“What a bullshit answer,” Mom said, shaking her head.
Brax looked even more surprised by her outburst. By his expression, I had to assume she had never talked to him this way before.
“A bit clingy, was she?” Mom persisted. She didn’t look like she was going to let up on the topic any time soon, and I certainly wasn’t going to stop her. Brax looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here.
“You could say that,” he managed to say with a forced smile.
Mom rolled her eyes. “What is with the women you date—they all lose their minds a bit.”
He looked a little embarrassed by the statement and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You’re too young to be serious anyway,” she tossed back at him. I marveled at how she so conveniently changed the topic, particularly since Toby was sixteen when he got together with Marie, his girlfriend. I pointed that out to her, which she deflected with a wave of her hand. “But that’s a rarity and we all know it.”
I unfolded the napkin and set it on my lap. “You and Dad met when you were fifteen.”
“Again, a rarity,” she quipped.
I understood where she was coming from. I had met Ross at nineteen and I thought we’d be together forever.
With Brax looking more nervous and uncomfortable by the second, I decided to have mercy on him and change the subject. “So how long do you think the remodel will take?”
He straightened and seemed to do the math in his head. “Six weeks to two months.”
Having Brax Mitchell underfoot for two months excited me, and I hoped he couldn’t see how thrilled I was.
The waitress set our food down, and I picked at the salad. Brax had ordered a cheeseburger with all the fixings, and I wished I had done the same. From the second Ross had broken up with me, I knew I had issues with the way I looked, something I had never suffered from before. Things that had never bothered me about my body before now seemed to balloon out of proportion. I hated that I’d lost a lot of my self-confidence.
I was going to work on that though. I wanted to be the new improved Amanda.
Brax’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the phone’s screen and winced.
My mom snorted. “Let me guess…”
“I better take this.” He stood up and excused himself from the table.
“Mom, you need to stop grilling him.”
She frowned like she had no idea what I was talking about. “What? He’s like my bonus son. Toby said this latest girlfriend, this Heather, had seemed like a keeper at first, but things turned south fast.”
“South, like how?”
“Clingy. Stalkerish. I mean, look at the boy. He has no idea how beautiful he really is, and it makes girls go a bit psycho,” Mom said, twirling her finger near her temple, the universal sign for crazy.
I’ve had a few less-than-stellar moments after Ross and I had broken up when I’d driven by his work a few times, so I didn’t say a word.
Mom glanced in the direction that Brax had gone, then reached over and snagged a few French fries from his plate.
“Hey, I saw that,” Brax said, sliding back into the booth.
“Girlfriend problems?” I asked, surprised at the jealousy coursing through me. Heather would no doubt be gorgeous…and young. Like nineteen. Maybe even still in high school.
“She’s my ex, and I have no plans on getting back together with her.” He unscrewed the ketchup bottle and poured a large amount on his plate. It was pretty clear he was finished discussing Heather.
Mom sat up straight, her gaze shifting between me and Brax. “One day both of you will find the right partners. Just wait and see.”
CHAPTER 4
Brax watched me with that devilish grin that made my blood warm. “Age is just a number,” he said, walking toward me in that animal-like stride I loved. He lifted me onto the kitchen counter, stepped between my thighs, and kissed me senseless.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling the length of his deliciously thick cock against my heated center. “You want this?” he asked, unbuttoning his low riding jeans so slowly I wanted to scream. He unleashed his rigid length, his strong fingers curling around the impressive cock. His green eyes darkened as he rolled his thumb over the plum-sized head.