Wendy Powell
“The menu had all of the things I like and did I tell you there was fruit punch?” Ezra was effusive with his praise when he spoke to his mother a few days later, detailing his dinner with Roman at Prime Cut.
“What a nice gesture, Ezra. And he’d done that just for you?”
“Just for me,” Ezra confirmed.
“Well, I think a visit is in order.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do. I want to meet this Roman Reynolds fellow and see what he’s all about.”
“I’ve been telling you for weeks what he’s all about.” Ezra recalled some of their previous conversations, many of which had focused almost exclusively on Roman.
“For an employer, he’s made quite an effort to impress you.”
“Yes, he has,” Ezra agreed. “But he’s also my roommate and my friend. And isn’t that a good thing?”
“That is a great thing, kiddo, and now I want to meet him.”
Ezra brought it up later that evening when Roman returned home from work. He looked uneasy when Ezra told him the reason for her visit—that his mother, Wendy Powell, wanted to meet him—but Ezra reassured him with, “My mother is very nice, but she asks a lot of questions, which would serve you right.”
Roman grinned and poked Ezra’s tummy. “Why would that serve me right?”
“Because you’re nosy too!”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Roman then grabbed Ezra and tickled his sides until he squirmed out of his grip, breathless and flushed and... excited. Ezra realized then that he didn’t know very much at all about Roman’s family, and how could he become an expert on all things Roman Reynolds if he didn’t even know the people who had raised him?
“Roman, where are your parents?” he asked.
“They still live in Kalamazoo where I grew up.”
“What are they like?”
“My dad is a mechanic, used to have his own shop. My mom was his bookkeeper. She pretty much ran the family business, which is probably where I get my bossiness from. They’re both retired now. I have a younger sister too. She’s married and she and her husband have two kids.”
“Children.” Ezra smiled at the thought of it. “Do you have any pictures you could show me?”
Roman pulled out his phone and scrolled through his camera roll to show him a photograph of himself wearing a red blazer with a young child on each knee.Kind of like Santa Claus,Ezra thought. Both children were smiling, or perhaps giggling, it was hard to tell. Ezra glanced from the picture to Roman, comparing their faces. “They look like you, especially the little girl.”
“Their names are Desmond and Jada. This was taken last Christmas when they came and visited me here for a week or so. I’ll probably see them again this summer when they vacation at our timeshare in Florida.”
“Desmond and Jada,” Ezra repeated, committing their names to memory. He got that familiar yearning he felt whenever he saw siblings playing together and even when they were fighting. “I always wanted a little sister or brother, but my father was a scoundrel.” That was what his mother once told him and from Ezra’s limited interactions with the man, he agreed.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Ezra. Do you have any other family?”
“My grandparents, but we don’t see them very often. They were not kind to my mother when she got pregnant with me. She was never married, you see, and they are very religious. They called me a bastard, which is technically true in the Biblical sense, but still not very nice.”
“Not nice at all,” Roman said with a frown. Ezra supposed he should be upset that he wasn’t close with his grandparents, but he didn’t really like them, and to be forced to spend time with them just because they were related was far worse than being left alone, and he was glad his mother felt the same.
“But my mother and I are very close,” Ezra said to reassure him, “and if the man she was dating wasn’t worthy, she kicked him right to the curb.” His mother had always told him that he was her number one guy, and her actions had proven that it was true. She was the one who’d counseled him through his confusion with Tyler Drummond, and she’d helped him get a scholarship to Loyola University to pursue his passions. She’d taught him everything she knew about cleaning houses and keeping things in order. There wasn’t much that Ezra didn’t tell his mother. Then another thought occurred to him. “Do your parents know you’re gay?”
Roman nodded. “My mom was pretty supportive when I told her. My dad came around eventually. I think it was a bit of a shock for him.”
