Chapter Fifteen
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“Hi, Mom.”
It’s been a while since we’ve talked, longer than the two or three days we usually go, and I’m anxious to hear her voice.
“Is everything all right? I was getting worried.”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m sorry. I should’ve called. Busy, that’s all.”
“With a nice boy, I hope?”
I roll my eyes fondly. “Some.”
We got back from Las Vegas yesterday, and when I dropped Allie at Kendra’s house, I wasn’t sure what to say. Or do. So I let him take the lead, and he led me to a charming-as-fuck grin and a slightly awkward, “Well, later.”
I would’ve liked a promise more specific than that. I’ll call you. Are you free on Friday? When is the next time you can beat and/or fuck me? But no, nothing like that. I’ll just have to wait, which is irritating.
“When do I get to meet him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, my.” Her voice is a study in salacious gossip, and I see my mistake immediately. My answer is almost exclusively “never.” Not that I’m embarrassed for my mom to meet my partners, but for the most part, they aren’t worth meeting. Not when I have precious little time with her. Some one-offs, some occasional playdates. No one with a possibility of becoming more than that. She meets my friends, adores them, but people I fuck? Not so much. Yes, I’m distracted, but I should know better. Now she’ll want details. “Tell me about him.”
“His name’s Allie. I like him. I’m not sure how much he likes me.”
She tsks at me. “Everyone likes you.”
Almost everyone. “Yeah, well, he unsettles me.”
“Oh. You can be a dick when you’re unsettled.” For an Upper East Side princess, my mother can have quite the potty mouth. Especially since her parents passed away. Maybe she finally feels more at liberty to be herself.
Also, while most parents probably try not to swear in front of their children, my mom was young when she had me, and I grew up fast, so we ended up acting like peers a lot of the time. Now I almost feel like I parent her, but that’s my relationship with everyone, so why not her?
“Yeah, Mom, I know.”
“What did you do?”
“I tried to help him get a job.”
“You asshole.”
I snort because my mother being facetious is something I find unfailingly entertaining. “I know, right? I can understand why he was upset, though. I can’t seem to keep my foot out of my mouth when it comes to him.”
“That might be okay, you know,” she offers, and I can picture her sitting on her favorite chaise, winding the curly telephone cord around her fingers while she lifts her small shoulders. She has cordless phones and a cell, but she won’t give up on this old-school rotary thing. To be fair, it is charming.
“Yes, well, if he hasn’t ditched me for being completely insufferable by the next time you visit, you can meet him, okay?”
“I was thinking of coming in two weeks. Does that work for you?”
I pull up my calendar and it’s a disaster, but I’ll figure it out. “Of course. Send me your flights when you book them. Or do you want me to have Matthew take care of them?”
“Would he? I’d love him forever. He’s still looking after you, right?”
“Always.” And thank god for that. What I would do without Matthew, I don’t know. “I’ll have him take care of the arrangements. Hey, I’m sorry to chat and run, but I’ve got some planning to do for my next session. Call you later?”
“Unless you’ve got a chance to spend time with your sexy new man. Then always spend time with the sexy man.”
“I didn’t say he was sexy.”
“Isn’t he?”
“Goodbye, Mom.”
“Love you.”
I hang up the phone and send Matthew an email about making my mother’s flight arrangements.
*
The relief I feel at getting Allie’s text a few days after we return from Las Vegas is palpable. Which is odd. It was beyond the concern I feel about my clients after intense sessions, especially toward the beginning of our relationship. I do not sit by the phone, waiting for boys to call, but that’s what it felt like after I got his text.
Kendra’s taking the kids to Philadelphia for a visit. Want to come over and watch the Sharks game?
A date. That’s what this feels like. Right? It’s…odd. I have several clients who are adamant they don’t date, but I’ve never claimed such a thing. Have just not done it much anyhow. It also sometimes gets a bit muddied with the work I do. There’s not so much lines drawn between clients and lovers as there is a continuum, with a few people shifting over time. While Allie’s never been anything but a lover, I wouldn’t have said we were dating, per se. This is particularly strange.
I knock at the yellow door of the modest bungalow I dropped him off in front of last week. It’s certainly not the nicest place in Oakland, but it’s not the worst by any means. It doesn’t take long for the door to swing open and for Allie to fill the frame, taking up the space in the doorway with his body, and…
“Why are you only wearing a towel?”
