“Mom,” Ellis started gently. “Nobody likes your vegan macaroni and cheese. It’s possibly one of the most awful things in creation. In fact, whoever invented it should be arrested for trying to pass off that goopy yellow sauce as cheese.”
“Well damn, Ellis. Tell me how you really feel.” Phillipa looked skyward as if praying for divine intervention.
“I was just saying what Daddy was thinking, but loves you too much to say.”
“Yes.” Phillipa smiled, looking at the door her husband had just left through. “He’s a very sweet man.”
Ellis watched the slightly dreamy expression that crossed her mother’s face and swallowed the enormous lump in her throat. Phillipa loved her husband. Her genius, non-eye-contact-making, social disaster of a husband. And he loved her, too.
Mike’s face flashed in Ellis’s mind and left her wondering what love truly was. He’d walked out on her yesterday after kissing and comforting and bringing her exquisite pleasure. Watching him go made her feel like lightning had struck her chest. It was the first time in her life she was ever sorry to see a man go. She kept fighting with herself, warning herself not to let him get too close, that things with him were bound to end.
Enjoy him.
But don’t give away your heart.
Only God knew how badly she wanted to do that.
“I’m glad you’re here, sweetheart. It saves me from calling you tonight.” Phillipa turned her body, placing her hands on Ellis’s shoulder. “I have something to tell you.”
Immediately a knot formed in Ellis’s stomach. It was never good when her mother looked her in the eyes and took on her famous all-business expression.
“What is it, Mom?” Ellis began bracing herself for the worst.
“Your sister has met somebody,” she said gravely.
“Jesus, Phillipa,” Ellis swore, placing her hand over her still-beating heart. “You nearly caused me to wet myself.”
“Well, I wanted to relay the news to you as dramatically as she related it to me.” Phillipa waved her hand dismissively. “Dina says that she’s not letting this one get away from her, that this guy is the one. Do you know how many times I have heard that phrase from your sister? I love her but she wouldn’t know the right man for her if he snuck up behind her and goosed her.”
Ellis tried not to frown at her mother’s negative outlook on her sister’s man-picking abilities. Ellis wanted to be hopeful for her big sis. If Dina found the right guy, then maybe Ellis wouldn’t feel so enormously guilty about not telling Dina she was seeing Mike. “Don’t be so quick to judge, Mom. What do we know about this man?”
“He’s an actor. He does off-off-off-Broadway plays and has been an extra on some of New York’s finest shows. I think he played dead body number two on Law and Order last year. They met in her modern dance class. He has a five-year-old son and still lives in his mother’s basement. And she thinks he’s the one? I think he is a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Damn.” Ellis sighed. “Okay, so he doesn’t sound like a dreamboat, but maybe he’s a decent guy.” But even as Ellis said those words she knew he wouldn’t be. Dina never picked decent. She picked charming and sexy. She picked poor and temporary. But this time it might be different.
“Mom?” Ellis bit her lip for a moment, not sure she wanted to open a can of worms. “Why haven’t you told Dina that I was dating Mike?”
“Because you’re in love with him, Ellie. That’s something you need to tell your sister, not me.”
Ellis nodded. There was no use fighting it anymore. She loved Mike Edwards. She wasn’t falling anymore. She wasn’t infatuated. She was very much in love and it took him walking away yesterday for her to realize that.
“Dina will hate that.”
“Yeah, but things didn’t work out between her and Mike and even under different circumstances they never would. She should be happy for you—and if she isn’t, I’ll have to take the blame, because I didn’t raise her the way I should have.”
“Mom…” Ellis leaned over to kiss her cheek. She was ridiculously close to tears again. “I might not have to say anything. I have no idea what’s going on between me and Mike. You know him. He’s not the relationship kind of guy and I probably shouldn’t even entertain the idea of entering a relationship when I’m just getting my life in order. And then there’s Jack. Doesn’t it seem a little crazy to you that I could fall in love so quickly after such a bad breakup?”
“I don’t think you ever really loved him, honey. Not the forever kind of love anyway. Once you really love somebody you can’t let go of them so easily. You can’t just move on with your life. Your father and I broke up for three months before we got married. I couldn’t move on, Ellis. I could date other men. I could even like them, but nobody ever came close to making me feel like your father did. Mike might be that man for you.” She reached up to pinch Ellis’s cheeks. “Mommy likes him. Plus he’s so hot I get burned just looking at him. Tell me, daughter, is the sex as good as you thought it would be?”
“Mom!” Ellis blushed to the soles of her feet.
“Oh don’t play coy with me, missy. Puzzle my ass! I would’ve called you out that day but your poor father was there and I didn’t want him to know what you were up to.” She looked skyward. “He actually thinks you and Mike are puzzle enthusiasts. He’s talking about getting you one for Christmas.”
“Yikes. Try to talk him out of it.”
“Out of what?” Walter appeared through the kitchen door.
“Nothing, darling.”
He nodded, deeming whatever they were talking about unimportant. “The food should be here in twenty-two minutes. When I called this afternoon I asked for it to be delivered at seven PM.” He nodded again. “I would also like to discuss a new project the university wants me to lead over dinner.”
