Match This! (The UnSocial Dater#1) (9 page)

Ricco chuckles and I look at him. “You had to invite Lenny and Squiggy didn’t you.”

“Got a point,” Ricco says leaning forward. “Art work with color. Clothes that make no fucking sense. Friends,” he pauses and looks at them. “I mean no disrespect but if you two walked into the shop she’d sooner cut you than ink you.”

“Exactly why I would never let her touch me with a needle,” Steph nods at him.

“See, I mean damn, right?” Marcus ask Steph.

“Exactly.” She gives him a nod and suddenly the two are friends.

“I should take this as a betrayal, but I really don’t give a shit,” I sigh. I look at Macey. “If you two need to go outside and fuck, do it on the left side of the house, the neighbor on the right gives me the creeps.”

“You wanna?” Zack asks her like it’s no big deal.

Macey stands up and groans, “KAT!” before stomping towards the bathroom.

“I was joking, damn girl,” he calls after her and laughs. “You should know I think it’s hot when a chick is angry!”

After the door slams I look at him. “You should know I think she would fuck you up.”

Giggly drunk droopy-eyed Stephanie leans forward. “She so would. She’s bad ass.”

“Are you bad ass?” Marcus asks.

“She’s got a boyfriend, back off. I like him. He lets her do Wine Wednesdays.”

A knock at the door causes me to look at the clock on the wall that looks like a large pocket watch; yes, I am enamored with Alice In Wonderland.

I look at the door when whoever it is knocks again.

Ricco stands up. “I’ll get it.”

“No.” I push my tipsy self up and sigh. “I will.”

“It’s probably for me,” Stephanie says.

I walk over and open the door. A cold gust of air blows in causing my hair to fly in my face, which is good I think as I push it away, because I thought it was…

“Mom?” I gasp.

At the same time, she gasps and says my name, my full name, the entire thing. “Katherine Anne Teresa Brun!”

Oh fuck
screams the voice in my head or at least I thought it was until she snaps, “Watch your mouth. Act like a lad—”

She stops when her jaw hits the threshold then she looks up at me. “What have you done?”

Shit.

“Mom,” I warn quietly with my voice and loudly with my eyes.

“Are you going to ask me in or wait until the wind blows me away?”

Apparently I pause too long because her voice, like nails on a chalkboard, say my…full name, again.

I whip open the door. “Well come on in then.”

She comes in, and behind her, she drags two suitcases the size of Jersey and I’m dizzy, and not from the wine either.

She stops short of giving me enough room to shut the door and the vortex that sucked me in spits me back out of her figurative vagina into a world where every motherfucking thing I do will be judged and damned.

“Carrie,” Steph says in a slur. “You,” she pauses, “you’re here?”

Mom smiles at her. “It’s been a long time, Stephanie. You look cute as a button as always, how are you?”

I am relieved that there are people here. Why? The holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving, is the only time I actually see my family. I always make sure my sleeves are long so that I don’t have to suffer the wrath of
Carrie
.

She flipped her shit when she saw the pocket watch on my foot with the chain wrapped around my ankle. After her telling me how awful it was to permanently mark my body, the fact that I probably have Hepatitis C, that I had disappointed her time and time again, and finally that I was a horrible role model for Darby.

Then my stepfather asked me to go to the store, I knew it was his way of getting me out of there. He never argued with her and until I left college after my first semester, he never had to step in between the two of us. When he did, she turned.

Two years after that day, they separated; they still have holidays together, for Darby.

They get along well, are the best of friends, they just don’t live together and I have never asked why.

Today is the first time she has seen all of my ink. I know she’s livid and I have never been more grateful for my friends in my entire life.

She walked away to give Stephanie a hug leaving her bags right in front of me.

I roll them forward and shut the front door.

She turns and looks at me. “I’ll be staying awhile. Darby and Sam left for Italy for the month.”

“You’re staying here?” I say and I feel all the air escape my lungs.

“Yes.” She gives me a tight smile.

FUCK! I scream and this time it stays in my head.

