12
Elvira
LEVI'S MOTHER WAS NOT at all what I expected her to be.
The woman I had heard a few times over the phone and little else from the few details Levi dropped over time was nothing like the woman who sat opposite me in the grand dining room of Redwood Hall.
She was not as shallow as I thought she would be.
And the relationship with her son was the most fascinating of all.
While she tried her best to be forthcoming, her son was not having it. Levi was cold to her.
"So how's work?" she had asked a variation of the same question a couple of times before, and she got the same response the third time around.
"Fine."
"It must be such a taxing job. Teaching college students."
"There's more to it than that, Mom." Levi reached for the bowl of potatoes and added a couple to his plate.
"And you said you two work together?" Rebecca asked me this time, realizing that drawing information from her son was like drawing it from a stone.
"We work in the same department, yes."
Levi and I had agreed to keep up the ruse of being girlfriend and boyfriend to his mom.
Which I eventually agreed to because how were we going to explain the kiss?
I couldn't explain it to myself. One moment we were talking about history, the next I was slobbering all over him.
I can't even blame him this time around; I kissed him.
"And are you a history professor as well?"
"I am a teaching assistant. I'm currently doing my PhD."
Her face brightened. "Oh wow. What's it about?"
"Africans in medieval Europe. It's a study of their lives and the impact they had on the culture of Europe."
"What a smart girlfriend you have."
"Yes, she's very smart," Levi said affectionately. I could have easily been fooled into thinking he was being sincere if I didn't know that we were making up a ruse.
"Levi was always deep in a book when he was young," Rebecca trilled.
"Obsessed with history. I wasn't surprised when he went into academia.
He knew a lot about stuff." Rebecca sounded proud of her son, but Levi either didn't see it or didn't want to receive praise.
"What got you into the field, Elvira?" she added.
"I don't know. My parents owned a pawnshop, and being around antiques made me curious about them."
"Fascinating." She glanced at Levi, but he ate in silence as though he weren't part of the conversation.
Rebecca soon gave up on the small talk, and we ate the rest of the dinner in silence.
After we were done, she invited us to the drawing for a drink.
Levi stayed in the dining room for a call.
I followed Rebecca to a room with beautiful Georgian turquoise silk wallpaper.
It matched the upholstery of the Georgian chairs and chaise lounge.
Portraits of different sizes hang on the walls.
They show men and women from various times.
Some of them vaguely resemble Rebecca and Levi.
Even the games tables were of that time period.
The finishing touch was a giant crystal chandelier in the middle of the room.
It was as though I were lost in time. "This room is beautiful. As is your entire house."
Rebecca glanced over her shoulder. "Thank you.
We could update the rooms that are not privy to the public, but I like the style and only update it to maintain it.
" She strolled to a small bar in the corner and poured a drink into two glasses.
She handed me one filled to the brim with dark red alcohol and I followed her to the chaise lounge.
I sat down and took a sip. Sherry. Pretty good sherry too, even though it was not my favorite drink.
"You're the first woman Levi's has brought home," she said, patting my knee.
I almost guffawed. "That can't be true."
"It is! Levi is a private man. Was a private boy. He rarely spoke when he was young; I thought he might be simple. Turns out he was the opposite. He is a deep thinker."
I nodded. Levi kept to himself. Sometimes it could be hard to get anything out of him, with how reserved he was.
"It must have something to do with my marriage to his father.
" When I responded with a blank expression, she added.
"The withdrawal. The way he is now. He never forgave me for not being there when he was young.
But I was young and stupid and thought doing whatever his father wanted would help me keep him.
I was so stupid." She sighed and took a heavy gulp of her sherry.
"I wanted to hold on to a toxic man and ruined all my boys in the process. "
"Levi is…" I tried to search for the right words. "Fine" was not the right word. He was obsessive. Both in good and bad ways. Introspective and dismissive sometimes. "Levi is a great guy. He turned out well."
She brushed my knee again. "Of course you'd say that. You're his girlfriend." She finished the rest of her sherry. Got up and refilled her glass. Maybe a bigger glass would be better than the tiny ones we were drinking in. She chugged a quarter as she made her way back to the seat.
"But trust me, that boy can be cold if he thinks you betrayed him, woo boy. I'm living in Siberia over here."
"That's not true. He loves you." Even though I had seen the coldness firsthand, I tried to move the conversation to a slightly different, hopefully safer topic.
