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I laugh and divert her smacking hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll stop. Just lemme ask you one question?”
She hesitantly watches me for a moment, but I have to know. “Do you own a single pair of underwear that has kittens on it?”
My question doesn’t embarrass her like I expected it would. She just laughs and shakes her head. “Jimmy told you that? He said he would. He’s such a troublemaker.”
“Yeah, he really is. He’s an asshole.” I twine our fingers. “Okay, let’s get serious. My mom’s name is Nel. Well, her name is Chantelle, but people call her Nel or Nelly. Not us though, and not Jon. Or Iz. We call her Mom or die. Um… She turned fifty not long ago, and we had a stupid big fancy dress party. It was a lot of fun, considering I was wearing breeches that cut off the circulation to my balls for six hours straight.” She snorts and cuddles in. “Um, she’s shorter than us guys, but not actually a short person. Probably not much shorter than you. She raised three boys – plus Jon and Iz – by herself. My dad died when I was young, and she never remarried.”
“I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Yeah, I guess you can relate, huh? He died in a car accident when I was thirteen; so it’s been a long time. Mom was pretty wrecked at the time, of course, but she didn’t drop the ball. She was a stay-at-home parent, and my dad worked and supported the family, but when he died, she had to go back to work. She opened a dress shop on Main street with her friend. Teenage boys eat a lot, and it got expensive fast.”
She snickers and moves aside as our meals arrive. “I know all about teenage boy appetites. He’s sending me broke with how much he eats.” The waiter steps away without a word, and picking up her knife and fork, she takes a deep sniff. “Mmm. Yummy.” Twirling the delicious looking pasta around her fork, I watch her eat in hopes she might share. The steak just isn’t calling to me as much as her lips around the pasta are.
She looks up with a mouthful. “Wha’?”
I grin and eye the fork. “Good?”
She looks down at my untouched steak in warning. “It’s delicious. How’s yours?”
“I saw yours and changed my mind on what I want…?”
She raises her brow in challenge.
“Gonna share?”
She scoffs. “Didn’t your mama ever teach you that’s rude?”
“She taught me lots of things. Doesn’t make your pasta smell any less awesome, doesn’t change my heart’s desire.”
“Your heart’s desire?” she snorts. “Really? Way to lay it on thick. Jesus, Bobby.” She laughs and pushes her plate toward me. Feeling a little guilty, like, just a tiny smidge, I load up my fork and hold it up in offer. Her cheeks stain pink, but she opens her mouth and takes the pasta anyway.
I watch her lips stretch and close around the pasta. Her tongue caresses the fork and takes the sauce with it. Licking her lips seductively, I squirm in my seat when my jeans don’t fit right anymore.
She wasn’t trying to be sexy, she was just eating pasta like a regular non-perverted person. She has no clue how sexy she is, or that she just put on a porn-worthy show that’ll fuel my next several years of shower sessions. She doesn’t notice the eyes that follow her when she walks across a room. She just doesn’t get it at all.
In an attempt to not embarrass myself, I load up the fork for myself and shovel it in. It’s fucking delicious, and I totally regret the steak right now. However, my mamadidin fact teach me not to be rude, so I slide her plate across the table after only one heaped forkful and start on my own dinner.
It’s pretty amazing actually, but still, my petulant self wants to share hers. “Anyway, you wanted to know about my mom. She’s really cool. I don’t say that in a dependent mama’s boy kinda way. We’re all grown men; contributing members of society and all that shit.” I look up to catch her smiling and shaking her head. “But she’s a tough cookie, raised us all with an unshaking foundation. She let us train and fight; which can’t be easy for a mom. You’ll know what that’s like soon with Jack. She’s an independent woman, happy with her life and business. But we feel bad that she lives in the big house all alone, so we go over a lot to visit, eat, do yard maintenance, that sort of stuff.” She watches me with a kind smile and slides her plate toward me. With a big grin, I load up my fork and eat more than I should. “Tell me about your mom?”
Her face instantly turns sad. I’m such an idiot. Why do I ask stupid shit? I already know the woman is dead. Why bring it up? “I’m sorry, babe. Forget I asked.”
“No. It’s okay.” She shakes her head contemplatively. “My mom. Well, her name is Ann-Marie.WasAnn-Marie. She died when I was a kid. Jack was only two.”
“So young. I’m sorry that happened.”
She sighs and looks down at her hands. I don’t know how to naturally steer this conversation back to happier topics. I hate that I’ve upset her. “I’m sorry I brought it up. We can talk about something else–”
“No, it’s okay. You misunderstand my hesitation. It’s just…” She bites her plump lip. “I have more deep stuff that you don’t know. I wanted to hear yours, because I swear, I have a metric friggin ton of the crap. This stuff with my mom, it’s not something that upsets my life now, so don’t freak. I just don’t want to make our date depressing.”
“I want to hear anything you want to tell me. Doesn’t matter if it’s a bit dark, we can always recover if you share your pasta.” She snickers and leans in to bump my shoulder with hers. Taking the fork and loading it up, I offer it, to give her time to think through what she wants to say. The shuttered look in her eyes easily distracts me from the discomfort of my jeans.
“Okay, well,” she wipes a napkin over her lips, “it’s not what you think. I’m not,” she grits her teeth, “I’m not sad that my mom is dead. I know how horrible that sounds, but it is what it is.”
Well shit. That’s not where I thought this would go.
“So, my mom… wasn’t like yours. She didn’t like me. Like literally. At all…”
That honestly doesn’t make sense to me. How could a mom just not like her kid?
