“I’ll help you clean up,” I say, hoping my mother doesn’t feel the need to stay and supervise.
“I’m going to change,” my mom says. “I plan on getting some more work done in the dining room.”
“Okay.” Edward and I watch her as she leaves, and I start to actually clean things up. “That was way too close,” I whisper.
He raises an eyebrow, but his face is troubled. “You mean cutting it close doesn’t turn you on?”
“Not that close,” my voice is a hiss. “And for the love of God where are my panties. I cannot have my mother finding them.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls them out. “Maybe I should keep them as a memento.”
“Give me those.”
Shoving them back in his pocket, he steps around me and starts to pack up his tools. He’s acting a little strange. But given what just happened, so am I. “What would you have done if she had caught us?”
“I would like your mother to like me, so I’m going to try to make sure that doesn’t happen. I doubt she’ll really love the man who’s fucking her daughter if she has to see him fucking her daughter. I’ll never get permission to date you.” He laughs, but it’s awkward.
I’m coming down from the adrenaline rush now, and something about his answer seems off to me. “So you would do what? Apologize and say you’re sorry? And that you won’t do it again? I’m an adult, Edward. I don’t need my mother’s permission to date anyone. And yeah, her catching us would have been bad, and awkward. But that doesn’t mean you can just treat me like I’m still eighteen.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it though? You just said you wanted permission.” I’m not sure where this anger is coming from, but it’s strong. I already get treated like a child enough. I don’t need it from him too. I can make my own decisions, and that means that if I choose to fuck him in my living room, I’m doing so knowing the consequences.
He looks like he’s unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you are less than you are.”
I grit my teeth and look away. “You should go. It doesn’t take her long to change and she’s going to wonder why you’re still here.”
“I’ll go,” he says, taking a step closer. “But we are not finished, Julia Palmer. There’s something here that we both need, and you know it. I know it too.”
For a second I think that he’s going to kiss me. And for another heartbeat I want him to so badly that my body aches. But he turns and leaves, taking the rest of the tools and supplies with him. It’s the second time in less than a day that I’ve watched him walk out my front door, and I don’t like how much I hate the way it feels.
There are steps on the stairs, and Mom goes into the dining room without a word. I hear the sounds of sorting, and a sigh. It’s like what just happened between Edward never existed, and my anger disappears, replaced with hurt. I very badly want it to exist. He’s right. This is something we both need, and we need to figure it out together.
8
Julia
My mom is sitting in front of the small bookshelf in the dining room when I enter. She used to be an avid collector of cookbooks, saying that cooking helped her relax when she came home from the high-pressure job at the office. I actually agree with her about getting rid of some of these, because she doesn’t use probably half of them. We’ll be donating them to home economics teachers so that they have some extra resources in the classrooms.
Right now she’s flipping through a book that looks like it’s exclusively sandwiches based on the pictures. “How was your thing?” I ask.
She sighs. “Honestly it was boring, but it was shorter than I expected and he agreed to come to the gala, so mission accomplished I suppose.”
“That’s good. He really wanted you to see his facilities?”
“Seems that way.”
I think about it. It seems kind of strange that someone so interested in donating to a charity would need that kind of quid pro-quo. “Did he want you to see his facilities or was he trying to ask you on a date while still attempting to be professional?”
Mom makes a face. “If that’s what he was trying to do, he both really missed the mark and has no idea who he’s dealing with.”
I sit down next to a pile of books and start to look through one that looks like it might be from the seventies and has way too many recipes that involve jelly. “Would it really be that bad? He could be your date to the gala.”