The Boyfriend (The Boss 7)

Neil made a big show of ringing the doorbell and waiting. The intercom beeped and Mom said, “The door’s unlocked. As it should be.”

He shot me a dark look and I held up my hands in baffled defense. “What? I didn’t say it.”

El-Mudad opened the door and held it for us with a long-suffering sigh. We left our coats and boots in the back hallway.

“Come on in!” Mom yelled from the kitchen. “Dinner isn’t quite ready, yet.”

“Brace yourself,” Neil warned El-Mudad, and I subtly elbowed him in the side.

“Guess who’s here!” Olivia shouted.

“Who?” Mom called back, pretending to be surprised.

Olivia took off at a full run, skidding to a stop just inside the kitchen, her arms open wide. “It’s Olivia!”

“It is?” Mom feigned shock. As I entered, she put down her spoon and opened her arms for a hug. Olivia launched herself at Mom, and I smiled to myself. The kid could be a monster, but she was at least a demonstratively loving monster.

Mom straightened and gave us an uncomfortable smile. “Sophie. Neil. El-Mudad. What a full house we’ll have tonight.”

“More to love,” I said, then wondered if that sounded too weird.

“Thank you for inviting me,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t bring anything—“

“What should you bring?” Tony asked, appearing in the doorway. He put his hand out and shook Neil’s, then El-Mudad’s. “Neil keeps the cupboards stocked for us. We don’t need anything.”

“I’m going to miss that when we move,” Mom said. “Although, I do sometimes get a craving to go grocery shopping.”

“You’re a sick person, Mom.” As guilty as I sometimes felt about our extravagant lifestyle, having groceries delivered was something I would never apologize for. “There’s no reason we couldn’t send the delivery service to you somewhere else.”

“No, no, we’re not fishing for money,” Tony said firmly.

“I would never accuse you of that.” And besides, we had more than enough money that keeping my Mom comfortable was just the sensible thing to do. She’d raised me on practically nothing. It was my turn to support her.

“Can I get a cookie?” Olivia asked Mom, who shook her head.

“Not until after dinner.” She quickly added, “If your Afi says it’s all right.”

Olivia looked doubtfully at Neil. “What if Sophie says it’s all right?”

I stifled my laugh. I didn’t want to encourage her. But the kid could find a loophole in anything. “Why don’t you go with Afi and Tony and El-Mudad. I’m going to help my Mom in the kitchen.”

“Okay,” Olivia said, happily scampering to the door. She stopped herself by grabbing the frame and turned. “I’m going to go help my mom in the kitchen, too. I help my mom in the kitchen all of the whole time.”

Ouch.

Every now and then, Olivia did ask about her mother and father. I’d thought “Where are they?” and “When will they come see me?” would have been the hardest questions to answer, but a recent, “Who are they?” had broken my heart. Now, she’d taken to occasionally mentioning them as part of an elaborate fantasy life we weren’t privy to. The child therapist she saw once a month had told us this was normal and we shouldn’t discourage it, but something being normal and healthy didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

“Do you?” Neil asked, forcing a smile.

“Oh yes, all of the whole time,” Olivia repeated happily. She wasn’t in mourning, really. She was struggling to process the abstract construct of a mother and father. “I do cooking. On the stove.”

“Well, at Rebecca’s house, we don’t play with the stove,” Mom said smoothly, as though nothing were amiss with Olivia’s statement.

“Okay!” Olivia agreed before moving on her way.

Neil cleared his throat and said, “Is there anything I can help with, Rebecca?”

“No, go sit down. Have a man chat while Sophie and I get this on the table,” she said, her gold bangles jingling as she waved her hand.

“A man chat?” Tony asked with a fond shake of his head. “Pregame is on. You like football, right, El-Mudad?”

“I think you may have your football and my football confused,” he said as they exited to the living room.

Mom watched until the door swung shut behind them. “Your friend’s been here for a while.”

“Yeah, well, he’s trying to find a place in New York,” I said, as though I hadn’t told her that several times already.

She made a closed-mouth grimace. “I bet he’d have better luck if he ever left the house.”

I rolled my eyes. “You found him out, Mom. He’s mooching off of us. I already told you, he has way more money than we do.”

“I didn’t say anything about money.” She took a pot off the stove and maneuvered it to the sink, emptying out penne into a strainer. “Can you give those sausages a shake?”

Slices of Italian sausage roasted in a skillet. Chunks of various colored peppers and onions sweated along beside them.