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I did? Was he messing with me? I just couldn't tell with him.
"Mm-hmm," he said. "I met him when Jessica moved in."
Jessica? He actually remembered my name?
Josh's eyebrows raised. "A lawyer, huh? That's cool."
Taking a long drink from my beer, I stared at Josh, wondering what on earth my mother was going on about. She could be incredibly long-winded. I heard bits and pieces about why Devon was temporarily in New York, how he was opening a new office there, how he helped musicians with contracts.
I knew she was proud, but did she really have to tell Josh all this? I mean, what was her purpose here?
"So anyway," I heard her say, "what do you do?"
Oh, and so it began. My mom was obsessed with what people did for a living, and it drove me bat-shit crazy. I despised being judged by my job. And she was the worst offender alive. And the damn pressure I felt about it was insane.
"I'm a freelance sports writer," he answered easily.
She had a few things to say about that, then grilled the poor guy. I reached for the phone, planning to tell her we needed to go, but Josh pulled away, shooting me a dirty look, filling her in on the websites and publications he wrote for currently and how he had recently started a podcast.
The two of them talked for a ridiculous amount of time, Josh just as chatty as my mom, while I half-listened to them and half-watched the game. Nothing was happening anyway between the Dodgers and Padres, so I supposed it was okay. But it was definitely odd seeing the two of them talking.
My thoughts went to Devon and how he was with her. They actually got along pretty well, my mom always so impressed by Devon's job. But if I was being honest, it seemed like my mom slightly annoyed Devon. It was nothing he said. He wouldn't dare. He knew how close I was with her despite how much she drove me crazy at times. But he seemed to know it was one thing for me to complain about her and another for anyone else to say anything bad.
However, I could see his eyes sort of glaze over when she talked, and he always consumed a lot of wine whenever she was in town and we had dinner together. Living not too far away in Palm Springs, her visits were rather frequent.
Finally, the two of them finished up their phone call, and I reached out my hand, expecting my mom to say goodbye to me.
"Oh," Josh said. "She already hung up."
"Huh. Okay then." Kind of strange.
"She said to tell you goodbye and that she loves you," he added.
"Oh, well, okay." That was better at least.
"And that she'd buy you those shoes soon and send them to you." He cleared his throat and said under his breath, "Not that you really need them."
I so heard that. "Dude, we live in SoCal. I'm allowed to have a flip-flop collection, okay? If that's my worst vice, then I'd say I'm doing pretty well."
He shrugged. "You have a point I suppose. That's pretty tame as far as vices go."
"Right? Much better than yours."
"Mine?" Josh shot me the stink-eye. "Excuse me, but I don't have any vices."
"Oh, no? No vices, huh? Oh, Josh, give it to me hard! Harder! Faster!" I imitated.
Josh snorted and almost choked on his beer. "Hey, I'm celibate now."
"Right. For what? Two whole days."
"You've got to start somewhere," he said matter-of-factly as he grabbed a handful of peanuts. "You know what? We should make a bet or something."
"A bet? What on earth kind of bet?" What was he talking about?
"You know, see who can hold out the longest."
"You mean who can go the longest without sex?" What a strange conversation to have.
