The Nice Guy Next Door (When In Waverly 1)

Jameson

It’s the day of Lo’s homecoming dance, and I’ve convinced my mom to come over and do Lo’s hair and makeup. She agreed immediately. There was actually no convincing involved. I’ve never seen Mama so excited about anything. I’m worried that she’d kidnap Millie and hold her hostage if she thought that would convince Millie to marry me and give her an armful of grandbabies.

Millie might be angry with me when I barge in with my mom in tow, but once she sees Lo’s excitement, I think she’ll forgive me. I hope, anyway. She’s still pretty mad at me from our discussion last week. We’ve barely talked. There have been a lot of awkward waves and stilted “good mornings” shouted across the yard.

My mom has all of her gear in her hands like she’s about to go to work on a troupe of performers. How much makeup and hair tools could she need for one girl? She’s tiptoeing across the yard like this is a covert operation for the CIA.

“Mama, we’re going to knock on the front door. We’re not breaking and entering,” I explain to her.

“Right, of course.” She tries to act natural, but she looks insane. What am I saying? She is insane.

I ring the doorbell, and Millie answers with a look of surprise on her face. She has bobby pins between her teeth and a can of hairspray in her hands. There’s some kind of brown and black substance on her hands and cheeks. She looks shell shocked and like all of the beauty products in her house have exploded on her.

My mom takes a long look at her before she steps forward and says, “Hey, sweetie, I’m here to help.” She pats Millie on the shoulder, and Millie breathes a sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank goodness. Follow me,” she says and grabs my mom’s arm to pull her back to Lo’s room. I’m curious about what has made her suddenly so receptive to help, so I follow her back to the room.

I peek around the door frame, and the sight I’m greeted with is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in all of my thirty-one years of life. Millie has made Lo look like one of the people from the Hunger Games movies. There’s so much color on her face, and her hair is too big. Lo glances at me and mouths thank you.

“I know this is Texas, sweetie, but hair should never be that high to Heaven,” Mama says, and Lo breaks down into a sob. “Shh, honey. We’re gonna get you all fixed up, and you’ll be absolutely stunning. Just look away from the mirror for a while.”

Mama hands Lo some kind of wipe that Lo uses to take off her makeup. Millie comes to the door and says, “Thank you,” while wrapping me in a tight hug. All has been forgiven. I nod my head and turn to go back to the living room to wait for the big reveal.

I see a pile of mail on the counter, and my curiosity gets the better of me. Surely her mail would have her real name on it. The top pieces are just sale papers and junk. Nothing with a name on it. The next is Lo’s. I’m about to flip to the next piece when Millie walks out and shouts, “What are you doing?” She runs forward and snatches the mail from my hands.

“It’s not what it looks like! I just wanted to—”

“Find out my real name!” she interrupts. She’s very perceptive.

“Okay, it’s exactly what it looks like,” I say with a cheeky grin. She narrows her eyes at me suspiciously and then walks into the kitchen to grab another stack of mail. She runs back to her room, stashes the mail, and runs back, expecting to find me snooping again. I’ve plastered on my most innocent expression while lounging on her couch that still has the faint smell of skunk in it. If the smell weren’t burned into my nostrils, I might not notice it. I’m starting to think I’ll never escape the stench.

Millie plops down on the couch next to me and curls herself into a ball. She pulls a blanket onto her lap even though it feels like it’s at least seventy-five degrees in her house. I’m starting to sweat.

“I don’t know what you had to do to get your mom to come over here, but I really appreciate it. Those YouTube videos I watched were very deceiving,” she says. Her hands tremble as she fiddles with her blanket, and I wonder if it’s because she’s upset about almost ruining Lo’s homecoming dance or because she’s nervous with me.

“I didn’t have to do anything to get her over here. She jumped at the chance,” I say, and the skeptical look on her face is almost comical. She can’t believe that someone would want to do something nice for her for nothing in return. “Mama likes you a lot,” I add.

“I like her too. She’s hilarious and sweet,” she says.

A few minutes later, Lo and Mama walk out with huge smiles plastered on their faces. Millie jumps off the couch and gasps loudly. No words come out of her mouth. She’s stunned silent by how beautiful her little sister looks. Mama did a simple hairstyle and a more natural makeup look on Lo. She’s a beautiful girl naturally. She doesn’t need a lot to enhance it.

“Well, I better get going. I have to get ready for a date!” Mama says, and it feels like my head just did a full 360. In all my life, I’ve never seen my mom go out with a man. She’s always been so focused on working, raising me, and now helping Nana and Pops around their house. She’s never even hinted at the slightest interest in a man. I’ve felt a little sorry for her being alone in her house since I moved out a decade ago, but she’s never seemed sad about it.

“Don’t look so shocked, Jameson. I’m not so old yet that I can’t find myself a good man,” she says in a snarky tone.

“No, no. I just thought you wanted to be alone. Kind of like Millie here,” I say. Millie smacks my arm lightly and then crosses her arms over her chest in discomfort. Maybe I shouldn’t have added that jab at her. She’s just forgiven me for our last squabble.

“It’s not that I wanted to be alone. It’s just…dating has always been scary, you know? Especially after being abandoned with a baby. But life gets lonely, and I don’t want to live the rest of mine in fear,” Mama says. She gives me, Millie, and Lo each a quick peck on the cheek and heads out to fall in love. And she will. Once Mama sets her mind to something, she does it—of course, after thinking through all possible outcomes. It only took her thirty years to come to this decision.

Lo has just left for the dance with her friends. Millie was the typical parent figure and insisted on silly posed pictures that had all of the girls in a fit of giggles. Lo rolled her eyes but secretly loved every second of it.

“I wish my dad was here to see her. She looks so beautiful,” Millie says.

“He’d be really proud of you,” I tell her, because even though I didn’t know her dad, I still know it’s true. Any parent would be proud of all that she has accomplished, and hearing someone say it would do her a world of good. She’s so hard on herself.

“You really think so?” she asks. She scrunches her mouth to the side and stares at her hands in her lap. That look makes me want to take away every single one of the worries weighing her down and give her the world. After all she’s been through, she deserves the world.

I nod my head and say, “I do.” She leans over and hugs me around the shoulders but then decides a simple hug isn’t enough. She cuddles up next to me on the couch, and everything feels right in my world. This is where she belongs.