Nodding, I kissed him quickly. “Go grab it.I’m going to get you a water.”
“Thank you.” He looked like he wanted togive me another kiss, but the phone kept going so he sighed and hurried away.
As I stood and walked into the kitchen tograb us both waters, I heard him cursing by the door. Feeling nosy, I took thewaters to the foyer and found him sighing into the phone. “I already explainedthat I had plans this weekend.”
His words and the expression of frustrationon his face said it was his mother.
I could hear just a bit of the other voice,but it was the pitch coming through the phone and his wince that said she wasgoing just a bit insane. “That’s not—”
She must’ve cut him off because he stopped,rolling his eyes and just waiting. When she paused, or maybe just sucked in abreath, he jumped in again. “My personal life—”
Was clearly everyone’s business because hestopped again.
Finally, he just shrugged. “Fine. Onesecond.”
He muted the call and leaned back againstthe door. “My mother is demanding an audience with the very possessive womanwho’s taking up all of my time lately.”
Laughing probably wasn’t the right answer,but it was all I came up with, so I tried to cover it with a cough. Landonrolled his eyes. “Yuck it up, thank you.”
Giving him a kiss, I shook my head and madea low tsking sound. “Do you really want to be punished?”
That sent a shiver through him and hepouted. “Don’t say things like that when my mother is on the phone.”
I scoffed. “I won’t promise that.”
Landon’s sigh said he hadn’t expected me toagree to it either. “What am I going to do? She refuses to let me get a word inedgewise.”
Glancing at the phone, I tried to come upwith some good options. “Are you asking for ideas from your boyfriend or areyou asking your Dom to help you make a decision on a problem?”
Landon’s head cocked to the side, then hereally thought about it for a long moment. “My Dom, please.”
Nodding, I gave him my first thought. “Youtried to talk to her politely and she’s just railroading you. I’m not feelingoverly polite at this point. I can take over the call and explain to her thatif she isn’t reasonable, she’ll deal with me.”
Landon’s grin said he liked that one. Siccingme on his mother was probably something he’d enjoy watching from the sidelines.“Another option would be for you to agree to dinner and explain we’ll be therein about two hours. Then we’ll go show her what happens when she doesn’t giveyou a chance to explain important details. Like the fact that I am not awoman.”
He nearly giggled at that visual.
“I realize that both of those are slightlyconfrontational ways of handling her. However, that seems to be the only way todeal with her at the moment.” She was used to getting all his attention, andthat was something that wouldn’t work going forward.
I was guessing that Landon would ask forsomething less dramatic, but he surprised me.
“Will you be mad if I drag you over thereand she says something offensive?” He glanced down at the phone again beforelooking up at me. “She’ll get over it and she won’t be weird about me dating aguy once she gets over the surprise, but the rest of this…yeah, your age isgoing to throw her. I’m just tired of dealing with this and if we don’t nip itin the bud, she’s only going to get worse.”
The gay part I could get…I didn’t supportit, though I could understand some people had just been raised by wolves, butmy age? “She’ll honestly have more of an issue with my age than you dragginghome a guy?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
Shrugging, I kissed him again. “I’ll defendyou against the dragon, baby. Tell her we’ll be there in two hours.”
Landon was back to looking frustrated as hefocused on the phone. “This has to be Laura’s fault somehow.”
Taking a deep breath, he unmuted her.Before he could say anything, she charged back in again. He let her rant for amoment before jumping in. “Wait. Just wait. We’ll be there for dinner in abouttwo hours, but you have to be nice and calm down.”
Unsurprisingly, that didn’t go over verywell.
More ranting from the phone had him rollinghis eyes. “Two hours, yes. Fine.”
A quick goodbye had him disconnecting thecall and setting the phone down on the table. “Thank you.”
