Chapter 13 #2
He even does the unthinkable and winks at my mom. Winks! He’s lucky I lost our melon ball scooper months ago, otherwise I’d pop his fucking eyeballs out of his skull.
To my utter horror, my mom blushes, then leans over to whisper an aside to me. “Oh, he’s a keeper.”
I think I’m gonna barf.
It isn’t long before conversation takes off, and I foolishly think I’m safe from contributing due to a stuffed piehole. I, of course, am sorely mistaken.
“So, what are your intentions with my daughter?” she prods, diving headfirst into the million-dollar question.
I love my mother to death, but that woman wouldn’t know subtlety if it whacked her in the face.
A traitorous noodle coincidentally gets wedged in one of my pipes, and I dissolve into a choking fit that has me straining and reaching for the nearest glass of water. Fingers scrambling, throat spluttering, the second I contact ice-cold salvation, I chug it until the tears stem in my eyes.
I can’t believe she just asked him that!
“Mom!” I scold.
Unsated by small talk, Knox leans forward with a fire in his eyes, so sure of himself that there’s no telling what brazenness is about to step onto the scene.
“Like my mother always said, a man’s greatest purpose in life is to cherish his woman.
And I can assure you, Marjorie, that I was raised to be a gentleman first and foremost.”
A gentleman? Oh, please. Knox would probably give up a kidney just to get into my pants. If our foul play frontage doesn’t fall apart quicker than wet tissue paper, I’d be surprised.
My mom seems pleased by his rehearsed response, stabbing a flight of green beans onto her fork kebab-style. “I’m so glad to hear that. My little Buttercup needs all the TLC she can get.”
No! Not the nickname. Knox is going to—
“I promise that your little Buttercup is safe with me,” he declares, an amused grin splitting his lips, his true, devious self reflected in the eyes that deadlock with mine. He knows this whole interaction is killing me, and he’s relishing every second of it.
My grip on my utensil tightens, ire guiding my half-bitten words in the same way a flame on a tall-wicked candle does in a power outage. “Yeah, Knox is…he’s amazing.”
“And how did you two meet? Don’t tell me you’ve been keeping him a secret from me, Staten.”
I wish I could’ve kept him a secret.
I’m not sure why I’m so caught off guard by a pretty standard, relationship-related inquiry, but nevertheless, the question scrapes away at my confidence like sticky fingers shelling pomegranate seeds from a ruby-red rind.
Oh, you know, it was love at first car wreck. He nearly killed me—I was blinded by his flashy car and equally flashy personality. We skipped the whole enemies subplot and couldn’t get enough of each other.
I don’t have an answer for her, and I’m not sure what’s worse—Knox being the one to curate our imaginary meet-cute, or my mother plucking at the first fraying strand of our unbelievable fabrication.
Luckily—or unluckily—for me, Knox is the buttress for my burden.
“We’re in the same Intro to Literature class.
The first time I heard her speak, she was deconstructing F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s literary devices and making the rest of us look like fools.
I’ve never heard a more articulate or intelligent take,” he explains, staring at me in a way that has my heart using my ribs as a launching pad.
“I don’t remember ever paying attention in class before, but in that moment, I would’ve given any excuse to hear her talk again.
For one, she finally put Mr. Hardwin in his place.
Looking good while doing it? That was just a bonus. ”
This is just an extremely intricate lie, Staten. Nothing more. He’s playing the part you forced him into.
Then why did all that sound so…real?
Because Knox Mulligan is a sweet talker. He’ll say anything to get what he wants.
But maybe that’s not really who he is. Maybe—
A smile blooms on my mom’s lips, tugging at the crow’s feet beneath her timeworn eyes. She looks like she could cry tears of joy. “Staten, why haven’t you told me any of this?” she asks, shifting the proverbial interrogation lamp onto me.
I stiffen like opossums do when they play dead.
Shit, she’s singling me out. She knows I’m a terrible liar!
If I give her even the smallest reason to doubt us, it’s game over.
I want to make my mom happy; I can’t stop the lie now.
Knox’s and my chemistry has to be so believable that anyone would think I’d let him invade my mouth with his tongue. On a regular basis.
Spurring this lie is the equivalent of trying to navigate through an endless, mulberry night with no sign of daybreak. Panic conducts a clean-cut robbery on my conviction, and I lag for a few moments before mustering the most synthetic smile, digging into my shallow roots of high school theater.
