Eric groaned as his alarm sounded, rolling over and burying his face in a pillow even as he reached to turn it off.

Ugh. He had tried to go to bed early, but he’d had paperwork to finish up on. He’d have thought that stalling on the Sunny Acres/Caskill mess would’ve lessened the rest of his load, but nope, he still had other projects to finish up and reports to turn in.

Now he had to actually get up early, on the weekend, because he’d promised his mom he’d take her out to brunch.

It wasn’t that he minded seeing Mom. He loved her and enjoyed spending time with her. He’d always gotten along with her better than he had Dad, if only because Mom had never placed any expectations on him other than ‘do what makes you happy.’ It was just that Eric had never been a morning person.

He could still feel the tingle of Hank’s lips where he’d kissed him last night. Now that he was letting himself drink in the possibility of actually being with Hank, actually dating him, it was like his body was even more insistent, reminding Eric of all the ways that he was drawn to Hank, how good Hank could make him feel.

His body stirred with interest, but there was no way he was going to indulge in that right before he went and took his mother out to brunch. No way.

Instead he got up, showered, put on some nice clothes — but not a suit, thank God — and drove to meet his mom at the café they’d picked out.

Something in Eric always relaxed when he saw his mother. She opened her arms and he stepped in at once, letting her envelop him in a hug. He’d never been very touchy with anyone else — Hank was clearly an exception — but his mother had always been very into showing love through physical touch, and so he’d grown up with lots of hugs and hair ruffling and such. A part of him was always going to be five years old around his mom.

“How’ve you been?” she asked as he led her inside. He’d placed a reservation, just in case, and was glad for the forethought when he saw how crowded the place was.

“I’m good,” Eric replied as they were led to their table. He knew what she was really asking: how are you handling the grief?

Mom had wanted him to talk to a grief counselor or something when Dad had passed on. Eric wasn’t really one for talking about that sort of thing — except, apparently, with Hank. The idea of paying a stranger to listen to him talk about his complicated relationship with his father had just sounded unbearably uncomfortable.

“I’m fine,” Eric promised her. And he was fine. The uncertainty over whether his father would be proud of him or not would be there whether Dad was right in front of him, or nonexistent. Eric wasn’t exactly holding his breath on getting an answer to that anytime soon.

“What about your social life?” Mom asked. “Seen any friends lately? Met anyone?”

“Mom.” Eric rolled his eyes. “I know you want grandkids someday, but c’mon.”

“I just want to make sure that you’re being taken care of. I know you’re super busy, and I want you to take care of your heart as well as your resume.”

Eric smiled at her. He knew that Mom didn’t mean to sound cheesy when she said things like that. She genuinely believed that. “You know I’ve got other priorities right now, Mom.”

He didn’t dare tell her about Hank, or she’d be all over that. She’d make it a bigger deal than it was, act like he and Hank had been together longer, were more serious about this whole thing, than was really true. Eric wasn’t about to go through that, and he definitely wasn’t about to put Hank through it either.

“I’ll find the right person,” he assured her. “It’s just not the right time, okay? I’ve got to get this promotion.”

His mother’s ocean eyes were shrewd, and they narrowed at him. He’d gotten his eyes from her, but the rest of him from his father. “Is this because you think it’s what would make your father proud of you?”

Eric started a little. “Mom…”

Their server came up and after they placed their orders, Eric turned back to her. “Look, I’m not working myself to death or anything…”

“I don’t think you realize what a toll you’ve been putting on yourself,” Mom said, interrupting him. “Sweetheart, you look like you’ve barely been sleeping. And when’s the last time you had sex?”

Eric choked on his water. “Mom!”

Mom shrugged. “What? Just asking.”

Eric sighed. “I’m serious, Mom; there’s no need to worry about me. My career is important to me, and I want to take the time to get into a position where I don’t have to worry about it anymore. A position where I feel like a success. How can I give my time properly to a partner if I’m spending my whole time focusing on my career? That’s not fair to me or to them, or to my job if I start slacking off.”

His mother tilted her head and pursed her lips, gazing at him for a moment through her narrowed eyes. Then she relaxed a little. “Eric, do you know what your father once said to me, about a month after we got engaged?”

Eric shook his head.

Mom smiled. “He had proposed to me, which was lovely, but then he got swept up in this big merger deal that he’d been put in charge of, and he was spending all his time at the office. It was a real strain on us, especially since I was trying to start planning the wedding. It was a lot of work, to plan it; and of course he wanted a big ceremony, I think a bit to show off, but also a bit so that he could spoil me the way he always liked to, and so I was trying to accommodate that.”

Eric nodded along. His dad had always been best at expressing his affection through gifts, and he’d always showered Mom with them.

“One day,” his mother went on, “he came home and found me crying. It was over a silly thing; you know, something about the location or venue where we were going to hold the ceremony. But it was an excuse to cry over how much I missed him, and how worried I was that this job was going to consume him and drive us apart, even though I didn’t want to admit that was what it was about.

