“Hi, I’m Raven…” I go to hold out my hand, but Maria stops me. I frown. What the heck?

The man doesn’t seem offended. If anything, his attention is on everyone and everything but me. When I look back to where Cher is standing, she waves and blows me a kiss; then I slide into the back of the vehicle.

Maybe all this dread about coming home is silly. I mean, so my mom is dating Jett Powers, a man nine years younger than her who is supposed to be a genius and is to-die-for hot. Oh, and one other problem… I can’t stop fantasizing about him.

I settle into the soft leather seat, wondering if I’ll even see him that much.

If all the tabloids are even slightly true, the man is a workaholic who demands that everyone bow to him and do his bidding.

An egotistical asshole. Everything I despise, so why is my stomach doing flips at the mere thought of meeting him?

Because you need to get laid.

Brody better be home from Stanford. Hopefully the debacle of our last visit will be forgotten, and his dick will actually work this time.

I can’t think about that—I seriously can’t. Brody is wonderful. He had some anxiety issues and that’s all. I’ve waited, saved myself for him, because he’s a solid guy, and I love that. He’s also someone my mother would never in a million years want.

God, I can’t believe that’s how I choose a guy these days. The first thing I do when I see a man is think, Is this someone my mother would want to sleep with?

If the answer is maybe, I move on.

Sad, pathetic, but true. This is what happens when your mother fucks your high school boyfriend. The one guy you think is the be-all and end-all, only to be slapped awake that he’s not.

She never would admit it, but Darren did. In fact, he did more than just tell me. He viciously showed me. She’d been texting him, sending him naked pictures of herself, begging him to stop by her room before he left.

Yeah, all the time I thought I had the perfect boyfriend, he was hanging around to have sex with my mom, by far the most traumatic and humiliatingly painful experience yet.

It still haunts me, his handsome face mocking me when I told him I wanted to wait a little bit longer, that I wasn’t ready yet. He laughed, calling me a dried-up, frigid bitch. And not to worry because my mom was more than willing to put out. I remember barely making it to the toilet before I threw up after he showed me the pictures and texts.

That was the day I changed.