Billie Joe Armstrong is my step-father... and I hate it [EDITING]

19. Brain Stew [Edited]

Coincidentally, when we got back to Aiden's house (I took my car and followed him in his), it was the first time I met his mother. She must have parked her car in the garage because we didn't notice her glistening Porsche that Aiden told me she drives around. The memory of my own mom running out of the house to try and stop me running away to my boyfriends house was fresh in my mind as we walked into Aiden's mansion, carrying as much of my stuff inside as we could.

As we walked in through the door, I heard a chirping voice that sounded like tinkling bells or some kind of whistling songbird call Aiden's name. "Oh, Aiden, is that you? I was wondering when you would be home, Andy said you would be out - I'm back early from-!"

A tall, slender woman with lusciously blonde hair that cascaded down over her shoulders and down her back and stood with the utmost elegance and poise appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her face was radiant and glowing, a white smile not unsimilar to Aiden and Andy's on her face and her eyes a dazzlingly deep blue that was almost uncanny to the colour of the sea in candid photo's of Hawaii, Tahiti or the Canary's. Her face looked only slightly aged, her youthful beauty managing to shine through regardless of the fact that she now had two children aged twenty one and eighteen. She was dressed in the most daintest white frilled blouse I had ever seen with a forest green pencil skirt and a pair of what were obviously Louboutin shoes.

"Jesus, mom," Aiden gasped, having been startled by her.

However, her eyes had already landed on me and her smile flickered. She no longer showed her toothy grin but rather a tight smile, though her eyes screamed who are you and why are you in my house?

I didn't blame her. My eyes were red and puffy from tears and drug use and I still looked homeless. I certainly didn't look like I belonged in her house.

"Oh," she said, her voice obviously trying to still sound chipper. "Hello. I don't think we've met."

I blinked, feeling like a rabbit confronted by a fox - or should I say a vixen. "Yeah," I said, without thinking. I shook my head quickly to snap myself out of it. "I mean, yes, I know, I mean-"

Thankfully, Aiden came to my rescue. "Mom, this is Grace. She's one of Andy's mates and she's my girlfriend." He turned to me. "Grace, this is my mom."

"Blair, I'm charmed," his mom said, rather quickly before giving a rather forward, grilling look at her son. "Girlfriend - you never mentioned a girlfriend last time I was speaking to you."

"No? Well, y'know me ma," Aiden said, setting the boxes of my stuff down near the door. "I'm a fast mover n' that. I decide in the first day of knowing a girl whether I think she's girlfriend material and then I move in before someone else snaps her up. Grace is nice, you'll like her. You'll get to know her."

"I see," Blair said, her voice struggling to remain unstrained. She glanced towards the boxes. "And are you's going somewhere?"

"Huh? Oh, Grace is staying with us for a bit," Aiden said, taking the boxes I was holding from me and stacking them with the rest, only giving his mother a passing glance.

"Is she?" Her eyes landed on me and I could tell she was judging me tremendously. She didn't even have to look up and down at me. "And how long have yous two known each other?"

"Oh, like... three weeks or something?"

Blair's eyes widened dramatically, her smile tightening a bit more. It looked as though she were trying her best not to kill her eldest child where he stood. All I could do was stand there awkwardly next to my things, wishing the ground would swallow me up - or that I had at least made more an effort to look nice.

"Well," she said, her voice still somehow creepily bright. "I mean, I don't mean to be rude, of course, and I'm sure you're a lovely girl, Gia-"

"Grace," I squeaked, feeling rather pathetic standing in front of her.