Chapter Twelve Mo
Chapter Twelve
Mo
S he said it’s not a bad thing.
On a workout bench in the spare bedroom he’d turned into a weightlifting room, Mo started on a new set of reps to work his biceps. It was time to switch to a different exercise, but the need to push himself to exhaustion was stronger than the fatigue that would greet him once he’d finished. Pushing his muscles gave the buzzing anxiety from truly starting a romantic relationship with Jess somewhere to go. By this point in a workout his mind was usually quiet, but it kept returning to that moment in the smithy, to what Jess had said about him being an HSP.
She doesn’t fully know what it is; she might change her mind.
Part of him hoped she changed her mind; another part would die if she did. In the past, his few relationships had been difficult—the breath-snatching overwhelm from the intensity of all the feelings, both good and bad, his painfully acute awareness of any shade of disappointment from his partner, and the screaming imperative within his every cell to prevent that disappointment from happening. For a time, though, the rewards had been well worth the risk.
Sighing, he lowered the dumbbells to the floor, pausing to rest.
He hadn’t known that he was an HSP in previous relationships. Hadn’t understood there wasn’t something fundamentally wrong with him, that he wasn’t individually weaker than the rest of the world, a failure to be a confident, never-overwhelmed adult. A fortuitous Google search, when he’d been trying to understand why Maddie’s cries as a baby had made him feel like his skin was on fire and brought him to throat-closing sobs, led to the discovery of his particular neurodiversity. Once he was armed with the understanding that things like his discomfort with speaking up and his need to avoid too much attention were simply coded into his biology, he’d learned to give himself grace.
Jess understood those things, too.
The smile that had bloomed quickly faltered. She might understand him somewhat, but was he ready to deal with the physical symptoms that changing his current steady life would bring? He leaned over to pick up the dumbbells again.
“Are you okay, Daddy?”
Mo turned to face Maddie in the doorway. She’d run straight to her room when Khalil had dropped her off. She’d been focused on a coding project that Vanessa, Khalil’s wife, was helping her with, so Mo hadn’t stayed long when he went to check on her.
She never interrupted him while he was exercising. The fact that she’d done so, combined with her question and tone, had him on high alert.
“I am, sugar plum,” he said, waving her into the room. “Why?”
She joined him.
“You feel weird,” she said.
A wry smile pulled Mo’s lips to the side. Maddie was watching him closely, so he did his best to let her see his appreciation for her concern and not the sadness or regret he felt when she showed symptoms of being an HSP. To non-HSPs, her statement might have been confusing. To Mo, it was crystal clear. Maddie had felt his energy, likely as a sensation in her own body, and it had affected her strongly enough for her to interrupt him in the middle of a task that she knew was important to his emotional state. He shifted a little and patted the workout bench beside him. “Good weird, or bad weird?” he asked as she sat down.
She scrunched her eyebrows, studying him. “Mostly good,” she said after a few moments. “But there’s some…fuzz?”
“Fuzz?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Like when Papi is listening to his radio and changes the channels.”
“Ah, when he’s dialing through the stations, ” Mo said. “Static?”
Madison nodded. It tickled Mo a little that Maddie’s reference for the concept of static was his father’s radio habits. But he figured it made more sense for her generation than a malfunctioning television.
“Well, you’re right,” he said. HSP or not, it was important to him to encourage his daughter to trust the sensations in her body. “I’m mostly good. But I am a little worried, too.”
“Let’s talk about it, then,” she said, looping her arm through his. “Maybe I can help.”
Mo smiled at her. While her compassion was always appreciated, he wanted to tread lightly to avoid putting any pressure on her to feel like she needed to take care of him . He had to be honest with her, though; she would know if he wasn’t.
“So,” he said. “I’m a little worried because I’m very happy with my life right now.” He paused to squeeze her arm close to his side. “But I’m also interested in maybe making some changes that could make life a little different.”
Maddie scrunched her eyebrows again.
“Is it about that lady who called?” she asked. “Jess?”
Dammit. Always clever, always remembers everything.
He sighed.
“Yes, it’s about Jess,” he said.
Maddie’s face broke into a thousand-watt smile. “Is Jess your girlfriend?” she asked.
Chuckling, Mo shook his head. “No,” he said. “Jess is not my girlfriend. We just—”
“Do you like her?” Maddie asked, cutting him off.
Mo’s cheeks caught fire. Khalil had named his age-old shyness about liking someone or being liked. Mo didn’t think he had the strength to talk about that with Maddie. He took a deep breath, but Maddie spoke before he could.
“You do!” she squealed. “You do like her! Aww, Daddy.” She wriggled around to give him a side hug.
“I mean, yeah, I guess,” he said, hugging her arm.
