Chapter 19
Steph
I hugged my mother, accepted the bag of leftovers she'd put together for me, called goodbye to my father, already engrossed in the television once more, and turned towards the front door of the home I'd grown up in, steeling my nerves. Why did he have to insist on being a 'gentleman' and wait to walk me out to my car? Wasn't it bad enough that I'd had to put up with him prattling on about the importance of font choice in a flyer for twenty minutes straight while we ate? Hadn't I endured enough when Mom made obvious attempts to get me to accept a date from the guy?
I suppressed a sigh and started forward. The only way out was through, I guess. It wouldn't make a very good impression if I decided to turn around and use the back door, especially since I'd already accidentally made eye contact with him.
Buck up, Steph, you knew this was a possibility the moment you told your mother you were coming for dinner. The problem was, even when I'd expressly asked her not to invite a potential suitor, she went ahead and did it anyway. And what made it worse, was when she dragged me into the kitchen to 'help' her fix dessert and she'd tried to give me a pep talk to give Mr. Font-Choice-Matters a chance, I'd informed her of my relationship with Carlos and she had looked at me with pity in her eyes. Like she thought I was making it up to get her to stop.
To be fair, though, I was only telling her to get her to stop. I felt weird about telling her at all when we hadn't defined our relationship, but Carlos had suggested I tell her to discourage the matchmaking a few weeks ago, so I guess he was fine with my parents knowing.
"Let me take that for you," Mr Font-Choice-Matters (his real name was Henry Nardus, but I was working on the theory that I wouldn't need to remember it, so I wasn't lending too much brain space to that kind of detail) said, reaching for my bag of leftovers as I approached, but I tightened my grip. No way was he getting his filthy mitts on my food!
"That's okay," I said, proud of how calm I managed to keep my tone. "If you could get the door, though…"
"Of course!" he agreed, hastily opening the door and stepping aside to allow me to pass through ahead of him. Then followed me all the way down the path to my car, waited while I settled my leftovers in the passenger seat and, just when I thought I could get away cleanly, he leaned in to kiss me. On. The. Lips. "I had fun tonight," he said, stepping back with a smile. "Can I give you my number?"
It took me a whole minute to get my surprise under control, dragging my eyebrows back down to earth and hoisting my jaw off the ground before I could stutter out a reply. Who the hell just kisses a girl like that? "I, um, I actually really have to go," I said, glancing at my nonexistent watch, like I was just realising what the time was. "I'm late for a surveillance shift at work." Utter bullshit, but I needed an excuse to not take the sixty seconds it would take to put his number in my phone. "Mom has your number, though, right?" I added, scrambling around the car to the driver side door and wrenching it open. "I can get it off her."
And with that, I slid in behind the wheel, hastily pulled on my seatbelt while turning over the engine and left a layer of rubber on the road in my wake as I screeched away from the curb. Mom was going to give me an earful for making such a scene right outside the house. What will the neighbours think!? But I couldn't summon the fucks to give to the matter.
I took the first corner on two wheels before easing off the accelerator and slowing to a stop at the next intersection when a pick up truck cut across in front of me. I took the momentary pause to hit speed dial three on my phone, listening to it ring through the car speakers.
"What's up, Beautiful?" Les's voice filled the space, sounding casual with just a slight edge of worry to his tone.
"Remind me again why murdering my mom is a bad idea," I requested.
"Mom?" he asked. "I thought you had a date with Carlos tonight. Weren't you just telling me that he was getting you to cook some mystery dish? That he sent you a list of ingredients but didn't tell you what you'd be cooking?"
A sigh fell from my lips as the intersection cleared and I started forward again. Ever since Carlos had gone to Miami a month and a half ago, our date nights had become cooking lessons with him teaching me to make a new simple dish every week. We'd done the first couple via video call while he was still holding down the fort for the Miami manager which was nice, but it was nothing compared to how nice it was when he returned to Trenton and we were able to do the lessons in person. Hearing his warm voice coming from my phone to instruct me on the easiest way to cut a bell pepper without having to deal with the seeds all over my cutting board was a very different experience to when he wrapped his arms around me, guiding my hands through the motions of measuring flour for what he called a 'quick and dirty' pie crust was something else entirely.
