Page 31 of Anchor Point

He surveyed the small table for four. “Where do you want me?”

The question was innocent enough, except my dirty mind had derailed at the sight of the most perfectly fitted jeans ever made. My mind flashed to a dozen different images of where I could want Mac. Pressed up against me, pinning me to the wall. Under me as I straddled him at the table. Leaning over me, his weight delicious and heavy bearing into me.

Heat scorched across my entire face. I gestured toward one of the chairs and croaked, “There’s fine.”

Rosie’s hands shook as she set the table. I turned back to the stove, trying to both hide from my dirty thoughts and suppress the smile that threatened.

Did I like seeing my daughter so distressed? No.

Was it sweet that he’d shown up and was trying to impress? Yes.

Did my kid deserve a little stress after going behind my back? Yes.

I didn’t even know where Mac lived. How had she found out?

My own nerves were back, fluttering in my belly. I still wasn’t sure how this conversation was going to go.

An awkward silence filled the room, and I glanced over my shoulder. Mac had a hand on the back of a chair, watching as Rosie meticulously set the table, stiff-shouldered and avoiding his gaze as she laid out the silverware.

This awkwardness was my doing. I dug for the courage to face the two of them, face the long years of failure and guilt, and lay all of the truth out in the open.

“Okay, supper’s ready.”

They dropped into seats across from each other like they’d been playing a game of musical chairs, and I’d just turned the song off.

“I wish I had a fancy serving dish, but we’ve not made it that far in restocking,” I explained, spooning heaping piles of food onto their plates.

Mac waited until I’d taken my seat, then said, “This looks good.”

It did, in fact, not look good. It looked like a soupy, cheap meal.

“It looks like mash. Mom, why is it so soupy?” Rosie complained, and just like that, things were back to semi-normal.

“It’s a little… juicier than normal. I think I added the milk twice,” I admitted. “In my defense, I was nervous and easily distracted. At least it didn’t stick this time.”

“Fun fact, Mom is a terrible cook,” Rosie told Mac. “Except for breakfast. She rocks breakfast.”

Thanks, kid. Nothing like a teenage daughter to spill the embarrassing stuff. “Since you fired the first shot, dear daughter, let’s talk about your day at school. Why are you drawing pornography?”

Rosie immediately went into argument mode. “It’s artistic depictions from romance novels. It’s not erotica or porn.”

Mac choked on a mouthful.

“It was enough to get you suspended, whatever it is, and it got me in trouble at work too.”

Mac’s head snapped in my direction, but I ignored him and added, “So walk me through everything that happened, Rosa Nell.”

Rosie slumped in her seat, fork clattering to her plate, and heaved a beleaguered sigh like it was so hard being a fourteen-year-old kid. “My art class is doing this pencil technique. It’s probably got some fancy name, but anyway, our homework was to depict a scene from a book. I did the homework from a Harry Potter book. But I liked it so much, I decided to see if I could draw something else. I grabbed a book from your stack and read it to pick a scene. So, if anything, it’s your fault for reading books about horny blue aliens.”

Oh. My. God. She did not just say that. I was going to die of mortification on the spot. Keel over right in my plate. Did my daughter care? Nope.

“So it’s just as much your fault as mine,” she continued, heedless of my last wishes. “But also, you know I don’t share my drawings. I think someone snuck into my notebook and snapped pictures and then sent them to everyone.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look at the man next to me. He’d gone still, hadn’t spoken a word. The words horny and erotic bounced around the room like they’d been blasted from a bullhorn, reverberating off the walls. He shifted in his seat, the rough denim of his jeans scraping across my bare skin as our knees bumped in the small space.

My chair screeched on the floor as I shot up. Jesus Christ, I was losing all capacity to function. “We forgot drinks. I’m thirsty.” Yeah, no shit after the knee touch and talk about erotica, and I would not be thinking about the positions my daughter had drawn and imagining Mac.

“Yeah, I could use a drink,” Mac said. Was his voice strained, or was it my imagination?

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