Chapter 32
Gray
Despite my resolution to be more punctual, I’m late to meet my mother for dinner after the gym. I had a surge of energy toward the end of my workout when I thought about sex with Ash a week and a half ago on New Year’s Eve, and I stayed on the treadmill an extra twenty minutes to harness it.
Unfortunately, my larger plan to add an extra ten hours of exercise a week to my routine has already fallen by the wayside. I just don’t have the time, but I vowed to at least take advantage of these pockets of energy when they arise.
At first, I felt guilty for not becoming a gym rat. Ash is so fit, and I wanted to give him a girlfriend worthy of his physique, but I didn’t make it two days before I gave up on that.
I was reprimanding myself for being lazy until it occurred to me Ash gets paid to work out. It’s literally his job to stay that ripped, and I decided that until someone was willing to pay me to develop muscle tone, gently rounded would have to do.
Ash seems to like my body the way it is, in any case.
He was kissing me all over the night we had sex, and I got self-conscious when he reached the bit of pudge at my stomach.
I tried to push him away from it, but he grabbed my hands and pinned them to the couch so he could kiss me there freely.
Then he flipped me over, dragged my ass into the air, and speared into me with one thrust before fucking me so hard that there was a second or two I considered yellow-lighting him before he eased up.
When we were done, he pulled me back against him and wrapped a hand gently around my throat. “Don’t try to stop me from touching you again,” he rasped into my ear. “Your body belongs to me now, and I’ll worship it any way I want. Do you understand?”
All I could do was nod.
“Good girl,” he said, and I was once again a puddle.
The academic in me desperately wants to understand the psychology of why I let him talk to me like that when we’re naked. In any other context, I’d tell him to shove that attitude up his ass, but I can’t deny that, when it comes to sex, I’m his to command.
My cheeks are probably extra pink from the memory when I sit down across from my mother at the restaurant, but I can blame it on the biting cold outside if she asks.
“Sorry I’m late,” I say as I pull off my coat. “I lost track of time.”
“No problem,” my mother says. “I learned a long time ago you operate on GST.”
I frown at her across the table. “GST?”
She looks up from her menu. “Gray Standard Time.”
I want to be annoyed, but honestly, she’s right. I want to tell her how I was half an hour early to meet Ash that one time after my date with Barry, but I don’t want to explain why, so I keep my mouth shut.
“One of these days I’ll be early, and then you’ll be sorry,” I say casually, opening my own menu.
“Just don’t do it when your father is with me,” she says. “I think another heart attack would kill him.”
I clamp my mouth shut to bite back a comment about how her cooking will most likely do him in first.
Is it really a surprise I study trash talk?
“When do I get to meet this handsome man of yours?” my mother asks. “His family got to meet you. I was hoping he might be with you tonight, but apparently he’s too busy to meet your mother?”
“The team is traveling this week, Mom.”
Plus I plan to keep my mother away from Ash as long as possible.
Guilt creeps into my chest. All things considered, my mother isn’t a bad person.
She does have sporadic bouts of passive aggressiveness and an annoying habit of asking a question and then launching into a ten-minute story before the person can answer.
She also has a lead foot when driving that I’m shocked hasn’t turned my hair the same color as my name, but all that is minor in the grand scheme.
Her major flaw is her tendency to pick up fads or interests, learn about them superficially, practice them intensely, even obsessively for a short time, then discard them.
For instance, when everyone was wrapped up in the Marie Kondo method of cleaning, my mother went through the whole house and purged just about anything she could lift by herself.
Except she didn’t completely discard it all.
She packed everything in boxes and stored it in the garage for a few months so my dad had to park his truck outside until she finally gave up and brought everything back in.
Feng shui, juice cleanses, salsa dancing, the gluten-free diet. You name it, my mother has tried it. She even turned wiccan for a period when I was in college, but she gave it up when none of the spells she tried worked.
Once my mother finds a fixation, my father and I have learned to ride it out to its inevitable end, but it can be rough until then. As far as I know, she’s between crazes right now, but it’s only a matter of time before the next one hits.
“Have you two slept together yet?” my mother asks.