“And you know, your father just knelt down in front of me and he took my hands, and he told me, ‘Vera, if you want me to give this up, if this is too much for you, I’ll do that’.”

Eric stared at her. “Dad … Dad offered to give up his career? For you?”

His mother nodded. Her eyes were a little wet, but Eric knew she wouldn’t want him to comment on it, so he didn’t. “Yes. I felt just as shocked as you look right now. I knew how much his success meant to him. But he was insistent.

“I thought that he would be miserable if he quit, you know, so I tried to talk him out of it. And he told me…”

Mom gave him the happiest, softest smile that Eric had ever seen, one that he used to see all the time, but had been missing from her face since Dad had gotten sick. “He told me that his job was something that he loved, yes, and that he valued his success. But that he valued me more, and that my presence in his life only made him want to work harder, for me, to provide for me and give me the life I deserved.

“But if the life I wanted was different from that, then he was willing to pack it all up. He’d find a way to be successful in another field, something that allowed him to spend more time with me. He wanted to make sure that I never felt neglected or alone.

“I know that you didn’t always approve of the gifts that he gave me. That you thought they were … placating me, or that they were too generic. But I know that while they were jewelry and such, they were always very thoughtful.

“He got me a necklace that he knew was similar in style to one from Egypt that I’d admired in a museum once, and another time the necklace was my favorite flowers, dipped in this special resin repeatedly until they were preserved and looked just like china.

“He didn’t show it in the best way sometimes, but he did truly care. And I know that he put a lot of effort into helping you to have the drive for professional and financial success that he did. But it was because it made him happy, and he wanted you to be happy as well, and he was afraid of what poor finances would do. His side of the family is very poor, you know, or they were growing up, because of his father’s laziness.”

Eric had heard that story many a time from Dad, always as a part of a lecture to work hard and stay in school and don’t go out partying and all of that.

Mom reached her hand across the table, mussing Eric’s hair. If anyone else had done that he would’ve slapped them, but he let her. It made him feel loved, and he knew that was how she intended it.

“He put me, and his happiness at home, above his job, and I think that you should consider that as well. To be successful at your career is a wonderful thing. But you need to have balance in your life.

“It might not have seemed that way to you, and I’m sorry, because it’s our fault and we should have done a better job of showing it to you, but we did have balance in ours. Your father had balance in his. He and I were very different people, and we had different ways of expressing our love.

“His was through money and lectures, and mine is through hugs and praise. It’s how we’re wired. But it doesn’t mean that he didn’t want you to find happiness in places besides the office. I think that if he saw how miserable you’re making yourself now, he would be disappointed in himself for training you to do that.”

This was all brand-new information. Eric’s chest felt tight. “And why couldn’t he have said any of this to me?”

Mom gave him a smile that was both sad and fond. “You know he was never the best at communication, especially when it came to feelings. He so rarely spoke about them; he always seemed to assume that you could read his mind.

“But I can promise you that while work was his passion, it wasn’t his only joy in life. It wasn’t the end all and be all. Just like one person shouldn’t be the only important thing in your life, neither should your career. Balance, Eric, balance is important.”

Eric swallowed hard. “I had no idea.”

“I thought that you might not.” Mom sighed. “You’re trying to get him to be proud of you, I know. But he always was. I think he’ll be prouder of you if you slow down a little and find someone to date, or even just some friends to spend time with. If you relaxed a little.”

Eric took a deep breath. “What if I do have someone? Sort of?”

Mom smiled. “Tell me all about him, then.”

“It’s sort of complicated.”

“When is it not?” Mom replied. “Your father and I were quite different, as I said. When I first met him, I almost slapped his face off; I thought he was the most arrogant son of a bitch I’d ever met.”

“Mom,” Eric hissed, hoping nobody had heard that at the next table over. “Language?”

His mother just laughed. “So, tell me all about this young man of yours.”

“Mom, I’m almost thirty; he is not my ‘young man’ and he’s not mine, anyway. We’re just sort of… seeing what happens.”

“So what’s complicated about it?”

Eric explained the situation, skimming over the parts where he’d gotten a hand job back out behind the bar and how he’d then gotten fucked within an inch of his life in his own office. He and his mom were close, but they were never going to be that close.

“…and so now I’m stuck,” he finished up. “I want to try being with him. He’s the first person in … God, I can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but he’s the first person in forever who makes me feel this way.

“It’s sort of stupid, but I feel like this is how I was supposed to feel in high school or college? And it’s just now catching up to me? The whole butterflies in the stomach deal, and the sweaty palms, and I couldn’t stop smiling around him at the bowling alley. I probably looked demented.”

His mother smiled knowingly. “No, I’m sure that you looked lovely, and everyone else thought it was adorable.”

Eric really hoped that most of the others hadn’t noticed. Enid had noticed, of course, but the others didn’t know him as well, so maybe they hadn’t. He chalked up Adam’s lack of comment on it to Adam’s rushing around in the last couple of weeks before his wedding.

“If I’m understanding correctly,” Mom said, “you’re facing a moral dilemma.”

