I keep my face buried and don’t answer because I know my mom will.
And she does. “The teacher told me that the boy didn’t want to kiss her, so she held him down, and when he tried to run, she punched him in the stomach.”
“You might have been a natural at rugby after all,” he says between laughs.
“So,” my mom goes on, “by the time she got to high school, her brothers acted like chaperones. The poor girl couldn’t go anywhere without them knowing about it. All the boys were kept at bay.”
“Well, I don’t blame your brothers for being protective of you,” Lachlan says. “You were probably as stunning in high school as you are right now.”
Oh god. I look up, and he’s staring at me so sincerely it hurts. My face burns even more at the compliment.
“Look, you’ve made her blush,” my mother says, which isn’t helping. “You’ve gotten under her skin.”
“Okay,” I say quickly, getting to my feet. “I’m going to the bathroom. When I get back, can we all agree not to embarrass me anymore?”
“But I love watching you get embarrassed,” Lachlan practically purrs.
I give him the finger, which of course causes my mother to gasp in outrage, and I stride down the hall to the bathroom, shutting myself in. I take a long, deep breath. My heart is racing, and I don’t know why. Everything is going so well, but all it does is make me worry. There’s this space behind my heart, a little hole, and it’s slowly getting bigger.
I run a washcloth under the cold water and dab my face. I’m still blushing, much like the way I look after sex. Perhaps that’s why Lachlan wants me to be embarrassed.
When I leave the bathroom, Lachlan is sitting in the living room and my mom is trying to make some tea.
“Here, go sit down,” I tell her, taking the kettle from her hands.
She places her hand over mine. For a moment I stare at it—pale, wrinkled beautifully, speckled with age spots. My mother’s hands, hands that have seen me through my whole life, are shaking slightly. When did that start to happen? The shakes?
But I don’t ask her because she’s looking up at me adoringly.
“You shouldn’t let him leave,” she tells me quietly. Her grip on my hand strengthens, the shakes abating slightly. “He is such the man for you.”
I give her a quick smile and gently pull the kettle away from her. “I honestly don’t know him well enough to think that.” I swallow and look out at the living room where he’s watching TV. “I wish I did though.”
“Sometimes you don’t need to know someone to know them,” she says. “And when he looks at you, you can tell. He knows you.” Then she pads her way out of the kitchen to join him. I shiver, suddenly cold, and get the tea ready. We drink cups and cups of it, watching an episode of my mother’s other favorite show, NCIS, until it starts getting late, and I know Lachlan has to check on Emily.
For some reason it’s hard to say goodbye to my mom this time. Maybe because I’ve been extra emotional all night. I hug her longer than I normally do and tell her I’ll be by next week. Maybe I can drag Toshio with me.
Lachlan bends down and envelops my tiny mother in a bear hug. Every inch of me dissolves at the sight.
I have completely melted.
“Your mother is lovely,” Lachlan says to me quietly during the car ride back into the city.
“That she is,” I say, glad he was so charmed by her. And equally as glad she was so charmed by him.