Did I mention she also has no sense of personal boundaries?
“I’m not at liberty to answer that,” I say, flipping to the wine list.
Telling her yes will only lead to more questions. Telling her no will lead to unwanted advice. Uncertainty is the closest thing to a safe answer I can give.
“He’s a good-looking boy,” she says. “I’d have jumped his bones on week one.”
I slap down my menu. “Mom!”
My mother is never meeting Ash. Ever.
She gives me an innocent look. “What? You know I speak my mind about these things.”
And how could I forget the summer my mother got into tantric sex. That’s some PTSD no amount of therapy will ever cure.
“Can I get you ladies something to start?” the waiter asks as he appears at our table.
“A glass of the Fumé Blanc and the crab cakes,” I tell him. I was planning on a salad, but fuck it.
My mother looks up at me, and I wait for the comment about watching my figure now that I have a boyfriend, but in an uncharacteristic show of restraint, she looks back down at her menu.
“I’ll have an Old Fashioned and a cup of clam chowder,” she tells the waiter.
I furrow my brows at her when he leaves. “Since when do you drink hard liquor?”
“Joyce got me into bourbon,” my mother says.
And there it is. Her latest craze. I’ll have to text my father later to find out how many new bottles of craft bourbon are in the liquor cabinet.
I have an addictive personality myself, and I’m sure I get it from my mother.
That’s undoubtedly why her tendency to fixate on things drives me nuts, because I see myself slowly turning into her.
Unlike my mother, though, I fixate on things for longer periods.
My love affair with wine has been going on for several years now.
My newest obsession with hockey, and with one player in particular, is still in its infancy, but I’m already into the stats-tracking phase. For example, I know Ash’s goal-scoring is behind where it was last year at this time, although he seems to be doing better lately.
“I just hope you’re practicing safe sex,” my mother says. “Those professional athletes sleep with a lot of women.”
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, then open them. I’m not having this conversation with her, and I glance over at the bar to see if the hockey game pre-show is on yet. Tonight is Ash’s last road game for a while, and I can’t wait to see him again.
Alright fine. I can’t wait for him to fuck me again. It was cruel to finally sleep together and then have him leave for almost two weeks. He called me last night, and we actually had phone sex, which I’ve never done.
I don’t see anything hockey-related on the TVs over the bar, but I do a double-take as I catch sight of a middle-aged man seated there.
I swear I remember him from the gym. I think he was walking on a treadmill about five or six machines down from me.
He’s got a beer and the bartender is just setting down a plate of sliders in front of him.
Looks like I’m not the only one undoing all the exercise I just did.
I look back at my mother to find her watching me carefully.
“What?” I ask.
“Are you embarrassed by me?” she asks. “Is that why you won’t let me meet this man?”
I sigh deeply. “It’s not you, Mom.”
And if I’m being honest, it really isn’t her that’s the problem.
She frowns. “Your father?”
“No, not him either.”
I don’t think my dad told her he came to see Ash yet.
“Then who?”
It’s me, I want to say, but my mother will never buy the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ argument.
But it is me.
Meeting Ash’s parents was one thing. If something happens, and things don’t work out between us, I’ll never have to see those people again.
But if things don’t work out between him and me, and he’s met my parents, I’ll have to live with their pitying looks for weeks.
My mother will inevitably love Ash – Because what’s not to love about him?
– and then I’ll have to deal with the disappointment in her face when I explain why we broke up.
My mother’s disappointment will be there no matter what, but at this point, I’d rather not build the memories that will make it that much more a stab to my heart if I lose Ash.
I hear Celena tsk at me in my head for imagining my breakup with him before we’ve even had a chance to enjoy our relationship.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I tell my inner Celena.
My mother is still looking at me, waiting for me to tell her why she can’t meet Ash.
Because I’m terrified of letting him into my life, I want to say. Because every thread that ties him closer to me is one more potential frayed edge when we inevitably rip apart.
Because I already think I’m in love with him, and I just…can’t be.
“I’ll see what I can do, Mom,” I say.
It’s a vague promise to buy me time until I can figure out how to un-fall in love with Ash Gunnarsson.