“Aren’t you doing the homework right now?” I asked.
“This is last week’s,” he said.
“Close enough.”
“You have to tell her if we don’t.”
“You really are a people pleaser, aren’t you? Worried about getting in trouble.”
He thought about that statement, like my saying it out loud made him realize that’s exactly what he was doing. “Maybe not doing the homework should actually be my homework.”
The homework this week was a scratch-off date night game that I was pretty sure Dr. Franklin had invented. She had pulled one sheet out of a bundle of them. If we thought it was fun and it helped us, she’d probably offer to sell us the whole pack. We were not going to do a scratch-off date night. Especially because I knew the risk that the last thing we scratched off on the sheet would probably be some creative sex game.This exercise was for already-established couples, after all. People she was trying to help communicate their needs in a relationship better. The last thing would probably read,Tell each other what you like in bed and then get in bed and do those things. Or maybe something like,Think of a place you’ve never had sex. Go to that place and do the sex.
A voice in my head said,But that scratch-off would give you an excuse to have sex with this beautiful man.
I shook my head. If I needed an excuse, then I knew I shouldn’t. It was too complicated. He lived here and was obviously stuck here for a while paying off a loan. I didn’t live here. My whole life existed somewhere else. He thought therapy was a joke, I didn’t. He would have sex with me if a scratch-off told him to because he wouldn’t want to disappoint our pretty therapist. I wouldn’t. I would do it because my body was starting to react every time he was around, and that was a recipe for heartache. At least heartache on my side. And one-sided heartache was the worst kind.
“My mom is still in a lot of pain, which makes her kind of”—I looked once over my shoulder, although I wasn’t sure why, the television was so loud that I could hardly hear the conversation we’d been having until this point, and I knew she couldn’t hear us—“grumpy,” I finished. What I didn’t say was that even when she wasn’t in pain, she was pretty grumpy. He didn’t need to know all that. I protected my mom from those things.
“Is that why, when I called her beautiful, she said,I don’t need pretty words?”
“She said that?”
He nodded.
“She’s an excellent bullshit detector.”
“I don’t bullshit.”
I laughed. “I think you’re a professional bullshitter.”
“Rude,” he said.
I smiled. “Just have some patience with her. That’s all I’m saying.” That was my daily mantra.
“You don’t think I’m patient? I taught you to box, didn’t I?”
“Rude,” I said, mimicking him. Then I used his boxing technique to playfully land a jab on his stomach.
He swatted my hand away with a smile, and as I was leading him back out to the living room, he said, “Do you really think I’m a professional bullshitter?”
“Yes, I think you say things people want to hear. And also, I think you and your brother like pranks and bets that not everyone is always privy to.”
The smile that had been lighting his face slipped away. “Glad to know you think so highly of me.”
I stopped behind the love seat adjacent to the long couch where my mom sat. “Mom, what do you want to wear to therapy today?”
She looked down at the pajamas I had helped her into the night before. “Not this.” Then her eyes went to Elijah. “Are you staying?”
“For a bit,” he said. “If that’s okay.”
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“To see Sutton. And to meet you,” he said.
Like I said, she was an excellent bullshit detector, and at that answer, she narrowed her eyes in his direction. “Is she paying you?”
I groaned. “I’m not paying him. He’s not a medical professional. He’s my friend.”
