I grinned at him. “Lemme guess. ‘You seem so normal for having her as your mother.’”
“No,” he said, clearing his throat. “I was wondering how you came out so boring with her as your mother.”
Flipping him off, I grabbed my bag and turned to head for the house.
“I’m kidding,” he teased, slipping in front of me, hands on my hips, moving his head to try and get me to look at him. “C’mon, Loc, I’m kidding.”
I growled at him.
Leaning in, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed his face into the side of my neck. “I’m playing with you,” he murmured, his warm breath on my skin causing an involuntary shiver. “You’re not boring, even a little.”
“Come on,” I prodded him, needing him to let go before I did what I wanted and grabbed him back. I had a sudden urge to put my hands all over him. “I’m starving.”
He let me go, darted back for his bag, and I locked the car as he caught up with me. The dogs came back to make sure we didn’t get lost walking into the house.
The wide creek and the shade of the lush copse of trees surrounding the house cooled the outside temperature a bit, but it was still late August, still hot, so we retreated inside to the shade and the fans. Nick was instantly impressed.
“If you get too hot,” my mom told Nick, “I can turn on the air conditioner, but I prefer not to. I don’t like to be cut off from nature.”
“Me neither,” he agreed. “I try and keep the doors open at home, though I have an air guard,” he told her.
She asked him to explain, and while he told her that the air kept the bugs out, she was horrified that a bee might get caught in that and be hurt. “We have to safeguard our honeybees,” she insisted.
“Absolutely,” he agreed quickly, looking a bit concerned with how adamant she was.
“I have a friend who keeps bees,” she said, getting up to get us more berry-infused ice water. “That’s why I have all the beeswax candles and every kind of honey you can think of.”
He was going to help carry things from the kitchen to the table, but she ordered him to sit down and relax. I offered to help instead, and when she darted away, I leaned close and whispered to him to take it easy on the food.
“What do you mean?”
I grimaced at him. “She’s got a heavy hand with the spices, so be careful.”
He scoffed.
“I’m serious. Take it easy.”
The look he shot me, like I was clearly deluded, had me shaking my head.
Once she and I sat down, the three of us filled our plates, and my mother got right to asking Nick a million questions to get to know him. It was nice, listening to the two of them, and I found that seeing them interact made me happier than it should have. Why I cared that he was obviously smitten with her, and she with him, made no sense. I was trying to figure it out when she went to her huge kitchen for another pitcher of water and to make avocado toast, leaving the two of us alone.
His gasp captured my attention, and I realized he was squinting at me.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Everything is so hot,” he rushed out, guzzling the last of his water.
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed, grinning at him. “I told you.”
“Even her micheladas are hot,” he whined. “And she wasn’t kidding when she said the taquitos are spicy.”
“Yeah, I know,” I repeated, giving him a look that I hoped conveyed the level of dumbass he was for not listening to me. “I think she burned out the heat indicator in her mouth years ago. And tomorrow morning, you shouldn’t drink her coffee.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because she makes it so strong she once gave my grandmother a bladder infection.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I think we’ve established that I am, in fact, not kidding when it comes to my mother.”
“Jesus, does it stain the cups?”
“All coffee stains cups if you let it sit,” I clarified. “I think what you mean to ask is, does it peel the glaze off the inside of the cup, and the answer is yes.”
His eyes opened wide.
“This is just another thing that makes her, her,” I said magnanimously. “You have to roll with it, my friend,” I said before I went back to eating salsa.
“Are we?”
“Are we what?” I asked, sniffling as I put another chip in my mouth. It was best to eat one chip with salsa, one without, and alternate like that the whole time.
“Friends.”
“Well, yeah. I think we’re getting there, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I want us to be really good friends.”
I winced, and his chuckle, and the way he reached for my knee and squeezed it, warmed me inside even as I kept up the pained expression on the outside. “So you’re saying, once I leave, we still gotta exchange Christmas cards and talk on the phone and shit?” I asked, like that was the absolute worst thing I could think of.