Myridiculous brain danced with images of wooden puppet boys and I shook my head,pushing a hand through my hair. “What were you expecting?Pinocchio?”
Shelooked to me and shrugged with the tray of lasagna and loaves of bread still inher arms. “W-well, I … I don’t know, Bastian! I thought you were kidding! Inever know with you,” she practically screeched, turning to Greyson before saying,in a much friendlier tone, “I never know with him. He’s always calling me withone ridiculous thing or ano—”
“What?I never do that,” I disputed.
“Therewas that one time when you called and told me that you broke your sister’s legand—”
“Iwas twelve!” I laughed. Greyson was staring at me, jarred and unsure, and Ishook my head at him. “Don’t worry. My mother’s insane, but she’s harmless.”
Momwalked over to me with purpose, swatting at the side of my head with a loaf ofgarlic bread. “Don’t you tell him I’m insane. Do you really want that to be hisfirst impression of me?”
“Youdon’t need me to say it, Mom. You’re doing just fine on your own,” I winced,rubbing at the spot on my head and rolling my eyes back to Greyson, only tofind him smiling. “Greyson, this is my mother, Ronnie. Mom, this is Greyson.”
Withher eyes fixed on him, my mother slid the metal tray onto the counter, andclapped her hands over her heart. “Hi Greyson,” she uttered in a whisper, hervoice immediately choked with emotion.
“Hey,”he replied, surprising me with a friendly tone to his voice. Surprising me morewith his smile.
“Bastiandidn’t tell me what a handsome boy you are. God, will you just look at you? Youlook just like …” She turned to me, looking into my eyes and revealing thetears in hers. “Well, you look just like your father.”
“That’swhat my mom used to say,” Greyson said, and both my mother and I turned to him witha mutual gasp.
“Oh,honey, I’mso sorryabout your mother,” Mom spoke over me as I foundmyself asking, “She did?”
Witha smile directed at Mom, he thanked her with a politeness I hadn’t seen in himbefore. Then, when he diverted his attention to me, he answered, “Yeah. I don’t… I don’t think she wanted me to hear it, but she’d say it to Aunt Tabssometimes.”
Inodded. “Right.”
“Didn’tyou say his aunt was here? Is she eating with us?” Mom busied herself withpreheating the oven and unwrapping the loaves of bread.
“Uh,I don’t know when she’ll be back, but—” The broken chime of the doorbellpierced my eardrums as the three of us winced in unison. “Fuck, I really haveto fix that thing.”
“Weboth know you’re not fixing shit,” Mom muttered under her breath. “You might aswell pay someone—”
“I’mnot paying someone to do something I can do myself,” I shot back at her as I headedtoward the door, opening it to reveal an exhausted Tabby. Her high-heeled shoesfrom the morning had been replaced with a dirty pair of Converse. “Thumbelina,lovely for you to join us.”
“Oh,you’re not going to ask how the meeting went?” she chided, pushing past me andinto the house, before dropping her briefcase on the floor like she lived here.
“Sosorry, sweetheart. Please, tell me; how did your meeting go? Can I take yourcoat? Rub your feet? Should I fix you a cocktail?” I quipped, smirking at heras I closed the door and headed back into the kitchen.
“Oh,ha-ha,” she drawled while following me, only to gasp at the sight of mybustling mother. “Sebastian, why didn’t you tell me you had company? I wouldn’thave—”
“Beenso rude? Yeah, I wanted my mom to hear how you talk to me before she tries toset me up,” I told her with a grin before making the introductions.
“Tabby,”my mom grasped Tabby’s hand between both of hers, “it’s lovely to meet you, andaren’t you gorgeous! Bastian, isn’t she just stunning?”
“Smokin’hot, Mom,” I agreed halfheartedly, but meaning every word, as the ovenannounced it was sufficiently preheated.
“Wow,your mom is so nice,Bastian. That’s surprising,” Tabby quipped with ateasing smirk as I opened the oven door to shove the lasagna in. “What happenedtoyou?”
Momreleased Tabby’s hand only to grip her shoulders, smiling the way she had whenmeeting my sisters’ husbands. Like she knew something we didn’t. Some sixthsense only mothers are bestowed with. It took everything in my power not totackle the woman who had birthed me, pick her up like a football, and send hersailing out the front door.
“Trustme, my boy was raised with my three daughters. He sure knows how to pushbuttons, but underneath all that? He is as sweet as a newborn calf,” Momassured Tabby, squeezing her shoulders and making me increasingly moreuncomfortable with every tick of the clock.
“Thebarnyard analogies, Mom. Seriously.” I scoffed, shaking my head.
“It’swhat I know,” she shrugged, never taking her eyes off Tabby.
Speakingover my mother’s head, I looked Tabby in the eye. “You’d never know this womanwas raised in the heart of Brooklyn. Just, you know, throwing that out there.”
