Chapter 18 A Little Nudity and Nipples Ain’t Never Bothered Me
A Little Nudity and Nipples Ain’t Never Bothered Me
Eli
As if this morning couldn’t get any more humiliating, my mother—five foot nothing and still capable of reducing fully grown men to trembling idiots—decides to drop in unannounced while I’m naked and post-coitally dazed.
She squints with that look that says she’s forming jokes I won’t be able to live down if I tried.
“Who’s your friend, Lee?”
Fuck.
“Give us a minute, will you, Mom?”
“What? I grew up in the seventies, baby. A little nudity and nipples ain’t never bothered me.”
“Eww! Mom. Please.”
Max snorts a laugh, and I whip a sock at her head from behind like a petulant child. “You’re supposed to be on my side,” I grumble as she follows my mother into the house, still giggling.
“I’ll just be in the kitchen while you two get yourselves together,” my mother calls over her shoulder.
I shake my head, trying to gather what remains of my dignity and mutter to Max, “Sorry about this.”
She shrugs. “It’s fine. I’ll have questions about why she called you Lee later.”
“Let’s not and say we did,” I reply through clenched teeth.
“Not a chance. It’s short for Leroy, huh? Your middle name?”
“Shut up,” I say, shaking my head. But fuck, how the hell did she guess that so easily?
“Make me!” she laughs, strutting toward the guest room.
Once I’m dressed and not holding my underwear as if I was cosplaying as Tarzan, I head to the kitchen where my mother is unloading her latest homemade concoctions like a farmer’s market on crack.
Glass jars and recycled bottles full of lavender and citrus, something that smells vaguely like cake batter, and the damn berry body wash she’s always bragging about. The one Max just fell in love with.
She hums, organizing everything in my cabinets. “What brings you by, Mom?” I ask flatly. “Without calling, no less?”
“I can’t drop by to see my youngest son? And since when have I ever had to call first?” She pauses and gives me a look. “And when was the last time you had a cute girl over?”
“Mom—”
“Oh, hush. I’m just giving you a hard time. I know my son. The jilted gigolo who can’t bear to allow himself to be happy again.”
“I really wish you and Drake would stop calling me that. It’s getting old.”
Max rounds the corner. “What’s getting old?”
“Nothing!” I say a little too loud, throwing a warning look at my mother who is clearly enjoying this.
My mother ignores me and keeps unloading jars. “So, I didn’t catch your name.”
Max offers her hand without a second thought. “Maxine Palmer. But you can call me Max.”
My mom takes her hand and grins. “And how long have you been sleeping with my son?”
“Mom!”
“Just a few hours, ma’am,” Max replies smoothly, and I swear to God I’m going to drown myself in my own pool.
There are two of them.
My mom acts like Max’s answer didn’t just kill what’s left of my manhood and goes back to organizing bottles. “I spoke with Elliott today.”
Her tone is casual, but my spine straightens like she fired a gunshot.
“Good for you,” I say. “Hope he chokes on his own saliva in his sleep.”
“Eli!” she gasps, appalled. “He may not be perfect, but he’s still your brother.”
The lifelong refrain. He’s still your brother.
What he isn’t is remorseful.
My mother has always downplayed Elliott’s betrayal, acting like it was just a silly fight between siblings—a minor disagreement over something dumb, not a huge breakdown of trust and family ties.
If he'd only fallen for Vanessa, it wouldn't be such a massive problem.
But he actually chose to stick with her, even after knowing what she did.
Mom thinks it's unfair that I keep my distance from them. I don’t care.
I don't trust Vanessa, and if he decides to side with someone I can't trust, well, that makes him untrustworthy in my book too.
My mother hasn't once backed me up or held him accountable. Her only move has been to stay neutral, flash a sweet smile, and hope we “sort it out,” like we're little kids arguing over the last juice box.
It hasn’t worked.
It won’t work.
Because Elliott didn’t just cross a line—he built a fault line between our family, stacked it with dynamite, and then smiled while it exploded.
Max is watching me. She sees it.
The tightness in my jaw. The way my hands clench the edge of the counter like I’m holding myself in place. And I can feel her seeing through me, like she’s reading the footnotes in a book no one else bothers to open. She doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t crack a joke. Doesn’t offer empty comfort.
She just lingers.
Never have I been more grateful for my mother to change the subject and ask how Max and I met than I am right now.
“Your son rescued me on the side of the road,” Max offers.
“He is always so helpful,” my mom says, smiling.
“He even offered to put me up in a hotel,” Max continues, “but the hospitality industry here seems to have something against space monkeys named Elon Musk.”
My mom frowns. “Excuse me?”
I scrub a hand over my face. “Nothing, Mom. Max is staying here for the week to help us with some work at RootHaus.”
My mother’s gaze flicks between us. Once. Twice. She lingers there longer than necessary. It’s as if she’s watching a puzzle rearrange itself in real time.
“Work, huh?” she says slowly.
“Work,” I confirm. Firmer than necessary, and that seems to tip something off in Mom, too.
“Just one week,” Max adds, her tone light but deliberate. A reminder. To me. To herself. Of the terms. Of the line we’re pretending hasn’t already blurred.
My mom narrows her eyes. “You think you brought enough clothes for February in Canada?”
Max opens her mouth. Closes it. Then glances at me.
“She didn’t,” I say. “So we’re heading into town later to get her something warmer.”
There’s a beat. A long one.
Then my mother nods once, like she’s just solved something we’re still confused about.
She disappears down the hall and returns moments later with an armful of knitted layers—thick scarves, wool sweaters, colorful mittens that look like they’ve been collected over decades of winters. She even has a pair of practical boots.
“Mom,” I say, genuinely confused. “Where was all this hiding?” Because this is my house, and I generally like to know where women’s clothing is being stashed.
She shrugs. “I keep a few things here in case I stay over. You should really look in your closets more often, Lee.”
I blink. Look at the pile. Then at Max.
“What is even happening right now?” I ask.
My mother doesn’t bother answering.
Max looks at the pile. Then at me.
Neither of us says a word.
“What size shoes do you wear, sweetheart?”
Max looks at the boots on the ground. “Umm. A size seven?”
“Wonderful! These are seven and a half but put on an extra pair of socks and you’ll be just fine.”
Max smiles. “Thank you. I…I don’t know what to say.”
My mother beams. “That’s what moms are for. And this way you don’t have to go into town, and y’all can get back to whatever you were doing before I barged in,” she says, winking.
“Mom,” I warn through gritted teeth.
“Uh…thanks?” Max says, though it comes out more like a question than gratitude.
And then, like she hasn’t just dropped a conversational grenade in the middle of my kitchen, my mother turns her back and for a second I think she’s going to walk out of the room.
Instead, she invites Max in. “Come on, Max!” she calls over her shoulder. “I’ve got a few more things to do before I head home, and I could use an extra set of hands.”
Max follows her lead and I can’t help but grin at the way Max is winning my mom over. She’s laughing at her jokes, helping her unpack, getting the recipes to her best oils and homemade remedies like they’ve been girlfriends for years. No effort. No posturing. Just this natural pull she has.
That they both have.
Her essence is bold.
It just walks in, settles down, and makes itself at home.
Typical Americans.
I watch them standing there, and I catch the flicker in my mother’s eyes. Like she sees something I haven’t said. Something I probably never will. But it’s there anyway, clear as day.
In Max.
In me.
And I fucking hate it.
Because the moment your mother sees something, it stops being hypothetical. It stops being contained and becomes real.
And the moment it becomes real, it becomes mine to lose.