“Does she like you?” Maddie asked.
Mo shrugged, then nodded. “That’s great!” Maddie said. She pulled back and squinted at him. “Then why do you feel staticky?”
Mo sighed.
“I’m worried about doing something different,” he said. “About changing anything.”
Maddie stood up and put her hands on her nonexistent hips. She frowned and then cleared her throat.
“?‘Change can be a good thing,’?” she said, her voice comically lowered the way it was when she imitated him. “?‘You can learn new things.’?” She began strutting around the room, her chest puffed out, pontificating. “?‘Discover more about yourself and the world.’?”
Mo wanted to be stern with her for throwing his words back at him, but he couldn’t keep his laughter from tumbling out.
“Okay, okay, sugar plum,” he said, still chuckling. “Point taken.”
“Good.” She stopped and smiled at him.
“I also want it to be okay for you,” he said.
“Are you happy?” she asked.
Mo took a moment to assess. If he was honest with himself, deep down he was over the moon.
“Yes,” he said.
“If Daddy’s happy, I’m happy,” she said. She rushed over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You better finish lifting. ‘We see things to completion in this house,’?” she grumbled, imitating him again.
“Okay, Mads,” he said, picking up his dumbbells again as she went to the doorway. She stopped.
“Did you talk to her like you talk to me?” she asked.
“Um, I guess.”
“See? Told you so,” she said and waved at him before she walked out of sight.
—
That evening, Mo closed the sliding glass door and took the three small steps down from his back porch. He checked the patio chair that Madison had left at the foot of the stairs, but the seat had a little puddle on it from the rain the previous day. He turned it to let the water run out then tipped the back against the side of the porch so it could dry. He sat on the steps, his feet square on the grass below. Taking out his phone and holding it in both hands, he looked at the screen. Nervousness jangled and sparked his tired muscles.
Maybe there isn’t enough lifting to help.
Before calling Jess, he turned his head to the side to listen. Madison hadn’t followed him, and he didn’t see her at the glass patio door through his peripheral vision. It seemed that she was still snug in the pillows and blankets he’d made into a nest on the couch for her to watch a movie. She’d started the day off playing basketball with Khalil. That, combined with the mental effort from her coding, had her eyes drooping over dinner. Mo doubted she’d see much of the movie. He ran a hand down his beard and opened his contacts. Letting out a deep breath to calm his nerves, he called Jess.
“Hi there,” she said when she answered.
A little wriggle of nervous happiness passed through him at the sound of her voice. He smiled.
“Hi,” he said. “Sorry it took so long. I had to make dinner for Maddie and get her comfortable with her tablet.”
“No problem,” she said. “I figured you were doing something like that. Plus, you said you’d call tonight. It’s still tonight.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“It’s your weekend with her?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “But she was with Khalil, one of my brothers, this morning. I didn’t want to be the third wheel; that’s why I agreed to take Rick’s class.” He thought she might have met Rick, but he wasn’t sure.
“I’m certainly glad you did,” she said.
His shyness surged, his face heating both at her words and at the change in her voice. It was warmer and rich, the way it might sound if they were lying in bed together.
“Me too.”
“You know,” she began, “something’s been bothering me since the smithy.”
“What’s that?”
“You said, ‘I guess maybe’ when I asked you if you couldn’t tell I wanted you.”
His shyness back twofold, his face burned. He ran a hand down it. While yes, he had understood that she was attracted to him when they’d kissed, he was accustomed to that changing the more a woman got to know him. Attraction to him always seemed temporary.
So he’d taught himself not to rely on his initial read.
“Why would you doubt that?” she asked.
“I…” He stood, taking a few steps to gather the courage to explain. Then he remembered what Khalil had said. A little humor would make it easier to talk about. He cleared his throat. “According to my brother, I am simply clueless when it comes to understanding that a woman is really interested in me.”
“Your brother Khalil?”
“Yes.” He nudged an errant pebble back into Maddie’s rock garden. “I…uh…asked him for some advice about you, and he understood that there was more interest on your side than I thought.”
“Well, he was right,” she said. “And if it makes you feel any better, I needed advice, too. I haven’t dated in forever, like I said. So I needed help from Alice and Stephanie, my two best friends.”
“You talked to your friends about me?” he asked.
She laughed.
“Why do you say it like that? Do you think I wouldn’t talk to someone about you?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to him, and he kind of liked the fact that they both sought out advice. His curiosity kept him from fully registering one of Mrs. Sargysan’s curtains moving back into place.
“What did they say?” he asked.
“Essentially that I need to get my head out of my ass,” Jess said.
Mo chuckled. “That’s what Khalil told me, too,” he said.
