by Mary Frame
She laughs. “What?”
“You heard me. If you kiss me, you lose. If I kiss you first, I lose.”
“That’s the most ridiculous bet ever.”
“Is it? We seem to have the tendency to make out with each other, and you are usually ridiculous.”
“Can’t argue with the truth. What kind of kiss are we talking about?” she asks.
“On the mouth,” I say quickly. “A kiss on the cheek or anywhere else doesn’t count.”
She’s quiet as she mulls it over. The way I see it, this is a win-win situation. I have the opportunity to drive her crazy, and either she kisses me and I win, or I kiss her, and well…even if I lose, I’ve already won.
“Fine,” she says. “You’re on.” She sticks her hand out and I reach over to give her a quick shake.
“Okay then,” I say, glad that’s settled. “Now, tell me a story or something. I didn’t sleep much last night and I don’t want to fall asleep at the wheel.”
“What do you want to know about?” she asks.
“Tell me about your mom. You told her I was coming with you, right?”
She waves the question away. “She’s cool.”
I hope that’s a yes.
“You said she’s kind of a hippie? And a vegan? What else.”
“I dunno, she’s my mom. She’s…open. Funny.” I see her shoulders shrug out of the corner of my eye. “You’ll see.”
“What about your dad?” I ask.
“I don’t have one.”
“It’s kind of impossible for you to be sitting here without someone other than your mother donating a chromosome. Are they divorced or something?”
“No.”
Silence. “Is he dead?” I finally ask.
“I don’t know. I really don’t have a dad.”
“So he took off before you were born?”
“You could say that.”
I frown and glance over at her. “Why are you being so vague?”
She sighs. “She went to a sperm bank.” The words come out fast, like she’s hoping I won’t hear or understand the words if she says them quickly enough.
A beat of silence and then, “What?”
“Don’t make me repeat it.” She smacks me on the arm.
“She…why?”
“Some of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries involve why my mom does anything. She wanted a kid, she didn’t want a man. Can you blame her?”
“Wow.” I shake my head. That was not what I expected. I can’t help but chuckle.
“Okay, just don’t mention it when we get there,” she says.
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, just forget I told you.”
A few minutes later we stop to fill up the tank, use the bathrooms and get Slurpees. Once we’re back in the car and on the road, she asks me, “What about your dad?”
“What about him?”
“Where is he?”
“Took off when I was still a baby. Sarah is my half-sister.”
“Where’s her dad?”
“He’s a drug addict and alcoholic. Last we heard, he was out of rehab and living in Michigan.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
She takes a drink of her Slurpee.
I suppose it’s only fair I tell her the whole truth. I can’t expect her to open up to me if I don’t return the favor.
“He would get violent,” I say.
I feel her turn and look at me.
I keep my eyes focused out the front windshield and on the road. “I tried to convince my mom to leave him, and she was going to, but then she got cancer for the first time. The chemo was really draining. Most days, she couldn’t even get out of bed. She couldn’t leave him.”
She doesn’t say anything, just listens. I want to see her expression, but I don’t want to see it, either. So I continue. “That’s when I started taking karate. They offered a class at the community center just a few blocks from our house. I was ten, Sarah was just a baby. I knew I would have to protect her and my mom. It took me so long to get good.” I shake my head. “Too long. But by the time I was sixteen, he couldn’t get past me. That’s when he left.”
She says nothing.
“I hate violence of any kind,” I say.
I know exactly what she’s thinking, and I anticipate her next remark.
“But you make a living with it.”
“I make a living from other people fighting. I’m just the guy that organizes the events and takes the bets. I don’t fight unless I absolutely have to, and that’s only happened a couple of times when other guys don’t show up and I had no other options.”
“No wonder you were such an ass the first time I met you.”
That makes me smile. She’s never been afraid to insult me, and I’m glad my sob story doesn’t totally freak her out. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now for the hard truth. “I have to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“Promise you won’t get mad.”
“I hate it when people say that. It’s not a fair request when I have no idea what you’re about to say. Like, what if you tell me you put sugar in my gas tank, or slept with my mom? Of course I’m going to be mad, no matter what I promise beforehand.”
I frown. “Have many people told you that they’ve slept with your mom?”
“Just one guy I went to high school with.”
I laugh. She must be kidding, but a quick glance shows me she’s not laughing with me. “Seriously?” I ask.
“I don’t kid about such things. Now tell me what you need to tell me before I assume the worst.”
“Fine.” I take one final glance over at her before looking back at the road. “I never really beat up Chester.”
I don’t look over, but I can feel her eyes boring a hole into the side of my head.
“What do you mean? Of course you did. I saw the bruises.”
I shake my head. “No. When you told me who it was, I knew he would be fighting someone the next week and he’s a shitty fighter, so I knew he would be bruised up. He owed me a debt and agreed to fight to pay it off. I never touched him.”
