Hung: A Badboy Romance Read Online Free Page B

feel bad all over again that I didn’t make the trip to spend my twenty-fifth with them, the way Mom had asked me to, so many times.
    “Happy birthday, honey!” Alexander joins in, smiling wide and giving me a hearty wave for good measure. “Twenty five, eh? I remember when you were just eighteen, my little junebug! Where   has   the time gone?” 
    He looks so cheesy. His pastel golfing clothes and his expensive tan. And God, everything he says is cheesy too. I mean,   junebug?   Really? He can be such a cheeseball sometimes. But then I look at the two of them together on my computer screen, his arm holding her protectively. He steals little glances at her, like he still can’t quite believe his luck, even after all these years. I can see how much he loves her, and I guess really, that’s all you need.
    ‘Thanks so much, you guys,” I reply, trying my hardest to keep the fake grin fixed firmly on my face, all the while hoping that my own laptop’s webcam doesn’t show   too much   of my crappy, messy little shoebox of an apartment. There are no balloons and streamers here, and I just know how much fuel it would give Mom, if she caught a glimpse of the peeling paintwork, the damp patches in the plaster, not to mention the many takeout containers and other trash littered about the place.
    It’s basically   the   typical depressing single girl studio apartment.
    “So, what are you doing later, Sweetie?” Mom asks in a tone that’s half friendly but also obviously trying to sniff out more clues about my social life in this city. I don’t blame her. No wonder she’s curious; I try to tell her as little as possible about my life these days. “Seeing some friends? Going out to a few bars?”
    “Yeah, yeah, something like that,” I mumble, my fake smile faltering for just a half second before I quickly remember to reattach it to my face.
    But the truth is, I don’t really   have   any friends in this city – the   third   one I’ve lived in in the same number of years, after I graduated History from Penn State. And it turns out that, hey, guess what – nobody in this country is looking to hire a History major! The only jobs I could find were all part-time, and nothing in the   slightest   related to my field of study – I’ve taken everything from receptionist, to assistant in a daycare, to my latest job: waitressing in a diner.
    I have to admit, it’s not exactly what I dreamed of when I signed up for college.
    “So, did you receive our birthday card?” Mom asks, with a strange excited tone to her voice. “I hope you haven’t opened it already, now. We were hoping to watch as you open it ...”
    “Sure, sure, I have it right here,” I reply, holding up the plain envelope with my Mom’s familiar handwriting scrawled across the front – the one she made me expressly promise I wouldn’t open until the morning of my birthday. And now she’s actually insisting on watching me open it right here on Skype, too?
    Something makes me feel uneasy about this all of a sudden.
    Why don’t I have a good feeling about whatever this envelope contains?
    “Well, go on then, honey!” Alexander laughs from the screen of my laptop, obviously noticing my slight hesitation as I clutch the plain brown envelope in both hands, staring down at it. “Tear it open!”
    So I begin to tear open the envelope, very slowly and deliberately, at first just uncovering a cute baby blue birthday card inside, with a cartoon kitten on the front and the words   To A Very Special Daughter!   embossed in a curly silver font across the front.
    But then, a moment later, when I slip the card from the envelope and open it hesitantly, well that’s the moment I realize that this is more than just a regular birthday card. Because inside it is something else, too ... 
    A ticket.
    A   plane   ticket.
    A   plane ticket to London ...
    “Wait a moment,” I say, the smile falling from my face faster than you can say   WTF