A shiver ran down my spine at the mere thought of his hard body pressed up behind me, his warmth and scent enveloping me. Going back to the video calls when he'd flown out to Boston last week to deal with a staffing situation at the branch there had been more of a hardship than I would have predicted, but he'd tried to make up for it by intriguing me with this mystery dish we were supposed to be making tonight.
"Yeah, he texted earlier to let me know he was needed for a takedown tonight, apparently one of the guys in Boston caught a bullet in the shoulder today, so he's gotta step in to cover. So we've had to postpone this week's date night. And since I don't know what the ingredients are supposed to make, I decided to mooch dinner off my parents instead." I huffed a breath at a stray curl that fell in my face, swiping it out of the way when that did nothing to persuade it to move. "If you can't give me reason not to murder my matchmaking mother, at least remind me not to give her advanced warning that I'll be over next time," I added.
"You sound like you could use a beer," Lester said, rather than respond to my comments. "Bobby's just pulled a couple from the fridge and we were gonna watch a movie, why don't you come over and join us? Decompress after the trials of Helen Plum."
He didn't have to invite me twice. After an evening spent listening to my mother sing my praises to a man while glaring at me for not entertaining the idea better, hanging out with two of my best friends sounded like a great idea. "On my way," I assured him, pointing the car in the direction of their house on the other side of town. It took twenty minutes to navigate the streets of Trenton, by which time Bobby was waiting at the door with two beers in hand, like an eerie perversion of the greeting I was usually met with at my parent's house.
He held a bottle out to me as I crossed the threshold, but didn't let go, waiting until I lifted my gaze to his before he spoke. "You've eaten?" he checked, raising an eyebrow.
"Pot roast, mashed potatoes, over cooked vegetables," I recited dutifully. "And a slice of pineapple upside down cake for dessert."
"Good." He released the bottle into my care with a nod, turning to close the door behind me. "I love you, but you're a lightweight, and I'd rather you not get sick-drunk."
"Again," Lester's voice added from the living room.
I rolled my eyes. "That was one time," I reminded them as I stepped through to the other room to find Lester already arrayed across the middle of the couch, beer in one hand, remote in the other. "And I'm pretty sure it had more to do with the shot of Green Fairy Cal talked me into than the fact that I hadn't eaten prior to starting to drink." I plopped down on one side of Lester while Bobby got the lights and settled into the cushion on the other side, swinging his feet up onto Lester's lap. On the television screen, was what looked like clay chickens.
"You settled on Chicken Run?" Bobby questioned, looking from the screen to his fiancé and back. "I thought you were deciding between Serenity and Texas Chainsaw."
Lester shrugged, dragging Bobby's feet further onto his lap. "That was before we invited Steph," he explained, downing the last of his beer and passing the bottle to Bobby to set aside on the end table. "But I couldn't remember if she's seen Firefly, and I figured since she's already having murderous thoughts about her Mom, it would be irresponsible for us to give her ideas."
"Good thinking," Bobby agreed with a nod as he leaned around Les to look at me. "So tell us about dinner with your parents. What did she do to make your hit list this time?"
So I explained about bachelor number eighteen, his strong views on Helvetica versus Calibri, the excruciating detail he'd gone into about how sometimes moving a graphic just half a pixel one way or another could make or break a flyer, and ultimately, my mother's refusal to believe that I didn't want to date him because I was already in a relationship with Carlos. Granted, there were a lot of other reasons I didn't want to date Henry Nardus, but Carlos was at the top of the list. I'd never met a man - apart from the two currently occupying the other end of the couch - that made me feel like I could do anything I set my mind to.
Being around Carlos was invigorating, his very presence gave me energy at the same time it soothed the anger and anxiety that had been living inside me for as long as I could remember. And while Lester and Bobby could cajole me out of a funk or talk me down from a metaphoric ledge, only Carlos could quiet the storm inside completely.
"Didn't she already meet him, though?" Bobby asked. "A blind man can see how much the two of you are into each other."
I shook my head where it rested against Lester's shoulder, swirling the last mouthful of my second beer around in my bottle as I stared blankly at the chickens frozen on the screen. We still hadn't started the movie. "He was going to come to dinner with me last week, but then he got called away to Boston. My guess is that Mom thinks I'm making both him and the relationship up at this point."
"Boo," Lester jeered. "Helen can suck it for all I care. At least we know your relationship is real, right?" I felt him shift enough to meet Bobby's eyes, but could be bothered lifting my head to figure out what silent communication they were engaging in now. I just wanted to forget about my dinner at my parents'.
