He grinned, his hand raking his freshly shorn locks. “She did. The idea was to make me less conspicuous.”
“Right. I see where she was going with it.” Mom tilted her head, tapping a finger to her lips as she surveyed my handiwork. “Only, I think it might have the opposite effect.” Her gaze shifted to me and she smiled. “If you’re going for unremarkable, Breeze, maybe don’t make him look so hunky.”
“I worked with what I had,” I complained, throwing my hands up. “What was I supposed to do, give him a mullet?”
Before my mom could get in another jab, Bodhi rocked back on his heels and said, “I feel like I’m not even part of this conversation anymore.”
“Welcome to my world, bud,” Terrance said, shouldering past us with the rat cage in his arms. Enthralled by the rodents, he dipped his head and mumbled to his new friends, “Aren’t you gorgeous little fellas?”
“Pretty sure your rodent friends are a boy and girl, Pops,” I said. “I was told their combined Hollywood name is Brangelina.”
“Well, I can’t be sure until I check their underbellies but, from first glance, I think we’re dealing with BradAngelo.” Terrance said as he trudged toward the door. At the last minute he stopped and looked over his shoulder at Bodhi. “You can come help me if you want.”
Bodhi wrinkled his nose. “Will we be checking for rat testicles?”
My stepfather considered the question for a moment before admitting, “Probably, but I’ve got beer in the fridge.”
After a moment of contemplation, Bodhi shrugged and followed Terrance.
Mom tore her gaze from their retreating backs and shifted her focus to me. “Oh my god!” she mouthed, her eyes twice their normal size.
“Right?”
“Uh…yeah. What were the odds of you getting saved by…that?”
“I can’t imagine them being real high.”
“Probably not. And the odds are even less of the two of you going to pound town, but look at you! You go, Girl!”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “How could you possibly know whether we slept together or not?”
“You brought him home.”
“So what?”
“Breeze. You’ve only brought three men home. One was Brandon. One was,” she waived her hand dismissively, “I can’t remember his name, the one with the mohawk who cried a lot.”
“Troy.”
“Oh, that’s right, the Weeping Warrior. Anyway, that brings us to number three.” She inclined her head toward the house like I didn’t know who she was talking about before adding, “See, honey, you’re like a pigeon. You only come home to breed.”
I just choked out a laugh. “You’re ridiculous, Mom. I hope you know that.”
“Ridiculously intuitive. Don’t even try to deny you and Bodhi aren’t doing the bowchickawowwow.”
She swiveled her hips in an exaggerated motion that made me wince. “Until you speak in age-appropriate slang, we have nothing more to say.”
“And the best part of this whole thing is now that you have your Jon Snow, you can come to the family reunion.”
“Mom.” I lowered my voice to barely a whisper. “Don’t you dare bring that up to Bodhi. That’s not why he’s here.”
Mom’s face flashed with surprise at my abrupt tone. Then she wisely closed her mouth. Not that I hadn’t expected her to bring it up. Just not so soon. Any illusions about my celebrity bed buddy would be dashed when she found out Bodhi was heading back to Los Angeles the day before the reunion.
But now that I was in town, there’d be no getting out of my family obligation. The firestorm, and subsequent road trip, had dumped me straight into the lap of my ex-fiancée. I was going to have to play nice - alone.
“What did he come here for then?” Mom asked, leaning a hip against the singed paint on the quarter panel of the Range Rover.
“Not for me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
