“Sure,” he replied. “I’m coming. Now get some sleep.”
I closed my eyes. I liked Nick’s bed; it was heavenly. My body was sore and warm and wildly satisfied. I had made, possibly, the worst decision ever. The man in bed with me had insulted me, driven me crazy, and fucked me six ways from Sunday. He’d put his cock in my mouth and his thumb in my ass, had said the filthiest things imaginable in my ear, had made me beg him to make me come. And I was taking him home to meet my mother.
I should be worried. Freaking out. Instead I was asleep in seconds, the best sleep I’d had in weeks.
Nineteen
Nick
Evie’s mother lived in a suburb that looked a lot like Andrew’s, except on the other side of Millwood: modest bungalows, built decades ago but well kept. Except Andrew had picked his house because a one-story bungalow was best for a guy in a wheelchair. Evie’s family owned a house here because it was what they could afford.
Evie drove us, since she knew the way. She went home first, washed and changed, and then she picked me up. She owned an old Tercel that had been repaired a lot but still ran. I’d never seen her car before.
“I think I should warn you about my mother,” she said.
She was nervous again. She’d put on jeans and a sweater, her red hair up in a ponytail with strands coming loose. No makeup. Her hair gleamed in the sunlight. She looked pale, and it was only partly because we’d fucked each other to exhaustion last night. It was also because she was stressed.
“It’ll be fine, redhead,” I told her.
“About that,” she said. “I’m not.”
I looked at her. “What?”
“I’m not a redhead,” she said, touching her ponytail self-consciously. “I think I should be honest.”
“Evie, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I dye it.” She kept her eyes on the road, like this was a difficult confession. “I like the color, okay? I figure you should know.” Her cheekbones went red in that telltale way. “You may have noticed, um, that the carpet doesn’t match the drapes.”
I would have laughed if she wasn’t taking it so seriously. Also if she hadn’t indirectly mentioned her pussy, which distracted me for a second. Then I remembered what we were talking about. “I didn’t look at the color of the carpet,” I said.
“Well, it’s not the same. And you keep calling me that, so I thought—”
“You’re a redhead,” I told her.
“I just—”
“Jeez, Evie, is your hair red?” She shrugged. Christ, she was all wound up again. “Then you’re a redhead. Now tell me why your mother freaks you out so much.”
“She doesn’t,” she said, but it was a lame defense. She huffed a sigh. “I just think I should warn you. My mother is very conventional. Like, very. She’s going to think that because you’re having dinner, we’re getting married and having babies.”
“We’re not,” I said. “I’ll deal. Anything else?”
“You don’t get it,” she said again. “My mother was educated by nuns.”
It sounded like a figure of speech. “Literal nuns?” I asked.
“Literal nuns,” Evie said. “She went to convent school until she was eighteen. She was going to actually become a nun, but then she met my father and decided she wanted to be a wife and mother instead. My father is the only man she’s ever even looked at, as far as I know. And since he died when I was fifteen, it’s just been her and me and my sister.”
I hadn’t even known her father was dead. “Fuck, Evie, I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, but her expression was tight, because it hurt. I could see it. “He had a heart attack. We told him to quit smoking so many times.” She shrugged, hard and sharp. “High school wasn’t very good for me.”
It clicked. I’d already figured out she had a past that included partying and sex, one she was trying desperately to leave behind. I had a hunch that past had started around the time her father died. I knew a little bit about how tragedy could fuck you up, derail you. But I didn’t want her to start crying while we were still driving, so I changed the subject. “You have a sister?”
She nodded. “Trish. She’s only seventeen. There was a big gap between me and her. Eight years, and she was only little when Dad died. I think maybe Trish was unexpected, you know? But I’ve never asked my mother about it, because of the nuns.”
“Right,” I said. “The nuns.”