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“My momma was a nurse, and my dad was a miner, sweet girl. This house is a mix of my meager beginnings and my Nathaniel’s fancy upbringing,” Mrs. Black tells me, easily reading my unspoken wonderings.
I smile at her across the table. “That has to get pretty confusing, in a house with men who all have the same name.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “No, Dad is Nathaniel, and son is Nate. It just makes life a lot easier around here,” she explains.
“Noted,” I say, relaxing a bit knowing she came from the same humble background as I did. “I am curious though. How…” I side-eye Nate. “How did you first learn about me exactly?”
“Well,” she begins, “at first there were subtle differences in Nate himself. He started complimenting me on things he never had before—”
“Sorry, Mom,” Nate inserts, sounding guilty.
“Oh, hush, honey. What teenage boy is going to remember to tell his mother how great her cooking is every day? It was just a nice and noticeable difference that just suddenly began out of nowhere. And then more obvious things, like his OCD symptoms lessening day by day,” she explains, and I nod, knowing what she means by that. “And then—” Her voice rises on the word, and she smiles over at her husband, who winks at her as he chews. “—the insurance claim letter came from a Dr. Neil Walker in a town an hour away from here.”
My eyes widen, and I look over at Nate, who just chuckles. “Yeah, didn’t even think about that, baby. I am only eighteen, after all,” he murmurs, and I choke on my water I just lifted to my mouth. He laughs, rubbing my back, and I swat at him.
Mrs. Black is smiling ear-to-ear when I look up again. “So when we asked Nate about it, he started spilling everything.”
“Everything?” I squeak, turning wide eyes to Nate then back to her.
“Everything!” his mom says loudly through a giggle at the same time Nate whispers so only I can hear, “Not everything, mouse.” And I relax a bit.
“He said he had met someone he had real feelings for. Which alone would’ve made my day, seeing as our son has always claimed not to have any.” She shakes her head at him. “And then he told us about your own anxiety disorder and how medications and such never worked for you, just like him, but this one therapist you’ve been seeing for years used a method that finally succeeded in helping you. He said he agreed to go with you to check him out, and might I say, whatever that man is doing in that office is miracle work. Hell, I might have to go check him out myself!” she chirps, and I choke on the roll I just took a bite of.
“Sweet girl, you sure seem to be having a hard time eating. You feeling all right? What happened back in the assistant principal’s office isn’t still messing with your nerves, is it? I get a nervous belly too, but I promise you’ve got nothing to worry about as far as that stuff goes. We won’t let anything happen to the woman who has changed our son’s life for the better,” Mrs. Black says, and my heart warms at her caring tone. I just can’t tell her that no, I don’t have a nervous belly; I was just startled by the image of Nate’s parents showing up at Club Alias.
Not that Doc would ever let that happen. He’d never reveal the form of therapy that’s truly working on Nate and me, except to maybe disclose that it’s technically systematic desensitization, but nothing about the BDSM side of things.
“I truly appreciate that, Mr. and Mrs. Black. This is my dream job, and I… I didn’t mean to get involved with one of my students. He just—”
“Oh, we know, Evie. He told us how he wooed you until you finally could no longer resist his charms and agreed to go on one secret date with him. He promised that if you didn’t want to see him again, he would leave you alone and never tell anyone about it at school,” she interrupts, and I slowly turn my head to meet the eyes of the scoundrel next to me as his nostrils flare, mischief filling his eyes as he tries to hold back his laughter. Mrs. Black continues on. “I can tell you right now, honey. No one can resist the charms of the Black men. Trust me, I tried.”
Mr. Black clears his throat. “But that’s a story for another day, my love,” he inserts, finally getting a word in with his sweet but chatty wife.
I face forward once again.
“Anyway,” his mom says, seeming only to be able to stay silent long enough to take a bite of food and swallow it. God, how I love her already. “He told us about you. At first, it was just things like what you looked like, how you were a few years older than him—which I was actually grateful for. The girls around here that are his age are spoiled little bitches.” I squeak out one startled laugh as Mr. Black scolds her gently, but she waves him off. “You know they are, Nathaniel. He said that you were a librarian and owned your own home in the town on the insurance claim. Told us about your parents.” Her voice is low for that last part, and I see sympathy in her eyes. “Yet it wasn’t the things he was telling us about you, but how he was saying them, like you were this angel sent to him, and he was so… just… smitten.” She ends with a dreamy smile. “And let me tell you, I have only seen one other man in this entire family ever be smitten.” She turns toward her husband and makes a goofy face at him.
