“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he said, driving through the suburban neighborhood. Housing in various shades of blues and whites slid past them.

“I thought you said we were going to get something to eat.”

“We are,” he said, shooting her a mischievous grin.

“Yeah, that look on your face isn’t making me any less suspicious.”

“Trust me, you’ll love the food where we’re going.” Keira peered out the windows looking for any sign of a restaurant. He made another turn and pulled up into the driveway of a one-story house with blue siding and white shutters. He turned off the ignition and opened his door. She sat in her seat, trying to figure out what was going on. Eric came around to her side of the car and opened the door. As soon as he opened it, a lanky teenager came jogging out of the open garage and threw his arms around Eric.

“You’re here!” he said, thumping Eric on the back. Eric punched him on the shoulder and got him in a headlock. Halfway out of the car, Keira froze, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. A short woman with fiery red curls pushed open the front door, wiping her hands on a towel. Her smile was so big and wide that Keira swore she could count her pearly whites from the car.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” she called out. She walked toward them, freezing when she saw Keira. “You’re in luck. Lunch is almost ready.”

“Great, I’m starving,” Eric said, ruffling the teen’s hair.

“You brought me home to meet your family?” Keira squeaked. Slightly lightheaded, she glanced up at him, eyes wide. What the hell? His smile faltered.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong. I mean it’s fine. A heads up would have been nice. I’m meeting your mom,” she glanced down at what she was wearing. Pulling at the hem of her shirt, she winced at the wrinkles on her skirt.

“Don’t worry, she’ll love you. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the small woman who gave her the death glare. Great, just great!

Stepping through the front door, she tried not to let the icicles shooting from Eric’s mom’s eyes burn her skin. He hugged her and her face immediately transformed into what a warm, loving mother should look like. She closed her eyes and squeezed him back, both arms tight around him. Pulling back, she gazed up at him with tears in her eyes.

“You didn’t have to send me that money, Eric,” she said, her voice catching.

“Of course I did mom. But, you can’t put it in Sean’s college fund.”

“Eric, you know I need to save for that—”

“You would, if I hadn’t already taken care of it,” he said, pulling an envelope from his back pocket and holding it out to her. Her eyebrows furrowed as she tentatively took the envelope from his hand and flipped it over. Carefully, pulling the letter out from inside, she covered her mouth and the tears she’d attempted to hold back came pouring down her cheeks.

She threw her arms around his neck again, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “How did I end up with such a great son?” she said, squeezing his cheeks.

“I’d say, it’s probably because of a great mom, Ms. Newcastle,” Keira said and immediately regretted it. Stupid, should have kept her mouth shut! Ice daggers back in full force, she moved Eric aside.

“And who is this?”

“Mom, this is Keira,” he said, stepping to her side and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. His mom, zeroed in on his hand, which squeezed her shoulder.

“Keira,” she said, trying out her name like some strange foreign food that looked like it would make you puke. “Are you one of the performers on the tour with Eric?”

“No, I’m not a musician.” His mom’s shoulders seemed to relax a scintilla. “I’m an artist. I’m working as the on-tour photographer, putting together photo books for fans to take away as keepsakes from the shows.”

“Keira’s incredibly talented. Her eye is second to none when it comes to capturing things with her camera,” he said, smiling down at her. A blush crept into her cheeks as it always did whenever someone spoke about her art in front of her.

“Hmm,” his mom said, not giving an inch. “So, you’re traveling with Eric the whole tour?”

“Yes, we’ve been together since he was on tour with Uncharted.” His mom’s eyebrow raised at the phrasing. “I mean, not together, like that, just together as in working together. But not together, like we’re together, together.” His mom glanced at his arm around her shoulder and the blush on her cheeks traveled down her neck and lit up her chest like a raspberry.

“What she means mom, is that we’ve been doing the art thing since the Uncharted tour, but us being together as an item is a more recent development. Right?” he said, glancing at her and nodding his head. Suddenly unable to speak, she could only nod back. The frown on his mom’s face threatened to crush the foundation of the house under the weight of it. She’d certainly stepped in it now.

