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That idea will be burned into my mind for the rest of forever; me peeling the fabric from her skin delicately. Or even better, ripping it off of her as I kiss her.
I’m in trouble.
I shove my phone into the pocket of my shorts as I turn down the corridor and make my way to my apartment and then I stop moving. I definitely locked the door when I left last night, and yet it’s swinging open slightly and her signature calling card drifts through the air with a soft sort of homeliness that twists my gut for some unknown reason.
Only one other person has a key to this place and she never drops by unannounced. Not unless I fuck up. I steady my breath, ready to lie through my teeth for the next God knows how long, and take a step into my own home; nervous for what is about to greet me.
Herperfectlymanicurednailstap expectantly against the rim of her coffee cup as she crosses and uncrosses her ankles, slowly. Julia Haston is observant and far too persistent to drop an enquiry half way through an interrogation and as I sit here, my own palms sweaty and my face flushed, I can’t help but feel like the naughty kid caught selling old porn magazines at school all over again.
She’s unimpressed that I missed her messages last night and this morning.
“I’m getting bored of the lies, Benjamin.” The long name. Only used when I’m in deep trouble. How fun.
“I’m not lying, Ma.”
She nods as she pushes to her feet and glances down the hall to my unmade bed, visible through the very open door I know I closed on my way out.
My mother: the professional snoop.
“You know, I’ve never known you not to make your bed. Even as a boy you did it every single morning.” She hums quietly as she moves across to the bookshelves and skims her finger over the surface. “You don’t have to tell me who she is, darling, but at least pretend you respect me enough not to hide that you’re dating someone.” That deliberate twinge of sadness in her voice is designed to break the strongest of men.
I sigh loudly.
“I’m not dating anyone, Ma. I crashed at a friends because she needed help with something. That’s all.”
Her eyes flick up to mine and there is absolutely no denying the simmer of something light and excited dancing behind the shade of blue that matches my own.
I shouldn’t have saidshe.
“But you want to?” Mom smiles. “Date her?”
My head drops into my hands as I release a low groan. How, when I am so desperate to keep my mess untangled and my mind less misty, is my mother of all people making it harder for me?
“Yeah,” I admit with a slump of my shoulders. I lean further forwards, my elbows on my knees, and avoid looking at the celebratory smile that blossoms over my mom’s face as she comes to sit beside me. “But it’s complicated and I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“Okay.” She places one hand over my own and pulls it gently, imploring me to look at her. “Talk it through, explain it to me.”
When I was a child, I always thought my mother was the hardest person I knew, in a different way to my father. It was never a negative with her. She was solid and dependable and a fantastic mom; the perfect counter for the shit show my father turned out to be. She protected me from far more than I realised. She pushed me to hold tight to my friendship with Jamie. She forced me to see the world outside of our little bubble of privilege. But I found it hard to talk to her. Now, as she smiles a sympathetic little smile and tilts her head slightly to the right, I look closely at her.
Age and experience has withered her slightly; creasing her sharpness into something a little softer, a little smoother. The cold behind her eyes has long since melted away, and perhaps it’s the familiar smell of freshly made coffee and walnut loaf that wafts through from my kitchen, or the way she perches herself beside me and pulls me back against the couch cushions, cradling me as if I’m a ten year old child and not a thirty-one year old man, but I realise something. My mother was never really hard. She wasstrong. She was strong because she had to be and that made her colder. Something about the way she looks at me now, partnered with the memory of the mother she had been, pulls memories of Mikaela to mind. And Iwantto tell her. I want to tell her everything.
“She - erm - she’s this strong, beautiful woman, Ma. Honestly, she’s incredible and she doesn’t even realise it.” I admit this with a shaky breath as I let my mother wrap me in her embrace. “She doesn’t let me get away with anything. She never lets me forget that I can be an ass and she makes me want to be better.” My mother sighs this happy, little sound that brings a smile to my face before reality sets in again. “But she’s been through a lot. And there are other factors, other people, this would affect.”
I feel my mother nod before she presses a kiss to my temple.I want to say,it’s Mikaela Wilcox, Mom. You remember her. Jamie’s baby sister. You adore her.
“So you worry she’ll reject you because of these things?” Her voice cuts through my conflict and I close my eyes, thinking of the woman I left behind this morning: her features soft and her voice steady as she looked up to me... Her smile uncertain.
“No,” I whisper. “She’ll give herself to me, Ma. She’ll say she wants me too.”
“Then what’s the problem, Benjamin?” Her palm brushes against my arm as she chuckles and I let my fear surface.
“What if I’m not actually what she wants? What if I do this - I go for it - and she wakes up one day and realises I’m not who she wants?”
Mom’s shoulders seem to shake with quiet laughter as she squeezes me a little tighter. “Whoever she is, she means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
I let her hold on to me for a little longer, the only answer I can give right now, and she sighs in contemplation. Silence wraps around us for a while and it blankets us, smothering us in its comfort.
When my text chime breaks through that sacred barrier, both of us jump and I shift out of her hold. Mikaela’s name lights up my screen and I twist nervously, shielding her from the lovable snoop beside me.
