Tangled Truth(21)

He listened with a fraction of attention to Annabelle’s enthusiastic justification for getting everyone a tablet, one of her new favorite toys, while the greater part of his mind played with his own new favorite toy. He had a particular traditional karada in mind for the next time he and Eva were together. In red rope. Where had he stored the long, red nylon rope? Was it at Dan and Sheila’s place, or still in the small gear bag from the last time he did a demonstration at the club?

“And then everybody should also get a pony with a big pink ribbon around its neck. Do you want to hear why?”

“What?”

“Just checking. Were you listening to anything else, or was I talking into a void?”

With a self-deprecating smile, Drew chuckled and shook his head. “Sorry, A.B. I’m a little unfocused this morning.”

Annabelle cocked her head, her messy brown ponytail flipping off her shoulder with the movement. She went from looking like a precocious teenager to looking like a cutthroat corporate negotiator in about two seconds flat, a change that would have unsettled Drew if he hadn’t seen it before.

“You actually are unfocused,” she remarked, her eyes narrowing. “This isn’t just your jovial Peter Pan act. And you were up late. You’ve been spending an awful lot of time… Oh my God! Drew, is this about a girl? A woman, I mean?”

When Annabelle got the eagle eye, Drew knew there was no point in attempting to lie to her. And she was one of those happily married people who wanted to see all their friends settled down, so he knew she wouldn’t rest until he was attached. He shrugged and smiled his best charming schoolboy smile, hoping to convey the casual exhaustion of the sated libertine who still had to get up and run a company the next day. But he knew he wouldn’t fool A.B. even that much. She was already on to him.

“Drew Brantley. Wow, I never thought I’d see the day. You’re a mess.”

“Yeah, I kind of am.” He liked it. He liked admitting he was a hot mess of gooey emotions about Eva. He thought he might even admit it to Eva at some point in the near future, he was that far gone. It felt too good for him to resist. He knew it was too soon to be so foolishly optimistic about his future, but it was that sort of a mood.

Annabelle grinned back at him, looking like a teen again. He recognized himself in her, that ability to switch gears and to disarm people with a casual front. “Well, good for you. It’s about time.”

“Thanks. We’ll see how it goes.”

“For right now, let’s figure out how this meeting is going to go.”

They finished the agenda together, and Drew was nominally more focused for the rest of the day. He didn’t mind the mild amount of teasing he got after Annabelle outed his romantic daydreaming to the team. It was afterward that he recognized a shift in tone. He was different, and people were different toward him. Suddenly he was this guy with a girlfriend. It shouldn’t have mattered that much, but it did somehow. He felt strangely grown up, like his life was heading in a good direction. And he knew that the real change was in how he perceived himself.

All I did was tie her up and fuck her, he told himself sternly when he found himself contemplating installing ring bolts in the sides of his bed frame. It’s not like we got engaged. It’s only been a few dates. We’re having fun.

Eva texted him a smiley at lunchtime. He texted back a bigger capital-D smiley, the huge dopey grin he had been concealing for hours. Instead of deleting her text as he usually did, Drew hesitated with his finger over the phone screen.

He suspected it was a defining moment when he selected Eva’s smiley and hit “archive”.

* * * * *

“I really don’t know why. She just says she wants to meet you.”

It made no more sense now than it had the first time Eva had told him, a few minutes earlier.

“And you’re okay with that?”

“I’m so far from okay with it, I can’t even tell you.”

“Well, that’s something, I guess. But you still want to do it.”

Eva’s mother. Her whackadoo and possibly evil mother. Taking them out to dinner on Christmas Eve, because she would “happen to be in town”.

Drew pushed his linguini around on his plate, noting that the clam sauce was starting to congeal. They had both wanted something rich, some cold weather comfort food, but now he regretted his order. The heavy meal had been so much more appetizing ten minutes earlier.

“I think ‘want’ is far too strong a word,” Eva objected. “But I do think I probably need to go. She is my mother, and it’s Christmas. I only wish she hadn’t found out I was seeing somebody. You really don’t have to come though. Have dinner with your family. I can meet your parents another day. They’re staying with Seth until after Christmas, right?”