Chapter Seven Mo
Chapter Seven
Mo
Rachid, the second Sarda son, was visiting their parents for a week, so Mo drove out the next day. He took his time so he could think without thinking, without forcing it. Allow his eyes to half-focus and go to his parents’ house on autopilot, enjoying the quiet hum of the wheels on the highway, the low growl of the engine. Normally, he would have benefited from the drive. It would have helped him to get away from the discomfort of that embarrassing moment in his shop. But the anxiety about driving Jess to the meeting the next day had anchored tension in his body.
Sheer madness.
He didn’t know what had come over him, what he’d been thinking when he offered to bring her into yet another one of his safe spaces. Particularly one that he adored for its quiet.
Well, she needs a ride. She doesn’t need to waste money on Ubers when we’re both going to the same place.
But it would be an hour. An hour total, there and back, and they would have to talk. Even if they turned on the radio, there would still be the pressure to talk. Mo swallowed hard, trying to push down the lump that had formed in his throat. She might be understanding about it, if he got all twisted up and couldn’t talk. She’d already shown him enough understanding, demonstrated that she could see what made him different from other people, for him to make her the gift he planned on giving her the next day.
Fingers crossed, she’ll be understanding enough to not find my surprise gift weird.
Taking the exit for Grosse Pointe Farms, he followed his habitual detour to the florist to pick up a bouquet like he always did for his mom. As always, the garage door was open when he pulled into the driveway.
“Mo! There you are,” his mom said when he walked into the kitchen from the garage. “My firstborn never fails to brighten my day.” She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek as she accepted the flowers.
“Hi, Mom,” he said. “What’s all this?” he asked, gesturing to the kitchen island covered in stapled printouts.
“Your dad and I are trying to decide where to go on vacation,” she said, returning to him after putting the flowers in a vase.
Mo looked closer and saw that each small set was a destination with accommodation and itinerary options.
“Mom, you’ve planned multiple vacations down to the last detail but haven’t actually booked anything?”
“Not yet,” she said, looking at the options, tapping her chin.
“Um, you couldn’t have done this in multiple tabs on a browser?”
She looked up at him.
“Mo,” she said flatly. “Staring at a screen all day is one of the occupational hazards of forensic accounting. Sometimes I need paper.”
He nodded. Made sense.
She returned to her study of the printouts.
“Rachid and Khalil are in the study. ESPN highlights or some such.”
“Okay,” he said. He kissed her on the head and went down the hall.
—
As usual, Mo heard Khalil before he saw him. If it had been anyone else, that character trait would have gotten on Mo’s last nerve. But with Khalil, it just made Mo roll his eyes.
“There’s the man of the hour!” Khalil announced as soon as Mo walked into the room. Mo didn’t understand. His face must have shown it.
“Only kidding, man. Come on, sit down.” Khalil patted the couch beside him.
“Hey,” Rachid said, in his much more appreciably quiet tone from the matching burgundy club chair to the left. Mo nodded back. The leather of the couch creaked as he sat. The sound was welcoming, familiar, but of course Khalil couldn’t let Mo fully enjoy it.
“What’s good with you?” he asked. “How’s the little lady?”
Mo smiled, about to answer, but paused. Did Khalil do that on purpose? He always ribbed Mo for being prickly, a grouch, for not wanting to talk. But Madison always put him in a good mood, and it was easy to talk about her. Could Khalil tell that Mo had been a little annoyed when he sat down and was trying to push him into a better place? Or maybe it was just uncle stuff.
“She’s good,” Mo said. “She’s on her way back to Diana’s from a Girl Scout campout, but next weekend she wants to have some friends over for a slumber party.”
“Oooh…” Khalil said.
“Yeah,” said Mo.
“Any way to convince her to do it at Diana’s?” Rachid asked.
Mo shook his head.
“She’s out of town. I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and say yes. I mean, I don’t want to say no. And the two girls she wants to invite over are sweet kids. I know they’ll be well-behaved. It’s just…”
“Mo and his space,” Khalil said.
“Mo and his quiet,” Rachid said.
Mo frowned. He’d already felt guilty enough when Madison had asked, and he hadn’t immediately said yes. He wanted to. But other people. Especially children, with all their energy, in his space? Overnight? His skin started crawling, and his heart started racing just thinking about it. He needed to change the subject.
“Rachid,” he said. “What’s new? Mom said you’re here for a conference?”
“Yes,” he said, straightening in the club chair somewhat dwarfing him. “Most of it will be about pediatric cardiomyopathy. And there will also be talks about the latest research into techniques for Tetralogy of Fallot and the developments in atrial switch operations for d-TGA. I’m really looking forward to those.”
