Committed (5 page)

“At your service,”
I
said,
saluting her.

On
my
way past her as she
was bent down doing something with her camera, I grabbed her ass making her
jump. I couldn’t stand it
anymore,
I had to at least
have one kiss. She held her hand to her heart, probably from being scared.
I
titled my head down and kissed her lips. She seemed eager
to accommodate and we shared a long, hot kiss.

“We could take a break and mess around,”
I
tried.

Emmi
laughed and said, “Just go change and worry about that later.”

Shit.
Maybe next time.

When
I
came back she said,
“Mm…Yeah definitely time for that later.” Now
my
dick
was twitching in my shorts. She glanced at
my
crotch
and said, “Think of your grandma or something for now, I don’t want to turn in
X-rated photos.”

“I told you we should just take a short break.”

“Sam, naked, French kissing you.” That was dirty on
her part, but it worked.

She had
me
do some fight
stances and took a bunch more pictures.

“
Gimme
a
tough look.
Good, now a frown.
And
now a scowl.”
When she finished she said, “Do you mind if we take some
together now?”

“Not if it means I get to touch you,”
I
told her with a grin.

She snickered and said, “Yeah, you can touch but
nothing too risqué. These are for the school paper.”

“The paper?
Why?”

“Remember the picture Sarah wasn’t supposed to
publish?”
I
nodded and she went on, “Well, she did.
I
think she still has it bad for you and she’s doing her
best to make me miserable.
I
want to do a spread about
you as a fighter and then we’ll add a blurb about your personal life and your
new girlfriend. As long as the whole school saw Sarah’s picture, they may as
well get an eyeful.”

I
sniggered and agreed.
I
had no objections to the whole
world seeing me with
Emmi
.
I
knew I was a lucky guy.

CHAPTER
FIVE

EMMI

“Stop that! My mother will be here any minute.”
I
was standing at the sink washing some dishes and Braxton
was leaning up behind me running his hands all over me.

“If I stop before she gets here, she’ll never know I
was molesting you prior,” he tried.

“She’s my mother, she’ll know,”
I
told him.

He laughed, but he stopped. “What can I do to make
you less nervous?” he asked
me
.

“I’m not nervous,”
I
lied.

He laughed again. “Oh, sorry, my mistake,” he said
sarcastically.

“Okay, I’m a little nervous,”
I
admitted.

“Do you think she won’t like me?”

“No, I think she’ll love you. It’s just…well, when I
moved in we were just roommates and now we’re dating and the fact that we’re
dating and living together is going to make it obvious to her that we’re having
sex.”

“And she’ll object to that? We are consenting
adults,” he said and laughed.

“Yes, we are, and she knows that. She’s not a prude,
but it’s different when it’s your kid.”

He frowned. “I should be glad your dad couldn’t make
it, shouldn’t I?”

He had no idea of how much truth he spoke. After
Trent cheated on
me
I had a breakdown and admitted to
my mom that we had been having sex. Then
I
told her
what I walked in on him doing.
I
should have known she
would tell my dad, she told him everything. He was furious and he wanted to do
to him what Braxton had that night in the bar.
I
doubted he would be too easy on Braxton when he met him because of that.

I
didn’t want to scare him though so I said, “Nah, my dad’s a gentle guy.”

Braxton laughed. “Somehow I doubt that.”

The doorbell rang and
I
ran
to get it.
I
hadn’t seen my mother in over a month.
When
I
opened the door she wrapped me in a bear hug.

“I’m so happy to see you!” she squealed. “Let me
look at you. You’re too skinny, have you been eating?”

“I eat all the time, Mom. Come in.” Braxton was
waiting for us in the living room. “Mom, this is Braxton, Braxton my mother.”

“I’m pleased to meet you
Mrs
—”

“Jennifer,”
my
mother told
him, taking his hand. “I don’t care for that Mrs.
stuff
.
It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Braxton. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Braxton’s eyes cut over to
me
and then back to Mom as he said, “I’m sorry to hear that,” with a chuckle.

“I was getting ready to make dinner,”
I
told her. “Do you want to come in the kitchen while I
cook?”

“No, I want to help,” she said.

“Me too,” Braxton said, with a grin. He was showing
off for
my
mother. That was better than
him not trying
.

“Okay then, I’ll put you both to chopping
vegetables.”

I
was making stir-fry and ginger chicken, so while I started the chicken I put
Mom and Braxton at either end of the table with cutting boards and stir-fry
vegetables that needed to be cut. They not only did a good job of dicing the
zucchini, asparagus, onions and peppers, but they seemed to be having fun with
it as they talked like old friends.

“So, Braxton,
Emmi
tells
me you’re some kind of computer major?”

“Yeah, I want to do computer programming and
networking, stuff like that someday. I like messing with computers.”