Eric nodded.

“Your job is important to you, as is your integrity in that job. You don’t want to lie or do anything to jeopardize not just your promotion, but your reputation as an honest and forthright person that your bosses can depend upon.”

Eric heaved out a sigh of relief. “You understand.”

“I married your father; I had to understand,” Mom replied. “You might not be quite as hard-hitting and ambitious as he was, but you care about your career deeply, and you care about being upright in your choices, and someone upon whom others can rely. You have that in common with him.”

That was oddly comforting to know. He’d thought that he and his father weren’t alike enough, and now he was learning that they were more alike than he’d ever suspected.

“But you also want to be with this Hank,” his mother went on. “And you want to make him happy, and that means helping out his family, which you also suspect is the morally right thing to do.”

Eric nodded. “Yes. The way the company’s been treating them is something that I don’t agree with. I know that we’re going to do things that piss me off. I know that we’re not always the good guys. But this is just ridiculous.”

“And it’s more personal for you now,” Mom gently pointed out, her eyes dancing with mirth. “You care about Hank, and so you want him happy, and that means making his family happy.

“You have to face up to your company’s practices, Eric. It’s not as though this is the first time you’ve ever encountered a situation where a family is being pressured into selling their home or business. You’ve done that many a time, as you’ve explained to me.”

“I know. And maybe, yes, I’m biased this time. But I have to be a little biased if I want to date him, don’t I? I can’t just throw his family under the proverbial bus, not if I care about Hank.”

“Well, do you know of any options that the family might have? Something the average person might not think of, but someone who knows the workings of the company intimately might be able to come up with?”

Eric shook his head. “No. The best thing would be to sue us for harassment, but after the way his family’s behaved in retaliation, it’ll just become a huge court mess. I suggested that he see if he can convince the city council or something like that to pass some kind of ruling that’ll keep us away from the trailer park, but I have no idea what kind of ruling that would be, or how he would convince them. It feels like a no-win situation. Either they sell the land, or we remain in a gridlock.”

“And there’s nothing else you can do?” Mom asked.

Eric sighed. “I could possibly see if there was a way to persuade my bosses to back off. This is really prime real estate; the trailer park was actually one of the first properties that we went after when we started developing the whole area. I would need something, something legal probably, to convince them that this isn’t something they should continue to pursue.”

“But you want to help, don’t you,” his mom said shrewdly.

Eric could feel his face heating up, and was grateful for their server stopping by with their food so that he had an excuse to take a moment and get his damn embarrassment under control.

“I do, I think. But I also don’t want to give up this promotion. I really do want it, not just because of Dad, but because I’ll be the team leader. I’ll be doing work at the office instead of traveling all over the area all day, and I won’t have to deal with the people we’re buying from. I can handle contracts and stuff instead. It’s more of what I like, the internal things.

“But I don’t know how I can help Hank out without compromising my position at the company, and I want both, and I don’t … I don’t know how I can have both. And I feel greedy for even wanting that.”

“You feel greedy for wanting a successful career and to do the right thing and to have someone who loves you?” Mom asked. “Honey, if that’s what you consider greedy, we need to have a serious talk.”

Eric shrugged. It didn’t sound greedy when she put it that way, but it sure felt that way from where he was standing. “I feels like whichever path I choose, I’m losing something or hurting someone. And I don’t know how to fix it.”

Mom thought about that for a moment. “Well, do you have a specific deadline for this thing?”

“Not exactly, but they want it taken care of as soon as possible. They’ve given me a bit of flexibility with the dates because they know it’s a tough project and they’ve already been hammering at this for years. At this point, they know better than to put it to a set schedule.”

“Then you have time to figure something out,” Mom said, smiling at him. “You’re a smart person, Eric; you always have been. I’m sure you know the company rules and the property laws better than anyone else, including your bosses. Do a little research, give yourself some time. I know you’ll come up with a solution.”

Eric sighed. “I’m not sure if I’m worth the faith that you’re putting in me.”

“You always have been,” Mom assured him. “Now, tell me more about this Hank; I want to make sure he’s good enough for you.”

“Oh my God, Mom, we’re barely dating.”

“Never too early to threaten him with a shotgun, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Mom!”

By the end of the brunch, though, Eric was feeling a lot lighter. Mom was always good at doing that, helping him lighten up.

He’d go into the office tomorrow and do some research, instead of just looking into the files. There had to be something that he could do, some string he could pull that would get everything to fall into place. He just had to figure it out.

As he and his mother parted ways, she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “I know that you’re still unsure about this whole Hank thing, but from what you’re telling me, he sounds like a good person. Stubborn as you are, but I think that’s a good thing; you two can call each other out on your bullshit. I think you should pursue him, and let yourself find happiness in something besides your job.”

Eric mulled that over. He was surer about his ability to fix things in the professional arena than he was when it came to dealing with feelings and emotions. But … his mom and his dad had been happy. Happier than he’d previously realized, in fact.

Could he have his cake and eat it too?