Coffee & Criminals

8. Mom!

"What's the point, Florence?" Mom asked quizzically. "It's just going to be a bunch of adults sitting around and talking. I don't see why you need to be there-"

"Please? I don't want to stay home alone." That part was true. I didn't feel comfortable being here alone. If the Crowns could find their way past the most confusing of tunnels, they'd have no problem finding me here. I didn't need an encore performance of this morning. Desperation clenched my stomach. Chewing the tip of my thumb, I waited for her answer.

Mom sighed. "Fine. You can come. Do you want to invite Ade or-"

"No."

"Fine." She said again. "Be ready by 8."

"Thanks, Mom." Grateful that she agreed, I turned around and climbed the rest of the stairs.

I slipped into the bathroom and out of my coffee-covered clothes. My skin felt sticky. I guess Wolfe was feeling the same way. As I turned on the shower faucet and waited for the water to turn hot, my thoughts slipped to the Crowns. 

Someone had  to know about them. The truth about the Crowns, if nothing else. How dangerous they could be and how dangerous this was, our situation. Not telling the police about it would only hurt my parents and the Espresso House in the long run. Wasn't it better to come clean before it was too late? After all, we were innocents in all this. Wolfe Sterling held me at gunpoint and forced my parents into signing the contract. We had no choice. Would the police believe that story? It was the truth.

Stepping into the shower, I scrubbed my skin until it was as clean as it could get. My face flushed with the thought of what Wolfe almost made me do in the cellar. The whole give-me-a-kiss thing? God, and to think I was actually going to do it. What was the point of that, honestly? No, kissing Wolfe Sterling was the last thing I'll ever do. I had better things to kiss, like...okay, maybe I didn't. A kiss from Ade and a kiss to Wolfe was horribly wrong.

Ade. What was I going to do about him? What could  I do? Sure, saying things would go back to the way they were was easy enough. Even if we could put this past us, that feeling would still be there. The awkward I-kissed-my-best-friend-and-she-rejected-me feeling.

The shower faucet squeaked when I turned it off. Stepping out, I wrapped myself in a bathrobe and picked up my dirty clothes. Making my way downstairs, I added the clothes to the pile of laundry waiting by the washing machine. I could hear the television playing when I went to go back upstairs. I went to my bedroom and closed the door.

It was about 6 in the afternoon now. Flicking the lamp beside my bed on, I slipped off the bathrobe and into a red crop top with a pair of high-waisted jeans. I went to my closet and picked out a warm grey cardigan to take along before we left. My head was buzzing with thoughts, most of them having something to do with either Ade or Wolfe. I dragged my bag over and plucked out my laptop. Just before I could log in, the door opened.

"Hey." Mom smiled, leaning against the doorframe. "So what did you need to show me?"

"Well-" I started off hesitantly. We had to deal with this sometime. There was no point in putting it off and pretending it was fine. It wasn't fine. We knew the locations of the criminals Brooklyn was searching for. With a bounty tagged as high as it was, I'd have thought my parents would be a bit more concerned with all of this. The Crowns needed to leave. Logging in, I pulled up the news article and put it out onto the bed for Mom to see. "-I think you should read this."

Mom walked over and sat down next to me on the bed. She picked up the laptop and after giving me a skeptical look, she began to read. Nervously, I chewed my nails and waited for her to finish. After about three minutes of silence, Mom finally spoke.