Answering the phone, I held onto my breath, when I heard an older woman’s voice come through. “So, you’re the guy responsible for her bad attitude.”
A nervous laugh erupted from me. I had never dated anyone long enough to give them the idea that I would want to speak to anyone important to them.
Besides her.
“I’m so glad you called me back…” The Clave mask slipped back into place, polishing all my stained edges in the hopes of impressing her.
“Didn’t give me much of a choice, since you’ve been calling me every day. Is there something I can help you with?” Her voice showed her age, but her mouth was a family heirloom passed down to Justice.
“I love Justice very much. I wanted to express this to you and prove that I deserve her hand in marriage.”
Laughter poured in from the other end of the phone. “You don’t take no for an answer, do you? If she wanted to marry you, I don’t think she would have evacuated LA like a natural disaster was headed her way.”
“Respectfully, no. I don’t lose gracefully.”
“Go on. I’m gonna need to hear you express those feelings,” she said, but not with an iron fist. Her voice sounded tired and worried for Justice.
“Okay… I’m not a great person, but I’m a better person because of her. I want to be good enough to deserve her.”
“Oh, honey, she wasn’t always a good person either and don’t you let her forget it. Wicked girls like her can’t forget to be humble…”
Elena Monroe grew up in Florida scribbling down stories from a very young age. These stories were really just wavy lines filling the paper, but she knew each word, each emotion, each character’s name, and there was no tricking her into forgetting what each line signified. Just like her unconventional way of writing as a toddler Elena is setting her own rules and just telling stories.
Much like her debut novel, The Best Years, life certainly imitated art. Transplanting from the South to the East Coast, Elena currently lives in Connecticut with husband, reformed bad boy.
Find her on her social media through Twitter at @elenamonroe, Instagram at @elenamonroewrites, Facebook at @elenamonroewrites, and more
