Flynn grunted. “I get that.”
He grabbed the can of antiseptic out of the first-aid box and applied it over the injury. The chill of the spray hitting the stump made Allison start. She hissed and shifted in the chair and made it rock on its dubious wheel.
“It’s just so frustrating,” she said bitterly. “I’ve got a clean bill of health. Better than that. Do you know what Dr. Mathers said? He said I was in better shape now than I’ve been in years. Yet every time I sneeze or stumble, everyone acts like I’m going to keel over dead from sudden onset… death.”
“They care about you,” Flynn said. He wrapped a dressing around the stump and taped it in place.
“I know,” Allison said. Once he finished with the dressing, she pushed the leg of her trousers back down over her knee. “That’s why I can’t yell at them.”
Flynn snorted out a laugh and tidied up the first-aid box. He balled up the used dressings for disposal, put the wrappers in the bin, and pushed himself to his feet to hang the box back on its hook.
“So you’re the one that gave my son a hickey,” Allison said mildly.
Flynn dropped the box. It hit the ground with a sharp crack and popped open. Two rolls of gauze disappeared under the sagging sofa, and safety pins scattered over the floor.
“Crap,” Flynn muttered.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He scuffed the box into the corner for later and turned around. Allison was perched neatly in his office chair as though it belonged to her, hands clasped in her lap, and her expression somewhere between amused and challenging.
Flynn wasn’t sure which was worse. It had been a long time since he had to do the whole “meet the parents” thing. He hadn’t missed it. Not that it would matter if he made a bad impression this time.
“I think you should probably talk to your son about that,” he said.
Allison raised her eyebrows slightly. “He’s a grown man,” she said. “It’s his own business what he gets up to and with whom.”
“So then, why ask?”
“I’m his mum,” she said, and a slow, sweet smile lit up her face. “I get to stick my nose in.”
“Even if it was with the island asshole?”
“Somebody thinks a lot of himself, don’t they?” Allison said. “Trust me. When it comes to being the island asshole? You have plenty of competition. Besides, I know what this place is like. It’s fun to listen to gossip, but 85 percent of the time, it’s nothing to do with reality. As long as someone is good to my son, I don’t care what anyone else around here thinks of them. All I want is for him to be happy.”
“I really am an asshole,” Flynn pointed out.
“Not even what they think of themselves,” Allison said. “Do you care about my son?”
“We’ve been on a couple of dates. That’s all. It’s just casual.”
Allison rolled her eyes. “You’ve been going out for a month nearly. I’m not asking if the two of you are planning to adopt me some grandchildren. Just… do you care about him? Do you like him, I guess.”
I like his ass.
I don’t need to like him to fuck him.
I care about ending this conversation.
Flynn could come up with a lot of bad-boyfriend comments that would do the job and convince Allison her son was better off single. But he wasn’t going to do that.
Compared to some, Flynn’s dad wasn’t so bad. He’d never beaten Flynn or chucked him out on his ear, and when he died, he left everything to Flynn. But the old man would never have had this conversation. He wanted Flynn to pretend he wasn’t gay, to do what he liked as long as he kept it to himself. He could be happy, but somewhere else. Flynn had wanted more than that from his dad.
“Nate’s all right.”
Of course all the good intentions in the world wouldn’t help him talk about feelings. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and struggled to think of something to say. Even if the relationship were real, it had just been a couple of dates. Hot dates, but he wasn’t about to tell Allison Moffatt that he really liked the way her son tasted on his tongue.
“It’s nothing serious,” he said. “Neither of us want that. He’s okay.”
