I played around, swam a lot and joked with the guys for a couple of hours. Then, I got up and left.
“Try not to keep missing training,” Coach said.
I would do my best, though I wasn’t going to try that hard. Swimming was something I did for fun, so I only joined the sports team as an excuse to do as much of it as possible. Besides, this was my senior year, so I had to focus more on my studies than competitions, anyway. A lot of seniors quit after the first semester to make time for other stuff, including internships, but I didn’t plan on doing that.
Though I was only twenty-one years old, I’d thought a lot about my future. Because I had money, I had to think a lot about what I was going to do with it, so I pretty much had my own path set. As for college, having some fun would be more than enough for me before I graduated.
I pulled my phone out to call Angela and see if she had any free time. I could always show up at her apartment tonight, I did it all the time, but I wanted to see her soon. Swimming could do a lot to calm me, but instead of leaving me exhausted, my body was buzzing with excitement, and I knew exactly how I wanted to spend that energy.
We haven’t tried anything in her office, yet…
It would be a little risky, but I’d been thinking a lot about this. She was my professor, and it was hard to ignore all the kinky possibilities of our relationship. Angela might hesitate a little, but after her initial protest, she had fallen into our little affair as deeply as I had, so I was sure I could talk her into it.
My phone rang before I could call her. It was Mom, so I couldn’t ignore the call.
“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
“Ben? I’m in your school!”
I stopped in the middle of the walkway in surprise. “What did you say?”
She gave an amused chuckle. “I’m in your school, honey! I wanted to come to see you, is that so wrong? Oh, and I want you to introduce you to someone. Are you busy right now?”
Hearing my forty-something-year-old mother chuckling like that would never stop being strange, but it was easy enough to figure out who she wanted me to meet. It had to be that guy she’d gone to school with that she’d told me she was seeing. From what she’d said of him, he was nothing like my dad, so I wouldn’t hate him at first sight, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet him, either.
I did my best not to intrude on Mom’s life. It wasn’t that she had bad taste in men, but I didn’t like a lot of the guys she dated. I didn’t want to make her unhappy, so I tended to ignore them. Not that there had been many since the divorce but dealing with Dad had been enough. I never planned to be close to any of them, mainly because I didn’t want any pseudo dads after realizing what a bad role model my own father had been.
Mom wanted me to meet this guy for her benefit, though, not mine, and she was clearly happy around him.
“Sure, Mom,” I said with a sigh and started walking again. “I just got out of swimming practice, and I don’t have anything else for the rest of today. Are you in the school or outside? Tell me where to meet you?”
“I’m in the visitor’s parking lot. He’s waiting at a hotel nearby; I wanted to see if you’d be free. It’s a bit late for lunch and way too early for dinner, so I was thinking of coffee and some dessert?”
“Okay. Let me get to the dorm room and get changed; I’ll be right over.”
“Don’t bother getting changed! If you have stuff with you, don’t worry, I’ll be driving you back to campus.”
Since she was insisting, I headed straight for the parking lot. I found her car, a red BMW. She was standing outside the driver’s door, and when she saw me, she came toward me, beaming, arms held out for a hug.
“Hey, Mom,” I murmured, taking the hug. “Sorry for not coming to see you earlier.”
She pulled away and smacked me on the shoulder. “Good of you to remember to apologize. Now, come on. My man is waiting.”
My mom was short, even shorter than Angela, and she was wearing heels. I was surprised to see her in a pink dress and a matching coat draped over her shoulders, with silver shoes on and bright accessories. It raised my impression of whoever this guy was before we even met.
We arrived at a café not too far from the school. The new man was on his way from the hotel, so Mom and I chatted lightly about school and the swim team as we waited for our order. He walked into the store five minutes later, and because Mom kept looking toward the door whenever she heard the bell above the door ring, she saw him immediately. She stood up, smiling warmly at him, and I followed, turning toward him. He was about my height, with dark hair greying around the temples. He looked older than Mom, but the smile he aimed at her was equally fond as she reached her hand out to him and he took it in his.