“Well then, I’m not going to say what I was going to say. But the extent of it is that we’d be too busy doing other things.”
“Fine,” I sigh. “Just text me tomorrow when you have a better idea of what your week will look like. I should know how mine looks by then, too. And then we canschedule all of our meetings.” I pour as much innuendo as I can into the last statement.
“Lina!” My mom sounds like she’s serious this time.
“I’ll text you. Have a good first day tomorrow,” Dom says with a laugh.
“Thanks. Night, Daddy,” I try.
He is silent. “I don’t think I like that,” he says, after a moment.
“Gang DILF Dom?”
“Overdone at this point.”
When we hang up, my mom is leaning in the doorway to the living room, arms crossed and eyebrow raised.
“Yes?” I ask her sweetly.
“Who was that?”
“The new guy I’m seeing.”
“You’ve been gone for seven days.”
“Yes.”
“How the hell are you already seeing someone?”
“He went on the vacation with us. He’s Oliver’s cousin.”
She shakes her head. “I thought you were done doing another man’s laundry.”
I’m outraged. “What the fuck, mom? You’re one to talk.”
Mai cringes.
I ignore this, still feeling incredibly defensive. Not for me, though, forDom. “And he’s nothing like Mike, or Dad, for that matter. He has a job, for one. And is incredibly successful at it, from what I can tell.”
“Wow, the bar is real low,” she says matter-of-factly, mirroring Dom’s exact words from a few days ago.
“And he’s a dad,” I retort. “To one of the most well-adjusted five-year-old girls I’ve ever met. She’s brilliant and polite and sassy. And he raised her all on his own. Her entire life. He’s the PTO president at PS 2, for fuck’s sake. Along with owning several companies. He’s competent and kind and intelligent and hard-working. Dom is a real fucking man.”
“I thought you were finding yourself. Figuring yourself and your life out. Independent and on your own. And now you’re telling me you’re not only starting another relationship, but becoming amother? Saving two new lives, including one of achild?”
“It’s not like that,” I fire back. “I’m not overextending myself for them. He’s not some clueless dad who needs a woman to save him or help him with all the child-rearing and house chores. They would be fine without me. They’vebeenfine without me. He hasn’t dated for years. Because he didn’t want to take any time away from her. I had to convince him to even look at me.”
“Must not have been too much of a hardship for him, considering it’s been seven freaking days,mija.”
“I know what I’m doing, Mai. Just trust me on this one. You’ll change your entire tune once you meet him for even three seconds.”
“I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made.”
“It’s not going to be like that.” I’m becoming irate. “Dad was a fucking deadbeat. Dom is the opposite of that.”
She glowers at me, a hundred different emotions flitting over her face, but I refuse to take accountability for any of them right now.
“I’m going upstairs. I love you. But you’re annoying me and not being supportive right now. Goodbye.” I turn on my heel and leave.
