Finding Kyle(48)

Her mom is standing just inside the doorway, holding a large grocery bag in one arm. A set of keys is dangling from her other hand. With wide eyes, she stares at me but addresses Jane, “Oh, dear Lord… I guess I should have knocked, huh?”

Jane squeezes my hand. “Mom… you remember Kyle, right?”

“He took you to dinner a while back,” her mom says as she nods at me with a smile.

A big, smug, knowing but happy smile.

Yes, she looks oddly pleased that her daughter is leading me out of her bedroom. In fact, I’d say she was actually basking in that knowledge, which is totally fucking weird in my book. If her mom really knew who I was deep down, she’d be screaming at her daughter to run in the opposite direction.

Jane makes a disapproving sound in her throat, and I look down at her. She’s shaking her head at her mom and has a chastising look on her face. A teacher’s look. I bet many a student has cowered from that look from Miss Cresson.

“Mom,” Jane says with censure. “Kyle was fixing that rotted windowsill in my bedroom.”

Her mom doesn’t move, but her smile gets bigger… more knowing. She doesn’t buy Jane’s lie at all.

“Surely you saw his tool box out there on the porch,” Jane points out, and I have to marvel at her quick thinking.

Jane’s mom raises her eyebrows and smirks at her daughter. It’s clear she’s still not buying it. To prove that, she says, “Yes… odd place to have a tool box if you’re fixing something inside.”

I duck my head and hide my smile. I see where Jane gets her snark and quick wit.

Jane sighs in capitulation, and her mom moves across the living room, stalking toward us like we’re prey. She shoves the grocery bag at Jane and sticks her hand out to me. “Hi, Kyle. It’s nice to officially meet you. I’m Meredith Cresson.”

In addition to her sass, Jane clearly got her looks from her mom. Meredith has the same golden hair and meadow-green eyes, and she is strikingly beautiful like her daughter. I take her hand and shake it. “Nice to meet you.”

She gives me a squeeze and a wink. “I’m so glad to see Jane getting back into the dating world.”

“Mom,” Jane says on almost a whine as she shifts the grocery bag in her hand. “Kyle and I aren’t—”

“She’s been living like a monk, I tell you,” Meredith says with relish, and I can tell she’s taking some pleasure out of embarrassing her daughter.

Jane tries in vain to set her mom straight. “We’re not—”

Meredith ignores her and tugs on my hand, leading me toward the kitchen. “Kyle… she needs to get out more. Experience new things. All she does is teach her kids and paint, not that that’s bad, you know, but she needs more, right?”

“Mom,” Jane says in exasperation as she follows us. “Please don’t—”

“Now, Kyle,” Meredith says as she pushes me toward the chair I’d vacated not five minutes ago. “I want you to tell me all about yourself.”

I do the mannerly thing and sit down, actually enjoying Jane’s discomfort a little bit. She’s always so annoyingly confident about everything that it’s actually funny to watch her be a bit discombobulated. I want to make her that way, and I have a very good idea on how with my mouth, but that’s clearly not going to happen right now.

Meredith sits down in the chair next to me and waves a hand over her shoulder at her daughter. “Honey… there’s an apple pie in there I made. Why don’t you cut us some slices and make some coffee?”

“Mom,” Jane says with even more frustration. “This isn’t a good time.”

Meredith ignores her daughter and looks at me with avid interest. “So how long have you two been dating?”

“Mom,” Jane snaps, and her mom gives a little jump as she turns to look at her daughter. “We are not dating.”

“You’re not dating,” her mom repeats disbelievingly, and my chest tightens when I see the brightness of Jane’s eyes flatten just a bit.

“What she means is we’re not dating seriously,” I say much to my surprise, but then figure—what the fuck—I’m going with it. “And by that, what she means is that it’s pretty new, but it’s exclusive.”

Meredith turns back to look at me and levels a dazzling smile of relief. I can see this is a woman who loves her daughter very much.

I return her smile confidently, but then my gaze slides past her to Jane. She looks back at me with narrowed eyes, probably wondering what in the hell I’m doing by stringing her mom along like that. But fuck… what was I supposed to do? Tell her mom we were just temporary fuck mates?

Because no… that is not what Jane is to me.

I mean yes… there will be fucking and lots of it, I hope, but that is not all there is. In fact, there’s so much more.

But I said it right. We’re dating. It’s not serious. It made her mom happy and wasn’t an outright lie. This is a small town and we are probably going to be seen around, as I intend to take Jane out to dinner, perhaps for beers at The Lobster Cage, and maybe even back to Bar Harbor for some more sightseeing.

Those are all things we’ll be doing over the next few months, and I find myself looking forward to every bit of it. And when I leave, I’m sure Jane will figure out something plausible to tell her mother, but in the meantime… I don’t see why everyone can’t just be happy about the way things are right in the present.