Paper Bullets Read Free Page B

boyfriend seemed to be doing fine.
    “Okay. Just wanted to make sure.” I grinned. “You know. In case I forgot from the zillion other times you told me.”
    “Please don’t go senile on me, Mom. You’re the only adult I can talk to.”
    Good thing Ryan didn’t hear that. Samantha wasn’t ready to forgive him for replacing me with Melody. I figured she’d get there in her own time.
    “Good to know,” I said, and I meant it.
    I’d never been able to talk to my own mother without getting criticism in response. The last thing I wanted to do was turn into my mother where my own daughter was concerned. I just didn’t know how to be a good single mother at the same time I was learning how to be an independent woman who dated.
    I guess it was a good thing Kyle and I were taking it slow.
    Our cat chose that moment to yell for food.
    Other cats meow. Ours yelps. It’s one of the reasons we keep her dish full, but we’d been busy and must have ignored her for too long.
    Samantha giggled. “She has the best timing.”
    I gestured toward the guest bathroom. “Go get busy, and I’ll feed our starving cat.” I gave Samantha a sideways look. Sure, I was getting tired of the constant complaining, but I still liked spending time with my daughter. Even if it did involve vacuuming and cleaning the toilet bowl. “Maybe we can squeeze in part of a movie before I go out tonight,” I said.
    “Before we go out.”
    Samantha was going to her friend Maddie’s house for an end-of-the-summer party that Maddie’s mother had assured me would be chaperoned. Not that I worried about Samantha—as far as she was concerned, Jonathan was her boyfriend and that was that—but Maddie had developed something of a wild streak over the summer. My reputation as a “cool mom” had tarnished a bit when I’d told Samantha that Maddie couldn’t come over to the house unless I was there.
    “So, movie?” I asked.
    Kyle and I weren’t going to a movie. He didn’t like to go to the movies on a Saturday night. Too many teenagers on dates. He said it made him feel old.
    Whenever we did go out on a Saturday, he always took me to dinner at some restaurant I’d never heard of. Tonight we were going out for Mexican food at a family-owned place where the dad did all the cooking and his son did everything else, from bartending to waiting tables to washing the dishes. Kyle said the food was excellent, and I’d learned to trust his judgment.
    Samantha wrinkled her nose. “If you shower first.”
    I raised my eyebrows, pretending to be offended, but I couldn’t pull it off. I did need a shower. “Okay. You pick the movie while I’m in the shower.”
    Samantha headed off toward the guest bathroom with a plastic tote full of cleaning supplies and rubber gloves. Most kids probably hated cleaning the bathroom, but the guest bathroom didn’t get a lot of traffic. It’s easier to clean than the kitchen, which was next on my hit list before the shower. Samantha had taken her shower while I met with Ryan, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be working up a sweat anytime in the near future.
    The cat yelped again.
    I took a look at the cat’s dish. Almost full, but apparently enough was missing that the cat was worried she’d never eat again.
    I filled up the little hole she’d made in her food. She sniffed at it, ate maybe one bite, and headed off toward the living room couch, content with the knowledge she wouldn’t starve tonight.
    “And my daughter’s worried I’m going senile,” I muttered.
    While I wiped down the kitchen counter, I contemplated life as a spoiled housecat. Food on demand, a nice sunny spot to snooze in, and a soft lap to curl up on. Not such a bad existence.
    Of course, there’d be no Samantha and no movies, and no Kyle and Mexican food and Saturday night kisses goodnight.
    I still had a smile on my face when I got done with the kitchen. On my way to take a shower, I detoured through the living room and gave my confused cat