Mom’s BoyfriendChapter 2

However, she wasn’t having any of it. It was the second marriage of one of her old cheerleader friends from High School and the whole team would be there, for the first time since they’d graduated two dozen years ago; and they were a bunch of judgemental bitches who wouldn’t believe she was just going through a fallow patch since she’d broken with her last boyfriend. “You could go,” she had suddenly suggested.

“Sure,” he had replied, not sure how taking her son would solve the problem of being thought to be a singleton.

“As my boyfriend,” she added, “Everyone would die if I turned up with a toyboy.” Immediately he knew it was a bad idea and said no, except his Mom could be very persuasive, especially when she did her ‘poor little me’ routine and fluttered her eyelids like she was a blonde in distress.

So here he was, a whole weekend of pretending to be his Mom’s lover, it was made no better by the fact she seemed to be enjoying the whole deception, a fooling her old friends seemed to be immensely appealing. He couldn’t believe he had agreed, but now they were here he’d just have to go along with it and hope they could pull it off. His Mom was at the reception, booking them in and taking the key. He picked up the holdall and then took the handle of the suitcase, just the one — they were sharing a room, a double at that — his Mom pointing out everyone would be suspicious if they had separate rooms or even a twin. He had suggested he sleep on the couch, but she had said that was dumb and not good for his back, there was nothing wrong with them sharing a bed; they’d done it lots of time when he was younger, so what was the difference now? He didn’t tell her.

Once inside the room Ryan let out a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him; in the room, safe from prying eyes he could relax — it had been more stressful than he had imagined, though his Mom still seemed pretty laid back, as if it was something they did every weekend. She was unzipping the suitcase and getting out their clothes. “I talked to the girls earlier,” she said as she slipped one of his shirts onto a hangar and putting it in the wardrobe, “Katie…”[that was the bride] “…is eating with her family, so the rest of us are grabbing some food in the hotel bar about eight and she’ll join us for drinks about ten.”

He nodded, resigned to an evening when his Mom pretended to flirt with him and he pretended to enjoy it, and sometimes flirt back. Not that his Mom was unattractive, not having put on much weight from her cheerleader days, except perhaps around her bosoms — which were larger than average but not excessively so and whose hair remained blonde without needing any additional help. More than one of his friends had let their gaze linger a little too long when she’d knocked on his room door and come into to deposit his laundry on the side board. How she was so unlucky with guys was a mystery, but not one it was his job to solve.

“You want to shower first?” she asked.

“Shower?” he asked, as he hadn’t thought about it.

“Yes, we’ve been in the car for six hours, as much as I don’t mind your aroma, it’s probably for the best we don’t let my friends smell it, Claire isn’t the only cougar,” his Mom replied.

“Okay then,” normally he’d get changed in own room and walk down the landing to and from the shower. But that was when his Mom might see him for two seconds with a towel wrapped round his midriff, it was different when he’d come out and into the room she was in. He’d have to get changed in the bathroom, which meant that his shower could only be lukewarm if he didn’t want to leave his clothes sopping from the steam. He gave an inward sigh and reached into the wardrobe to take out a clean shirt.

“Don’t worry about using all the hot water,” his Mom said brightly.

It didn’t take him long to shower, shave and do his teeth and hair, before getting back into his jeans and the new shirt. Stepping outside into the room, he said, “Shower’s ready.” His Mom looked at the clock and nodded, putting her cosmetic bag on the dresser next to the double bed, before vanishing into the bathroom.

Sitting on one of the couches Ryan flicked through the TV channel on the remote. He was vaguely interested to see there was an ‘adult movie’, which he’d have been tempted to watch if a) it wasn’t pay per view and it’d come up on his Mom’s credit card and b) she wasn’t showering just a few feet away. Instead he settled on a repeat of vaguely funny sitcom; it wasn’t what he’d have chosen for the weekend, but, he supposed, he’d soon be leaving for college and so spending time with his Mom now would make up for lost time later.

The shower went silent. Surprisingly the door opened only half a minute later, as Ryan had expected his Mom to follow his example and get changed in the room (though now he noted it, she hadn’t taken in a change of clothes). Out came his Mom, clad only in towel wrapped round her upper body, down to her thighs, her long blonde hair dripping wet down her back. He blushed and tried not to look, though his Mom seemed impervious to his embarrassment, but instead took a seat nearby and plugged in the hairdryer, “You don’t mind, do you?” she said and without waiting for an answer switched it on, drowning out the TV.

It was definitely unfair; with the show on he could have concentrated on it and ignored his Mom, without it, she was the only thing in the room. He tried to look at the paintings on the wall, but they were only bland pictures of bowls of fruit or sunsets and the view out the window was only of the parking lot and beyond that the highway. As much as he tried to avoid it his eyes kept coming back to his Mom. If she hadn’t been his Mom he’d have said she was attractive, sexy even, especially as her towel kept slipping threatening to expose a bosom and she had to keep heaving it up as she first dried her hair and brushed it and then started on her make-up.