And at the same time, why deny each other something that made us both happy? Small problem: it happened to be the same damn woman. My head hurt thinking about it.
I had no problem setting aside the bad boy persona where I shouldn’t take shit from anyone. The masculinity lessons from the university of life taught us to pound our chests and claim mine and threaten to rip a challenger’s head off. As if a massive fistfight would solve everything; it never does. One of us would wind up in prison and the other on the Jerry Springer show. I’d watched way too much low-brow TV.
What definitely shouldn’t have happened was us trying to have a reasonable adult conversation. Far too mature for our dumb asses to be considering. Yet there we were, and my head was starting to hurt.
“All right. We’ll deal with this later. Probably should be talking it out with her rather than trying to make decisions for her.” Ethan gulped the rest of his coffee down. He apparently wanted to get on with the day. “Until then, just forget about it.”
As Ethan walked out of the room and I contemplated pain killers for my brain ache, my phone buzzed with a message.
My check-in-by-text-message mom asked me to call her, missing the point of texts entirely, in my opinion. Given I was in the privacy of my own home, I decided to give her a call right then.
“What’s up, Mom?”
“Oh, Ty dear, glad you called back; I have important news.”
“Yeah?”
“He proposed.”
“Who proposed!” I asked blankly. Whatever soap opera TV drama had her enthralled, I had no idea.
“The man I’ve been seeing, silly. Who else? Barry has finally dropped the big question. And we’re getting married!”
“Before I even meet him?” I raked through the memories of conversations I’d had with her and found there were references to a man called Barry and going out. But I’d misunderstood the situation completely. I thought he was a friend, not that sort of friend. “Not that you need my approval. You can make your own decisions, of course. I mean, isn’t this a bit fast?”
“It’s not fast. I’ve been seeing him for ages, not that I needed to. When you’ve met the right man, you just know it pretty quickly.”
“Still, Mom, if it was that serious, I’d have expected you to introduce him to me before now.”
“I thought you wanted to keep a distance? I don’t tell anyone who doesn’t already know that my son is a big sports star.”
“Mom? Are you saying he doesn’t know about me?”
“No, dear. Of course, he knows I have a grown-up boy. He just doesn’t know it’s you.”
“I’m not a secret agent or anything. I think we can clue him into the identity of your son.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself then, sweetie? I want to have a family get-together in a week or two. He suggests dinner at Diego’s, and he’ll bring his daughter.”
Diego’s was probably the fanciest Mexican restaurant in town, a high-end date spot. It was almost as good as the taco truck that camped on the corner of Fourth street. I visited that truck as often as I could.
“I’ll be there, Mom.”
“I’m sure you’ll like them. Now, I’m not going to be a matchmaker, but he has a lovely daughter, and she’s right around your age. I’ve not met her, but I’ve seen pictures, and he’s told me all about her.”
“Mom!” I protested.
“Ty, I said I’m not matchmaking. I just hope you’ll get on with her, and she’ll become the sister you’ve never had.”
I sighed. I was kind of afraid of that. The last thing I wanted was to have some star-struck step-sister trying to match me up with all her friends.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll get along fine. Have you fixed a date? I can check my schedule.”
We discussed a few dates that would work, and she told me she’d get back to me and confirm.
She hung up, and I blushed a bit. She’d dote on me to an extreme extent if I let her. I laughed on the inside, knowing how it clashed hard with the public’s perception of me.
Leaning back in my chair, I heaved a breath. So much uncertainty in my life. My mother’s new husband, my potential new step-sister, and potentially Kayla.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KAYLA MARTIN
Food for thought.
“What’s eating you, Kayla?” The Assistant Head Cook leaned on the unlit stove.
“Hmm? Why would something be eating me?”
“I don’t know. You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders, and you weren’t like that yesterday.”
“Are you suddenly super observant?”
She threw her arms up. “When it’s a bit slow, I notice you. Yeah. You look kind of tired; I suppose you aren’t used to working nights. Did you end up staying late?”
“I had a couple of drinks once I was all cleaned up. Thanks for coming in to help last night, Becky.”