We drive about a half hour until the cityscape is traded for expansive properties with long bridle fences that stretch acre after acre. Horses dot the countryside, Arabians, palominos, paints. I’ve seen my fair share of horses after moving to Texas. I miss seeing their regal beauty, and it hasn’t been two months.
The houses expand around us in both girth and width, each with an entire row of three and four car garages tucked beneath them. We drift into a ritzy neighborhood lined with luxury SUVs and newly minted sports cars, and I can’t help but marvel. After my dad passed away, there never seemed to be enough of anything, friends and family included.
Bryson pulls up to a large wrought iron fence and punches in a code at the entry before the gates part like wings, and we drive on through. A small winding road takes us past a series of juniper trees before revealing an enormous stone structure far too big to ever be the home of just one family.
My mouth opens as if to ask the question.
“This is Mom’s house,” Bryson says as he parks close to the stairs that lead up to a grand entrance. “My dad paid most of it off as a parting gift.”
“It’s amazing,” I whisper, taking in the Spanish style abode. The arched windows, the rounded curves of the towers that stretch on either side of it, give it a fairytale appeal.
We get out, and Bryson comes over and picks up my bag in one hand, my hand in the other, and my adrenaline soars. He’s never held my hand on campus, and for sure not at the apartment, but here we were free to do anything we want.
Annie skips up the stairs ahead of us and bursts through the front door.
The house looks like it belongs in another country, another time, anotherworld. Bryson hoists our bags over his shoulder and leads me up the steps.
“I can’t wait for you to meet my mom. She’s going to love you.”
“She is?” Suddenly the idea of meeting his mother has me shaking in my impractically high heels. I’ve never met a boy’s mother before, especially not when I’m spending the night, and her son is setting an inferno off in the most intimate part of me just from the simple act of holding my hand. I try to call off my rabid vagina, but it’s too late. She’s bucking and reeling from being so close to Bryson—to hisbedroom. “Does she know I’m coming?” Unfortunately that can be taken both literally and figuratively.
“Nope.” He gives my hand a squeeze. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Crap. Not all surprises are good, but secretly I’m hoping I’m a good one.
“You’ll do fine.” He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses it. “Besides, I’m dying to show you off.”
Just hearing that sets the butterflies off in my stomach.
Bryson leads us in through the glass double doors where Annie and a tall woman with a bob haircut and large black-rimmed glasses greets us. A black lab, just like my own, runs circles around me, and I bend over and scratch behind his ears while he licks me silly.
“Easy Nitro.” Bryson gives him a pat on the head, and the panting pooch retreats.
His mother steps in. “Well who is this beautiful young lady?” Her eyes expand, clear as a summer sky, just like Bryson’s.
“Mom, this is Baya. Baya—this is my mom, Miranda.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” I reach over and shake her hand briefly.
An awkward moment of silence thumps by, and both she and Annie take their time to inspect me from head to toe. Nitro lets out a little bark and breaks the ice.
“Would you look at how gorgeous you are?” His mother crimps her lips. “I bet you’re illegal in twelve different states.”
My entire body flushes with heat as I cut a look to Bryson. I hardly believe my face is criminal, but I appreciate her effort.
“It’s actually all fifty.” Bryson reels me in by the waist. “So I might need to help her hide out for a while.” He pulls me in closer until I relax over his body. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to give her the tour and get us settled in.”
Annie signs over to him, and he nods.
Bryson leans into me. “She’s got a friend spending the night and asked if we wanted to watch a movie with them later.”
I nod into him. “I love you,” it speeds out of me. Crap. “I mean, I’d love to.”
But it’s too late. The giggle fest has begun as everyone around me chortles at my verbal mishap, laden with hearts and arrows, and, well, the truth.
“I’m glad.” His mother smiles. “But no movie before dinner,” she chides to her daughter. “Meet me in the dining room in half an hour.” She looks to us all. “I’ve got a roasted duck and a gumbo I’ve been working on all day.”
Annie makes a face.
