I’m nervous as fuck. It’s my monthly Friday night date with Victoria. I didn’t want to spend it without Zach, so here we are, parking outside Victoria and Jamilla’s art studio and upstairs apartment. As anxious as I am for the two to meet, Zach is practically a chihuahua with all his nervous vibrating. Of course, he has other reasons for it, and I smile deviously while thinking about our after-dinner plans.

Victoria pushes through the front door. “Hi, I’m Victoria. It’s nice to officially meet you,” she says to Zach, then turns to me. “Go ahead and feed the meter for the whole night. Jamilla wanted to make dinner instead of going out. I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course. I love Jamilla’s cooking,” I say as we head up the creaky stairs to the overhead apartment. It’s got the quaint hippie vibe that epitomizes most of Boulder. “Now if it were you doing the cooking, I’d be looking up pizza delivery on my phone already.”

Behind me, Zach snorts. “Pot. Kettle.”

I rub my chest in the spot where Zach’s little comment got me right in the feels. Zach smirks before realizing Victoria is studying us with narrowed eyes, and then schools his expression to neutral. But he can’t help the pink that rises adorably to his cheeks.

“Hey hon, whatcha cooking?” I yell to Jamilla as we pass by the opening to the kitchen. Jamilla’s response is not English. Or if it is, I’ve never heard it before. But I’m not kidding about her cooking, so it doesn’t worry me a bit. The room is scented with lemons and spices and my stomach rumbles in anticipation.

Victoria opens a bottle of wine. “You’d better be nice to me, Craig,” she says. “Or have you forgotten all the potential fetus Craig stories I have to offer Zach here?”

“She burnt hard-boiled eggs the other day,” Jamilla says as she comes in with glass in hand for a refill.

“Vicious lies,” Victoria says, which makes Zach laugh.

“Don’t you dare start too,” I say to Zach, just in case he gets any funny ideas of stories that he can share. He holds his hands up in surrender and is blushing in earnest now that the attention has swung to him.

Victoria takes her full glass to the couch and pats the spot next to her. “I think I want your man right here next to me. The better to grill him, ah, I mean chat with him.” Victoria bats her eyelashes but she’s not fooling anyone. Zach grips my elbow and his look pleads with me not to abandon him to Victoria.

“So, Zach, what is it that you do?” Jamilla asks.

I make a mental note to send thank-you flowers to Jamilla. She’s obviously trying to put Zach at ease, whereas Victoria’s basic instincts are more like mine. Go directly for the kill. Or in this case, blush.

Zach begins to describe his small business consultant work, and to my surprise, both Jamilla and Victoria hang on his every word. I’m even more surprised when Jamilla asks for his input on an idea of hers to expand the studio and offer art classes. A timer in the kitchen goes off, and Zach follows Jamilla to continue their business discussion, most of which goes over my head.

“When did you guys start talking about expanding the studio?” I ask Victoria.

She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Oh, so someone’s feeling out of the loop? Kind of like how someone might feel when they see their best friend change their relationship status on social media without even a heads-up or a warning?”

Shit.

“It’s just that it’s new, and I’ve been busy at work. And stuff.”

“Grovel, Craig. It’s the only way you’re getting out of this one,” Jamilla says as she returns with a massive dish filled to the brim with chicken and vegetables swimming in a gorgeous sauce and sets it on their small square dinner table. Zach follows after her with a bowl of rice.

“I’m so sorry, oh beautiful and gracious Victoria, for not sharing my relationship with you the second it was consummated. Would you like a play-by-play of each orgasm, or just the date, time and size of load?”

Zach fumbles the rice as it clatters onto the table, still upright. Thank god none spilled, or Zach would be horrified and it would be all my fault. Damnit, I still forget how spookable he is sometimes. I can almost see the sweat starting to bead on his forehead, and I squeeze his side in apology. The resulting squeak is not very reassuring.

“Alright, seriously,” I say to Victoria, hoping to take some heat off Zach, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. My brain has been a little preoccupied.”

“With this one?” Victoria waggles her eyebrows at Zach, and I know he’s going to kill me when tonight is over for all the humiliation he’s suffered.

“Yes.” I roll my eyes as if it physically pains me to admit it.

“Aww, now I’m going to vomit,” she says.

“When do we get to the embarrassing Craig stories part of the evening?” Zach says in a slightly squeaky voice that lets me know he still hasn’t fully recovered from his embarrassment from earlier. “I’m really ready for that to happen.”

Victoria cackles. “Oh honey, you’ve come to the right place for that.”

Over dinner, Victoria tells every embarrassing story that she can remember, but whenever it’s one that might have anything to do with my mom, I distract her with a different, though usually equally embarrassing story. By the third time I’ve done it, she’s glaring at me. Thankfully Jamilla and Zach don’t seem to notice, but I can tell I’m going to get an earful before the evening is over.

I enjoy watching Zach shift in his seat. It’s subtle enough that I don’t think Victoria or Jamilla will pick up on it, and if they do, they’ll probably just think it’s nerves. I know better.

When every last drop of Jamilla’s dish, which I still can’t pronounce, is gone, she decides she wants to pick Zach’s brain some more about the studio/school, and drags him downstairs to show off her studio. I have a sneaking suspicion she’s been asked to get Zach out of the way so Victoria can interrogate me. That, or they’ve been together so long, they have a secret couple telepathy, and all Victoria had to do was give her a set of blinks and she understood. Meanwhile, Victoria tops off our glasses and we “relax” back on the sofa.

“Alright, what’s going on, Craig? Why are you changing the subject anytime it gets near your mom?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Victoria burns through me with her stare. It was worth trying, anyway.

“I haven’t exactly talked to him about my mom, or really much of my past, yet.”

Victoria scoffs. “Yeah, I got that. But why?”

“You don’t understand. Zach is brilliant. Like two college degrees brilliant. And his family is so traditional.” I wring my hands around the glass.

“And you think that makes him better than you?”

“No, not better, but I’m afraid he’ll look at me differently once he finds out.”

“Like how?”

“Like …” I put down my wine glass on the coffee table. I’m so fidgety right now, I’m afraid I’m going to spill it or break it or something. “Okay, so right now I’m Dean Winchester. Confident, maybe a little mysterious. Badass.”

Victoria almost spits out her wine at that. “Oh honey, you are not Dean Winchester.”

“Anyway. And if I tell him everything, then he’ll see I’m really just a Stuart. Shit, I even have an old lady I keep company.”

“Oh my god.” Victoria sets down her glass and brings her knee onto the couch so that she can face me more squarely. “If he thinks any differently because of your history, and it is anything other than bumping you up from alright to absolutely fucking amazing, then he isn’t nearly as brilliant as you think. And he isn’t worth it. Is this why you started thinking about college? Because some guy is making you feel inferior?”

Damnit, this is why I shouldn’t have said anything. Because he is worth it. He’s so worth it. But Victoria tends to be a little biased where I’m concerned.

“Just drop it, okay? Tell me about art school plans.”

Victoria huffs, but she changes the subject anyway. I know she means well, but this really isn’t where I want my headspace to be right now. I want it focused on the fun times I have ahead tonight with Zach. I’ll worry about the rest another day.