“Mom?”
She smiled the moment she saw his face. His stomach churned. “Oh, my God. Hi, my sweet angel baby,” she gushed, her voice sounding a bit staticky, cutting in and out.
Nico was rotting from the inside. Something about his mother acting like she hadn’t been ghosting him for days unnerved him. “Why do you sound like you’re calling me using a string and two tin cans?”
She gave a delighted laugh. The same laugh as Nico’s. “‘Cause I’m in the jungle, silly.”
Right, of course, she was. Why wouldn’t she be? Sometimes, it felt like he was the adult and she was the child. “What? What jungle? Last I heard, you were living in a penthouse in a Vegas hotel.”
She waved a hand. “Oh, baby. That was forever ago. Right now, I’m in Peru.”
Nico couldn’t catch his breath, like he’d just crossed the finish line of a marathon. He could feel his heart racing, irritation making his blood itch.
“Mom, what the fuck are you doing in Peru?” he asked, giving the driver an apologetic wince when their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
His mother’s left hand suddenly filled the screen, bringing attention to the gold ring with what looked like an actual pink rock for a stone. Nico was going to throw up. Literally. His stomach was churning.
“What…is…that?” he asked dully, knowing full well what it was.
“It’s a wedding ring, duh,” she said, appearing on screen once more. “Isn’t it so cute? I’m on my honeymoon!”
Honeymoon? This had to be a joke. She must be joking. She’d never been much of a prankster, but it was the only explanation that made sense. His mother, the woman who had spent the last decade telling him that marriage killed love and that she’d rather be eaten by sharks, was now telling him she was married. Not engaged.Married. Shoving her wedding band right in his face. Nico’s head was spinning.
Mal’s arm moved from around his shoulders, his hand coming to rest on the back of his neck, fingertips sweeping softly along the skin there. Nico tried to focus on that. On Mal’s touch, on the way their bodies were pressed together from shoulder to knee.
“You married Mr. Big?” he asked, bewildered.
Mr. Big was his mother’s code name for the many men in her life. She’d called them all that, always afraid Nico might use the wrong name and ruin her hustle.
His mother had the audacity to look at him like he was crazy. “No, of course not, honey. None of them were marriage material. This is someone else. You don’t know him.”
He didn’t know any of them. His mother had been little more than a voice on the phone and a deposit into his bank account for years. Yet, this still hurt far worse than it should have.
“What do you mean someone else? How did this mystery man convince you to marry him? Does he have one foot in the grave and the other in a vault full of gold coins, like Scrooge McDuck?”
How much money had it taken for his mother to toss her own principles out the window?
“Don’t look at me like that, angel face. I didn’t do it for money. He didn’t have to convince me to marry him. I’m in love.” She dropped her voice. “And he’s actually younger than me. He’s not rich at all. But he is sexy.”
“What?” Nico asked.
“Yeah, his name is Eduardo. He’s thirty-five. He’s a carpenter.”
A carpenter. “Like Jesus?” he asked stupidly, looking at Mal.
Mal blinked at him owlishly as Nico spun out in the backseat. Was a carpenter even a real job? “You mean a construction worker? Or, like, a contractor?”
“No, silly. I mean a carpenter. He builds furniture. By hand!” She said it with the same level of astonishment one might use for a well-done magic trick. He didn’t know what she was acting so impressed for. He built furniture, not made the Eiffel Tower disappear. Maybe she had finally lost her mind.
When Nico tuned back in, his mother was gazing at someone off-screen with the dopiest smile, looking two seconds away from swooning.
She turned back to Nico with a wink. “He’s very good with his hands.”
Nico’s head shot up as the Uber driver snorted out a laugh.
Nico didn’t find any of this funny at all. “Ew. Mom. Please, no.” His lip curled in disgust. “This is crazy. Where did you meet? How long have you known each other?” he asked, feeling like he was trapped in a nightmare.
His mother gave him a pouty look. “Well, I’d tell you, but it’s clear you’re already upset and I don’t want to be lectured.”
