Page 42 of The Tomboy and the Captain

She waggles her head.

“Sometimesyou come here for the food.”

I laugh and relent. She’s partly right.

I follow my mom inside and immediately go to work tidying up. She keeps a neat house, but there are some things that I know she struggles with, like putting the big pots away after the dishwasher. She lectures me about coming in and visiting first, but it doesn’t stop me from coaxing her honey-do list out within a few minutes. By the time I’m sitting on the porch with her and drinking some of her diabetes-causing sweet tea, I’ve changed out four light bulbs and two smoke detector batteries, checked the pilot light and run a broom over her back patio. I was always the best at chores. I sometimes bribed my brothers into paying me to do theirs. I worked faster than they did, so they’d split their allowance with me if I did the things they hated. I have toilet cleaning down to a science. Four minutes flat.

“If you’re hungry, I can make you a sandwich.”

She leans forward, about to get up, but I wave her back down.

“Stop, you do not have to feed me. Besides, my roommate happens to be an amazing cook. She made homemade pasta sauce the other night and I’m hoping there still might be leftovers.” My mouth actually waters a little at the thought of Laney’s pasta. Even at my lowest her food was amazing. Right now? I could probably finish a full pot all on my own.

“So she cooks, huh?” My mom lifts the brim of the hat she’s been wearing since I got here so she can eye me. Her hair is thinning, something I know makes her self-conscious. She’s always had thick hair that she’s had to braid or wear in clips. She cut it to her shoulders when she got the diagnosis, and though it stuck around for the first few rounds, it’s starting to change.

“Yeah, she cooks. I know where you’re going with this, though. Don’t start doing that mom thing.” I waggle a finger ather and gulp down the rest of my tea. My brain buzzes from the massive dose of sugar.

“What mom thing? Oh, do you mean the whole ‘stick your nose into your son’s love life and hope like hell he doesn’t pick an asshole’ thing?”

I laugh out hard.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” I stand up to take my glass back inside before I leave, but my mom stands and rips it from my hand.

“At least let me handle one damn dish,” she grumbles. I relent and let her take the glass.

She has some antibiotics to finish out this week, but she’s already sounding better than she did when I visited the hospital. If it weren’t for the small subtleties, the dark circles under her eyes, and the thin nature of her face, I don’t know that anyone would suspect she had cancer either. Strangers probably don’t. But around here, in Springs, her world knows what she’s supposed to look like. Her sheen is off. But it’s only temporary.

“Patrick is coming to town,” she says, following behind me toward my Jeep.

“Oh yeah? For work?” My oldest brother is on the road a lot, something I know he hates about his job. But he makes great money consulting companies on new payment systems, so he tolerates the travel to keep his wife and daughter in a seriously killer house in Boulder.

“He’ll be here for three days, and Flynn and Todd are off for rookie camp, so they’re flying in too. Andrew can’t get off from school, but the rest of us are coming for the Saturday game.”

A satisfied grin takes over half my face as I climb into my Jeep and shut the door. I hang on the window as my mom steps up to the side.

“That sounds really nice. I can’t think of the last time all of us were in the same building,” I say, instantly souring my face when I realize what the last time was. It was dad’s funeral.

Mom lays her hand on my arm and squeezes.

“It’s alright. It’s how he would have wanted us there. All loud and hungry and bossy.” We both chuckle at the memory. Even for dad’s funeral, me and my brothers couldn’t simply be chill. After I spilled the punch all over one of the cousins I didn’t know existed, Flynn and Todd stepped in it and fell on their asses, but not before clinging to the table cloth Ma put over the counter. They took out at least a dozen pasta salads and a whole tray of cookies.

“I should have known better than to try and throw a nice party in his memory with you all in the house. This is why we never got a dog.” My mom leans in through the window and tugs the sleeve of my shirt to urge me closer to her. I give her my cheek, and she kisses it and then pats it with her hand twice.

“You drive safe. And I expect I’ll get to meet this mystery chef-roommate of yours who is nothing more than splitting bills with you and that’s all.” I think she lets out a smugmmm-hmmbefore backing away, or maybe it was simply implied in her tight-lipped smile.

“I’ll get right on it,” I say through a puckered smile. I shake my head then shift into reverse, leaving her to stare at me with crossed arms and her “I know better than you do” stare.

Maybe she does know me better. Because I sure am thinking about Laney a lot more than I expected to a week ago. And it’s more than just thinking about touching her or getting her naked. It’s a bet-losing kind of thinking, but really, is that bet even still a thing now? Have we moved past that?

I crank up my stereo as I hit the highway to clear my head, but somehow, Laney’s playlist is permanently burned into my system. She did something the last time she was in the Jeep to sync her phone, and I think we somehow synced music too. And now here I am, rocking out to everything from Paramore to Sharon Van Etten to Carrie Underwood. The only commontheme for a Laney Price playlist is bad-ass female singers it seems.

“Fuck it,” I say, turning the music up and singing along to Carrie about digging keys into the paint job of some poor asshole’s expensive car. As much as I want to avoid thinking about all the ways Laney and I are right together during my drive home, fate seems to keep kicking my ass right back to the center of my feelings for her.

Feelings. I have fucking feelings for Laney Price.

It’s the one thought that I keep coming back to, and no matter how many times I try to convince myself that it’s all physical with us, I know it’s not. Hell, I was stuck on her the minute she shot me down. Her tough interior only made me want her more. Sure, maybe at first it was about the chase, but even after four years of her avoiding me during media days, of taking little digs whenever she could and shooting cold-dagger stares at me at sporting events, I always admired her. Even now, I know that version of Laney, she’s a front. Oh, there’s a lot of truth to her sharp edges, but also, she never hated me the way she pretended to. She simply never wanted to be in a position to like me.

Too late now.

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