“Get out of my brain!” she cried. “I was just going to call you. Robbie and me have been missing our girl. We were thinking you needed to come up, and if you don’t have the time, we were gonna come down.”
Robbie was so far from a city boy, they didn’t often come down.
It wasn’t like he was incapable of dealing with the faster pace and abundant people, it was that he thought people in the city felt too comfortable acting like assholes, so he avoided them.
And he preferred wide-open spaces.
But I loved their cabin.
They called their extra bedroom “Willow’s Room” (and Robbie had burned those letters into a beautiful slice of wood, stained it, finished it and hung it on the wall in the room, so I guessed it was official).
In fact, even though I didn’t grow up there, I called their cabin “home,” just like I would’ve if I had.
Because it felt like home.
Because Mom was there.
Because Robbie was there (in fact, sometimes I referred to Robbie as “Dad” to save the energy of that second syllable, but then again, he was way more my dad than my bio dad so that worked too).
I guessed home for some people was a place.
However, for me it was Mom (and Robbie).
Not to mention, I didn’t have an extra room in my apartment, so when they were down, we always got in a fight about them taking my bedroom and me taking my couch.
I won, but only because, once, I flung myself face-first on the couch and hugged one of the seat cushions to me so when Robbie pulled me out of it, I took that cushion with me, refused to let it go, and as such, finally was able to communicate the vastly limited amount of shit I gave that they took my bed.
They still felt bad about putting me out of my bed, but I refused to let them stay at a hotel.
Therefore, I usually headed up there.
“I don’t have the time, Mom, but only for a few weeks. I decided to take a breather and?—”
“Oh, thank God,” she interrupted me. “Robbie has been so worried because you’re busting your buns so hard.”
I knew Robbie wasn’t the only one, but Mom steered clear of saying anything that might make me think she didn’t think I had my life tight.
“Just to say,” she continued, “don’t give him any lip when your birthday and Christmas presents are monetary this year. He needs to do something. Let him. And it might help him fight some urges he’s been having. He’s so pissed at that little weasel, I’ve had to hide his bullets.”
I started laughing.
Through it, I said, “Kevin is long gone.”
“Well, he’d have to be on Mars for Robbie not to hunt him down.”
I closed my eyes.
Here we are.
And with this, I’d been here, and Mom had been here, for ten years.
I so totally loved my stepdad, Robbie.
“Mom, Tex and Tito offered me a job as pastry chef for The Surf Club,” I shared. “And they want to partner up with Willow’s Good Stuff. I’ll be running it out of SC’s kitchen. It comes with a fifteen K raise, no change in bennies, and I no longer have to do deliveries.”
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“And I met a guy, and don’t worry. He reminds me of Robbie. Except he’s less mountain man tough guy and more city man badass.”
