She shrugged, glancing around the room.
“Not much. Just some childhood stories.”
I winced.
“Teenage years?”
“God, no. I didn’t want to scare the poor girl away. You know, I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“That was Stella,” I muttered, dragging a hand through my hair.
“Are you sticking with this one?”
“I will if you don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“You are so rude, Maddox Jonathan Lexington,” she chided.
Stella could never know that I was more fucked up than she was. I’d make her insecurities look minuscule.
It had taken me decades to get to where I was.
Stella’s mother had repressed her.
Mine had treated me like a scientific project.
My mother. The sex therapist.
“So tell me,” she continued lightly.“Are you compatible? Stella was rather tight-lipped about it all.”
I raised my eyes to the heavens and silently thanked God.
My mother did not need encouragement.
“You will not analyse Stella or me, Mother. We discussed boundaries, remember?”
She sighed and took another sip of her wine.
“Oh honestly, Maddox, you’re so dramatic. I was simply asking a perfectly reasonable question.”
“You were interrogating her,” I corrected.
She waved her hand dismissively.
“Nonsense. I merely wanted to know whether you two were… compatible.”
My jaw tightened.
“Mum.”
She tilted her head at me, studying my face the way she used to when I was a teenager trying to lie about where I’d been all night.
Then she smiled.
“Oh dear,” she said lightly.“You’re embarrassed.”
“I am not embarrassed.”
“You are,” she said with delight.“You’ve gone all stiff in the shoulders. You used to do that whenever I asked about your… extracurricular activities.”