She sits next to Stephanie on the love seat clutching her purse to her chest. “Katherine, feel free to put my bags in the room I will be staying in.” She doesn’t look at me when she says it.

I take a deep breath and look up at Marcus, Zack, and Macey. The guys keep looking between my mother and I as if they are in shock. Macey has her lips sucked in like she’s trying not to laugh. Steph is chatting away with the Mom-ster.

I flip off Macey and she bites her cheek as her smirk grows. I shake my head and grab the suitcases hoping they are light, which would mean she won’t be staying long.

They aren’t.

I roll half of Albany towards the stairs and push the handles down so I can lug them up to one of the spare bedrooms.

“Katherine, be a dear and let me take the room downstairs, my sciatica is off again,” Mom says and I look back at her.

I point to my chest. “Mine?”

“Yes dear.” She gives me that tight lipped smile again and I swear I want to stab myself and end it right here.

I drag the suitcases into my bedroom and look around.

My mother staying in my house is one thing to get used to, her staying in my room was quite another.

I throw my pillows on the floor and pull the blanket off. Then the sheets.

I throw them in a pile and quickly open the nightstand drawer.

“Fuck,” I whisper as I look down at my peen collection.

I really need to get rid of some of these.

I look at the laundry basket and decide the best thing to do is dump the damn drawer full of plastic dicks in it and then hide it in sheets and shit.

“Bitch could have called,” I mumble to myself as I pull the drawer out.

“Who?” I hear in a deep rasp and jump.

“Holy fucking shit,” I snap as plastic dicks go flying everywhere.

I look up at Ricco’s shocked expression as he looks in his hand at the one he caught.

“Give me that.” I snatch it from him and throw it in the basket.

“Kat, what in the—”

“Everything okay in there?” my mother’s voice shrills from the other room.

“Fine, yep, no problem,” I say as I am on my knees grabbing dildos, mini vibes, and vibrators. I look up and see Ricco’s still shocked expression. “Don’t just stand there asshole, help me!”

“Help you?” he gasps.

“Grab my peens,” I hiss.

“You have got to be joking?”

I hear my mom’s heels clicking against the hardwood floor and they are getting closer.

“Damn it, please,” I say reaching for the sparkly one next to his foot.

“You fucking owe me,” he grumbles as he squats down and helps me throw plastic peen after plastic peen in the laundry basket.

The light flips on and my mom gasps. I want to climb in the damn basket and die.

Ricco throws the pile of sheets on top of them, shakes his head and looks up at Mom. “Carrie is it?” He takes two long strides holding his hand out to her. “I’m Ricco, I work with Kat, um, Katherine. It’s nice to meet you.”

She looks at his hand, I know she’s checking out his ink, then back up at him. I swear she looks intimidated, and she NEVER looks intimidated, then finally she reaches out and shakes his hand.

“Pleasure to meet you. So you’re an artist too?”

He smirks and I am ready to crawl under the bed. My mother thinks I paint; she doesn’t know I am painting with a needle on people’s skin. “Yeah.”

“Katherine, is everything okay in here?” she asks looking around the wall that is Ricco and at me.

“It’s fine Mom, I’m just changing the sheets,” I answer as I walk to the closet to grab a fresh set.

“And he….?”

“I was using the bathroom,” he nods. “Marcus was in the other one.”

“So you two…?”

What the hell was she doing? Monster!

“Work together,” he says.

“Right,” she says looking at me with her speculative eyebrow raised.

“Mom,” I say, holding up two fitted sheets, “Unicorns or black satin?”

“Don’t you own anything,” she pauses and looks about my room, “normal?”

“Unicorns or-”

“Doesn’t matter,” she says drawing her finger across the top of my dresser, no doubt looking for dust. Ha! There is none. “Pick for me.”

She turns and walks out the door.

I look at Ricco who is picking up the laundry basket. “Where do you want it,” he pauses and smirks.

“The purple one up her ass may help.”

“Respect,” he shakes his head scolding me.

“Maybe it should go up yours,” I sneer. He doesn’t say a damn thing. “Laundry room, off the back of the kitchen.”

“You’re welcome,” he says as he walks out the door.