“But you took my money!”
“Yeah.”
“And you told me it was my fault all these girls starting hiring you!”
“Well, technically, that’s still your fault. You did tell people that I beat him up for you, and they believed it and I started getting into that business because of you. But I never actually hurt anyone or beat anyone up.”
“You owe me a hundred bucks.” She crosses her arms over her chest and pouts in the direction of the passenger window.
It’s cute, really.
“I’ll pay you back,” I say, trying to hide the amusement from my voice and failing.
“With interest,” she says.
“Now you’re pushing it.”
“You lied to me!”
“You lied, too. You said you were my sister.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t lie to you. You knew I wasn’t your sister.”
“You damn near gave me a heart attack thinking Sarah had shown up at one of the fights.”
She heaves out a frustrated breath. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Then why tell me now?”
“It feels wrong now, keeping it from you. And I will pay you back.”
“You better,” she mumbles.
We drive for a moment in silence and then I say, “You shouldn’t be too mad. I didn’t sleep with your mother.”
“You do have that going for you,” she concedes.
“And I would never put sugar in your gas tank. That piece of crap car has enough problems.”
“Hey, hey, hey no talking crap about Fiona.”
“Fiona? You named your car after a Shrek character?”
“Exactly. She’s green. And she’s a princess and an ogre.”
“Sort of like you.”
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This makes her laugh, and I know I’m forgiven. “Now you’re catching on.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Freya
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
—John F. Kennedy
I am totally going to win this whole bet thing Dean started. It’s too easy. I don’t have to work at not kissing someone. He’s going to lose for sure—he’s the guy.
I still can’t believe what he told me about his stepdad. I sort of suspected something from his comments and what his mom had said, but it’s different hearing the words spoken out loud and not having just a vague thought in my mind.
It’s hard not to tell him my story, after he shared his. For the rest of the drive I consider opening my mouth, saying the words, telling him what happened, but something inside me shudders. The way I see it, this could go a couple of ways. I tell him, he thinks I’m lying or exaggerating or worse, that I deserved it because I was leading Cameron on. Let’s face it, we were together when it happened. Or, I tell him and he sees me the way I see me. Damaged. Ruined. Dirty. Broken.
Before I have a chance to open my mouth and spill, we’re pulling into town. We made it just before dinner time.
“My mom’s probably still at the shop. We’ll have to go there to pick up the keys,” I tell Dean when we’ve crossed into city limits.
“Okay.”
I direct him onto the main road. It’s an old-fashioned street, lined with newly blooming trees and shops on either side.
He parks down the street and then we walk to the store.
My mom’s place is a vegan sandwich slash bohemian accoutrement shop. One side is the deli, and the other side is full of hippie clothes, and vintage furniture (and the odd glass pipe here and there).
It’s called Psychadelicatessen.
A tinkling bell announces our presence when I push open the door.
There’s a couple in line at the deli, and I can see my mom behind the counter putting together some food.
She glances up when the bell rings and when she sees me her eyes light up. “Hey! You made it! And you brought a friend?”
I feel Dean tense beside me. “You didn’t tell her?” he whispers out of the corner of his mouth.
“It’s easier this way. Just follow my lead,” I murmur back before taking his hand and leading him over to the register.
We wait while her customers pay and then she washes her hands and steps out from behind the counter to greet us.
She gives me a hug before stepping back and looking Dean up and down.
“Dean, this is my mom, Jane. Mom, this is Dean,” I say. I can see the thoughts forming in her eyes and I know she’s going to ask some horrible, humiliating question, so I say the only thing that will cause the least amount of interrogation. “He’s my boyfriend.”
I immediately feel Dean’s eyes boring a hole into the side of my head.
“Oh,” my mom says. “Well, you could have done worse.” She looks over to Dean. “You’re a total hunk.”
“Mom!”
“What? It’s the truth. You want the keys? I’m locking up now and I’ll bring some sandwiches home. You like falafel, Dean?”
“Sure.” He looks a little shell shocked.
“Of course you do, you’re a sweet boy.” She pats him on the cheek before turning away to get the keys.
I grab the keys from her and then we head back to his car.
While we’re buckling up, he asks, “Boyfriend?”
“I didn’t want to tell her about the whole murder-suspect-shooting thing. She’ll freak. This is much easier to explain. Fewer invasive questions. Less worrying and hand wringing and rending of the hair.”
He pulls into traffic and tosses me a quick glance before shaking his head.
“You could’ve said we’re friends.”
I wonder for a second if that’s what we are. Are we friends?
“Then I’d have to deal with her trying to hook us up all week. This is much easier.”
He tosses me an odd glance. “Your mom would try to hook us up? Really?”
“Or she might try to sleep with you. You have no idea.”
“You could have warned me or told me what the story was going to be before I met her.”
“I didn’t think you would go along with it.”
