Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
R arity…
“So, I gotta ask,” my mom said, handing the joint back to me as we sat on the back porch several nights after my impromptu overnight and amazing fucking sexcapades with Striker. She held her breath a second longer and let out a plume of green smoke. “How serious are you about this biker?” She raised her eyebrows, and I coughed like a bitch caught off guard. I’d been walking on eggshells, wondering when she was going to give me the third degree and she had gotten me! I’d been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking she wouldn’t make a big thing about it – but nope. Not my mother. God dammit.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her about the Daddy/little girl roleplaying shit we were up to – she wouldn’t get it, and would lose her shit; but I couldn’t explain it if I even wanted to try, like for real – it didn’t feel creepy or incestuous at all . Like we totally got it, we were both consenting adults, and it wasn’t about him actually being my daddy. My daddy had died, and there was a hole in my soul that no one or nothing would ever fill… but the way Striker cared for me, the way he cuddled me and was gentle with me, and the way he made me feel safe to go back to that almost childlike state?
It was intoxicating. It felt so fucking good and I wanted more of it, please and thank you.
Still… no way was I telling my mom any of that . It was about to be hard enough explaining the fucking age difference… I didn’t know how bad she was going to freak about the eighteen-year gap in our ages but I damn sure knew Grandma was going to freak the fuck out.
“I really like him,” I said and tried not to let on how serious we were already.
“Yeah?” she asked, “How much?”
Her smile was genuine and I just didn’t have the heart to come clean about even our ages – not yet anyway. She hadn’t gotten a really super up-close look at Striker yet to notice. He’d been wearing his sunglasses when she’d met him at the Iron Horse briefly on the poker run/family day thing we’d thrown together and she hadn’t been home when he’d returned me to the house.
“Like… a lot,” I said with an awkward shrug. “We like a lot of the same things, and he’s super smart. I learn things from him all the time and talking to him is fun.”
“Learn things like what?” she asked, grinning.
“Mom!” I cried and threw one of the patio couch pillows at her. She caught it, laughing, and stuffed it behind her.
I took another hit, and handed her back the joint and she took it to finish it off.
“What’s his name, again?” she asked.
“Striker,” I said after a long pause in which I held in the green smoke long enough. I could feel the tension in my back and neck start to loosen as the high started to take effect.
“What kind of a name is that?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
I rolled my eyes, “Quit acting brand new – you’ve lived around this shit longer than I’ve been alive. It’s his road name.”
“What’s his real name?” she asked.
“Zachary,” I said.
“Zachary…” she drew out his name, fishing for a last name and I snorted.
“I know his last name,” I said. “What’re you gonna do? Run a background check on him?” for some reason, likely because we were high, we both started laughing at that and the giggles became infectious until both of us were nearly pissing ourselves laughing.
“You know your daddy would,” she said and for a fraction of a second my heart seized in my breast and the thought flashed through my brain; she knows! How the hell does she know? That was, of course, before it clicked, that she meant ‘Daddy’ as in my actual father.
“Oh, pfft! For sure!” I agreed, hoping my face or body language hadn’t given anything away.
“It took everything in him not to threaten your prom date, he hated that kid.”
I snorted and laughed at that – I had hated my prom date by the time prom actually happened. I would have been much better off going stag or whatever, because fuck Riley Acosta. Jerk.
He’d gone around telling everyone how he was going to knock me up with a prom night dumpster baby and how he didn’t give a fuck. He’d be at the University of Tennessee before I could even come up with a positive pregnancy test.
Creepy fucker.
I told my mom about it and she stared at me aghast.
“This Striker guy better not be anything like that,” she said.
I smiled in spite of myself and said, “Not even remotely. Striker is more mature than that, for one, and part of the reason I like him so much is… I don’t know… I feel safe with him. He’s not like that at all, otherwise I would have already dropped him like a bad habit.”
“Yeah, well, if he ever turns that way you’d better.”
I smiled at my mom and told her the truth as I stretched and felt a few satisfying pops in my back, “Don’t worry, Mom, all I have is you and Dad to look to as examples. You guys were pure couple’s goals. I won’t settle for anything less. I promise you that.”
Shit, it was the wrong thing to say, because she stared at me for several moments and then broke down right into tears.
“Oh, Mom, I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, scooching down the couch at her and wrapping her up in a tight hug.
“No, no!” she said, waving me off some. “I know, it’s just – I’m so damn proud of you!”
I sniffed tearing up because she was teared up and said, “What?”
“I’m so proud of you! You know what’s right and what not to put up with, and I’m proud of you!”
Ah, shucks…
“I love you, Mom…”
I mean, what the hell else was there to say?