“We’ll talk about whatever you want, Walter,” Phillipa said to him.
He disappeared through the door again.
“He’s so weird,” Phillipa muttered.
Ellis burst out laughing. “I always wondered if you thought that about him or if you were immune to it.”
“Immune? How on earth could I be? We knew each other for a year before I could get him to look in my eyes.”
“Then what about him made you fall?”
Phillipa shook her head. “I have no idea. He’s an oddball, a nerd, and a Republican but I took one look at him and knew I had to spend my life with him. As un-feminist as that sounds, I just don’t feel right when we aren’t together.”
Shit.
Ellis knew the feeling.
The doorbell sounded, causing both women to glance at the clock.
“We still have eighteen minutes,” Ellis muttered, but she got up to answer the door.
“Hey, Elle.” Mike leaned in, giving her a lingering kiss, and walked in. “You look pretty today.”
Ellis stared at him, her mouth agape. What the hell was he doing here?
“I told you I was going to see you today,” he said.
She realized she must have spoken aloud. “Yeah, but—but—”
He bent to kiss Phillipa’s cheek before he turned around and grinned at her. “I called your father and asked him if we could all have dinner together.”
“You did?”
“Yes.” He shifted the bag he was holding from one arm to the other. “And since we are having Mexican I bought all the fixings for peach sangria.”
“You voluntarily agreed to have dinner with my parents?”
“Yeah. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes, Ellis,” Phillipa added. “Why are you so surprised? You know I was Mike’s all-time favorite professor. If I wasn’t married to your father I’m positive Mike would have tried to date me. It’s no wonder he’s so fond of my offspring.”
“Eww.” Ellis crossed her eyes. “Say it ain’t so, Mikey.”
He shook his head. “It broke my heart when she told me she was happily married, but my spirits lifted whe
n she said two single daughters.”
“Perv,” Ellis muttered. She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling.
Mike shrugged. “You can’t blame a guy for going after what he wants.” He winked at her. “Come help me make the sangria, Ellie.”
She followed him through the kitchen door, watched him put the bag on the table, and then was swept into his arms. Her heart rate shot up as his lips came down on hers. It was a hard, heated kiss that made her tingle all over and confused her at the same time. Why the hell did he walk out on her yesterday and kiss her like that today?
“Mike,” she whimpered.
“Hmm?” He kissed her hair, hugging her close. “I thought about you all day.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Have I ever told you how much I like you in red? It does something to me.” He slid his hand down her back, stopping on her behind.
“Stop it!”
Ellis and Mike jumped away from each other after hearing that voice. Her father was standing by the refrigerator, his face red, his mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Daddy…” Ellis wanted to die. Her face burned so hot she was sure it was going to melt off.
“I’m sorry, Walter. It’s my fault. I didn’t see you there.”
“Are you committed to my daughter?”
“Dad!” Ellis looked from her father to Mike, panic filling her. He was never like this. Never so protective. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“Yes, you do.” Walter narrowed his eyes. “Are you committed to my daughter?”
“Yes.” Mike nodded, his neck growing red. She wished the floor would open up and swallow them. That a mythical creature would swoop down and pick up her father. She was used to her mother making a scene but not her father.
Are you there, God? It’s me, Ellis. Again.
“Are you going to treat her kindly?” Ellis watched in amazement as her father lifted his eyes to Mike’s and held his gaze. “I did not like Jack. He was very bad to her. He hurt her. I will not let you hurt my daughter. I will not tolerate it.”
Mike nodded. “I’ll be good to her, Mr. Garret. Hurting Ellis is the last thing I want to do.”
She noticed that Mike didn’t promise. He couldn’t. Inevitably things between them were going to end. They both knew that.
“See, Daddy? Mike’s a nice guy. You don’t have to be so protective.” She left Mike’s side and hugged her father’s stiff body. “But I’m glad you are.”
“I love you,” he said so quietly she almost missed it.
She blinked at him for a moment. “I love you, too.”
He gently extracted himself from her. “Dinner will be in nine minutes. Please wash your hands.” He nodded once more and walked out of the kitchen.
“Are you crying?” Mike grasped her arms.
She hadn’t noticed the tears running down her cheeks until he pointed them out. “I guess I am.”
“What’s wrong?” He looked so bewildered, it caused her to smile.
“Nothing. My dad loves me.”
*
Dinner started without incident. It arrived exactly at seven, which caused Walter to be very pleased. And after washing their hands as he asked, they congregated at the dining room table. Ellis couldn’t help but get nervous butterflies in her stomach. Mike had planned this dinner. He wanted to be around her family. He was so unlike Jack, who’d never wanted to be around them. Only his own. And she knew Jack was serious about her. What did this mean for her and Mike?
“Tomatillos is the best Mexican restaurant in town,” Walter announced in the middle of piling arroz con pollo on his plate. “Followed by The Aztec followed by Mojitos. I would like to talk about work now, if that’s agreeable with everybody.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Phillipa encouraged.
“I am having trouble understanding a new project the university wants to me head.”