“I wish I did,”
my
mother
said.
I
had heard her complain about the electronic
system the hospital had adopted for five years and I knew what was coming. “You
know I’m a nurse?” Braxton nodded and she went on, “Well, they came up with the
brilliant idea that medical records should all be electronic.
I
’d be okay with that except they expect me to chart
everything I do right there into that darn computer. Half the time the system
is down or if you touch the wrong thing it goes down. I just think it would be
so much better if they just let us write in the chart like
we
used to and they have someone else put the info into the computer like they
used to.”

I
was smiling as I dropped the chicken into the hot oil.
My
mother was definitely old school when it came to electronics. She still had a
flip-phone.

“Maybe their system isn’t any good,” Braxton told
her. “That really makes a difference.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it was a cheap one. The hospitals
like to charge an arm and a leg for medical care, but putting money out is
never on the top of their agenda.
Emmi
,
how is Zoe? I saw her mother at the salon the other day
and she said she rarely hears from her.”

“She’s good, Mom. She’s just been really busy with
her studies.”
I
was trying not to make eye contact
with Braxton but he forced it by moving into my line of sight. He was
mouthing,
“Parties” over my mom’s bent head.

“Shut up,”
I
mouthed back.
He was right; Zoe had never been such a party animal before she became part of
a sorority. But she was always safe and still getting decent grades so
I
wasn’t about to rat her out.

“Well,”
my
mother said,
“that’s good to know. Tell her to call her mother.”

“I will,”
I
said with a
smile.
I
took the chopped vegetables from them and put
them in the pan. While
I
did that, my mom made some
Jasmine rice and Braxton set the table.

When he finished he said, “
Mrs
…I’m
sorry, Jennifer, what would you like to drink with dinner? We have red wine, or
iced tea or soda…”

“Red wine?” she said questioningly with a glance in
my
direction.

Braxton saved the moment by saying, “Yeah, I went on
a wine-tasting trip with some friends of mine last summer and picked it up.
They said it was really good, but I haven’t opened it yet.”

That seemed to make her feel a little better.
Braxton was old enough to legally drink, but
like
I
said earlier, she’s a mom.

“I think I’ll just have ice water, dear, thank you.”

While we ate,
my
mother was
kind enough to regale Braxton with tales of my youth.
I
’m
not sure why parents always think the most embarrassing moments of your life
are the most story-worthy. Braxton was enjoying himself anyways, or at least he
seemed to be. Probably because his sister had told
me
stories about his youth.
I
’m sure he felt like this
was easy payback.

He was such an enigma to
me
sometimes. He went from hot player to tough guy fighter to scholar to mother
winner over so easily.
I
never really knew what role
he would slide into next. It was fun to watch though; it showed
me
that there were so many different sides to him.

After dinner we all pitched in to clean up the
kitchen and when we finished
my
mom said, “I brought
Scrabble.” Scrabble had been our favorite game to play together when
I
lived at home. Since
I
moved out,
we still played against each other on Facebook.

“Oh, good,”
I
said. “You
want to play, Braxton?”

A grin formed across his face. “Sure, but I have to
warn you that I am a killer scrabble player.”

My
mom cackled and said, “We’ll see if you’re so cocky after my daughter and I
finish with you, young man.”

“Okay, you two. That is enough.”
I
laughed.

My
mom set up the game and we gathered around the table. She was keeping score and
Braxton pretended
like
he didn’t trust her not to
cheat. He insisted on seeing every point she wrote down. On one play
I
did the word “Skaters” and used all of my tiles. With the
extra fifty for that
I
got eighty-two points.

“Well, this game is over,” Braxton said.

“It was over before it started,”
I
told him.

He gave
me
a slant-eyed
look and said, “Those are fighting words.”

“Bring it on,”
I
told him.
He really did, and in spite of
my
eighty plus points,
he still beat me, and my mom.

“Dang!
Emmi
told
me
you were a
fighter. I just assumed your brain would be too mushy to win at Scrabble,”
my
mom joked.

She kept a straight face and a shocked expression
was covering his face.
I
knew she was kidding but he
didn’t seem to.

“I see where your daughter gets it now,” he tried,
faking a laugh.

“We are perfect,” she joked again, grabbing
my
arm. “Well I better get going before your father thinks I
got lost.”

“All right,”
I
told her as
we both got up and walked to the door.

“Nice meeting you!” Braxton yelled to Mom from the
table.

“You too Braxton!” she shouted back at him and then
she looked at
me
. “He’s a very nice boy but you two
better be good
Emmi
. I don’t need to remind you how
babies are—”

“Bye mom. I love you,”
I
said, opening the door and almost shoving her out.

“I love you too sweetie,” she replied.

After
my
mom was out the
door, Braxton said, “At first I wasn’t sure if she was serious about my brain
being mush or not.”

I
laughed and said, “You figured out she was kidding, right?”

“Yeah, I got it when I looked at her eyes. She has
this twinkle in her eyes
like
you get when you’re
teasing. It makes for bad liars though.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”
I
said. “You’ll always be able to tell if I’m not being honest with you?”

“It’s funny,” he said. “But I can’t imagine you not
being honest with me. By the way, I really like your mom.”