Page 32 of With You

“It was implied, kitten. Now let’s get upstairs before grumpy Gray breaks down my door.” I slapped her ass to get her moving and felt a million times lighter than I had before. Everything would work out…it had to.

16

SAM

“Hey, Mom, how are you?”

My relationship with my mother was complicated. There were things she’d done in the past, choices she’d made that I’d never agree with. Yet, I always answered when she called, never faking my excitement when we talked.

“I’m good, honey. I was just sitting on my porch with Donald and thinking about my baby girl. What have you been up to lately? Have you caught all the bad guys?”

I laughed as I pictured her, hair greyer than the blonde that we both shared, probably wearing one of her brightly colored caftans and drinking a Diet Coke in her porch swing while our ancient cat sat in her lap soaking up all her attention.

Donald was a large tabby, even though he’d been a tiny starving kitten when I’d found him as a teen. He’d been abandoned on the side of the road, in a closed cardboard box. I walked home from school every day along the same route and I’d almost completely ignored the dilapidated box, thinking it was trash, until I heard a soft mewing sound coming from the inside.

I’d opened the box, scared of what I might see. He’d stared up at me with big greenish-yellow eyes and I was a goner. I took him home, gave him a bath and wrapped him up in a warm towel while I fed him milk off a teaspoon. When my mom came home, she hadn’t been mad, she’d simply picked him up and hugged him close, asking what his name was. He’d let out a sound that sounded exactly like Donald Duck in answer and we couldn’t think of a name that could suit him better.

Donald had stayed with Mom when I left home, as I couldn’t very well take him with me while I was in the Marines. When I returned, I didn’t have the heart to separate the two of them. He was more her cat than mine at this point and they had a special bond that I wouldn’t dream of breaking.

“Not all the bad guys, but I’m doing my best. I’m home right now which is nice.” I folded a pair of black shorts and pulled a sports bra out of my laundry basket. I’d been neglecting my chores, all my free time having been spent with Roe. We’d spent most nights at his place, he had trouble sleeping and he’d often get up in the middle of the night to work, the sound of fingers hitting keys lulling me back to sleep.

Roe was currently consumed with digging into the man that Lily had recognized on the convenience store footage. He’d barely slept and I practically had to shove food down his throat to get him to eat. It worried me that this was how he usually worked, no sleep, no food, no rest until he’d attained whatever information he was looking for. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much the rest of us could do until he gave us an identification, hence why I was doing my laundry.

“That’s good, you know how worried I get when you’re off on some top-secret assignment. How about your personal life, have you been seeing anyone?”

I pulled my phone away from my ear to look at the screen, it only took her three minutes and forty-two seconds to ask. I normally answered this question the same way, ‘No, Mom. I’m not seeing anyone. Yes, I know you want grandchildren. I’m happy with my life and I don’t want a relationship right now.’

Yet, I was seeing someone now, wasn’t I? Maybe we hadn’t told anyone but we did spend every night together. Hell, half my laundry basket was full of his t-shirts that I’d borrowed to walk from his place to mine in the mornings so that I could shower before work. T-shirts that I had no intention of returning because they were incredibly soft and the perfect amount of worn in.

Silence stretched down the line and my mother may not be an investigator but Alice Hebert was an expert on her daughter. “You are, aren’t you!” she shouted into the phone and I cringed as my ears rung.

“Finally! Oh my gosh, tell me everything. How long have you been together? What’s his name, what does he look like? Is he a he? I should have asked their pronouns instead of presuming. Why aren’t you telling me anything?”

“If you would slow down and let me talk I would,” I said, unable to hold back my laughter. “We haven’t been together long, I’m not even sure we are together in that way. And you kind of know him already, it’s Roe.” I mumbled the last part, wanting her to know but at the same time worried what she would think.

“I’m sorry, honey, I could barely hear you, did you say Roe? As in Monroe Ross, from bootcamp? Don’t you work together now?” Her excited tone was replaced with her concerned mother voice and I couldn’t help but tell her everything. Skipping over the naked parts, of course, no matter how close we were, neither of us wanted to have that conversation.

Telling her felt like purging my sins, I didn’t realize how desperate I was for her advice until now.

She let me talk without interruption and when I finished, she waited a moment longer before asking softly, “Are you happy?”

“Yes,” I answered honestly. I may have been worried about how all of this might affect Falls Security, yet every moment I spent with Roe I was undeniably happy.

“As your mother, that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you, honey. From the moment you were born, I took one look at you and knew that I’d give anything within my power to keep you safe and happy.”

“Mom,” my voice cracked and I swallowed hard. I hadn’t seen her in a long time and I desperately wished that she was here so that I could hug her.

“However, because I’m your mother and I worry, I can’t help but see the similarities to my own past and that’s a cruel lesson I’d never wish for you to learn.”

She was talking about my father, even though that’s a term he never earned. He’d used my mother when she was young, discarding her the second he found out she was pregnant. Her own family shunned her when they found out she was going to have a married man’s baby and it’s been just the two of us ever since.

She’d done her best to hide it from me but I’d seen how hard it was for her. Working two, sometimes three jobs just to make enough money to feed us. Sometimes I’d hear her crying through the thin walls at night when she thought I was asleep.

Even after my father destroyed her, she’d still believed in true love. A handful of boyfriends had been introduced to me over the years, Mom insisting that this one was the one. While most of them were nice enough, the relationships never worked out for one reason or another. I’ve often wondered if it was because she still loved my father after all this time but I’d never worked up the courage to ask her.

Was what Roe and I had the same? It was a question I was still thinking hours after we’d ended our phone call and I’d put away all the clothes I’d folded.

I worked with Roe but I didn’t work for him. Neither of us were married or even seeing other people before we slept together. Maybe no one knew about us but that was my problem, not his. I got the impression that if I gave him the green light, Roe would be writing our names in the sky with a little heart in between to connect them.

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