care much about her friends or her family. Then again he wasn’t close to his own parents. When she’d asked about them he mumbled, My mom’s long gone. My dad and I don’t talk much, he’s such an asshole. She’d tried to press him a little, gently. But he shut down.
Yet. During the day, she found herself wishing she could talk to him after every class. They spent most nights together now, though he never pushed her. If she told him she would be studying late and couldn’t see him he never minded. Do your thing, I’ll be here.
And the sex. She wanted to tell her friends, but then again she didn’t want to jinx it. Like if she talked about it too much she risked losing it.
“Bri?” I love you. But she couldn’t say the words, she’d never said them to any guy. “I love you.”
No. Not so soon, out of nowhere. She probably had scrambled eggs between her teeth, it wasn’t like they’d been together for years.
He leaned over, kissed her, open-mouthed, slow and gentle. He tasted of Tabasco sauce. He laced his fingers through her hair.
“Love you too, Becks.”
His blue eyes shimmered and for the first time in her life she found herself thinking, Nothing else, let the world stop, I don’t mind.
“Never said that to anyone before,” he said.
She traced a finger down his cheek. “I do. All the time.”
Outside she heard Charlottesville on a Saturday night, boys yelling, girls hooting, glass breaking. I’ll never have to hit another bar. No more dates. I’ve made my choice. It’s all good.
* * *
They didn’t have to discuss anything more.
She didn’t tell her parents, not right away. But Eve, her mother, must have sniffed out what was happening, even from five states away. Two weeks after I love you, she caught Rebecca in her apartment: “I’m in D.C. for a conference this weekend, I’ll come see you. Brunch.”
“That’s crazy, Mom. It’s like three hundred miles.”
“No it isn’t. And we’ve barely spoken this semester. Whenever I call, you don’t answer or you’re busy—”
“Law school, Mom.”
“Big kiss, see you Sunday.”
* * *
She told Brian. “It makes me nervous.”
“Your mom’s coming. So what? You embarrassed about me?” Brian grinned like the idea was impossible. Then his grin winked off. “Wow, you are.”
“I’m not.” She wasn’t, not exactly. But she wasn’t sure what her parents would make of Brian. They were snobby enough to dislike the fact he hadn’t gone to college. Eve was a documentary filmmaker who taught at Boston University and Pete an English professor at Northeastern and a very minor poet—was there any other kind?
They were decent and loving. But they were also pretentious Massachusetts intellectuals, and predictably hypocritical about money. They’d always lived above their salaries and depended on Eve’s father, Jerome, to make up the difference. Jerome had made a couple million bucks in the seventies inventing the first commercially usable insulin pump. Over the years he’d quote-unquote helped Eve and Pete out, first buying a house for them in Cambridge, then paying for college for Rebecca and her sisters.
Rebecca didn’t want to explain any of this to Brian, not yet. Maybe not ever. Discovering that your parents were fallible was one of the most unpleasant parts of growing up. It had been for her, anyway. Maybe Brian had known all along.
But the impulse to keep her parents away ran deeper than that. She didn’t want to let anyone inside the world she and Brian had created. Not even her family. She didn’t want her mom to ask if Brian wanted kids. You need to make sure you two have the same expectations. Someone like him, from a different background, he might not want what you do.
Different background. Ugh.
“I just want to keep you mine for a while.” True, or true enough, anyway.
He wasn’t ready to let her off. “You think I don’t clean up nice. Maybe I better sleep at my place for a few days. Wouldn’t want to scandalize dear old mom.”
His tone bothered her. Cold. So cold, so fast. Like he was arguing over a parking spot with an annoying neighbor. Could he cut her off this easily?
“I promise this stresses me out more than you—” She heard the wheedling in her voice and hated it.
“Fine. But in that case, I’ll meet your mom here. Let’s not pretend I’m not practically living here.”
She laid a hand on his shoulder. Her touch seemed to do the trick. He relaxed, sighed.