****

A sudden burst of light invades my sleep. I hear something that sounds like a cranking noise and screeching. I roll over in bed and groan as I hold my head. Too much wine, too much headache. I blindly reach for a pillow, find it, hold it over my head and try to find myself back in the dream that I was woken up from.

I wanna go back to the clouds, and the rainbows and riding on that strange looking unicorn that felt so real. In the dream, when the sun broke through the clouds it shined and the beautiful animal’s once white coat transformed into a thousand vibrant unnamed colors, casting sparkles over all the white clouds, and the pale blue of the sky. Before the glittering unicorn and myself stood a man who was too far away to see anything but the body of a Greek god shimmering as if he had been dipped in glitter.

To me it was my father, who would always embrace the nonsensical fantasies I told him as a child. My mother used to try to correct me, but he encouraged it. When I couldn’t think of anything more to add, to my story, his words would start and I would listen to his story intently until I was so enthralled that I could begin where he left off.

I loved to dream, but something was keeping me from returning to it today.

First the hangover, and now the smell of Clorox and a sloshing sound.

I have to go pee so badly but I know as soon as I get up to use the bathroom, I will never go back to sleep. And I want to sleep.

I chuck the pillow across the bed and groan as I open my eyes.

I look around and sigh.

Mother.

I look towards the door as I stand up and she is on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor.

“Good morning, Katherine,” she says looking at me.

I am in a tank top and my boy shorts.

She pulls the long yellow cleaning gloves off to cover her mouth and lets out a sound that is almost a cry. “Why? Why have you done this to your body? What happened to my sweet little girl?”

“It is far too early for this Mom,” I say as I walk out the door, past her, leaving her on her hands and knees cleaning a floor that is already clean.

“Katherine, I am speaking to you!”

“Mother, I’m a twenty-five-year-old adult, get over it,” I grumble as I slam the bathroom door shut behind me.

“Well, you could have fooled me.” She pushes open the door as I sit on the toilet.

“MOM!” I point to the door for her to exit.

“Don’t ‘Mom’ me!”

“Privacy?”

“You girls never gave me any,” she snaps. “I could be making number two and you would sit on the floor like we were holding court!”

“Holy shit, this is not happening,” I say covering my face.

“What were you thinking? Was this because I made you color inside the lines, Katherine? Because you got in trouble for drawing on your bedroom wall? You say you’re an adult, yet you take a permanent marker and scribble all over your body!”

“What time is it?”

“Excuse me?”

“What. Time. Is. It?”

“Why don’t you look at your damn foot!” she says referring to the tattoo of the pocket watch.

With that she turns around and storms out of the bathroom, slamming it behind her.

I have fifteen minutes before I have to leave for work. I stand at my sink and chug a glass of water while I look around. She has cleaned the entire house. It’s sparkling. Not that it was dirty to begin with, I have a very routine cleaning schedule, two rooms a day. Never all at once.

I hear a phone squawk from behind me and I know it’s not mine. I pick it up and cringe when I see Mom has a smartphone. Some people, my mom included, should never have one. I set it down.

When I hear ping after ping, I turn back around and grab it.

“Oh hell no,” I say.

Matched Up? No, no, no, no. This cannot be happening. My mother cannot have put herself in the dating pool. Especially not on social media!

I hit something on the screen as I am trying to set it down and can’t help but look at it.

JMD1: Good morning my sexy tigress. I hope you slept well

HDE72: Carrie baby, we need to meet up. I am so hot for you. Age is but a number. I promise I will treat you like a lady should be treated

GSNW69: Tell me again that my dick wouldn’t feel good between your pussy lips

GDHSLE: You still DTF hot stuff? Tell me you like anal and I will make you my queen

They don’t stop, they keep popping up.
What the fuck is she doing?

Unable to stop myself I hit the hot pink app on her smartphone and
my gawd
if I could go back in time, I would have. She responds, she fucking responds to these men. These…Pigs!

“Katherine,” she gasps as she comes out in her pink terrycloth bathrobe. “What have you done?”

“What have I done?” I gasp. “What have you done!”

“What? I am a single woman, an adult, a–”