“We, uh, wanted it to be a surprise,” I finally confess, glancing over at Knox and clearing my throat rather loudly as he gobbles up a slider in one bite. “Isn’t that right, schmoopy?”
It’s Knox’s turn to freeze, and he swallows to digest both the fall-apart pork and my merciless curveball. “Right, schmoopy. You know the saying: you never brag about a good thing.”
That’s definitely not a saying.
I nod. “And I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”
Knox blinks. Gulps. I’ve never seen him so thrown before, and there’s something satisfying about being the one to put him off his game.
After an unnecessarily long pause, he finally speaks. “Oh, yeah. Staten is every guy’s dream girl. I didn’t even want to sleep with her in the beginning.”
Oh. My. God.
I give him what I hope is some kind of possessed demon look.
“I mean, I did want to sleep with her?” he backtracks.
I kick him in the shin underneath the table, and he grimaces in pain.
“Nope, definitely didn’t want to sleep with her.
Probably won’t ever, because I’m a child of God, and fornication outside of marriage is a sin.
I value women’s brains over their bodies…
though I’m not saying that your daughter doesn’t have a good body.
She has an, um, conventionally attractive body? ”
Jesus fucking Christ. I’m going to slit my throat with a steak knife.
“What Knox is trying to say is that we both lik—love—each other for who we are. And we’re definitely not sleeping with each other,” I save.
He looks up from his half-decimated meal. “Ever?”
“Seriously?”
While it feels like I’m surfacing too fast in deep water and retaining the worst decompression sickness, my mother simply erupts into laughter, purging the room of any and all tension.
“Good. You don’t want to make the same mistake your father and I did. I thought I was safe from the horrors of teen pregnancy, but your dad had some freakishly strong swimmers.”
Aaand…appetite gone. I know this is all hypothetical talk, but I don’t like the ache compounding in my lower abdomen—you know, the kind that has me worried for the sake of my goddamn underwear.
Sleeping with Knox is a possibility that’s crossed my mind one too many times, and I’m going to have to invest in a No Pedestrian Crossing Sign at some point.
“Trust me, Mom. You have nothing to worry about,” I promise.
I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince.
Knox plops onto my bed, creating a slight depression where the mattress sags from his weight and muscle mass. “That went well,” he says with a kernel of hope that would be comforting if it wasn’t downright fallacious.
My room looks like something out of a nature pop-up book—a modern-day take on cottagecore that romanticizes a rural lifestyle not dissimilar to the one I live now.
My queen-sized bed is cloaked in a floral duvet, which matches the chiffon curtains that maximize the natural light coming in through a large bay window.
Linen throw blankets and tassel pillows add depth to the mattress, and the watercolor landscapes plastered to the walls resemble a hazy daydream that might’ve been conjured in the early hours of the bedewed morning.
Wicker embellishments are scattered throughout the earthy décor, ladder-style bookshelves are overrun with apothecary jars, bronze-brushed frames showcase botanical prints, and ceramic woodland creatures serve as emotional support trinkets.
A color palette of browns, greens, and faded blues denotes a harmonious relationship between every individualized element, further accentuated by the lily of the valley floor lamp that emits a golden glow in the corner of my room.
Lastly, a string of fairy lights and bushels of hanging plants suspend from my ceiling, emulating the coziness of a natural-forming alcove without ever having to step outside.
I sport an aggravated expression, all heavy brows and a frown that’s become somewhat of a permanent fixture on my face. “Oh, sure, if you consider talking about our nonexistent sex life a ‘healthy staple’ between couples,” I snark.
“I panicked, alright? Plus, your acting skills need a bit of work. There’s no way that your mom actually believed we were together.”
Now that we’re in private, is it socially acceptable for me to strangle him?
To my misfortune, my annoyance never hits a wall and crests—it waits, recedes, prolongs the inevitable meltdown of the century. “My acting skills? It was your fault we had the chemistry of two divorcees handling a goddamn custody exchange.”
“Seriously? I was carrying the entire performance.”
I busy my hands by pulling out Hardwin’s essay rubric and instructions, along with a hearty stack of paper, because there’s no telling how long Knox and I will be here trying to decode the perfect A.
Night exhales a colony of stars from beyond my window, and I can practically feel the imperviable layer of frost hovering over our town.
“Like hell you were,” I mutter under my breath, scrounging up a variety of pens and pencils.