As we finished cooking the meal, there was a knock at my door. I cleaned my hands on a towel and quickly went over as Mom set the table. I opened it and was surprised to see Carter standing there.
“Good evening,” he said, leaning toward me, kissing me quickly.
“Hi,” I said. “My mom’s here, we were just putting dinner out.”
“I know. She texted me.” He grinned.
“Oh, did she?”
We walked into my apartment together and Mom was smiling. She kissed Carter on the cheek.
“Did you get that brief finished?” she asked him.
“Mostly. The idiot Chinese interpreter didn’t understand some of the nuances in the second clause, so I had to go back and change them.”
“We’ll find someone better next time.”
“I like Wu, she just doesn’t get patent law, especially not American stuff.”
“I understand.”
“Stop it,” I said, and they both stared at me. “No work talk. I’m serious.”
They both laughed and we all sat down around the table. Mom handed out the arepas, already cut open to form a little pouch on the inside. We filled them with veggies, cheese, pork, whatever we had out on the table. It was absolutely delicious.
Eating with Carter and my mom was almost surreal. They talked to each other like real friends and Carter seemed like a normal, down-to-earth person. He was definitely toning down the asshole attitude big time for her at least. I didn’t know what Mom was up to warning me away from him and then inviting him to dinner, but I felt good sitting in their company, laughing and talking.
Carter talked about growing up and starting a company, and Mom told embarrassing stories about me. That drove me crazy, but I couldn’t really complain. I had a smile on my face the whole time even when she talked about the night I decided to turn myself into a Smurf.
“So she comes downstairs, covered in blue marker,” Mom said, laughing, barely able to talk. “I’m talking covered in it, but because she used a marker it was all streaky.”
“Like a blue zebra?” Carter asked.
“Exactly!” Mom cracked up. “Okay, okay, so she comes up to me and says, ‘Look Mom! Gargamel is going to eat me!’ It seriously took me twenty minutes before I understood what she was saying.”
I blushed but smiled. “I don’t remember any of this, even though she’s told that story a million times.”
“How did you clean her off?” Carter asked.
“Just soap and water and a scrub brush. Took way too long but god was that funny.”
We leaned back in our chairs, smiling and feeling the warmth of a genuinely close and comfortable friendly moment. There was a few seconds of silence before Carter finally sighed.
“Well, I hate to ruin the good mood, but we all need to talk.”
Mom raised an eyebrow at me and I just shrugged. “What about?” I asked.
“Our situation. We all might as well be involved in the discussion now since it affects all of us.”
“I wonder why,” Mom grumbled.
Carter ignored her. “Bruce Walker is behind all of this, and I’m betting that Cox is helping him. I assume Bruce offered Cox a lot of money. He recently stole a lot of papers and notebooks from me, which is both good and bad.”
“How is that good?” Mom asked.
“I can press charges if I can prove it, but I doubt we’ll get to that stage.”
“What are you planning on doing?”
“Right now, nothing,” Carter admitted. “We all need to lie low for a while, or at least until Bruce makes his move. Eventually he’s going to do more than just demand my resignation through threatening letters. I suspect he doesn’t want to embarrass the company, so most of his threats are empty.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked.
“I can’t be, but it’s my best guess. Why not just publish what he has instead of threatening me? That would destroy me well enough.”
“Good point,” Mom said. “He’s probably looking at the longterm survival of the company.”
“He wants to control it, but he wants to make sure it’s profitable still. He won’t shoot himself in the foot.”
I nodded. That made sense to me. This Bruce guy sounded like an asshole, but his self-interest meant that he couldn’t destroy the company by smearing Carter while he was still involved with it.
“So we sit and wait?” I asked.
“Exactly. I suspect it’ll happen soon.”
“I don’t like it.” Mom’s face looked stressed.
“I know you don’t. But we need to know what we’re dealing with before we can make any moves or make any real plans.” He pushed his chair back from the table and stood. “I should get going. Thanks for the dinner, you two.”
We all stood and exchanged goodbyes, but the moment was tense. Carter bringing up Bruce and the threats brought the good mood down. I knew we had to talk about it, but I wished we had some more time to enjoy that peaceful, happy moment.
I walked with Carter to the front door. “Are you okay?” he asked softly.
“I’m fine. You’re the one that just had dinner with me and my mom.”
He grinned. “You’re my two favorite women in the world.”
“I’m sure.”