“You thought a surprise attack was the best way to go?”
I can’t help but grin at him. “With you, it usually is.”
“That’s fine,” he says. “Boyfriend is good. It will give you more of an opportunity to kiss me.”
I laugh. “I’m so not going to kiss you.”
“We’ll see about that,” he murmurs.
I direct him towards the house and a few minutes later, we’re pulling up the long gravel drive. The house I grew up in is a small, two-bedroom wooden structure that Mom has slowly turned sustainable over the years. There’s solar panel rooftop shingles, flowers in pots adorning the entryway, and the entire house is surrounded by plants—a mishmashed garden of herbs, fruits and vegetables.
By the time we’ve dragged our suitcases up to the small porch, my mom comes tearing up the drive after us.
We’ve barely made it into the small, tiled entryway when she’s opening the door behind us.
“Let me just put dinner in the fridge and then I’ll show you kiddos to your room,” she says before heading into the kitchen.
“I know where my room is,” I call to her retreating back, but she’s not listening to me.
“Room?” Dean asks me. “Doesn’t she mean rooms?”
“We only have two bedrooms, hers and my old room.”
“But—”
“Come on then!” My mom is back, a whirling dervish of red curls and patchouli scent.
I shrug at Dean and we follow her down the narrow hallway.
“Here we are!” She opens the door with a flourish.
Right after I moved out, she changed the entire room, took down all of my old high school photo collages, boy band posters, and repainted the bright pink walls (I picked the color when I was ten) to a more sophisticated pale green.
“Um, I can sleep on the couch,” Dean says.
“Nonsense.” My mom waves away the suggestion. “No reason for you to be sneaking around on my behalf. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
I toss my bag onto the neatly made bed and turn back in time to see Dean’s alarmed expression. I bite my lip to avoid laughing.
“And there’s a vase on the mantle in the living room that’s completely filled with condoms, so if you’re going to have sex, make sure you’re safe, okay pumpkins?”
“Mom!” I say, too loudly in the small space.
“What? I’m old, I’m not dead. Don’t use too many of those condoms, I might need some for myself.” Then she winks at Dean. “I’ll meet you in the dining room once you’ve settled in.”
And with that little pronouncement, she leaves.
Dean’s face is absolutely stricken. “Did she just…did I imagine that entire conversation?”
“You can try to pretend it didn’t happen, but years of therapy won’t erase it from your mind.”
“Your mom.” He enters the room and tosses his bag on the bed next to mine. “She just gave me permission to take advantage of you. In her home.”
“Yep.”
“You really weren’t kidding about her sleeping with someone you went to school with?”
“Nope.”
“Is she nuts?”
“Nah, just very open. Don’t worry about it, we’ve slept in the same bed before. I promise, your virtue is safe with me. But if you’re still concerned, you can sleep on the floor.”
He glances down at the dark hardwood floors before sighing and flopping onto his back on the bed, staring up towards the slowly rotating ceiling fan. “It makes sense now,” he says.
“What makes sense now?” I ask. I open my suitcase and pull out my plastic case of
bathroom items. I walk over to the opposite doorway, putting it on the counter in the small attached bath.
“You. You’re nuts, too. It’s genetic.”
I consider that. “Probably.”
I walk back to the bed and plop down on my back next to him, legs swinging over the side.
“Is there anything else I should be prepared for before we go out there and eat dinner?”
“Nope,” I say, staring at the leaf-shaped ceiling fan above my head.
I hear him shift and turn towards me. “You wouldn’t tell me if there was, would you?”
I look over at him. He’s propped his head on his hand, blue eyes focused down on me.
“Nope,” I say.
He leans towards me suddenly, moving so close I can feel his breath on my lips.
My breath hitches in my throat.
A penny couldn’t fit in the space between our mouths.
His lips hover over mine for a millisecond before he dips his head down and brushes his mouth against my neck, initiating a rush of tingles that spread in a throbbing path down my body.
Almost immediately, he pulls himself up to standing, clapping his hands, like none of that just happened, “Well. Let’s go then, girlfriend.”
***
“So, Dean, what’s your major?” My mom asks once we’re seated around the small circular dining table.
“Molecular Biology,” he says. “I eventually want to be an oncologist.”
I nearly choke on my falafel. How did I not know this? “Really?” I ask.
My mom smacks her hand on the table. “You don’t know his major?” she asks me. “What kind of girlfriend are you? No, wait, don’t answer because I already know you’re spending too much time blabbing about yourself and you’re not listening to anything else.”
“Mom!”
“What? You think I don’t know my own daughter?” She turns to Dean, who I can see is smiling and enjoying my own personal humiliation, as usual. “She’s always been like this,” she says to him. “When she was a little girl, she would always boss around her friends and try to get them into her little schemes until they didn’t want to play with her anymore.”
“Do we really have to talk about this?”
“It’s the truth!”
