would be funny. Works out my frustration to get back at her in this small way, and so far, she hasn’t guessed I’m behind them.”
“Good lord!” I clutch a hand to my chest. “How could you give me access to nuclear codes like this?”
Dear Deborah, my mother fails to recognize personal boundaries. I’m in my thirties. How do I tell her to cut the umbilical cord and stop calling me twenty times a day?
Dear Deborah, my mother is overbearing and steamrolls my fiancée. She digs into our business with more determination than a dumpster diver, but whenever I express this to her face, she doesn’t seem to get it. What am I going to have to do to make her get the point? Should I put it in writing?
Dear Deborah, I plan to propose to my girlfriend but I’m concerned my extremely interfering mother might attempt to hijack wedding plans. I hope she understands that this would be inappropriate, and I’m sure you’ll agree.
“Does the newspaper ever post your letters?” I ask.
“They’ve posted six of the seven I’ve sent in.”
“And your mom hasn’t made the connection?”
He shakes his head slowly from side to side, a wry smile twisting his lips. “Nope. Total cognitive dissonance in her replies. She told me to just tell my mother nicely that I don’t want her involved in my wedding plans, and the mother in question would likely say ‘Okay!’ and back off. You should have seen my face when I read it. I write these letters to get it out of my system when I’m really upset with her, but her replies just make me want to bang my head against a wall.”
“Nicholas, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. For my Christmas present, I want you to write in and tell her your father used to go to brothels.”
He clutches me close to him in reflex when he laughs. “Oh god, yes. I’m doing that for sure.”
After we reread his letters several times, finding new bits to chuckle over, we go back to Nightjar and he familiarizes me with the game. He bounces me involuntarily on his knee, which won’t stop jostling, and his fingers tighten around my waist. He’s not mindful of his body language, absorbed in his storytelling, his tips and opinions. He’s more animated than I’ve seen him in a long, long time, and he’s loving this. He loves introducing me to a game that gives him so much joy.
I smile inwardly and pay close attention to every word he says. When we next glance at the clock, it’s two thirty in the morning and I’m struck by the realization that my fiancé and I are becoming friends again.
On Friday, Nicholas is the only one scheduled to work at Rise and Smile, having done the most Nicholas thing ever: he offered to absorb his coworkers’ workloads so that they could go visit their families for the holiday weekend. (How’s that for an extra mile! I can hear him thinking very loudly in the direction of Stacy’s empty chair.) I torture him by sending gloating texts about all the treasures I’m discovering in Nightjar through sheer luck, which I can see from his account he’s never found before in spite of the one billion hours he’s played. He sends me GIFs of people with exploding heads and by five o’clock, he can’t take it anymore and leaves early. When he gets home, I jump out at him from behind a massive pile of leaves I’ve raked, scaring him so bad that he topples into a different leaf pile. He chases me and I scream as loud as I want since we have no neighbors, zipping up and down the hillside until darkness falls.
We’re covered in dirt and leaves. Nicholas’s Toothless tie is ruined. He appraises it sadly, but I give the tie a light tug and say, “We’ll get you a new one. How to Train Your Dragon 2: the sequel tie.”
He smiles down at me. My heart does a somersault, and he begins to lean in, but we’re startled away from each other by a spatter of cold white light, high beams fishtailing up the driveway.
It’s Deborah’s car.
Happy fun time disintegrates. “What’s she doing here?” I hiss, backing up into the shadow of the house. I stare at Nicholas, panic rising. “Did you invite her? I haven’t had time to clean anything. The sink is full of dishes and your mom is going to … eugh.”