“I tell you not to worry about me all the time, and do you listen?”
“No.” A tired smile pulls my lips.
“Well?”
“Fine. Worry. But it’ll be in vain. No sense in developing new wrinkles over it or anything.”
She takes my good-natured ribbing on the chin and then fills me in on the reason she called. Apparently a farmer called about the land at the back of her property. He offered to buy it.
“It’s a generous offer,” she concludes.
“No shit.” The number is such a high one, I had to ask her to repeat it. She doesn’t scold me for swearing. Mine was the right reaction to that amount of money.
“I don’t want the chores that come with keeping the land. I have plenty of money. I just want my little house.”
Her “little” house is 2,500 square feet, so don’t take that statement to heart. “Then sell the land.”
“You won’t be upset?”
“Why would I be upset?”
“You used to climb the trees out there. Explore the creek. Camp in the woods.”
“I’m camping in the woods now, Mom. I haven’t camped in your backyard for nearly twenty years.”
“That’s a good point.” In the silence stretching between us, I sense more is going on than she’s telling me.
“Are you sure you want to sell it?” I ask.
“I don’t need it.”
“Do you want it?”
There’s a lengthy pause as she considers. “Whenever I look back there, I picture your father on the riding mower, wearing his hat, cutting down the tall grass. I hated losing that.”
“I know.” We hated losing him and everything he embodied. “But even if you sell it, there will be grass. Unless the buyer builds a shopping mall.”
“No, nothing like that,” she’s quick to say. “It’s not zoned for shopping.”
Mom’s a retired city surveyor. That’s why I don’t ask a million questions. She knows her stuff.
“Well, then, you can still look out at the field and imagine Dad mowing and wearing his hat.” I remember that too.
I have the same picture in my head. It brings a smile with the hurt, and I’m beginning to think that’s the way I’ll feel for the rest of my life whenever I remember him. Happy and hurt at the same time. That emotion needs a name. I guess that’s what grief is, isn’t it?
“I don’t need those acres,” Mom says.
“But you want it.”
“I can’t take care of it.”
“But you want it,” I repeat.
“I want it. But selling it is more logical.”
“But you want it. So keep it. Keep paying the landscaping company to take care of it, and call that guy back and let him know you’re not ready to sell yet.”
It’s her choice; she should make the one she wants. God knows not all of us can have what we want. She may as well. I pinch the bridge of my nose again and resent that my ability to frown has returned with such ease.
“Hmm. Maybe I could ask him to check back in a year,” my mom says, sounding thoughtful.
“Tell him it’s a ‘no, not right now.’ Sometimes that’s all no means.”
“I could say the same to you about your girl in Tennessee. Maybe she’ll change her mind later.”
“Mom.”
“To know you is to love you.”
“Mom.”
“Trust me, son. I’ve known you for thirty-three years. And I love you.”
Yeah, but she isn’t like Becca. Mom sticks things out. Sees them through. She’s loyal and steadfast.
Even if Becca were all of those rolled into one, I’d have to consider the scars left from my last relationship. I loved Courtney and she bailed with no more than a thinly veiled excuse. Then, almost immediately, she started dating another guy.
Becca and I will part ways eventually anyway—she said so herself. Now, or in three weeks. Or three months. I’m not big on having another wound to lick. Mourning my dad is hard enough. And I’m not going to try to force Becca to change her mind. I promised her I wouldn’t, and I won’t.
So our last week together has been reduced to fling status. So what? I have plenty to do when I go back home without maintaining a relationship. Remember what I said about how pancakes and blow jobs should be enough? Well, they are.
I decided that.
No.
I decreed it.
Come this time Saturday morning, I’ll be packing up and leaving Becca in Tennessee. I’ll kiss her goodbye, I’ll climb in my Jeep, and I won’t look back.
Starting to have second thoughts about naming the recipe after her too. She wants the ties cut? I’ll cut ’em. Right off at the ankles.
I end the call with Mom and set my coffee cup at my feet while I watch the woodland creatures fly and climb and scurry. I’m deep in thought about nothing at all when I hear the squeak of the screen door.
Becca walks out, her hair its usual styled mess, a steaming mug in hand. She’s barefoot and wearing last night’s clothes. She sits in the rocker next to mine.
After her first sip of coffee, she says, “We literally slept together last night and did not have sex.”
“Some fling havers we are.” I give her a wink and rock my chair.
“Sorry to conk out on you. My family wears me out.”
“Families do that.”
“Was that your mom on the phone? How is she?”
Becca looking sleep-rumpled is doing more than stirring my dick. She’s tempting me to lean back in this rocker and listen to the birds chirp while I talk about my mom and the land and how much we both miss my dad. But that conversation would cross several lines we agreed not to cross.
I keep rocking and say nothing, hoping I don’t have to explain. Becca’s smart. She figures out the reason behind my silence.
“I guess asking about your mom isn’t very flinglike either, is it?”
“You tell me. You ask other guys about their moms?”
She shakes her head. If I weren’t planning on leaving her behind in a matter of days, I might say it’s a sad head shake. I might sweep her off that chair and pull her onto my lap and tell her everything. About my mom. About my dad. Then I’d listen to stories about her parents. But that’s not who we are.
Not anymore.
“I guess the lines are a little blurry.” She wrinkles her nose.
“You’re in charge of when you come and go, Princess. I’ll give you that.”
“And that’s all you can give me.”
“That and a few screaming orgasms.” That’s what she decided.
I vow to make it as fun for both of us as possible.
Chapter 22
TUESDAY
Dax
I kiss Becca’s neck as I collapse on top of her, supporting my weight on my elbows to keep from smashing her flat.
“We found our way back.” She grins. Satisfied and smiling.
Perfect.
Wonder if my dad’s death had started clouding the way I was with Becca. Losing him made me consider a future with a woman for the first time in a long time. Not that I came here looking for that, but it was stewing in the back of my mind. Then I met Becca and let myself think that she could be my future. I put a lot on her, a lot on myself.