Mo had no idea what the hell had just come out of Rachid’s mouth. He glanced at Khalil, but he looked like he didn’t know, either.
“You’re doing it again,” Khalil said to Rachid.
“What?” asked Rachid.
“Your thing,” said Mo.
Rachid sighed.
“Sorry. Um. Kid heart stuff. I…I don’t want it to sound boring.” He slumped back into the chair.
“Nah, man, it doesn’t sound boring. Just confusing,” said Khalil. He turned to Mo. “Bro, you gotta let him tell you about the kid’s life he saved last week!”
Mo raised his eyebrows.
“You saved a kid’s life last week?” he asked.
Rachid waved a hand in the air, as if it were no big deal.
“My team and I worked to help a patient together,” he said. “That’s all. We did our jobs.”
“?‘My team and I’…‘We did our jobs,’?” Khalil imitated him. “Dude, do not play it down; you saved a child’s life. Tell Mo what happened.”
Rachid leaned forward again and explained. As far as Mo could understand, he—or he and his team—had come up with a new process for a particular type of surgery for kids. Mo might have understood more if Khalil had been able to keep himself from interrupting every other sentence with a “wow,” “that’s so cool,” “man, that shit is amazing,” again and again. It wasn’t that Khalil was wrong. It was just that he was, as always, incapable of being quiet.
“So, if I understand correctly,” Mo said, “in this instance, the child wouldn’t have made it without this process?”
“No, probably not,” Rachid said, shaking his head.
Mo looked at Khalil.
“So he saved the kid’s life, right?” Khalil asked Mo.
“Sounds like it to me,” Mo said.
Rachid shrugged.
“It was a group effort.”
“Rachid,” Mo said, scooting forward. “There’s nothing wrong with accepting credit for helping people. Jess told me that, and she’s right. I know it’s hard to feel seen, but this is one instance where it’s important to accept the credit.”
Both Rachid and Khalil looked at him sharply. He thought it was because he’d said a lot.
“Jess?” Rachid asked.
“Who is Jess ?” Khalil asked.
Mo’s face got hot. His ears were on fire, his heart felt like it was going to shoot out of his chest.
“Uh…a person…” he stammered. He scratched the side of his beard, then smoothed the hair into place.
Khalil’s face bent into a wicked grin.
“A female person,” he said.
Mo slipped back, wanting the couch to swallow him up.
Rachid cleared his throat and tapped his glasses higher on his nose. Mo caught the grin he tried to stifle.
“I appreciate what you said,” Rachid began. “I will take that under advisement. But…um…I am curious. About Jess? She sounds wise.”
Mo ran a hand through his hair. He wanted to curl into a ball. This was ridiculous. Now, to make his comment make sense, he was going to have to tell them not only about Jess, but also explain about Petra and finding the tracker. He most certainly couldn’t tell them that Jess was going to be in his car for an hour the next day. It was all way too much.
“I thought we were talking about you,” he said to Rachid.
Khalil shook his head.
“Nice try, bro,” he said to Mo. “Tell us about Jess.”
Mo flushed hot again and growled under his breath.
“No,” he said.
“Don’t make me bring out the big guns,” Khalil said, smiling.
“Huh?” Mo asked.
“MA!” Khalil called out at the top of his lungs. “Mo’s talking about a girl!”
Slack-jawed, Mo couldn’t even collect his thoughts before their mom called back.
“What?”
“Mo’s talking about a girl, come quick!” Khalil answered, laughing.
Mo was dead. No. He wasn’t dead. He was going to kill Khalil, then he could die himself. Their mom was in the room with them in half the time it should have taken to get down the hall.
“Mo?” she asked him. “You’ve met someone?”
He glared at his brothers. Clearing his throat, he tightened his crossed arms.
“I spoke to another human being. She made a good point. I shared it.”
The three of them looked at one another. Maybe if he kept his mouth shut, all the excitement would die out.
Their mom raised an eyebrow.
“There’s more to the story than that, Mo,” she said.
“There always is,” Khalil said, grinning again.
Mo grunted.
“Um…” Rachid said. “If you think Jess is worth listening to, that says a lot about her as a person. You don’t let anyone in enough to give you advice.”
“You are very careful about who you listen to, Mo,” their mom said.
Mo let his head slump back against the couch, closing his eyes.
“You know,” Khalil said, “if you refuse to tell us anything, it’s only going to feed our imaginations….”
Mo opened one eye to glare at Khalil’s grinning face. Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong. And if Mo didn’t want Mr. Family Gossip Column to get too overexcited, he should set the record straight in advance. He rolled his eyes and lifted his head.
