Chapter 2
2
Ezra
“Did you take your meds, hun?”
“Yes, Mom.” I have no doubt my eye roll can be heard across the country. “Stop being so codependent.”
“You’re my favorite child,” she says from where she’s stationed in front of the stove. “It’s my duty to worry.”
“I’m your only child. And a grown man. I can remember to take my happy pills.”
“I don’t know why you insist on calling them that. You know you don’t have to be happy all the time, right? It’s okay to feel down, just not…” She trails off, no doubt remembering just how low I was not long ago.
Exhaling, I round the island so I’m at her side. Grasping her by the backs of her arms, I force her to lock eyes with me. “The medicine is working, and I’m seeing that therapist you recommended. I’m doing really well. I promise.”
With a pat to my cheek, she turns back to the stove. “Good. Now help me with breakfast, then get out of here.”
“Why are you kicking me out so fast? Got a hot date or something?” I tease.
My mom sighs dramatically, puffing air into her hair. The bright white color is so different from the dark hair I inherited from my father. She went gray in her thirties but has never dyed it. She has no interest in abiding by patriarchal pressures.
“Yes,” she chirps. “Your new daddy will be here any minute. And he’s about your age, so it’ll be super awkward if you’re still here.”
Stomach lurching, I go ramrod straight. “What the?—”
She bursts into laughter, bracing her hands on her knees and wheezing.
“You little sh?—”
“Shh. Don’t curse in front of your mother.” She waves an oven mitt at me. “You should have seen your face.”
Shoulders relaxing, I lean a hip against the counter. “Not funny.” Even as I tell her this, I can’t help the smirk that escapes.
“It’s nine a.m.,” she says, handing me a plate. “Of course I don’t have a hot date.”
“But you’re not denying dating .” I scan her face for answers. “Are you dating someone?”
Her silence speaks loud and clear.
“ Mom .”
“What, Ezra? Do you seriously want to hear about your mother’s sex life?”
Slamming my eyes shut, I cup my hands over my ears. “I didn’t say anything about sex. I’m talking about dating.”
“Oh, what’s the difference these days?”
Cringing, I grab my overnight bag from where I dropped it by the front door and sling it over my shoulder. “That’s it, I’m out of here.” I try to stay overnight once a month. It’s always been just the two of us, and it’s sort of a tradition.
As I grasp the doorknob, she calls out. “Sit.”
With a huff, I let the bag fall down my arm. Then I shuffle back to the kitchen island .
“You will stay and have breakfast with your mother.” She smiles.
“Only if you promise to cool it with the sex talk.”
My mom may be progressive, but a guy’s still got his limits.
“Speaking of dating … Are you still seeing that young lady?”
A groan escapes me before I can stop it. “I thought we weren’t talking about sex.”
“Who said anything about sex?” Her smirk stretches into a full-on mischievous grin.
I roll my eyes at the ridiculous woman. Didn’t she just say dating and having sex are one and the same? They’re not. It’s possible to have sex with someone without committing to dating. Which is often the case with me. I have terrible luck with women, and after what happened last year—when I discovered the woman I was seeing and had invested a lot of effort in was sleeping with me behind her husband’s back—I took a break from dating.
I’ll never forget the look on the poor schmuck’s face when he walked in on me balls deep inside his wife. She told me they were divorcing. It made sense. The walls were bare, and the house was littered with moving boxes. It turns out they were moving in and definitely not divorcing, though that may have changed since I hightailed it out of there with my pants around my ankles.
The worst part was that she had a baby. For weeks, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Especially since I have firsthand knowledge of what it’s like to be the child of a cheating parent.
When she was young, my mom and her friend Valerie, burned out from college and looking for a change of pace, relocated to Oahu. They supported themselves with random freelance jobs while earning their cosmetology licenses. My mother met my father at a party and got pregnant. They moved in together and started a life, but when she was nine months pregnant, she discovered he was sleeping with other women. Without the support of family—and with a newborn—she tried to make things work with him. However, when the verbal and emotional abuse began around the time I started walking, she bought a one-way ticket back to New York City.
