A snippet from Tricks and Treats

Here's a bit of something-something from my forthcoming book, Tricks and Treats. In this excerpt, Poppy finds her mother Fiona prying for too much information about her love life, and Poppy decides to divert.
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I could see Mom wasn’t going to be swayed by my refusal. I needed to distract. I picked up a catalog that was on the kitchen table.
“You know,” I began. “I came in here the other day and saw Tom looking through one of these. I think he was Christmas shopping.”
“Oh.” My mother raised an eyebrow. “Was he looking for something sparkly?” As much as Mom loved a surprise, she loved knowing what kind of gift she was getting even more. It allowed her to shop for complementary companion pieces. Or to tell any of us to choose a different color. The woman knows what she wants. Even more so, she knows what she doesn’t.
“In fact, he was.”
Mom smiled serenely. “What was he buying?”
“Well, I’m not sure he was buying, but he was circling these plaid flannel pajamas as well as some sort of stirrup pants with ‘sexy’ written across the butt in rhinestones.”
Her face fell. “What?”
“Oh wait, it wasn’t stirrups. It was sweatpants.”
Mom’s chair protested as she lurched upwards, sending it screeching across the floor. “Tom!” she bellowed as she made her way to the bathroom, presumably to interrupt his shower.
“What was that all about?” Jordan asked as I stood and put my cup in the dishwasher.
“She got to prying too much, so I diverted her.”
“What set her off?”
“The sweatpants. Mom loathes them. Unfortunately, Tom had to take the bullet, but I’m fine with that."
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