Second Chance His Unending Love (Calista Hartwell) novel Chapter 8

Calista had just wrapped up with her lawyer when her phone rang again. She swiped to answer, and a shrill, furious voice came screaming through the speaker.

“Is this Mrs. Frost? You’re the one who told Austin to go to the internet cafe to smoke and drink and watch porn, right? Your son’s a bad seed, and now he’s corrupted mine! What are you gonna do about this?

“I can’t explain this over the phone. Get over here right now! Your family needs to take full responsibility for this!”

The woman on the other end sounded furious. She was so angry it felt like she wanted to reach through the phone and strangle Calista.

Calista just said “Got it” and hung up.

She already pieced together what went down from the mom’s rants earlier, and she could imagine what kind of trouble Austin was in.

Before, she would’ve jumped in her car and raced over there to save him. But not anymore.

The son she’d poured her whole life into was rotten to the core, and she’d been blind to it until now.

It shattered her heart, but she wasn’t going back.

When things were good, he never thought of her. But the second trouble hit, she was his first scapegoat.

Let someone else clean up his mess. It wasn’t her problem anymore.

*****

Austin relaxed when he heard Calista’s response.

He grabbed Nicole’s wrist and told her quietly, “Don’t worry, Nicole. Everything’s fine now.”

Calista always protected him. Every time he messed up, she’d sweep in and fix it.

Last year, when he got in a fight with a classmate and the school made him clean bathrooms for a week, Calista had done it for him instead.

No matter what, he just blamed her, and poof, problem solved.

The atmosphere in the room was suffocating.

Both sides were guilty, so no one called the cops.

The three boys sat quietly with their mothers. The mothers looked like they were building up to something big. They were just waiting for Calista to show up so they could tear into her.

Leon tugged carefully on Lauren’s sleeve.

“Mom, please don’t be mad. It’s my fault. I promise I won’t do it again.”

Lauren’s face was stormy, but she said nothing.

Leon just kept apologizing.

Austin rolled his eyes, making a grossed-out noise. “Ugh, what a wimp. So embarrassing!”

Leon’s eyes looked hurt. “Austin, that’s my mom…”

Isn’t apologizing the right thing to do when you upset your mom?

Austin sneered at him. “Psh, my dad and I don’t grovel like that.”

Lauren clutched her chest, her voice sharp with bitterness. “Yeah, you and your dad are both real pieces of work, aren’t you?”

Austin kicked his chair in defiance.

Today, he was going to show everyone how easy it was for him to control his own mother and make her do whatever he wanted.

An hour went by. The door to the private room opened again.

Austin grinned, smug.

He was about to snap, “What took you so long?” but the words caught in his throat when he saw who walked in.

The mothers who’d been ready to fight all froze too.

A tall, imposing middle-aged man stood in the doorway. The air in the room immediately turned cold and tense.

“Dad?” Austin’s voice shook slightly.

Oh crap. Why is Dad here?

The three mothers’ tempers flared right back up. They started swinging their arms and yelling, going after Nicole again. Killian even got hit a few times in the chaos.

The whole scene turned into complete mayhem.

The owner had to pull out his phone and threaten to call the police before everyone finally calmed down.

Killian looked terrible. Someone had yanked his tie crooked. His arrogance from earlier was completely gone.

He quickly pulled out his checkbook and wrote each family a check for 200 thousand dollars to settle things down.

Lauren said coldly, “For Austin’s mother’s sake, we’ll let this go. But Mr. Frost, please keep those two under control and stop them from ruining other people’s lives!”

Killian forced a stiff smile, mumbled apologies, and finally left with Austin and Nicole.

Nicole’s cheek was swollen. She muttered curses under her breath. “Bunch of crazy old hags! Hope their sons abandon them when they’re old!”

She thought she sounded tough, but she didn’t notice the irritation in Killian’s eyes or how he sped up his pace.

Austin stared at his three classmates the whole way out.

Usually, when they hung out, they’d all complain about their overbearing parents. But today? He saw them being sweet to their moms, apologizing, protecting them during the fight.

It made him uneasy.

Traitors. Can’t they have any backbone like me? So what if I burned bridges with my mom?

Neither Killian nor Austin said anything.

Nicole rubbed her nose and walked over to Austin, putting on a caring big-sister tone. “Hey, did that scare you? C’mere, let me pat your head.”

Austin forced a smile.

Nicole tried to comfort him. “It’s no big deal. If your friends didn’t like it, they could’ve just left. They stayed, which means they wanted to hang out too, right?”

Austin mumbled, “Yeah…”

Nicole added, “Their parents probably got upset because your mom said something. Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.”