“She was in the shop. Overheard me talking to someone who wanted to thank me. Saw I was uncomfortable. Said it’s okay to accept credit. Satisfied?” He glared at Khalil again.
“I got, I got it, man,” Khalil said with his hands raised.
“That’s…unusual,” Rachid said. “For another customer to just walk up to you and give advice after eavesdropping.”
“Not just a customer,” Mo said, having relaxed a bit once Khalil backed off. Rachid raised an eyebrow and looked at their mom. Mo glanced up and saw that her eyebrow was raised as well.
“She’s not just a customer, but she was in your shop? Close enough to you to overhear your conversation?” she asked. Her cheeks hollowed a little, like she was biting the insides. Khalil was looking at the TV, but Mo knew he wasn’t grinning like that because of what was on the screen.
Mo sighed, scratching at his beard. Only, only because they were his family and he knew they meant well and he loved them, and in a weird perverse way he felt at peace and somewhat recharged after he spent time with them instead of totally spent like with the rest of the world, did he not explode. He sighed again.
“She just started coming to the Folk School,” he said.
“Is she a blacksmith?” Khalil asked.
“No. Archer. We’re on the Ren Faire committee together,” Mo said.
Khalil and his mom reeled like bowling pins and Mo realized his new mistake with a wave of itchy skin.
“You’re doing a Ren Faire?” Khalil asked, eyes wide.
“What’s a Ren Faire?” At least Rachid sounded like his usual inquisitive self, no shock that made Mo feel unbalanced. He sighed and tugged a little at his beard.
“Folk School needs funds,” he muttered. “Think we can make it if we have a Ren Faire.”
Khalil tittered.
“Are you gonna dress up?”
Mo shoved himself off the couch and onto his feet.
“Mo!” his mom said, reaching for him. “Khalil, you’re not helping.” She scowled at him.
“Mo, come on, man, I’m sorry,” Khalil said, reaching out a hand.
Mo grumbled, shaking his head, and made his way to the kitchen. He needed some water. He heard the swish of his mom’s caftan as she followed him, but she didn’t say anything as he went into the kitchen, found a can of sparkling water in the fridge, and closed the door behind him. She waited until he’d had a sip before she came up next to him and rested a hand on his upper arm.
“Do you want to talk about this Jess?” she asked.
He wasn’t sure what to say about Jess. He couldn’t tell his mom about the way they’d met; it wouldn’t exactly paint Jess in the best light from his mom’s perspective. He could say that she was willing to do something for a group of people she didn’t know very well. That showed she had good character. Coupled with how attractive she was—
Attractive?
His cheeks flushed hot. He took a quick sip of water before clearing his throat.
“Not much to say,” he said. “Working with her on the Ren Faire project.”
“Okay,” his mom said, her eyes twinkling. She patted his arm and returned to her printouts on the kitchen island.
—
A few hours later Mo left his parents’ house, a large container of Bahgrir for him and gazelle horns for Maddie in his hand. His mother always sent him home with their favorite desserts. He paused before opening the door of his truck. The truck that Jess would be getting into in less than twenty-four hours’ time. He’d forgotten while inside, but now looking at it, the prickly anxiety of driving with Jess to the meeting formed a lump in his throat. This anxiety was deeper than the constant, low-level buzz of it that he lived with every moment he wasn’t in one of his safe spaces.
Maybe it’s so strong because I’ve just stepped out of one of my safe spaces.
He got into the truck, settling the container carefully in the passenger seat so it wouldn’t slide around on the drive home, and tried to parse why he felt so…scared about the drive with Jess the next day.
It’s not like she’s going to attack you.
He knew it wasn’t physical safety that was bothering him. It was emotional. Jess had seen him. And she hadn’t judged. That should have made him want to be around her, not run away. Maybe that’s why he’d been honored when she’d reached out to him for help about her car. That’s why he’d been stomach-wrenchingly nervous as they’d talked beside it, her hypnotizing brown eyes too intense to look into. Why, even when they hadn’t spoken, he’d been happy to see her occasionally at the School, her beautiful sable hair gilded by the sunlight when she was on the archery range. He turned on the engine.
In spite of feeling the need to make her a gift, Mo hadn’t fully acknowledged that he was attracted to Jess until that afternoon. Some deeper part of himself must have realized it and made him open his mouth and put him in a situation where he couldn’t run away. He sighed, scratching at his beard.
I swear, I am my own worst enemy.
That was the deeper anxiety. She made him feel seen and appreciated for who he truly was. She’d given him the opportunity to help her in a concrete way with his skills. Like many men, for Mo that was all it took. Her beauty was just the icing on the emotionally overwhelming cake. He sighed.
I have a huge crush on Jess.