“Nicholas, where are you, honey?”
“In here, Mom,” I yelled from my bedroom, gaze locked on the stark white ceiling. I was hoping it would give me some answers, or something. Anything. All I could really think about was Ally. She was probably the one reason I hadn’t gone insane, yet.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?” The lights flipped on, causing me to squint my eyes, and I groaned when she threw a pillow at me. “And why are you lying in bed in the middle of the day? I know something’s wrong, Nicholas. A mother just knows these things.”
I rolled my eyes as I sat up, and hers turned into narrow slants as she studied me. “I know it can’t be anything with Ally because, well, you two are perfect. I still can’t get over the fact that the whole family instantly fell in love with her when they met her at the wedding. It would be pretty hard not to.”
I silently nodded my head in agreement and smiled at the memory of taking her to my cousin Maria’s wedding a little over a month ago. We danced together almost the whole night, even though all of my cousins and uncles tried to cut in non-stop, wanting to dance with the ‘angel’, as they called her, which I had brought as my date.
I made it clear that Ally was more than just a date, and they could all kiss my ass if they thought they were prying her out of my hands. She buried her head in my chest to muffle her laughter as I glared at my family. It had been cute when my aunts got ahold of her, and she turned beet red when they insisted our wedding would be the next one in the family.
I knew what Ally was thinking. She had just gotten out of a marriage, and it definitely wasn’t something we had talked about. I had no clue if she even wanted to get married ever again. But I had a feeling if she did, I would make sure that it was to me.
“Nicholas.” Mom snapped her fingers in front of my face twice, pulling my attention back to her.
“Yeah, Mom. No, it’s nothing to do with Ally. I just have some sh—some stuff to figure out right now. Nothing that I can’t handle. ” I corrected my language quickly, while lying straight to my mother’s face. I hated doing that.
She patted my cheek, and smoothed a non-existent wrinkle on my bedspread. “Alright, son. Well, if you need to talk, you know I’m here. I’m sure your job has you a bit stressed out anyway. How did you manage getting today off?”
“I have a new assistant manager that I’ve been training for a while to take over my old position. I figured he was finally ready for a day on his own.” I sneaked a glance at my phone to make sure I hadn’t gotten any phone calls from Aaron. Nope. That was a good sign.
Aaron had worked at the resort for the past couple of years. He started to show interest in a management position when Leo was getting ready to leave, so I had taken him under my wing to show him the ropes. It was nice to have someone there that I could depend on, and not have to constantly worry that the place was gonna burn down while I wasn’t there.
The only thing that I didn’t like about him was that he seemed to have a thing for Ally. I made it pretty clear to him that it was never happening after I caught him staring at her ass one day when she wore one of those tight skirts. It was hard not to look at it. I had been doing the exact same thing when I caught him, but she was my girl, only I had the rights to it.
“Oh, that’s good, honey. You work too much, so it’s nice to have some extra time and what better way to spend it than with Ally. She called me a little while ago and said that she’s picking up some paint rollers on her way over. I put some sandwiches in the fridge for the two of you, and the paint’s on the table. I like all of the colors you picked out, but don’t you think the yellow for the extra bedroom looks a little bit like a nursery color. Oh my God!” She covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes getting wide. “Is Ally pregnant? Please tell me she is, Nicholas. How could you have not told me?”
“Mom.” I grabbed onto her hand that was literally shaking with excitement. “Calm down. Ally’s not pregnant.” I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “It’s just a paint color. Ally said I should do something neutral, so I picked that.”
“Oh.” Her face dropped but she quickly replaced it with a bright smile. “Well, I’m going to get out of your hair. You two have a fun afternoon together,” she sang, wiggling her eyebrows at me, and I groaned as I pushed her towards the door.
“Bye, Mom.”