Page 75 of Hot Blooded

“Promise me you’ll rethink this!” Ma begged as Tessa tuned back into what she was saying.

“Ma, listen,” she said patiently. “I didn’t just meet him. We’ve been seeing each other for several months now.”

Ma’s brows shot up. “Several months? And you never told me?”

Tessa winced. “I’m sorry. I know it sounds bad. It’s just that… he’s just really special to me, and I wanted him to be just mine for a while.”

“‘Just yours.’ What does that even mean? I don’t like this, Teresa. Not one bit. What kind of decent man agrees to stay hidden from your family for months?”

“I promise you don’t have to worry about him taking advantage of me. He’s a little older than me—” understatement “—and he’s very established. He makes more money than I do. He has his own company. He owns a nice house in Old Town. If anyone’s taking advantage, it’s me.”

Ma scoffed, but Tessa could see the emotional tide had finally turned. “His own business?” Ma said skeptically. “Doing what?”

“He’s a software developer. I don’t really understand it all, but he’s got clients all over the world and several employees.”

The corners of Ma’s lips turned down and she tilted her head from side to side as she considered that. “That’s where all the money is these days, isn’t it? Computers.”

“I don’t know, but Amos is doing all right. He won’t be mooching off me.”

Ma crossed her arms. “How much older is he?”

“He’s forty-two,” Tessa said, giving his age at the time of being turned.

Ma’s brows shot up. “Nine years?”

“Dad was seven years older than you. It’s hardly any different.”

“Well don’t you have an answer for everything,” Ma said sourly. Even so, her posture had relaxed, and she managed to return her attention to her coupons. “Am I ever going to meet this man?”

“Well, you kind of already did.”

Ma frowned. “The kicked puppy who showed up on my doorstep yesterday?”

Tessa nodded. “He’d be happy to get a proper introduction—to meet the whole family, even.”

Ma slid her cheaters off so she could glower more intently at Tessa. She pursed her lips in thought. Finally, she pronounced, “Tell him he’s coming to dinner tonight.”

Tessa wanted to argue with Ma’s presumptuousness, but it had admittedly gone more smoothly than she’d expected, so she agreed. “Alright. I’ll call him.”

“You drive a nice car there, Amos,” Rob said with a weird over-friendliness that made Tessa bristle. She shot him a warning look, but he ignored her. “Audi, huh? Guess that software gig pays the bills.”

Rob and Amos were like night and day standing next to each other. Rob had raven black hair, long on the top with the sides cut in a meticulous fade, and a thick, equally meticulous beard. He’d been a varsity soccer and track star in high school, but those days were long past and he was settling comfortably into his dad-bod era. He was the spitting image of their father, with warm brown skin and eyes so dark they were nearly black.

Amos, on the other hand, was pale even by Norwegian standards. He was clean-shaven and his wheat-blond hair was cut efficiently short in an admittedly nondescript style. Despite the fact that he worked with computers now, he still had the body of the steelworker he’d once been. His blood-red eyes—which he’d explained to Tessa’s family as a congenital condition—were attentive, guarded, where Rob’s eyes were laser-focused, on alert for any reason to hate the interloper.

“I’ve been very fortunate,” Amos said diplomatically. He sipped at the beer that Rob had basically forced into his hand. Tessa knew he was only pretending to drink but, fortunately, nobody could tell through the dark brown bottle. Periodically, when no one was looking, she grabbed his beer and swigged a few inches off of it to maintain the illusion.

“Well, we can’t all be desk jockeys,” Rob said smarmily, indicating himself.

“Rob, you literally work at a desk,” Tessa cut in.

“At the port,” Rob replied impatiently. “Wearing a hardhat and steel-toed boots.”

“Why would you wear a hardhat at your desk?”

“Obviously not at my desk,” Rob snapped. “But I need it when I’m walking around the terminal.”

“For what? To get to the break room?”

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