I wanted to protect him, but I couldn’t lie to my mom. I tailored the truth as much as I could to make it sound less malicious, but she was always given to believing the worst about Hunter. His hasty decision to trash my reputation was all the evidence she needed to solidify her original belief that he was bad.
I sigh, resting my chin on my hand and looking out the window again.
“Everything okay?” Ray asks.
“Yeah.”
He gives me a few seconds to expand on that. When I don’t, he asks, “Fighting with your boyfriend?”
Boyfriend?
Oh, right. He just saw me blow off Anderson. Of course he thinks that’s what’s bothering me.
“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know. He pissed me off today, I’m not entirely sure what to make of it.”
“Well, I’m a good listener if you’d like help working it out.”
I glance over at him. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my dumb boy troubles.”
Ray cracks a smile. “Try me.”
“It’s a long, stupid story,” I insist, shaking my head.
“I’ve got time.”
I think about it for a minute, but I don’t want to go into all of it. For one thing, even though it’s insane and stupid, some part of me doesn’t want to tell him about my history with Hunter. I tell myself I don’t know why, but deep down, I know I don’t want to give Ray a bad impression of him. It’s not like Mom wouldn’t fill him in on the details anyway, but I’d like for Ray to… not hate Hunter.
God, that’s stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
It’s still the truth, though, so I omit Hunter’s part in all this and tell a greatly abridged version of the story. “There’s this mean girl at my school who’s been jealous of me since 8th grade because she thinks I hooked up with a guy we both liked.”
Since I pause here to see how he reacts, he gives a little nod of acknowledgment. “All right.”
“And she’s really good at holding a grudge, so she still hates me. I mean, I hate her, too, but that’s not the point.”
“Got it.”
“Last year she told everybody I had an affair with a married teacher—which, of course, wasn’t true.”
“Of course,” he puts in loyally.
“But a lot of people believed it.”
Ray nods his understanding. “Sometimes perception matters more than the truth.”
I nod a bit glumly, feeling the ickiness from the doughnut shop return. “I put in an application at the doughnut shop in town today, and the lady basically told me she didn’t hire whores.”
That gets his attention. He looks over at me, openly surprised. “Jesus Christ. She said that to you?”
“With her tone and the way she looked at me, not precisely with words.”
“Ah. Got it.”
I nod. “Anyway, Anderson was there with me even though I specifically asked him to wait outside, so he heard her accusation about me wrecking my teacher’s marriage. When we left, he started grilling me about it, and… I don’t know, it felt like he believed it or something. He came off very accusatory and like he wanted to know what I had done to make people say things like that about me. It just didn’t feel like he was on my side.”
Ray shakes his head, unimpressed. “What a little bitch.”
He startles me and I look over at him, biting back a smile. “Well, I didn’t say that…”
“I know, I did,” he says. “Letting strangers put doubts in his head about you.” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t sound like a catch to me.”
Even though I’m the one who started complaining about him, I find myself rising to his defense. “He’s a nice guy and everything, and I guess he wasn’t here, so maybe I should go easier on him… I don’t know, it just rubbed me the wrong way.”
He doesn’t offer another word about Anderson, instead switching tracks and asking, “And what about the one who sent you the flowers? Is he a nice guy?”
No.
Yes.
Sometimes.
I don’t know how to answer, so I just look at my lap. “He’s… complicated.”
Ray nods like he knows exactly what I mean, but he doesn’t freak out about it like my mom would. Instead, he gives me space to talk about it if I want to or let it go if I don’t.
I need a break from thinking about Hunter, so we let it go.
It’s nice.
It’s nice when we go home, too. I’m so used to it just being me and Mom, it feels a little strange at first, moving wordlessly around the kitchen as we work together to prepare dinner. My mom is pretty chatty so I’m not used to working in silence, but Ray isn’t very talkative when my mom isn’t around. It’s just what I need today. Companionable, peaceful calm. No prying into things I don’t want to talk about.
Then the front door opens and we both know that means Mom’s home. I hang back and get the plates out of the cupboard while he greets her and they bicker about our need for a real grill instead of the little George Foreman Ray is forced to work with.
“This is a grill,” Mom insists, as he locks an arm around her waist and tugs her close.
“This is a hot plate with ridges,” Ray disagrees before giving her a little peck on the mouth. “We need to get a real grill, we can put it out back.”
“Oh, do we?” Her eyebrows rise and she teases, “Is this your house now?”
Ray cocks his eyebrows right back, amusement glinting in his eyes. “I like to think of it as ours. You got a problem with that?”
Snaking an arm around his neck, she pulls herself close and murmurs, “What if I do?”
He dips his face closer to hers and they start to kiss again, but this time it’s not a peck.
I roll my eyes good-naturedly and turn away, letting them behave like randy teenagers while I collect the utensils we’ll need to eat dinner.
A couple minutes later, Mom wanders over with a wistful sigh while Ray takes the steaks off our inferior countertop grill. Mom has that dreamy look on her face. I’ve grown accustomed to seeing it when Ray’s around.
She settles her arm around my shoulder and gives me a sideways hug. “Hey, kiddo. How was your day?”
“Good,” I say, not offering anything more.
I expect her to be sharp like she always is, to notice I’m not on a date with Anderson like I was supposed to be and demand details.
She doesn’t, though. I think she is so distracted by Ray, she actually doesn’t realize I’m not supposed to be here.
Furthering my hypothesis, she glances over at Ray just in time to see him look back at her. She blushes like a schoolgirl and her gaze darts to me, a helpless grin on her face. “God, he makes it so hard to be broken up with him.”
I try to suppress a smile. “I’m no expert, but I think maybe that means you’re not supposed to be broken up with him.”
“I like him so much,” she whispers, as if he doesn’t already know.
“Even more evidence.”
Sighing, she leans her head against mine. “He’s just the best.”
I’ve never seen my mom this way—ever—so I know it must be a little outside her comfort zone to feel the way she does about Ray. I like it, though. I like seeing her happy, and I really like Ray. Not just because he makes Mom happy, but the relationship we’re starting to build, too. The way he seems to fit in and naturally complement our existing family dynamic… well, that’s not something I’ve ever had, either.