“If you had a chance to buy a more reliable table than this one, I don’t know why you didn’t do it, regardless of plans to have over company for dinner.”
She’s never seemed worried that we didn’t have a proper kitchen table before, but apparently when there’s a man to impress, then it matters. Figures.
Only partially paying attention, she asks me quietly, “So, what does he do? Does he have a job?”
“Of course he has a job.” I glance in Brant’s direction again. “He owns his own bar in town, and he does woodworking on the side—not for money, but he could. The stuff he makes is really nice quality.”
“Really?” She sounds even more interested as she looks in the direction I was just looking. Brant appears through the doorway now, walking toward us. My mom perks up. “Brant, Alyssa was just telling me you do woodworking. How interesting. How’d you get into that?”
Brant shrugs, both of his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. “I’ve always tinkered with it a little bit. When I moved onto my property, I had some of the trees chopped down to make some clearer hiking paths through the woods. My dog was getting old, couldn’t see as well as he used to. Having a bunch of extra wood, I wanted to do something with it.”
“Your property?”
Brant nods. “I own a decent chunk of land ’bout twenty minutes outside of town. That’s where I live.”
“An outdoorsy man,” she says, flashing a pleasant smile I’d almost call flirty if that wouldn’t be utterly disgusting. “I like that.”
Brant flicks a glance at me, like he’s also picking up a weird vibe, but it’s impossible that my mom is actually trying to flirt with him, right? Just in case, he offers back a friendly enough, “Alyssa seems to like it.”
Ignoring his attempt to direct attention back to me, my mom says, “Well, I was just telling Alyssa how embarrassed I am you caught us at such an inconvenient time. We had a nice cherry wood dining table, but the leg came loose and we had to get rid of it. We’ve been using this one in the meantime until I can find another one we like.”
We have absolutely never had a cherry wood table. Once, we had a blonde wood table with an uneven leg, once we had a round table that was barely big enough for four people, but never have we had anything of quality like she’s trying to make him believe.
“Do you make tables?” she asks him.
“Occasionally,” he answers.
“Maybe you should make one for us. I’d be happy to buy one from you.”
“Mom,” I say, shooting her a look.
“What?” She looks back at me innocently.
“Brant’s busy—he doesn’t have time to make you a table no one would ever use.”
“Of course we’d use it,” she says dismissively, but then she straightens and turns her attention back to Brant. “Alyssa tells me you’re a business owner, too? Where have you been hiding all this time? I swear, I’ve met just about everyone in this town, but somehow I’ve never crossed paths with you.”
Thank God for that. Walking over to Brant, I loop my arms around his neck like I’m just giving him a hug, but I whisper, “This is so weird. I’m so sorry about all this.”
He wraps his strong arms around my waist and kisses the side of my face but doesn’t otherwise acknowledge my apology. “You hungry?”
“Not so much anymore,” I mutter back.
His dark eyes sparkle with amusement and he dips his head to steal a little kiss on the lips. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Brant lets me go, but he still takes my hand and leads me back to the kitchen, blessedly away from my mother. Of course she follows us, trying to make conversation with Brant like I brought him as a blind date for her instead of to introduce him as mine. It’s intensely uncomfortable, but he dodges her easily enough.
The card table is really only big enough for four of us, so my sister sets Rianne up at her pink Disney princess folding table in the corner and Rudy in his high chair next to Amber. My mom ends up awkwardly putting Brant in the corner with his back against the wall, across from me and next to her.
All I want to do is leave, but at least after this, I can be reasonably sure Brant will never make me invite my mom to dinner again. This would’ve been so much nicer if Mom would’ve gone to her boyfriend’s like she planned and only Amber and I would’ve really been having dinner with Brant.
Pappy is, in fact, in a mood, so he’s in his recliner watching TV and hasn’t even said a single word to me since we got here. He certainly hasn’t spoken to Brant—I’m not even sure he noticed he’s here—and at this point, I’m not going to bother trying to change that.