Page 13 of Honey Undone
“Malachi,” Mom used my full name and I knew I was in trouble. She set the spoon down and turned the stove lower without taking her eyes off me.
“I’m working on it,” I said with a small groan as I slid into the chair next to Dad’s. Mom was about to rip into me when Dad intervened. “I gave her my number, told her to call me… I’ve been trying to get her to go on a date but it’s like she enjoys saying no.”
“You’re sure she’s interested?” Mom asked, raising her eyebrow.
“Very,” I hummed. “She’s flirting and it’s fun but that’s as far as I get with her. It’s infuriating,” I laughed softly.
“You make it sound like she’s homework, that’s no way to get a woman,” Dad scoffed, pushing his glasses down on his nose.
“I’m sorry ‘man who knocked up his girlfriend at sixteen’. It’s frowned upon now to trap a woman in a marriage,” I joked with him and he glared at me.
“I was in love with your father long before he gave me you,” Mom added to the conversation, “accident or not.”
“It wasn’t an accident, I knew what I was doing.” Dad feigned his intentions with a smile.
“Sure Dad,” I laughed at him. “She’s too smart for me,” I confessed. “Everything I say she has a better response, quicker, more intelligent. It drives me nuts.”
“That’s a crush kid,” Dad snorted.
“She’s stubborn, and funny too. Every time I think I have her figured out she flips the script on me.” I fidget with the soda can.
Mom turned with a smile on her face and leaned across the counter.
“What?” I asked her when she just stared at me.
“The home run,” Mom noted, “that was for her?” Of course Mom was watching, even when she couldn’t be there, it was always up on her laptop or coming out of the radio.
“Thatwas because I could.” I looked up with a smug grin on my face.
“And the bunt last week?” Dad grumbled under his breath.
“Alright that onewasfor her,” I admitted.
“Is she pretty?” Mom asked me finally.
“I can’t stop thinking about her,” I said a little quieter as the confidence rushed out of me at the thought of her sharp smile and beautiful hazel eyes.
“You know your father had no game either,” Mom teased and Dad scowled.
“Yes I did,” he argued. He ran his hands through his hair and puffed his chest. “You were smitten.”
“No you didn’t,” she shook her head. “And I tried to maim you with a hammer more than once.” She winked at him. “But he showed up when I needed him. For all my intelligence I’ve never been able to figure out a power tool and if he hadn’t been insistent on helping me with the estate, it would have never become the Roost.”
“I Stockholm-ed her,” Dad joked.
“I don’t know if that’s the term you’re looking for, Honey.” Mom shook her head.
“Drove you crazy until you loved me back?” Dad said it like it was the obvious definition of the word.
“Okay maybe?” She agreed.
“You were conceived in the bones of the very first Roost.” Dad said, with a wink.
“Right on the floor where the lounge is now, very awkwardly… so much saw dust…” She scowled and I shook my head.
“You’re both being disgusting and you change the story of how I came into the world every time you tell it. Last time it was in the back of Dad’s Toyota. So, focus,” I said to them both as they spiraled into their little love bubble of nonsense. “Pot is bubbling over.” I pointed to the stove and Mom turned to pay closer attention to it.
“Intelligent women like to feel seen,” Dad whispered, leaning closer to me so Mom couldn’t hear him. “They seem complicated but they’re not. Just take your time and show her that you see her.”