My father never missed a child support payment, and though he never traveled to Brooklyn, I visited him every other year. Those were confusing times. I couldn’t tell whether he enjoyed having me around. He’d show me off to his friends and brag about my academic and athletic accolades, but he’d practically ignore me around the house. I was thirteen when he started dragging me to bars and using me as a pawn to pick up women. He “taught” me how to make a woman feel like the center of the universe before discarding her like garbage the next day. “Charm your way in, then charge your way out,” he’d say.
I didn’t stay long after breakfast, mainly because I couldn’t tell whether my mom was actually joking about having a date. She’s never been married. Likely because of the damage my father inflicted on her.
She raised me to believe that a woman doesn’t need a man—something she’s proven time and again my whole life. Even so, I can’t help but want a marriage of my own, a person to share the highs and the lows of life with. More and more, though, I worry it’ll never happen. My track record is embarrassingly pathetic. I keep falling for women who either screw me over or are just looking for a fling.
The commute from Brooklyn to Washington Heights, where my roommate, Cam, and I live, is an easy one this morning. Thank goodness, because he’s wound up like a tightly twisted knot. He texted me three times while I was on the train to make sure I wouldn’t be late for the surprise party he’s throwing for his girlfriend tonight.
He has been my best buddy since high school, when we were thrown together for a mentor program. I was a senior and Cam was a freshman, so I took the newbie under my wing and never looked back. He moved in with me a year or so ago, after he quit his job and broke up with his then girlfriend. The guy is a romantic, and he fell head over heels for Joey fast. Now the two of them are looking for an apartment. Even though I’m used to having my own space, I like living with someone. It’ll be too quiet without him around.
I greet my doorman, then take the elevator up to my apartment, where I find Cam pacing back and forth in his bedroom.
“There you are. It’s about damn time,” he huffs.
“Dude.” I lean against his doorframe. “You okay? What can I do to help?”
His eyes are wide and his hair is a mess, like he’s been running his fingers through it. “You don’t think Joey suspects anything, do you?”
“Absolutely not.” I shake my head. From what I can tell, she doesn’t have the slightest idea anything is happening tonight. “It’s going to be great. We’ve got lots of time to kill. Let’s go play some pickup.”
It takes some convincing, but eventually, he agrees. There’s an outdoor court around the corner from our apartment, so we head that way and get in a few games. The endorphins help, and when we return a couple of hours later, he’s like a new man.
After he makes me swear that I won’t be late to the Black Hole, the coffee shop where the party is being held, he leaves to take care of last-minute arrangements.
When my phone chirps, I swipe it from the counter, and at the name on the screen, my chest tightens with anticipation. It’s a text from the girl I’m seeing. I like her a lot, and for the first time in a long time, I think I can see a future with someone. I invited her to the celebration this evening, but she was worried it would be too weird to meet my friends for the first time at a private event. Instead, she promises to meet me at the Black Hole after so we can go out for a nightcap.
Though she’s spent the night a couple of times when Cam’s been away on business, I mainly stay at her place. Early on, I asked if she was hiding a husband in a closet in her tiny one-bedroom loft. She laughed like I was joking. I wasn’t.
I fire off a text to confirm a meetup time, then head out the door.
I’d ask Cam and Joey to join us for celebratory drinks, but I have no doubt that Millie will be at the party, too, and if I invite Joey, it would be rude not to invite her cousin-slash-best friend, and that is not happening.
Millie and I met at a bar on the island of Crete in Greece, where we had a lengthy debate about karaoke before she mesmerized me with her outstanding performance. I must have made an impression with my own, because later that night, she dragged me into a closet labeled Staff Only for a hot-as-hell hookup.
We got together once more that week, but the electric current coursing between us fizzled prematurely. The second I mentioned meeting up when we returned to the city, she pulled back.
Initially, Joey did the same to Cam, but he eventually wore her down with his charm, and she couldn’t stay away.
I didn’t try with Millie. I respected her wishes and parted ways. Tonight will be the first time I’ve seen her since.
Is she seeing anyone? I shake off the thought. It doesn’t matter now, anyway.