Mob 5.5 (Chapter Preview) (Patreon)

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Mob 5.5

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Speak of the devil…

Greg blinked as he quickly ducked his head, confusion flitting across his expression as he mulled over his last few thoughts. Did I just call Mom the devil? What the hell is wrong with me?

“Greg?”

His mother’s voice met his ears again, the boy forcing himself not to let out a relieved sigh at the sound of her soft voice once again. It wasn’t that she hadn’t spoken to him at all since their fight. His mom wasn’t the type to keep up the silent treatment for long at all. It just wasn’t in her, Greg knew that much. What had been eating at him was that when she would speak, she just didn’t sound like she wanted to talk to him. So, right now, hearing her voice without any of the annoyance or bitterness that had been present over the last few days was… 

Well, it felt good.

Ugh….Shaking his head as if to physically dislodge his own mopey thoughts, Greg finally lifted his head to stare up at his mother. She stood roughly a meter away from him, taking up space in the center of the hallway while he sat slumped up against the wall, knees curled up to his face. The fluorescent light directly behind her head seemed to scatter around her hair, giving his mom’s face a slight glow that seemed to cut through her slightly frazzled and exhausted state.

The look on her face was hard to decipher, apart from looking vaguely negative, but even then, Greg couldn't prevent himself from smiling despite the slight frown on her own face. With a slight grunt, simply out of habit than any legitimate effort, the young man pulled himself to his feet and gave his mom a closed-mouth smile that she wouldn’t have to crane her neck down to see. “Hey, Mom.”

A few moments of awkward silence passed between the two of them before his mother broke it, opening her mouth as a slightly forced smile made its way onto her face. “How… how are you feeling?”

“Uhhhh…” Greg blinked, unsure exactly how to respond to that one. 

How am I feeling? It was a question with too many answers, Greg realized, and none of them were responses he felt like sharing with his mother, at least not right now. Chewing his lip, the boy turned his face aside as he gave his mom a weak shrug, simply sighing after another pregnant pause between the two of them. “... I don’t know. Fine… I guess.”

“What?” The word came out in a low whisper, almost a hiss as Susan’s hands went to her hips, the woman striking a pose that was essentially instinctive to all mothers by this point. The look Susan sent him was filled with all sorts of motherly indignation, another thankful reprieve from the legitimate tension that had been part of the last few days. “You think this is… fine?”