"Right," I agreed, swigging down the last of my beer and tucking it between my knees for safekeeping until I could gather the energy to put it either on a surface or in the recycling. Lester didn't let it sit there long, though, plucking it up and passing it along to Bobby to join the growing collection on the table beside him. "Can we start the movie now?"
They agreed, Lester hitting play almost immediately, but the stress of the evening combined with the beers must have exhausted me more than I thought, because I don't remember seeing the end of the movie. In fact, the next thing I remembered was waking up on the pull out couch in the home office, the soft blue blanket that was usually draped over the sofa in the living room tucked around me and my bra folded neatly on the office chair directly in front of me. I wondered for a minute if I'd taken it off of my own volition, or if Lester or Bobby had done the honours, but decided I didn't really want to know the answer. I knew Lester had some tricks up his sleeve to remove a bra from a woman's body without taking off the clothes on top of it, so I placated myself that this was probably what had happened if they'd helped me with the garment.
I stretched, feeling like one of Tank's cats as I dragged my hands over my face before slowly making my way upright, returning the bra to my body and following my nose to the source of the delicious coffee scent beckoning me out of bed. "You could have woken me," I yawned, accepting a cup from Bobby as he indicated for me to sit at the table across from him. Lester was in his element, shirtless and dancing around the kitchen to music apparently only he could hear as he cooked bacon and eggs.
"What, and let you drive home tipsy?" Bobby countered, raising an eyebrow at me. "I don't think so. And neither Les nor I were under the legal limit either. No way were we gonna get behind the wheel to drive you home. Letting you sleep was the safest option."
"Plus, we both fell asleep before the end of the movie too, and only woke up when Bobby's foot fell off my lap," Lester added, turning around to face us, wooden spoon in hand as he crossed his arms over his chest. I'd gotten used to the sight of his abs and pecs over the year and a bit that I'd known him so that I was fairly desensitised to it most of the time. There were certain times throughout the month, though where it was a little harder to stay focussed around his half naked form. And it was at those times that I doubled down on the donuts. The last thing I wanted was to accidentally zone out and come back to myself only to find I'd been drooling over him.
I accepted their explanations with a wordless nod as I let the caffein seep through me, resurrecting my soul and returning function to my brain. "Okay," I eventually agreed, another yawn stealing the end of my statement. "You win."
"Damn straight, we do," Bobby assured me as Les busied himself with transferring the food from frypan to plates. "I love you like a sister, which means I'm not willing to risk your life or my own just so you can sleep in your own bed."
"Speaking of your own bed," Lester said, setting the plates before us and turning his chair around backwards before he joined us at the table, looking from his fiance to me and back. "Do you want a lift to family dinner tonight?"
"How is that a speaking of which?" Bobby laughed, almost spilling his coffee as it stopped abruptly midair.
"It's called a segue, Robert," Lester explained haughtily, crunching on a piece of bacon. "Look it up."
Bobby shook his head, still amused. "A segue, in the 'speaking of which' structure that you just attempted, is when you transition smoothly into the next topic by relating it to the previous," Bobby pointed out. "Steph's bed has nothing to do with transportation to Newark this evening."
"Sure it does," Les shrugged, casting me a wolfish grin. "Because Steph usually catches a lift with Carlos, whom I assume has spent at least a little bit of time in her bed, but since he's out of town, I'm offering our services." Bobby backhanded him across the chest, and his grin grew even wider as he turned to face his soulmate, bacon hanging casually out the side of his mouth, like a crispy tongue. "Our transportation services, Bobby," he clarified.
This drew an eye roll from Bobby, who snatched the bacon from Lester's mouth and stuffed it into his own, distracted only momentarily from the blush I could feel heating my cheeks. Not only had Carlos not spent any amount of time in my bed or vice versa, we hadn't even kissed. I loved the quality time we'd been spending together of late, but the pace at which the intimate side of our relationship was moving was practically glacial. Any slower and it would be going backwards.
They were both eyeing me as I attempted to hide my blush by focusing instead on shovelling the eggs into my mouth.
"... Steph?" Bobby said slowly.
"A lift would be great, thanks," I responded, nodding vigorously as I kept my head down. No way was I going to enter into a discussion about my sex life - or lack thereof - with their boss, friend and cousin.