Ellis was prepared to mentally check out for the next ten or fifteen minutes. Her father’s scientific talk was always way over her head; she’d learned early on that if she tried to follow it she was soon lost. She glanced at Mike, who looked genuinely interested in what Walter was saying. Or he was a great faker. She was fine with either one. He was also great to look at.
He wore an aqua-colored vee-neck sweater that made his eyes glow. She wondered what female in his life bought it for him. Men never picked out colorful things like that for themselves. Was it from his mother, one of his sisters, a former girlfriend? It wouldn’t surprise her if it were. He probably had many gifts lining the insides of his closets.
“—if penis size is relative to body size or if it solely based on genetic makeup, or if it is a combination of things. It could purely be luck, too, but the scientist in me doesn’t believe in genetic luck.”
Ellis’s mind snapped back to attention to when she heard the word penis come from her father’s mouth. She expected her mother to be the source of outrageous dinner conversation, but apparently it was Walter’s turn to act up.
The next moments seemed to go by in slow motion. Looking back, Ellis wished she could have stopped what was happening, but nothing beside an act of God could have changed the direction of the conversation.
“Michael, do you find your penis size proportional to your body size, and if not would you say it was above average or below average?”
Kill me now, Ellis prayed to a God who wasn’t listening. Oh please, kill me now. Kill me now. Kill me now. She opened her eyes to look at a grinning Mike. “For the love of God don’t answer him.”
She looked to her mother for help, but all Phillipa did was shrug. “Actually, I’d like to know the answer to that question myself.”
Ellis glared at her mother, wanting to smack her head in frustration. “Daddy, you cannot ask people, especially my boyfriend, about the size of his penis. You’re not at work. We’re eating dinner and you’re embarrassing Mike and me.”
Walter looked at Mike and frowned. “Mike doesn’t look embarrassed.”
He didn’t. The goofball was laughing at her. At her!
Jackass!
“I am aware that sometimes I don’t understand social situations. Do you think this is an inappropriate topic of conversation?”
“Yes!”
“No,” Mike chuckled. When Ellis glared at him he sobered a bit. “I think the conversation itself is fine but some people find scientific talk at the dinner table troubling for their digestion.”
“So for future reference should I refrain from asking personal-anatomy-related questions during social and family gatherings?”
“Bingo.” Mike smiled. “Who wants more sangria? I’m pouring.”
Chapter Nineteen
Mike followed Ellis back to her house. He was a little nervous about what was to come tonight. It was almost like he was a teenager again, anticipating his first time with a girl. It clearly wasn’t his first time, or even his first time with her, but it was the first time he was going to take the huge scary step toward having a real relationship with a woman.
Out of all the women he had been with, he knew in his gut that Ellis was the girl to go forward with.
When he wasn’t around her he didn’t feel right. He felt like he was just going through the motions. Why settle for feeling blasé when he could be happy with a beautiful girl? It made him wonder why he couldn’t let himself fall in love with her. She was lovable, he realized that, but if things didn’t work out, when things failed, because inevitably they did, he wanted to be able to pick himself up and go on like nothing happened. He knew it was selfish to not give 100 percent of himself to her. But his mother loved his father, gave more of herself than she had to give, and look where it got her.
“I’m sorry about tonight, Mikey,” Ellis sighed once they entered her house.
“Don’t apologize. I had a lot of fun tonight. And I asked for this. Remember?” He had. After leaving her yesterday he knew he had to do something to show her he wanted to stick around. Dinner with her parents was odd but it was
no hardship. It made him miss being a part of a family.
“I have to apologize. First my father twists your arm into saying you’re committed to me, which I’m not holding you to. Then he asks you how big your penis is. If he asked how our sex life was I was going to off myself right at the table. And my mother! She all but encouraged it. Why on earth did you ask to have dinner with them?”
“Because I wanted to be your boyfriend,” he said seriously.
She gulped. “Wanted to? As in past tense? As in ‘The dinner with your parents was so bad I no longer want to be your boyfriend’?”
He grabbed her hips and pulled him into her, smiling at her rambling. “As in you called me your boyfriend tonight in front of your parents. I think it’s official now.”
“Did I call you my boyfriend?” Her eyes widened. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
He nodded. “Did you think I would go through all this trouble for a girl I didn’t want to be with?”
“Gee, I don’t know.” She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m a wreck. An emotional, financial wreck. You shouldn’t want me as a girlfriend. You should get somebody more like you.” She broke eye contact and fiddled with the collar of his shirt.
“What’s more like me, honey?”
“You know.” She bit on her lower lip so hard he was afraid she might break it.
“I don’t.”
“Someone who likes to jog.”
He inhaled deeply, determined to be patient with her. “Do you expect me to base an entire relationship on one common interest? Besides, jogging is my alone time. Do you think I want some mouthy broad ruining that for me?”
She gave him a tiny smile before her worried expression returned.
“What else, Ellie?”
“Somebody who likes sports.”
“Again, that’s man time. No girls allowed.” He patted her bottom. “You’re losing this argument, baby.”
“You should—” She paused, briefly making eye contact with him before returning her eyes to his neck. “—date somebody who’s thin.”
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