Page 81 of Follow Your Bliss

Mom sighed heavily and turned toward the oven. “I’ll try, Jason, but I can’t promise anything.”

I caught Rose’s eye from across the room. She smiled at me, and my heart skipped a beat as I winked at her. I pressed the button again, and Rose’s smoldering eyes stared me down, her gaze clearly drifting to a doorway.

My blood heated straight through my body. Yeah, I had it bad. And I would break Mom’s heart if she didn’t get past this.

“Tell me, love, how did you like seeing Misty again? You should ask her out.”

“No.” I said it too loud, and several partygoers nearby jumped and looked at me. I lowered my voice. “That’s not happening.”

“But why not?” she asked quietly. “Look at her! Who wouldn’t want to go out with a beautiful professor of geology?”

“There’s so much more to a woman than looks and smarts, like a good character.”

“Don’t be silly. She has a wonderful character.”

I rubbed my hand over my eyes. “Mom, I don’t know how to tell you this without making you uncomfortable, but after you walked away earlier, she propositioned me.”

Her mouth dropped open, and she pulled me away from the closest other people. “No she didn’t.”

“I’m not making it up! She wanted me to go into a closet, and I’m not gonna tell you what she wanted to do in there.”

For a second, she looked like she believed me. But then her face turned sour. “A nice church-going girl like that would do no such thing. I’m sure you heard her wrong.”

“Yeah, well, agree to disagree, because I know what I heard. Not that sex is dirty,” I pushed, surprising myself at my frankness. “But I told her I didn’t want to get physical with her, and she’s still completely ignoring me. I’m not getting involved with someone who’s blatantly disrespectful like that. You have to stop pushing women at me, Ma. I’m perfectly capable of finding a good partner on my own.”

“Well, have you?” Her eyes interrogated me. “Have you found someone on your own?”

This was my chance. My mouth opened...but nothing came out. Again.

“That’s what I thought,” she said, her tone weary and disappointed. “If I leave it to you, you’ll bring home another Kasey.”

“No I won’t—” The rest of my sentence was drowned out by Lily calling everyone over to watch Becca and Brad open gifts. Mom hurried off toward my sister, who was opening Rose’s gift—a quilted Christmas tree skirt that I have no idea when she had time to make.

Fuck.I bit back my frustration and smiled at my sister hugging Rose. Me, Becca, and Alex—three out of six Soniats liked Rose, and I’m sure Mark would when he came in town for the wedding and met her. Even four wasn’t a bad start, but what kind of relationship could I build with Rose if I couldn’t stand up to my mother about her?

Rose dropped back and made her way toward the doorway she’d pointed out to me with her gaze and then stopped, looking back at me. A clear invitation. I pressed the button again, and she slipped from the room like a ghost.

I made my way through the crowd, and when I got close to Becca and Brad, I nudged my gift toward her feet.

She looked up at me and laughed. “Okay, I get the hint.” She and Brad pulled the tissue paper from the big bag and withdrew a patio cushion, the ones she’d been heavily hinting at to go with a patio set she’d been begging me to make for her for the past year.

Brad looked confused, but Becca squealed. “Ahhh! Does this mean what I think it means?”

I smiled and nodded, commanding my feet to stay put until their attention went to the next gift. “Yep! It’ll be on your back patio when y’all come back from your honeymoon.”

She got up and hugged me with severalthank yous, and slipped back into her chair as Brad began opening the next gift.

I backed away from the crowd. Good. Hopefully now nobody will be looking for Rose or me for a while. I covertly grabbed a handful of napkins, stuffed them into my pocket, and slipped out the same doorway that Rose had gone out.

She was at the end of a long hallway, studying paintings on the wall. I gave her another vibration. She looked straight at me, then took off down another hallway. She may’ve been the one with a vibrator in her panties, but my whole body was tense. I was angry at myself, and that wasn’t a feeling I’d had a lot of since I left Kasey.

Why couldn’t things be easier for me and Rose? Why couldn’t my mom stop being so difficult? Why couldn’t I stand up to her? And why couldn’t Rose tell me she loved me?

I didn’t even care that I was sex-stalking my girlfriend through someone else’s rambling mansion. Rose and I weren’t only about sex, no matter how phenomenal that was with her. This easy partnership, this pure bliss at existing together. We were more. We had to be more.

I took off across a long hallway. This house was really two houses the Hopes had bought and built together into one monster. Every time I’d see Rose go around a corner or down a hallway, I’d press the button, and she’d take off again. Cat and mouse, erotic hide and seek, far from the party.

After the fourth spot-and chase, I pressed the button repeatedly, following Rose into a dark room with old furniture piled in. I shut the door and locked it. Double-checked the lock.

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