Hot Damn(24)

Lydia is obviously surprised, and a little upset. “Madison. There was a fire?”

Maddy is quick to reassure her mother. “It wasn’t in my apartment.”

“Everything was fine,” I add. “There was one apartment that took some damage, but that was all. We just had to evacuate the building, and that’s when I met Madison.”

I hear a small sound from Mel. When I glance her way, I see she’s holding back a laugh. Maddy must have told her the whole story, shower curtain, graphic nudity, Neanderthal behavior and all. I grin at her.

“That’s a relief. I don’t understand why you don’t tell us these things, Madison.”

“Nothing happened. It really wasn’t important in the long run.”

“You could have been killed.”

“Nope.” I put an arm around Maddy. “I was there to save her. All is well.”

“But what about Christopher?” Lydia looks directly at me. She’s tossing the ball to left field at this point—I have no idea what she means.

“Christopher was at Mel’s place,” Maddy says, but she sounds fairly confused, too.

“No, that’s not what I mean. What about Christopher, Jesse? Are you willing to take care of a child that isn’t your own? Can you be a good father figure to him?”

I open my mouth, then close it again, blinking. Jesus. Left field wasn’t an exaggeration. In fact, she might be throwing the conversational ball in from the other side of the fence.

“Mom!” Maddy says, obviously embarrassed. “We’re just dating.”

“He needs a father figure in his life, Madison. We’ve talked about this.”

“Yes, I know.” Maddy’s face is reddening, the tips of her ears turning pink. I love it when I make her blush like that, but when other people do it to her, it makes me angry. Especially when it’s her own damn family. “But don’t you think it’s a little early to be discussing that?”

“You brought him over,” Gregory adds. “You must be serious about him.”

“Hey, whoa.” I lift my hands, hoping I can get the conversation back under some kind of control. As if it was ever under any control in the first place. This family is batshit. “What is this? A formal interview to be Maddy’s husband?” I say it jokingly, but it doesn’t do much to defuse the tension. “Should I have brought my resume and maybe taken a drug test before we came over?”

Mel chuckles. She at least seems to be on Maddy’s side.

“Besides,” I continue, “Maddy says she’s going to veterinary school. It’s not like she needs anybody to support her. Vets make good money, you know.”

“After investing hundreds of thousands in college to learn to work with animals of all things.”

This is Gregory. I’m unsurprised that he has less than charitable thoughts about dogs and cats. I haven’t seen any signs of pets in the house, undoubtedly because they’d clash with the decor or something.

“If you’re going to go to medical school, you might as well be a real doctor.”

Lydia tosses her napkin aside, and I think maybe she’s finally going to stand up to her annoying husband. Instead she says, “Madison, I don’t understand why you want to get an advanced degree, anyway. You’re a woman. You should stay home and take care of your child. He needs a steady presence, and that’s where you’re failing him by not having a man in your life.”

Wow.

“Look at your sister,” Lydia continues. “She—”

“Oh, no, Mom.” Mel lifts both hands, warding off her mother’s comment. “Don’t drag me into this. I stay home by choice so I can work on my art. What Maddy wants to do with her life has nothing to do with what I want to do with mine.”

“But you cook and clean, and—”

“So do I,” says Jeff.

“I don’t think either of you understand that we’re trying to see to Madison’s well-being here, and that we want the best for our grandchild.”

Maddy shoots to her feet, and the room falls completely silent. “Your grandchild’s well-being is best served by him having a happy mother. A fulfilled mother, who can show him it’s awesome to be able to follow your dreams and build the kind of life you want for yourself.”

I reach for Maddy’s hand, but she jerks it away.

“You have never wanted me to be myself. All you ever did—all you ever do—is complain that I’m not what you want me to be. I don’t want my son to grow up feeling like I sacrificed my life for him, or that I’m disappointed in anything he chooses for his own life.” Her face has gone bright red. “You know why I want that for him? Because it’s something I never had.”

With that, she spins and stomps out of the dining room. With no idea what else to do, I follow her.

I catch up to her just short of the front door. “Don’t you want to see what’s for dessert?”

She gives me a deadly glare over her shoulder and doesn’t answer. She’s out of the house and stomping back toward the truck before I can respond.

“Maddy—”

“Just take me home.” Her voice is sharp, but I can hear an edge of tears in it. She stops next to the truck and adds, “Please?” without turning to face me.

“Sure. No problem.” I unlock the truck and open the door for her, offering her my hand to help her into the passenger seat. I take my time walking around to the driver’s side, then pretend I’m having trouble getting the door open so she can take a few more seconds to compose herself. By the time I get into the car and put the keys in the ignition, she’s mustered up a little bit of a smile.

“Sorry about that.”

I shrug. “Everybody’s got weird relatives.”

“I mean about storming out. I probably shouldn’t have.”

“It’s all right. Really.” I probably would have stormed out a lot earlier, had I been in her position. I ease out of the driveway and into the street.

“I just made everything harder on myself. They’ll never cosign on the loan now.”

The way Mr. and Mrs. Anachronism treated her, I’m thinking the whole plan was probably a no-go from the beginning, but I’m not going to tell her that. “At least I learned a few things,” I say instead.

She gives me a look, her brows compressed. “Like what?”

“Like I haven’t been expecting enough from you as my girlfriend.” I pass her a sidelong look, trying and failing to suppress my amusement.

She lifts an eyebrow in challenge. There we go. That’s the Maddy I want to see. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah. Looks to me like you should be cooking me dinner every night so I don’t have to come home to cold leftovers and macaroni and cheese out of a box.”

“I see.”

“Then when we’re done with dinner, you can do up the dishes and then I’ll relax on the couch while you massage my feet.”

She nods soberly, that eyebrow still drifting toward the heavens.

“Then you bring me a newspaper—or my iPad with my newspaper all loaded and ready—and you sit and darn my socks while I read out loud to you about the stock market.”

I can tell she’s trying not to, but she laughs anyway. “That sounds enthralling.”

“I do voices and everything.”

“Reading about the stock market?”

“It’s amazing, I’m telling you.”

She’s finally relaxed a little bit, and by the time we stop in front of her building, she’s laughing at me. When I shut the car down, though, she sighs and shoves a hand through her hair.

“I really shouldn’t have talked to my parents like that.”

Her face is shadowed, the light from the streetlight in front of her apartment building illuminating the rise of her cheekbones.

“I think you had good reason to.”

“I just want this so badly.” There’s a catch in her voice again. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

And she deserves to have it. I wish there were more I could do to help her besides just pretending to be her boyfriend so Gregory will think she’s conducting her life “properly.”

“It’s my fault, really.”

She frowns. “What? How?”

“I should have kept my woman under control.”

This gets a laugh out of her, which is what I wanted. “What were you going to do? Spank me right there at the kitchen table?”

The comment is followed by utter silence. I know damn well she didn’t mean it the way I’m interpreting it, but that doesn’t stop my dick from going immediately rock hard. I swallow, and when I’m pretty sure I’ve got my voice under control, I say carefully, “Why don’t we go on up? Have a drink? I can double-check your new door.”

She considers it for a few seconds. “All right. Sure.”



She leads the way up to her apartment, and when we get there I make a show of checking over the door to be sure it’s still working right. It is, of course. I like the way it works the best when I shut it behind us and lock the dead bolt.

I’d almost forgotten how bright her living room is, with its posters and pictures. Some of them are pages from comic books, while others are movie posters: X-Men, The Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor. If there’s any doubt this woman likes her superheroes, it’s erased by a single glance at her decor.