𝐆𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 [𝟏𝟖+] ✔

1

"Mum, can you drive me to Robbie's house?"

"Where's your car?" she asks, flicking more mascara onto her already thick black lashes. "Have the driver take you."

I roll my eyes at her through the mirror and she gives me a stern look. "I hate it when they drive me, can't you? You're passing his estate anyway."

Robbie is my long-term boyfriend, inseparable from the age of fifteen. My dad hates him, like, detests him in ways that make no sense. He disapproves of our relationship, and always tries to talk to me about splitting with him to be with someone who comes from wealth.

My dad is one of the richest people in Scotland, making millions from his solar energy company. Even our house looks like something out of a 3012 futuristic movie, and I hate it.

I don't see him much, but I'm used to it. Though, Mum and I are like best friends, we do everything together. She loves Robbie, and always fights my corner when I try to invite him over for dinner, standing up to my dad. But when he gives in, he always claims to have a work meeting or a phone call when Robbie walks through the door.

"I'll drive you," she says, huffing as she closes her compact mirror, standing up, and fixing her long navy dress, embellished with little crystals on the straps and down the back. "How do I look?" She twirls in the middle of the room, grinning at me giving her two thumbs up.

My parents had me when they were sixteen, an accident, the glue of their relationship, something my dad likes to throw out whenever he's drunk. I don't care about his words, it's my mum's that mean the world to me.

Now that I'm twenty-one, and she's thirty-seven, we are more like sisters.

"Are you going to go to Robbie's dressed like that?" she asks, grimacing, looking over my baggy hoodie, leggings, and converse. "You haven't even brushed your hair, dear."

She's not wrong.

I shrug her off and walk down the marble stairway, each step lighting up with every footfall. The seven-floored mansion is full of technology yet to be released to the public, most things I have no clue how to use. It's cold, uninviting, and everything is white. What makes it worse is that everywhere I turn, a suited-up bodyguard is standing at attention, watching me while I lazily make my way around the house in my pyjamas and messy ginger hair.

Our chef, Belinda, is more of a friend to me than anyone. She's beautiful, in her fifties, with the longest hair I've ever seen, and somehow, she keeps it perfectly styled every day. I always sit on the kitchen counter while she cooks, talking about everything and anything while she shows me how to make my favourite dishes, but makes me promise not to tell Dad.

"You look beautiful, Mrs McClure." She beams at my mum, hugging her, and kissing both cheeks. Her nose turns up when she looks at me. "Aren't you going out, too?"

"What is everyone's deal? I'm going to lie in bed with my boyfriend and watch a movie. Do I need to wear a ball gown to do that?" I ask sarcastically, placing my hands on my hips, laughing when they both start to giggle. Pouting, I shake my head at them. "Unbelievable."

My mum is going to some opening ceremony for my dad's latest invention. I have no interest in his work, or his invitation, which is excluding a plus one. This certain project is something he has been working on for the past five years, and even had to buy plots of land that make up an entire town.

His company is called Zenergy, cringey, and full of crap. I praise him for building it from scratch, being the sixteen-year-old father that worked in Tesco for the first few years of my life. But since his massive breakthrough, earning him millions, that's when the family photos changed, he was missing from every single one. He never showed up to my school plays, assemblies, or even saw me off for my Prom.