Tara had spent most of her adult life with her exceptionally large nose to the grindstone.
This both was and wasn't the mindset that had gotten her hired by DynaCorp in the first place. While she had spent her high school and college years working hard for the best grades around, and her early days in Charleston had been spent as a corporate climbing intern before eventually securing the corner office for herself, it wasn't like Tara had been brought up to be the busy bee that eventually fluttered home when things went awry. If Mrs. West had had her way, Tara would have spent far more time with her feet up than she did hunched over her desk.
Sure, she might not have been as successful if she had taken the easy route back then, but this wasn't back then anymore, was it?
Call it having a sour taste in her mouth over the fact that she'd been terminated despite being one of the best employees in her department, call it wanting to kick her feet up after busting her butt for years for a company that would eventually turn its back on her. Call it literally being forced by her mother to not have a job for the first time since high school.
But whatever the reason attached to it, Tara West was going to spend her time at home relaxing while she could.
Mama's orders, after all.
"It isn't like I don't have a nest egg stored up..."
"Mama's not even making me pay rent—literally when else am I gonna get a chance to lay around?"
"It's like a vacation that I didn't have to use PTO for."
Sleeping until noon was not something that came naturally to Tara. At least, not after the many years of forcing herself to be the Busy Businesswoman™ of her dreams. But after the novelty of rolling out of bed around lunchtime had worn off, that is to say by the time it became the norm, Tara was downright grumpy if she was forced to trudge herself out of bed before 10 in the morning on any given day.
Luckily, since there were no doctor's appointments for her mom to go to or shopping to be done, Tara could take this precious Wednesday to sleep as long as her heart was contented—and after a dinner like last night's it felt like all Tara wanted to do was lounge.
"Tara honey, I'm going to the store, do you want anything?"
"No mama, thank you!"
"Okay, just text me if you need anything!"
"Won't be doing that..."
Tara nestled underneath the heavy comforter that covered various parts of her slowly softening anatomy beneath rumpled and rolled layers of pajamas. 11:30am was one hell of a time to be waking up, if you were still the head of Marketing at the Charleston branch of DynaCorp. But for laid-off, laid-out Tara, 11:30 meant that the day was just beginning.
And what a day she had in store for her.
She could catch up on her favorite shows, a few shows that she wasn't crazy about but had proved to be perfectly adequate background noise while she watched videos on Youtube, and just kind of enjoy the day for what it was. Now that she had finally decided to stop fighting her mama about getting up and getting a job, Tara was kind of enjoying laying out like this. It was something that she had never really gotten to do growing up.
GRRRRRGLE
And speaking of things that were growing, Tara's tummy made its presence known underneath all of the layers of bedding that she had buried herself under rather quickly. By the time she'd opened her eyes at her mother's insistence, Tara was already smacking her lips as the whisper of breakfast aromas still fluttered throughout the house. Her mama had started leaving her breakfast out so she could grab it herself, with the meal usually running into lunch.
Had she left it out for her? Surely her mama knew that Tara would be hungry when she woke up...
Only one way to find out...
Tara slowly poured herself from the side of the bed, stretching her arms up high as a soft stomach pooched out just over the waistband of her pajama bottoms. Her bottle-blonde locks in a frizzy mess after tossing and turning in satisfaction of a needlessly full tummy the night before, Tara looked the very essence of creature comforts as she greated the not-quite-afternoon with a big stretch and a hearty yawn. Then, a little scratch of her tummy.
M'starved.
Continental breakfast was not something that Tara had gotten used to yet. Even growing up, her mama had never laid it on as thick as she had been lately. Something about not having her or Haley home must have really hit differently in her—she'd been feeding Tara basically nonstop since she walked through the front door. And she'd lost her job too. That had to have accounted for at least some of the sympathy points that Tara was getting with all of this special treatment...
Ooh, did she make breakfast burritos?
The thought fell from her lips as she finally placed the smell that had eeked her out of bed and onto her feet. Poking her head out of her bedroom door, into the hallway, and coming down the hardwood floors into the living room and then the kitchen was enough to confirm her suspicions.
A whole pyramid of them, waiting on her.
Oh shit, these things aren't even cold yet.
Tara instinctively picked up one wrap to munch on and another one to plate. These were her absolute favorite things growing up, and Haley always bitched about them. Her mama had been making them more and more since she'd been home, but she had yet to get tired of them. Certainly not so tired that a third one was entirely out of the question before the morning, er, afternoon was over...
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