James set about gathering plates and glasses while his mom continued asking Leon about work. Leon did his best to explain what he did in IT department while James’ mom guided him on “proper” table setting. When she pulled out the linen napkins, James raised both eyebrows at her. She flapped her hand at him twice, first to shush him, and then to summon him to come get the napkins from her.
“That sounds like a very stable job for you, dear,” his mom said to Leon. “They’ll always need someone like you to fix what us old folk mess up on computers. At least once a week, James fixes something for me, and if he can’t fix it, I have to ask Howard, but–”
“His only solution is to turn it off and back on again,” James said, as he folded the final napkin and put it under one of the forks at the table.
“He’s much better with his phone than he is with computers,” his mom said. “He was going to get James all set up on one of those dating apps back in the fall, but then you two finally got your act in gear after so many years.”
“It hasn’t been years, Mom,” James said.
“It’s coming up on a year of us being friends, actually. Last March,” Leon said, smiling over at James.
His mom tutted as she walked over to the fridge to pull out the tray of sandwiches. “Oh yes, the conflict therapy.”
“Please, let me help with that,” Leon said, scrambling around the island to take the tray from her.
James was too busy trying to pick his jaw back up off the floor. “You…know that the conflict mediation was with Leon?”
“Of course, dear,” his mom said, immediately turning back to the fridge to try to pull out three different two-liter bottles of soda.
Leon gave James an exasperated look, and James rushed over to take two of the bottles from her.
“But I never told you my office rival was Leon.”
“You didn’t, but the way you talked about him then, the way you talked about him while you were friends, and the way you talk about him now aren’t much different,” she said, cracking open the Sprite and walking over to the table to begin filling her glass.
James stood frozen, holding both bottles in the air like a confused server. “How do I talk about him?”
“With longing,” she said, her eyes running over Leon before settling on James. “The same way he looks at you.”
Well…what the heck was he supposed to do with that?
Chapter Two
LEON
Leon had definitely not come over that morning expecting to be read so thoroughly by James’ mom.
With just a look, she’d known that Leon had been needing a “mom” hug for over two decades. The longer she held him, the more he felt something in his chest crack open. It was probably going to take several sessions with his therapist, Caden, to dig into that one, so he ignored it and instead focused on appreciating the hug.
As they sat down to lunch, that ballooning warmth in his chest seemed to fill in the newly formed cracks. He loved watching James and his mom interact. There was a maternal relationship, for sure, but they were also two adults who shared a home and a life with each other. They had inside jokes and private references, and they were both fiercely loyal and loving towards each other. He saw it in the way James always seemed to know what his mom needed before even she did. Right as she said the sandwiches were a little salty today, James was already on his way to the fridge to grab her a glass of water. When she accidentally knocked into the table with her foot, for the third time, James caught the spoon that fell almost as soon as it left the table.
His mom was also protective, but in a nurturing way. She peppered Leon with questions about his social life and what he liked to do for fun. After every answer he gave, she would chime in with little details from James’ past that showed why he would probably enjoy trying kickboxing at Leon’s gym, or how he actually had a talent for pairing wine and donuts. James didn’t seem embarrassed by any of this. If anything, his smile was indulgent and a little grateful.
Leon had been just as surprised as James to learn his mom knew about the accidental couples’ counseling session. She hadn’t seemed phased, even though James and Leon had done a pretty piss poor job of hiding their surprise. He was just glad she didn’t seem to hold that against him.
After they finished their sandwiches, James jumped up to grab cookies for dessert. His mom shuffled over to the coffee machine, despite James’ insistence that he was going to do that next. As Leon watched the two go back and forth over helping each other, it was clear where he got his mensch tendencies from.
His mom was earnest and caring, with the same spark Leon sometimes saw in James. It shone through his mom’s aquamarine eyes whenever she teased James or pressed Leon for information. It was much brighter, as if it had been polished and honed over the years, whereas when James gazed at Leon, his spark was hidden just below the surface, like a jewel shining up through ocean waves.
Leon was just finishing his second cookie when Ms. Bigley stood up to refill her coffee. “I understand your hesitance, dear, but trust me, sometimes medicine really can help.”
James stood up as well and offered to refill Leon’s coffee, even though his own was still mostly full.
“Thanks, darlin’,” Leon murmured before turning to look at Ms. Bigley. He wasn’t quite sure how they’d gotten on the topicof his ADHD diagnosis and ADHD meds, but suddenly all he wanted was to get some solid mom advice. “I want to give the meds a shot, but I think my hangup is that there were lots of them around the house, both prescribed and…not. My mam’s suitors would bring some pretty messed up stuff into the house, but if I had a headache or my stomach hurt, I was told to just tough it out. It doesn’t really make sense to me to take medicine, especially a stimulant, just so I can concentrate better. I feel like I should be able to push through it, or–”
“Do you think I needed to push through my cancer?” Ms. Bigley asked as she sat down at the table again.
“I–no, of course not.”
