The Billionaire's Desire

I smile. Rita likes to feed me and I don't ever object. "Even if I had, that smells too delicious to pass up."

"Come on in," she steps aside. "Babe? It's Yahya."

Tricia pads out of the bedroom, still in her pajamas. "You've embraced the weekend completely, I see," I laugh, hugging her.

"Nah, I'm not even drunk yet!" she protests, then sniffs her armpit. "Do I stink?"

I lean in and adopt a critical expression. "You smell like sloth and decay."

Tricia nods. "Good." She plops down on the couch. "Sit down, you're making me nervous. How's your mom holding up?"

I freeze, mid-sit. Guilt washes over me in waves. It has been a week, no wait, more than a week now. Aside from a few hasty texts, I haven't been to the house on the corner since last Sunday. Before Camilla and certainly before Carter.

Flopping back on the beat-up brown sofa, I try to smile breezily. "You talk to my mom more than I do, I figured you'd know already."

Tricia cocks her head, the hair flopping away from her face. Her eyes are narrowed. "I know. I was wondering if you did."

I plop on to the couch, picking at the edge of the afghan Rita had painstakingly crocheted for months on end before abandoning it all together. It's narrow and oddly shaped, but I love it. I yank it on to my lap like a literal security blanket. "I've texted her," I tell Tricia defensively.

Actually talking to my mom, hearing the sadness in her voice? It's too damn hard.

It's the same heavy anguish creeping back that I thought had been banished forever when she met Otis Johnson.

My stepdad.

No. My Dad.

"Well that's good, I guess." Tricia says, though she sounds disappointed.

"She wishes you were her daughter instead," I smile. It's a joke I've made forever. Tricia has a sappy, emotional side that clicks a lot better with my mother's sensitive rawness. They understand each other; speak the same language. I feel like a robot whenever I am in the same room with the two of them. I'm too buttoned up, too rational to understand them. I can not handle the full force of my mother's emotions. Especially not her grief. "You guys can do all the mother, daughter stuff I suck at, like gabbing on the phone for hours on end and making dates for brunch. She'd adopt you in a heartbeat, I'm sure."

"Perhaps." Tricia smiles enigmatically.

I try to steer the conversation back to my lighthearted ground. "You had a wedding, at least, even if it was in a courthouse."

"To a woman." Tricia clarifies.

"At this point I think my mom would prefer I was a lesbian. At least that would explain the glaring lack of men in my life." My mind flashes back to Carter, his warm smile and the sunset glinting off the ocean as it reflected in his eyes. Tricia peers at me piercingly and I quickly look down at my hands.

"You're blushing, Yahya," she says, wielding my nickname like a hammer. "Why are you blushing?"

"It's nothing."

"That's a bunch of bull."

"I think I met someone, but Trish...he's rich as hell."

"Your mama won't mind that one bit."

"No seriously, he's like too rich."

"No such thing. Mama will be proud."

"Will she?" My voice caught in my throat and in an instant Tricia's hand closed over mine. "Hey girl, hey," she murmurs softly as the tear slips down my cheek. "Your mother is so proud of you, she is fit to burst."

"Really?" I sniff. I don't believe it, but it is still nice to hear.

Even back when it was just the two of us, my mother and I were like two foreigners stuck in a room trying to make small talk. We circle each other warily, neither understanding the other. Bound by love and not much else, it became infinitely easier to be together with Otis there to deflect the expectations.

Dependable, genial Otis. A widower at sixty-eight, he had married my mother, twenty-three years his junior, and set himself to the task of guiding her angry, despondent fourteen-year-old girl. He already raised three kids of his own; my distant stepsisters who regarded me as some sort of curiosity. He could have rested on his laurels. But instead of kicking back, Otis dove in.

A retired city worker, his pension was enough to give us the stability I had craved my entire life. Thanks to him, my mother and I could finally start planning for a future.

I couldn't imagine losing him, and yet it seemed like I would be. Very very soon.

Tricia was gently stroking my arm, her sharp eyes watching me. I can tell she wants to talk some more. She probably visited the corner house recently, probably brought Otis some of his favorite schnapps and gotten drunk with him.

Why can't I bring myself to do the same? Stop by, joke with him, enjoy the time we have left?

Tricia sits back, patting me abruptly. "So you met a guy," she prompts, pulling me out of my guilt-ridden reverie. "How could mama possibly have a problem with that?"

"Well," I dab my eyes hastily and pull myself together. "He's...rich. He's a client's brother. He's totally off-limits."

"Forbidden love," Tricia laughs. "Romeo and Juliet!"

I glare at her. "They both die, you know."

"That's why I refused to read to the end, keep it happy," she explains. "They kiss, I close the book, the end."

"No wonder you had to cheat off of me during that unit in Mrs. Stewart's class."

Tricia pokes me with her toe. "You know, you were lousy to cheat off of. I only got a B on that test. My parents were totally pissed. Even more so than their normal levels of pissed."

I laugh at the memory. "So aside from the fact that we aren't star crossed lovers doomed in a suicide pact, there's another small factor standing in the way."

"What, is he a deformed hunchback or something?"

I laugh. "May as well be as far as mama is concerned." I heave a sigh. "This feels so awkward and wrong, but...he's white."

Tricia glances towards the kitchen where her Hispanic wife is fixing dinner. "Is that a problem?'

"Not to me, but...."

Tricia nods knowingly. "Mama," she says evenly.

She has never come right out and said it, but I know my mother blames our troubles when I was young on racism. "Seek out our people," she had always told me. "We can trust our own."

"I think she would rather I be a lesbian than date a white guy. But why am I even talking about this? I just met him, he's the brother of a client. I'm not about to get involved, that's totally unprofessional and besides, I have no idea if he's even interested."

After all he didn't even kiss me, I don't say.

"I'm sure it's nothing. Just a little fleeting crush. I'll get over it." I sound more dismissive than I feel.

Just then, Rita comes in with three plates stacked effortlessly on her arms with the practiced touch of a former waitress. The sight and smell of the steaming empanadas make my mouth water. She places all three plates on the coffee table and sits down in between Tricia and me. "Did Felicia get in touch?" she asks me out of the blue.

Rita has the habit of just blurting out her thoughts, whether they are pertinent or not. Keeping up with her is enough to give me whiplash, sometimes.

Quickly, I switch gears from my nonexistent love life to my neglected business. "She hasn't, no," I shake my head as I reach for my plate. "I put another call in to the Styles desk this afternoon before I came here, though."

Rita nods. "Felicia likes to have an angle," she muses. "That's why she's an editor and I'm still a silly beat reporter. But I talked to her about you today,"

"Aw, thanks Rita," I blush and Tricia pulls her in for a quick kiss on the cheek.

She laughs. "Don't thank me yet, guys. I don't think I have the power you think I do." She sits back and pats Tricia's knee as she talks. "Felicia definitely seems interested. I mean, I think she does. She just needs...something else."

"What's that?" I ask eagerly.

Rita hedges. "She wants a hook. Something that will grab her readers. An angle for the story that will make her readers care about your business."