The rest of the afternoon into evening progressed about as awkwardly as could be imagined. She tried to make polite conversation with Eric’s mom, who she’d learned the hard way was not in fact, Ms. Newcastle, but Ms. McKenna, she’d taken back her maiden name. Thanks for the heads up, Eric! Walking through his childhood home, his brother, Sean, delighted in bringing out old photos of Eric to try to embarrass him. When his brother queued up the old VHS tapes, Eric finally drew the line and banished them both to his bedroom. Instruments of various shapes and sizes, some of which she didn’t recognize lined the walls and sat on shelves. Ribbons, medals and trophies from music competitions covered all the spaces not currently occupied by an instrument.

“So, this is where the great Eric Newcastle developed his unparalleled musical skill and love of Baywatch,” she said, plopping down onto his bed and pointing up at the posters of orange bikini clad lifeguards on the ceiling. He glanced up and laughed.

“Many a night were spent getting to know one another, if you know what I mean,” he said, raising his eyebrows up and down. He wrapped his arms around her and ran his fingers through her hair. She snuggled in closer and rested her head on his chest, the rhythm of his heart calming her. Eric started humming a tune as he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. His fingers ran up and down her back, playing a slow and sensual rhythm. She peered up at him.

“Are you playing me like your guitar?” she said, grinning. He laughed.

“I guess I was. I hadn’t meant to, but we were laying here and you smell so good and felt so right in my arms that it just came to me.” He gripped her chin and tilted her head up. Pressing his lips to hers, his tongue played with the seam of her lips before she opened them to let him in. The click of his bedroom door had them both jumping up and apart like two teenagers caught making out.

“Eric—“ His mom paused inside the bedroom doorway. “I wanted to know if you two needed anything.”

“Nope, mom. We’re good. We’re going to turn in for the night. I’ll go get our bags out of the car.”

* * *

Keira crept down the stairs to the kitchen on her tiptoes, not wanting to wake anyone. Her phone charger was in her purse by the front door and her battery was sitting at 5%. As she passed by the kitchen, she heard a low, frantic voice. Peeking around the doorway, Eric’s mom was on the landline. Her voice filtered out into the hall.

“He might be your son, but you are no father to him. Do you understand me? You stay the hell away from him!” she said, her voice raising higher with each passing second.

“I don’t care what you need. I’ve told you so many times to stop calling here. What he needs is for you to stay the hell away from him.” Keira’s feet were glued to the floor as she held her breath, not wanting Eric’s mom to know she was listening. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. She was talking to Eric’s father. Eric’s father that he’d wondered about and wanted to talk to, if only to find out why he’d left. And here, his mom was talking to his dad. Had been in contact with his dad.

His mom looked up and went pale as a sheet. “Don’t call back again,” she said, hanging up the phone.

“Keira,” she said, getting to her in two steps. “What you heard..It was just…it was just…” she sputtered.

“You were just talking to Eric’s dad, who he thinks ran out on you guys and you haven’t had any contact with since that day,” she said, her blood boiling for Eric.

“Take a seat, Keira,” she said, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table. She poured Keira a cup of tea. After stirring her tea for what must have been five minutes, she sighed and looked up at Keira with tears in her eyes.

“I’ve kept him away for the boys own good. I figured it was better for the boys to think their dad just walked out on them, rather than know he was a junkie who would have made us homeless before he kicked his habit.”

“You don’t think Eric could handle it? He’s a man now. He deserves to know,” she said, unable to believe his mom had been lying to him all this time.

“That guitar he has, Vicki? I bought her back from a pawn shop when his dad sold it for drug money the night I made him leave. That was the last straw. I wasn’t going to let him destroy my boys. I wasn’t going to let him get them caught up in what he was mixed up in. He’d taken out tens of thousands of dollar’s worth of loans out on this house, I had to work the extra jobs to keep a roof over our heads. I didn’t know what else to do. I loved my husband, but I loved my kids more. I gave him the choice, get clean and he could come home. He hasn’t been back in fifteen years.”

“Eric has the right to know,” Keira said, glancing up toward the stairs.

“I know. I know he does and I’ll tell him. I just don’t want to destroy what good memories he might have of his father. But I’ll do it. I’ll do it when the time is right.” Keira gave her a hard look. “I will. But I need to tell him. Please don’t say anything until I’ve told him, okay,” his mom said, squeezing her hand.

Keira ran her hands through her hair. She didn’t want to keep secrets from Eric, but it wasn’t her place to tell him. She didn’t know what his mom had gone through all these years, raising the two of them on her own with everything her husband put her through. As much as she hated to do it, she wasn’t going to tell him anything about it.

“Okay, I won’t say anything,” she said, hoping she was making the right choice.