Chapter Eighteen
Irving
With the bandage on his face, Ezra somehow looked even sexier than usual. I think it was because he still kept smiling and singing and acting like Ezra always acted, the bright green bandage bouncing around with him, totally unfazed by the whole thing.
“You ready to meet the moms?”
“Good thing we decided we aren’t trying to be boyfriends, or this would be way more intimidating.”
“They’re not intimidating at all,” he said, patting me on the shoulder as I parked the car in the dirt driveway. “Come on, you’ll see.”
The drive out to his family’s place had taken a couple of hours, but we had filled it up with speculation about Brick, as well as some spontaneous song and dance numbers to the radio. We were both pretty sure that the guy Brick had thrown out of the bar was sent by that Frisk person, but outside of that, all we really had were wild theories. The woman who worked at the bar wouldn’t give us any information, either. She just kept saying that our guess was as good as hers and swearing that Brick hadn’t come in for his shifts after the incident.
I still felt pretty angry with Brick for the way he treated me. As far as I could tell, though, he was tangled up with this scary Philadelphia crime guy, and the trouble he had with them had something to do with the fact that he stood up for Ezra and the other workers at the comic shop. If that were the case, it really did feel like helping him out was the right thing for Ezra to do.
Considering that I was Ezra’s friend now, it seemed like the right thing for me to do, too.
That’s why Ezra had suggested we go visits his moms. He swore they would know what we should do, even if we couldn’t figure it out for ourselves. I loved the idea of turning to family for advice, something I had never been able to do with my parents. At most, they just tried to throw money at any problems I had growing up. And anyway, I’d never met a gay couple who had been together for years like Ezra’s moms had been. It seemed kind of exciting.
“Hold on one second,” I said, pulling my phone out. “I need to send my friend Karis a picture.”
Ezra threw his arms over my shoulder, and I snapped a selfie with the house in the background. It was a little blue building, nestled in the trees, but with big sprawling gardens all out the front and a bunch of weird sculptures and decorations scattered on the lawn.
“There you two are! I thought you’d never make it!” The woman standing on the porch and waving to us had a thick Southern accent, long blonde hair, and a floral dress that dragged across the ground. “You two cuties get your butts over here—we’ve got lunch waiting!”
“Good luck getting a word in edgewise,” Ezra whispered out the side of his mouth, grabbing my hand and pulling me indoors.
It gave me a thrill that we were still being affectionate together, even though we had decided sex wasn’t exactly right at the moment. I was even more thrilled that Ezra was affectionate in front of other people. I had kind of figured all the little pokes and linked arms would go away in front of his moms, but he seemed just as carefree about it here as he did in the city.
As we entered the house, another woman wandered out with a tray of cookies and tea. She had dark, curly hair that ended at her earlobes and big, beautiful green eyes. The house was filled with framed pictures and stacks of books, and I realized where Ezra got his decorating tastes from.
“We’re so glad to have you here, Irving,” she said, setting down the tray. “I’m Aliya, and you’ve met my wife Sandra.” Before I could say anything, they each pulled me in for a deep hug, their arms squeezing me tight. When they released me, I opened my mouth to say my greetings, but Sandra started talking first, her voice coming out so fast I felt like I was swept up by a windstorm.
“Now Ezra told us plenty about you, of course, and I understand you are not boyfriends, which is fine. Aliya and I do wonder, however, if you have any information about who Ezra might be dating? You see, he claims to us that he’s not dating anyone, but we just can’t believe a guy as cute as him is single in a city like Seattle! When I lived back in Alabama, you practically had to line dance on the back of a wild horse to win someone over, but I was led to believe that Seattle was a bit more relaxed. It’s the music and rain, you see.”
I coughed. “Well, actually…”
Aliyah waved a napkin through the air, cutting me off. “No time for dating gossip now! They’ve just got out of the car.” She gestured for us to sit on the couch as she talked and set to pouring the tea and passing it around. “There’s so much to see on the land here. The house is fairly small, but if you’d like to see Ezra’s childhood photos, we have plenty of those. And then there are the home movies. He was such a precious baby! But the most important part is to walk through the woods and along the stream in the back. After tea would be a lovely hour, and a nice temperature to avoid the bugs.”
Sandra handed me a few cookies. “Eat, eat! You’ll need your energy.”
“He will need his energy,” Aliya agreed.
“Thank you, they look—”
“Now this gentleman you speak of, the one who works at the bar,” Aliya continued, cutting me off. “Ezra says that the mob is after him, which we don’t think sounds good at all.”
“Not in the least,” Sandra agreed.
“And we find this especially disconcerting in light of the fact that the comic book shop seems mixed up in this whole thing. How on earth a comic book shop could get mixed up in the mob, I have no idea.”
Sandra leaned over, pouring more tea in my glass, even though I had barely touched it. “I was the one to buy him his first comic books. Ezra, I mean, not the man at the bar. Does the man at the bar read comics?”
“I’m not sure, dear,” Aliya whispered. “I’m not sure it’s relevant.”
“I thought comic books would be a nice compromise, seeing as how we didn’t allow him to watch the television or play video games like his friends all did. The idea I had was that comics were somewhat like the movies, you see, with all the exciting pictures and adventures, but they were also reading.”
“We’re very glad, anyway,” Aliya added. “It’s given Ezra such a purpose in life, and I’m sure you’ve seen his drawings. Beautiful! Absolutely remarkable. But now that the comics have led to this entanglement with organized criminals, not to mention this sordid drama with the bouncer at a dive bar, we’re simply concerned that Ezra has found himself in an unsafe situation.”