"How did you and Levi's father meet?"
She sighed. "I was his secretary. How dull and cliche.
And he was already married, to add fuel to the fire.
But then his second wife died, and he was free to marry me.
I was young and dumb and just came from London to New York.
I thought I knew the world, but I was so na?ve, and I think he took advantage of that. "
I don't know why I thought that would be the safer topic. She seemed like a romantic. I didn't think it would immediately turn heavy.
"At least I had three lovely kids with him. My boys, Levi, Sebastian, and Tyler, are the best thing about me." She took a sip of her drink. "The only good thing about me."
She sounded like a good mother. Flawed, but one who tries. Making Levi's attitude towards her all the more mysterious. "That can't be true."
She rubbed my cheek. "You're too kind. I hope you stay. He needs a good woman in his life." She took another big gulp. "It certainly wasn't me."
I didn't know what else to say to that, so I scrambled for a subject change. "So, do you live here?"
"God no. But I do love it, though." Her gaze scanned the room. "It's quiet and allows me to think. "Christmases here are lovely." She dragged the word 'lovely'. "You better come this year."
"You're inviting me?"
"Of course. I hate being the only girl in a room full of boys. The other two never bring their girlfriends no matter how hard I press them." She chuckled, and I laughed as well. At that moment the double doors of the room blasted open and Levi entered.
"Mom. We're leaving," he announced.
A frown fought to appear on her frozen features. "No! You can't go now."
"We have to leave early," Levi said, glancing at his watch.
Rebecca stood up. "Didn't you use the jet?"
"We did." Levi's gaze scanned the room, noting our glasses, and his brows knitting when his gaze landed on his half-drunk mother.
"So?" Rebecca took a sip of her drink. "Tell them you're staying another night."
Levi looked like he was about to say no, and Rebecca became small. She was so pitiful. She made me want to side with her. "I want to stay," I said.
The change on Levi's face was almost comical. He did not look like he wanted to be here any minute longer. Serves him right for being a dick to his mom.
"I'm loving the sherry," I added, raising my glass.
Rebecca raised hers too, wine sloshing and spilling onto the fabric. "Yay! I've already prepared your room!"
◆◆◆
"WE'RE SLEEPING IN THE same bedroom!" I said as soon as the door to Levi's chambers, as her mother described it, shut.
I had the nightwear and toiletry bag she handed me clutched to my chest. A flimsy shield against the racy thoughts that refused to be purged from my mind at the idea of staying the night in the same room with Levi.
Make that the same freaking bed. Because there's only one.
There was nothing else that could be counted as a sleeping surface except for the floor, and that must be cold.
The chairs in the living area were breakfast chairs.
Hardly the sort one would find sleep in.
"You're the one who wanted to stay." Levi did not seem the least bit upset. If anything, he was no longer angry that he had to spend more time in the same building as his mother and was now enjoying himself.
"And I thought since we were in a freaking castle, I would have a room of my own."
"My mother thinks we're dating. Why would she give us separate rooms?"
I wanted to tell him that some parents do not allow their children's boyfriends or girlfriends to sleep in the same room as their child, but that point seemed moot.
I darted my gaze to the four-poster Edwardian bed I had been avoiding.
It looked big enough to accommodate four people.
A true king-sized bed if there ever was one.
"Dibs on the bed. I'm not sleeping on the floor."
He let out a low chuckle. "Neither am I."
"We can't sleep in the same bed!"
"What are you afraid of? That I will attack you in the middle of the night?"
"No. Yes. I don't trust you."
He laughed out loud this time. He disappeared through a door and came back with three pillows and threw them on the bed. He went away again and came back with two more that he added to the pile.
"Stack those in the middle and voila. Two beds."
He disappeared through another door that opened onto a closet.
I quickly changed into the nightdress Levi's mom gave me.
By the time Levi returned, I was already tucked into my side of the bed, with pillows as a divider.
The bedsheets were clean and smelled of morning dew.
That faint Levi-like scent that I was slowly getting used to.
I had rested my head on a pillow when he strutted in wearing silk pajamas similar to my dress, which made my heart stutter.
There was nothing special about what he wore.
But because I had never seen him like this before, in such an intimate way, it was though I was seeing a different side of Levi.
Less stuffy professor and more human being.
A hot, sexy human being who was entering the bed and sleeping beside me.
Falling asleep was going to be hard, wasn't it?
Fuck. Maybe I should have picked the floor.