“Mom!” Nico warned, feeling equally sullen.
He didn’t know why she was pouting. He was the wounded party here.
“I see where you get it from now,” Mal murmured, his amusement obvious.
Nico didn’t take his eyes off the screen as he jabbed two fingers into Mal’s sore ribs, satisfied when he earned a pained grunt.
His mother sighed. “Fine. We met three weeks ago, while I was on vacation with Mr. Big. I wandered into his furniture store and it was love at first sight.”
“Oh, Mom.” Nico groaned. “Three weeks? You’ve known this guy for three weeks, and now, you’re just gonna—what?—live in Peru?”
“No, of course not,” she said, as if that notion was somehow more ridiculous than the rest of their conversation. “We’ll be living in Ecuador. That’s where we met. That’s where his business is. Quito, specifically. It’s so beautiful there. We have the cutest little bungalow. Our own little love nest.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Nico muttered.
Her face fell. “You should be happy for me, angel. I’m in love. Finally.”
Nico scoffed. “You just told me that you’re in the jungles of Peru with a man you met—and married—three weeks ago. That’s not love, it’s the start of a fucking Dateline episode. He’s probably already got thirty life insurance policies on you. You’re gonna get yeeted off a cliff, and he’s gonna tell everyone you were eaten by a snake or crocodile or something.” He looked at Mal. “Are there crocodiles in Peru?”
Mal nodded, giving him a thumbs up. “Yep.”
Knowing he was right weirdly made him feel slightly better. Until the driver snickered. Nico tipped the phone away from his face to lock eyes with the man. He didn’t look much older than Nico. “Laugh it up. We haven’t tipped you yet, Chuckles.”
Nico got a small sense of satisfaction from watching the man’s face fall in the reflection.
“Oh, hi,” he heard his mom say. “Who are you?”
Nico jolted. He’d pointed the phone directly at Mal, who was waving at the screen. “Malachi. I’m his?—”
Nico jerked the camera back to himself. “Don’t talk to him. Talk to me.”
“That’s Malachi? Your ‘roommate’?” she air-quoted. “I can see why you’re sharing a bed. He’s gorgeous, angel. Tell me you’ve locked that down already. You know what they say about dancers, right?”
Nico had no clue what they said about dancers. He didn’t care. “Mom, this isn’t about him or me. What are you doing in the jungles of Peru? Tell me you’re going to a large resort with lots of witnesses, please?”
The picture glitched, but he still managed to catch her exasperated eye-roll. “We’re going to a malocas in Pucallpa to visit a shaman.”
“Of course. How stupid of me. What else would two middle-aged people do on their honeymoon?”
“Did you just call me…middle-aged? That’s just mean,” she said.
Nico was definitely dreaming. There was no way that his mother was actually giving up her bougie life of Gucci and Prada to marry an Ecuadorian carpenter and go traipsing around the middle of a rainforest.
“What do you need a shaman for?” he asked, bewildered.
“For the ceremony,” she said.
He looked at Mal, a throbbing starting behind his right eye. “What ceremony? You said you’re already married.”
“The ayahuasca ceremony, silly,” she cried. “When Eddie did it a year ago, he said it was life-changing.”
Nico didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Ayahuasca? You’re telling me you’re going to Peru to do drugs with a virtual stranger? For your honeymoon? Are you dying or something? Are you just…acting out? Going through a rebellious phase?”
She tilted her head, giving him a stern look. “Which of us is the parent here?”
“You tell me, woman. I’m not the one who just upended their entire life to go trip balls in a jungle filled with a thousand different animals that could kill and eat you…including your new husband.”
She laughed, seemingly delighted at the thought of being murdered. “Relax, angel face. You’re gonna give yourself a stroke. It’s all going to be fine.”
