Page 7 of My Irresistible Enemy

I gave her a dirty look. “That’s blatant emotional manipulation.”

She grinned again. “Fuck, you think I don’t know that? I’ve had a lot of practice with it over the years, and it’s about damned time I put it to use in service of a good cause instead of just trying to scam your grandparents out of money.”

“Grandma would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you cursing,” I said.

My mom just laughed. “Well, she’d be even more horrified with what’s coming next. Because, sweetheart, we need to talk about you.”

“Me? Why would Grandma be upset about—” But before I could even finish my question, my mom’s smile went all sly, and I knew exactly what she was going to say. “Oh, come on. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Too bad.” My mom gave me a stern look. She wasn’t even close to as fierce as my grandmother had been, but she did try. “We need to talk about your love life.”

“I’d really rather not.”

That was an understatement. My love life didn’t exist, and that was just the way I—okay, maybe I couldn’t exactly say it was the way Ilikedit, but I’d made my peace with it.

I’d never been one for relationships. They required way more than I was capable of giving. But for the past year, I’d barely even hooked up with anyone.

But it didn’t matter. Whether my mom understood my choices or not, they weremine. They didn’t have to make sense to anyone but me.

“And as I said, too bad. Haven’t you ever heard the expressionall work and no play makes you a dull boy? Don’t you ever want to have fun?”

“I have fun,” I said, looking away from her.

“Really? When was the last time you brought a girl home? Or a boy?”

“I live with my mother. I think that question answers itself.”

“I could clear out for a night, if need be,” she said. “I know I upended your life, coming here, but I know how to make myself scarce if you ever need the place to yourself. You wouldn’t even have to pay for a hotel for me, I could—”

“You’renotsleeping on the streets just so I can hook up with someone,” I said, more vehemently than I intended. “You don’t ever have to do that again. You understand that, right? I never want you to.”

“Oh, honey.” My mom’s eyes went wide. “I just meant I could crash with a friend or something.” She put her hand on my wrist and squeezed it. “I’m more grateful to you than I can say. Really.”

I looked away and swallowed. “I know.”

“I’m not sure you do.” She shook her head, and I saw a new smile spread across her face from the corner of my eye. Her sad smile. I hated that one even more than her worried one. “You are the best thing in my life. I just want you tohavea life. Ever since I moved in, you haven’t so much as been on a date. Not once.”

“Mom, I’m—”

“I just want you to be happy, honey. I want you to have a chance at a real relationship. With whoever you want. Anyone that makes my little boy smile is okay in my books.”

Oh, God. Sometimes, I wished I’d never come out to her. I’d told her one weekend when I was seventeen, and she was on one of her supervised visits. I’d caught her taking money out of my grandfather’s wallet. She’d looked so guilty, and I’d just been so mad, so angry that she kept making things worse for everyone, that I’d blurted it out.

I’d wanted her to say something cruel or callous so I could yell about how she was ruining my life. Instead, she’d told me she didn’t care that I was bisexual, that she loved me no matter what. To try to forgive my grandparents if they had a hard time accepting it. That they were doing their best.

At the time, I’d hated that she’d ruined that moment for me too.

Things were so different now. My grandfather had been gone for five years, my grandmother for three. My mom was sober, and sick, and I’d stopped wanting to hurt her long ago. I wasn’t angry at her anymore. But sometimes…I guess sometimes, it still made me a bit uncomfortable, how understanding she was.

“Thanks for the PFLAG speech,” I said, my voice flat. “But dating isn’t really something I’m looking to do right now.”

She smoothed the afghan over her legs, her fingers tracing one line of green yarn through a sea of orange. “I know that your father and I weren’t always—that is, we didn’t give you the greatest example of a successful relationship. I know we weren’t exactly role models.”

That was putting it lightly. My dad had been abusive, and my mom had been… I didn’t want to think about what my mom had been. After the divorce, after I’d been taken away from her—well, it turned out that just about the only thing my mom and dad had in common was a propensity towards addiction.

There was a reason I was so careful about what, and how much, I drank. Why I’d never even smoked a cigarette. Well, there were many reasons, but that was one of them.

“I’d just hate to think that you’d closed yourself off to that possibility because of us,” she continued. “Because, sweetheart, you are the best part of both of us, and so much more besides. You’re better than either of us ever was, or ever will be. And I just don’t want you to miss out on—”

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