“You’re very, very stupid.” She swats me with the greasy cloth. “But I love you, and you’re going to kick ass in college, and you’re going to be the best architect in Peyton because my best friend is nothing if not the best.”
“Thanks, Han.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders, pull her close, and kiss her temple.
“Is Mama freaking out?”
“Fuck yes. You know it.” She’s always called my mommama. It’s just how we are. “She’s called me about eleven hundred times to ask questions she knows the answers to. I think she thinks I’m a kid again and would get me off to school each day if I let her.”
She chuckles.
My phone buzzes on the counter beside us, and Han cocks a brow when she sees the notification from the kink site I use.
“Anything else from your sub from a few months back?”
She’s asking about James. I messaged him once in July to check in and see if he was interested in getting together again, but he never responded. That’s the only sign I needed that he’s not interested, and that’s fair enough. I’m not the kind of guy to go chasing someone who doesn’t want to be caught. Plus, what’s the point when all I want from him is sex? “Nah, which is fine. I just like fucking him, so it’s not a big deal.”
“You said he’s interesting to you too.” She heads back over to the Ford she’s working on.
“Interesting in a what’s-your-story kind of way. Not anything else.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to start thinking you would date someone or anything.”
I’m not anti-relationship. I’ve just never found someone I cared to have one with. Not that I’ve never dated. I’ve seen someone for a few months here and there, but never had anything that felt serious. I’ve never met someone who made me want more, and James wouldn’t be that person either. I don’t have to know anything about him to know that outside of the way our kinks align, we would be way too different for anything more. It’s fun untangling all that rigidness within a scene, but I don’t know that it’s something I could handle all the time.
“Why do you keep busting my balls today?”
“Because you make it easy,” she teases. “And you’re the one who likes ball busting. Not me.”
I grin. “I really, really do.”
Han pretends to gag, and I laugh.
We get back to work, talking here and there but concentrating on the tasks at hand. I’m going down to working part-time at the shop since school starts tomorrow. I have no idea how I’ll make this work. I’ve been saving everything I possibly can, though, and between that, scholarships, and working at the shop when I can, I’ll find a way to make it happen.
After work, I make the thirty-minute drive—that’s actually close to an hour with traffic—out to Hampton. Dakota still lives here too—not in our mom’s house, but in town. I wanted to get away, even though I didn’t go far, just needing something, and Han did too. That’s how we ended up in Peyton.
Mom must see my lights pull into the driveway because she’s standing in the open doorway of the small three-bedroom, ranch-style home.
“Hey, you.” She smiles.
“Hey, Ma.”
“I made pot roast. It should be done.”
“How’d you know I’d come tonight?” She made one of my favorites.
“Because I know my boy.”
Yeah, she does. I kiss her forehead, and then the two of us go inside. My mom is a grocery-store manager. She’s worked there for twenty years, went from cashier, to department manager, to her newest position. No matter how long her workdays were, she always made sure we had home-cooked meals, even if as we got older, it was something we had to warm up.
Eventually, she taught Dakota and me to cook, wanting us to be “well rounded,” as she worded it, and to make sure that neither of us became the kind of men who wouldn’t chip in equally around the house when we settled down. Kota’s been dating the same woman for about six months now and seems serious about her, so I’m guessing it’ll be my younger brother who settles down first.
I go with her into the kitchen and grab potholders. “I’ll get it out of the oven.”
Mom nods, working on silverware and plates as I get the pan from the oven. “What’s your schedule the first semester?”
“There was an issue with one of my general ed credits transferring over. I need a history or political science credit, so I ended up with American National Government along with Fundamentals of Technical Drawing and Commercial Architectural Design.”
“Well, that sounds boring,” Mom teases.
