embarrassment from the truth of what we actually did when he got here.

  "Oh don't apologise darlin'", Mum says with a smile.

  "I'm Carter by the way", he says, letting go of my waist and walking around the front of me to introduce himself. He extends his hand out to Mum for a hand shake.

  "This is my... ... boyfriend", I say to her with a small smile.

Carter looks back at me and a smirk crawls across his lips.

"Boyfriend huh?", Mum says standing. She swats at Carter's extended hand and envelops him in a hug.

  "We hug around here", she says, "My name is Celina. I'm Amelia's Mum but you already knew - "

  Mum is cut off when Ria comes bounding excitedly into the kitchen.

  "You two are finally awake!", she squeals.

  "And I see you've already met Ria", Mum says with a laugh and lets go of Carter before taking her seat back on the stool at the breakfast bar.

  "Yeah", Carter says smiling at my little sister. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you both".

  "You didn't tell me he was so nice and normal Amelia", Mum says laughing lightly, her raised eyebrow pointing in Carter's direction.

  "Nice? Normal?", he asks, looking back and forth between us both. A nervous laugh escaping his lips.

  "It's nothing", I say trying to play it off.

  "You're polite and you're not dressed in ripped jeans or are covered in tattoos", Mum announces and I roll my eyes at her.

  Carter is already a little insecure, he doesn't need my mother pointing out how different he is to the men I used to keep in my company.

  "Only one of us can be dark and bitter Celina, and Amelia has that role mastered. We just wouldn't work if we were both like that", Carter shrugs then begins to laugh cheekily.

  I give him a light shove.

  "Hey!", I yell before joining in on the laughter with Mum and Ria who are already laughing hard at Carter's joke.

  Well I guess he's no longer insecure - or he's playing it off like this because he is... I'm just not sure. I do know he'll be using this to distract himself from what he's dealing with right now however I am glad he's finally met my Mum. And I must admit it's nice that everyone is laughing. Even if it is at my expense.

  "You're not wrong there are you Carter?", Mum agrees, her face bright as she continues to laugh.

  I roll my eyes.

  They're lucky I love them all.

  Assholes.

  "So how long are you staying Carter?", Mum asks when she's finally calmed down. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like", she smiles.