And that was the biggest reason of all why I couldn’t cross this line. Because I didn’t think I could separate the sex from the feelings I was having.
No. I knew I couldn’t.
And I couldn’t let myself fall more in love with a man who was in love with someone else. I couldn’t be his second choice. I couldn’t be his fall-back plan.
But God, I wished I could.
I’d let this man turn me inside out. Grind me into dust. Flip me like a pancake. I wanted him to do things to me that I hadn’t done with anyone. He had me worked up in a way that was making me creative. I’d eat a Pop-Tart naked off his bare chest.
I didn’t know how it was possible to love someone this much and be just as attracted to them at the same time. How you could absolutely adore someone and want to take care of them and put Band-Aids on their boo-boos and simultaneously want them to pile-drive you into a headboard. I wanted him to whisper sweet things to me after bending me like a pretzel in every sexual way possible, and then I wanted to watch him sleep and stare at his face with heart-eye emojis.
These two things had never existed for me side by side before. Not like this.
I’d been attracted to my husband. I’d been in love with my husband. But not the way it was with Jacob. Not even close. And I had to wonder if this is how Nick had felt about Kelly.
I hated it.
Because if it was? I got it. I really did.
Nick should have left me first. He should have never cheated on me. But if I’d felt this way about Jacob when I was married to Nick…it would have been torture. It would have made me question if who I was with was the right one.
It would have been enough to end a marriage.
It was two o’clock when I finally pulled up to my house. I dragged myself out of the car and up the front walk, planning on going to bed to sleep off the rest of my hangover, but when I opened the front door, I immediately knew something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
The air smelled like chicharron.
Mom was here.
I mouthed a silent cuss word and Benny poked his head out of the kitchen. “Hi, BRIANA. Nice to have you back, BRIANA.”
I gave him a death glare and a second later Mom came out behind him. She had on her old apron, and her wild salt-and-pepper curls were tied up on top of her head. “Hola, mija!”
“Hola, Mamá,” I said, hugging her.
Benny was glaring at me over her shoulder. He was in an apron and I just knew he’d been Mom’s prep cook for however long she’d been here.
She held me out from her and shook her head at me in disapproval. “So skinny. You aren’t eating? Where is your boyfriend? He doesn’t feed you?”
“He feeds me, Mamá.”
She pursed her lips. “He’s probably too skinny too. You doctors never eat. I’m making pupusas, come help me with the masa.” She went back to the kitchen without waiting for me.
I slumped. Benny shot me a vindicated look. Now it was my turn to suffer.
I loved my mom. She was an incredible woman. Strong, capable, a survivor in a hundred different ways—but she was a lot.
Mom lived to care for others. And when the people she loved were in crisis, this instinct went into overdrive. She’d come home to her newly divorced and apparently emaciated daughter and her ailing son in kidney failure. She was going to scrub down every surface of this house and feed us until we begged for mercy.
Benny looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen and then closed the space between us.
“I can’t believe you called her,” he whispered. “We had a deal.”
“She called me last week. Was I supposed to send her to voicemail?” I whispered back. “I told her you had a donor and you were fine. I didn’t tell her to come!”
“I’ve been making curtido since eight a.m. Apparently I’m sick enough to need her to fly across the United States, but not sick enough to not chop cabbage.”
I snorted at this, which earned me a more pointed glare. “How long is she staying?” I asked quietly.
He held up ten fingers. Then he started pulsing them. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty—two months???
I groaned quietly. “Whhhhy?”
“To be here to nurse me back to health.” He jabbed a finger at me. “This is your fault—”
“My fault?” I whispered. “How is that?”
“You made me give up my apartment,” he whispered. “I’m trapped here.”
I crossed my arms. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m trapped here too.”
“It doesn’t. It does not make me feel better, Briana. You suck.”
“Gil didn’t come?” I asked.
“Nope.”
Ugh. Gil buffered her. It was always better when Gil came. He liked being mothered and bossed around. It was sort of their thing.
“Maybe it’ll be fun?” I said hopefully.
Benny gave me a look like No, It Will NOT Be Fun. “The kitchen’s a mess. It looks like the whole mercado blew up in there.”
He took off his apron and smacked it into my hands. “Mamá, me siento un poco cansado,” he called around the corner. “Gonna go lie down.”
“Okay, mijo. Briana will help me,” she called back from the kitchen.
He smirked and I rolled my eyes at him. I was way too hungover for this.
I spent the next four hours helping to make enough pupusas for a small army. We also stripped and washed all the beds and reorganized every cabinet in the kitchen. Mom announced that she was going to give the cat a bath once he came out of hiding, and I knew we’d never see Cooter out from under the sofa ever again.
I knew why she was like this. Cooking and cleaning were her stress response. When we were growing up, there was so little she could give us, but even if there wasn’t money, she could always give us a clean home. And she wanted to feed us now for all the times she couldn’t before—and she did. In amounts that attempted to compensate for the lean years, times a million.
This extreme nesting would settle down once Mom had the house the way she wanted it. The cooking would never end, but she’d stop cleaning the ceiling fans once she felt we were being adequately cared for.
Mom would be great when there were grandchildren. She’d be a wonderful Mamá Rosa—she was a wonderful mom. It’s just that Benny and I didn’t need this level of mothering. But when there were infants around? She’d be a dream come true.
I felt bad I’d never been able to give her any grandkids. I’d always feel bad about that.
We got caught up while we cooked and cleaned. I told her about my “boyfriend.” She wanted to meet Jacob. And his family.
His family was no problem, but I worried about Jacob. He’d be the center of her attention and he’d probably get overwhelmed.
I couldn’t decide if it would be better to introduce them at his parents’ house, where she’d have more distractions and the focus wouldn’t be so squarely on him? Or alone, when the stress of Amy and Jeremiah wouldn’t be a factor, because they’d probably be there.