They were both quiet for a moment, but Mo didn’t feel like she was waiting for him to say something. That’s how it felt with most people, but with Jess, he felt comfortable, not like she was expecting anything from him.
“I don’t want to push you out of your comfort zone,” she said eventually. “And since it’s been a long time for us both, maybe we should take things slowly.”
He appreciated her concern for his comfort. Most people didn’t get him like she seemed to. But he didn’t want her to feel like she needed to tiptoe around him.
“Thanks for thinking of me, but I don’t want you to do anything that’s difficult or uncomfortable for you, either. I don’t want you to feel like you have to treat me with kid gloves,” Mo said. “I’m a sturdy guy, I won’t break.”
Her breathy chuckle sent tingles down his spine.
“Oh, I know that,” she said.
There was something about her voice. Mo would have been hard-pressed to explain everything it was doing to him, but the sudden weakness in his legs forced him back to the stairs to sit down.
“Uh…what do you mean?” His tongue felt heavy; his throat was dry.
“Um…have you…” She let out another one of those breathy chuckles. “Probably not, but have you ever seen yourself while you’re working? Like maybe in a video?”
He hadn’t. When she became president of the Folk School, Wendy had made a new promotional video for the website. She’d tried several times to convince Mo to participate, but he’d refused. Rick had let her film him working instead.
“Um, no,” he said. “Why?” What could be interesting about watching him if it wasn’t to learn something during classes?
“Mo, what’s adorable,” Jess said, “is your total lack of awareness of how dead sexy you are.”
His scalp flashed hot as embarrassing giddiness sparked through him. Usually when that happened, he wanted to run away to process the feeling calmly. But Jess couldn’t see him, there was no need to hide the emotions that would be written all over his face.
“I just…I have trouble believing it when anyone says anything like that,” he said. “Always have.” The silent anxiety he lived with whenever he wasn’t in one of his safe spaces was part of him, and it damn sure wasn’t sexy. So how could he be?
“Hmm,” she said, her tone pensive. “Let’s take just one example, then. Your arms, Mo. Your forearms should be illegal.”
He looked down at the arm that wasn’t holding the phone. What was she talking about? It was just an arm with a few tiny burn marks he’d gotten over the years.
“Oh,” he said.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she asked.
“Well, I mean, I don’t think you’d lie just to flatter me. But they’re just arms,” he said.
“Very sexy, very masculine arms,” she said. “On a sturdy guy who I know won’t break. There’s a lot more I could say, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. I feel overwhelmed more often than I’d like; I don’t want to do it to you.”
“I’d never guess that,” he said. “You sometimes feeling overwhelmed.”
She sighed.
“I learned pretty early that it was in my best interest to make sure no one ever knew when I was upset. My father was determined to raise tough girls. I learned to keep unacceptable emotions hidden. To seem completely unbothered in all circumstances. While, to his credit, I can say that it helped me display confidence, which has had a positive impact on my life, I think it’s made me come across as cold or harsh or even like a bitch. But more often than not, I’m stuffing down feelings I don’t know how to manage in the moment and trying not to run away so I can deal with them.”
Mo understood exactly what she was talking about. He’d probably only picked up on her grief because he’d caught her off guard. If she usually stuffed down the larger, more erratic emotions, it would seem like she had it together at all times. He cleared his throat.
“I…I like that you can empathize, but it makes me sad for you. To have grown up that way,” he said. “And…” He stopped and stroked his beard. “And I knew you weren’t a bitch. I wish you hadn’t had to learn to stifle your emotions at home.”
Jess sighed.
“A sad story for another day,” she said. “But what about…us? I mean, not to say that there’s necessarily an ‘us.’?”
Her tone and subject pivot told Mo that it wasn’t the time to ask about the past. She was more interested in the future.
“I understand,” he said. “Why don’t we start with a date?”
“A date? Okay, I like that idea.”
“Dinner?” he asked.
“Yes.”
But where? He’d brought it up, so he should have a suggestion. The problem was that he hadn’t gone anywhere date-worthy in years. He knew lots of kid-friendly restaurants, but that probably wouldn’t work. This was Jess. He could be honest.
“I have no idea where, though,” he said. “Could we say seven, day after tomorrow, and I’ll get back to you with where?”
“Works great for me,” she said. He could tell she was smiling.
“Good,” he said.
“I should probably let you get back to Madison.”
Right. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten that Madison was there; he’d just gotten so drawn into talking with Jess that he’d kind of lost track of his everyday life.
“You’re right. I should go check on her, but I’ll be surprised if she isn’t asleep in her little nest,” he said.
“Thanks for calling,” Jess said.
“Thanks for answering.”
Jess chuckled.
“Have a good evening,” she said.
“You too.”