Page 32 of Sir, Yes Sir

It only took her a minute to change, leaving her frilly tank top on while barely fitting into my sweats.

“Good enough,” she agreed, sweeping past me again to head back out.

Maybe it was a good thing she was my best friend’s daughter. Pretty sure a woman like her would kill me. Physically or mentally, the odds were pretty equal.

Following her to the garage, I tried not to stare at her ass.

Chapter 9

Freya

“No, Mom, I’m not making it home for dinner,” I groaned into the phone.

Mom had called no less than four times while we were working the transmission out of the car. With a pocket full of bolts and nuts, I called her back while Ashton threw together a quick dinner for us because we were freaking starving.

I smelled the onion and butter in the pan and hummed quietly while she asked me for the third time where I was.

“Helping out a friend,” I answered the same exact words again. “God, Mom, I’ll be back tonight. Just wrap up dinner for my lunch tomorrow, ok? I’ll tell you how I like the new recipe then.”

“Fine, but I need a full report,” she finally backed off. “And let me know how late you’ll be.”

“See you later,” was all she got before I hung up my phone and smacked it on the counter with a groan.

“Trouble in paradise?” Ashton teased while he dropped some cubes of steak into the sauteed onions.

“Just my mother. You know how it goes.”

“She’s really protective, huh?”

“Protective, yes, but overly so sometimes. It’s like she doesn’t recognize that I’m a grown up. It’s pretty infuriating sometimes.”

Ashton looked like he had opinions, but bit them back while he pushed the meat around, getting all the sides browned.

“Go on. Just say it. We both know you want to say something.”

He just shrugged.

“Why don’t you move out?” was all he managed while he dropped in garlic from a jar next.

“Uh, have you met my mother? She would take my moving out as a personal insult.”

“Like you said, you’re a grown up. So is she. She’ll get over it.”

I frowned.

“It’s just been her and I, you know?” I said after a minute, watching him spoon around the food like I was in a trance. “I kind of wonder sometimes if she’d, you know, make it without me.”

“Freya, that’s something for her to worry about, not you,” he said, looking up from the steak to catch my eyes. “Your Mom is an adult, and she has your dad. You leaving home isn’t going to destroy them.”

“It feels like it sometimes,” I admitted, feeling my heart break at the memory of bringing up moving last time.

It had been shortly before Ashton had come to stay with us, and she’d literally cried, begging me to stay.

“Go get a couple plates?” he asked suddenly, pointing at the cabinet behind him.

The house he’d found was furnished.

Sort of.

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