He makes a face as if it’s obvious. “I’ll tell you, but only if you explain why you’ve showed up on my doorstep with an overflowing grocery bag and a—seriously, is that a foam finger?”
I eye the thing on my hand. I’d had Matthew order me one of essentially everything in the team store after Allie had invited me over to watch the game. I don’t understand the appeal of this particular item, especially for other people who don’t have Allie’s look of delight to outweigh the awkwardness of having a giant foam thing encasing one’s hand. It feels terribly unsanitary and also suggestive in an unappealingly tawdry way.
Whatever. I’ve earned a broad grin, and that’s what I was hoping for.
“I thought I’d dressed appropriately for a sporting event. Is that not true?”
Allie shakes his head and gestures me in to the modest entryway. “Is there anything you do by halves?”
I stop on the threshold because I have to consider it. Is there? “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
“Dude, that was rhetorical.”
Sure. “Well, I’m here now, and I’m ready for some hockey.”
He cocks his head, and his eyes narrow but he’s still got a smile on his face. “Wait, you thought we were actually going to watch the game?”
“That’s what you invited me here for, yes?”
“Uh, no. It’s like how ‘Netflix and chill’ is code for sex.”
“Then what is ‘watching the game’ code for?”
“Also sex.”
My eyebrows shoot halfway up my forehead. “If I had known that, I would’ve been way more into sports a long time ago.”
“Not for everyone.” He laughs and takes the grocery bag cradled in my arm. “You don’t even like sports. I figured you’d take the hint.”
Suddenly the towel makes way more sense. And he’s not got it quite right. I don’t participate in sports, nor do I watch them when I can help it, but it’s not because I actively dislike them. The truth’s a bit more convoluted. As it usually is.
“So you had no intention of watching the game, but every intention of getting fucked six ways to Sunday?”
“Hoping to, at least.” His chipper tone is a reward unto itself.
“You have to know I would’ve been far more likely to accept an invitation for that than watching an organized athletic competition. Is there even a game on?”
“There is. Are you saying you’d rather watch it than…” He shapes his face into something goofily suggestive, and I almost laugh. Instead, I’ll make this a teaching moment.
“Hart. When you’ve invited someone for a particular activity and they’ve taken the time to prepare for said event—” I spin so he can see exactly how appropriate I am. Sharks hat, a jersey for a player Matthew assured me was popular, jeans because my usual sartorial fare seemed a bit stuffy for this, and sneakers of all things. And of course, the foam finger I haven’t taken off. Hart gives me a dirty look because he knows as well as I do I did nothing of the sort. This is all Matthew’s doing. “—you should give them what they’ve paid for, so to speak. I came here to watch hockey, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
“You’d rather watch a game you care nothing about than fuck me?”
“I don’t see why we can’t do both. If I’m being completely honest, I’d planned to fuck you during halftime. You think there are only groceries in that bag?”
Hart’s expression is a wonderful mass of contradicting emotions. Interest, yes, but also disbelief and, if I’m not mistaken, fond amusement. He holds up the hand that’s not hefting the paper sack, surrendering, and even in this small thing, his acquiescence is delicious.
“Fine. We’ll do it your way.” He heads to the small galley kitchen and drops the bag on the scuffed counter, his eyes going pleasingly wide when he hears the thunk and rattle of what I’ve stowed in the bottom, underneath the snacks I’ve brought.
He points through a doorway to what must be the living room, a chair and a corner of a TV visible, and I follow his implied direction. When I’ve made myself comfortable on a sizable sectional, he pokes his head around the corner.
“You should know there is no halftime in hockey. There are three periods, so you’re going to have to fuck me twice.”
I give him a withering glare, and what I say is, “Actually, I believe I’m going to do whatever the hell I want, and if you don’t stop mocking me, it’s not going to include you coming at all.”
What I’m thinking is that hockey is a marvelous game.
The corner of his mouth lifts ever so slightly, as if he can see through my expression and my words and into my thoughts, and for once I don’t mind so much.
“Now go get dressed please, because I’m anxious to see this…sportsballing.”
“You know there’s no—”
“Yes, I know. There’s a puck, not a ball. So there. Clothes. Now.”
He full-on grins at me, and I immediately regret my decision to teach him a lesson about proper hosting responsibilities. I want to get him on his knees as soon as humanly possible, instead of watching a bunch of guys with sticks skitter around a big sheet of ice.