Page 22 of Just This Once

There’s something weird about opening the front door of your childhood home as an adult. Like coming home and yet…not. Even weirder to open the door as an adultlivingback at home. Because it’s not really. Not anymore. I mean, it always will be, with the scent of my mother’s lasagna and the familiar strains of “She’s Got a Way” filtering out from the kitchen, but I don’t feel like I belong anymore. Even as Mom pokes her head out into the hall, smiling like she hasn’t seen me in years when she kissed me goodbye on the cheek this morning, reminding me not to forget my lunch like I’m in sixth grade.

“Hey, Ma.”

“Right on time.” She wipes her hands on a towel before gesturing me to the kitchen. I drop my gym bag in the corner and let myself be tugged into a chair opposite Dad.

He’s glued to his phone and barely acknowledges me with a “Good day?”

I scoot my chair closer to the table. “Yeah. Making good progress on the B&B project.”

He nods and then quiets, attention on his screen as he picks up his fork to cut into the lasagna.

Mom brings me a plate, along with a bowl of salad. She knows I hate when my food touches. And, yeah, I’m absolutely spoiled. The whole having home-cooked meals and my laundry done is great. That part about her being all up in my business again is not so much.

“So, how was the gym?” she asks, taking a seat next to me with her own serving.

“Fine.”

“You’ve been going there a lot lately.”

I shrug, stabbing a forkful of tomato and lettuce. “Every day. No more than usual.”

“Yeah, but you’re going for a long time, huh?”

I lift my eyes, considering her observation. I haven’t purposely been extending my workouts, but I guess I have. Needing to expend some of this restless energy and keep myself busy so I’m not here.

“Staying in shape for Kim?” she guesses, and I huff a sarcastic laugh.

“No.”

“No?” She frowns. She loved my ex-girlfriend. “You don’t think you’ll get back together?“

Dad actually sets his phone down for this, listening. I’m the only one of his sons left who hasn’t paired off. Clearly, that means I’m deficient. Then again, he’s always seen me that way.

“I doubt it,” I say, aiming the words at my plate. Not because I’m embarrassed, but because I don’t really want to talk about it.

“Why not?” Dad asks, and I cut into my lasagna.

“Because she made it clear she doesn’t want to be with me, and I’m not going to wait around for someone who doesn’t want me.”

He makes a dubious sound that’s more disappointed than encouraging. As if he thinks I should wait for her. As if he thinks I can’t do any better.

Mom wraps her hand around my arm. “But you loved her, didn’t you?”

I’m not so sure about that. I thought I did, but I haven’t been crying into my Cheerios about it. In truth, I haven’t thought about her much at all besides how much of a pain in the ass it’s been to disrupt my life.

“She said she wasn’t ready to settle down, and I am. That’s it.”

Dad heaves a sigh with a shake of his head. “She wasn’t ready to settle down, or she wasn’t ready to settle down withyou?”

“Robert,” my mom chides, but he ignores her.

“How the hell do you plan on settling down with someone when you’re living at home with your parents? What? Are you gonna move them in here with us? C’mon.”

I feel my face heat up and I grip my fork tighter, but before I can say anything, my mother smacks her hand on the table, telling my dad, “Knock it off.”

He doesn’t. He only flashes his irritation at her instead. “You coddle him too much.”

“This is our son,” she hisses, and I’d rather have my pubes plucked out one by one than sit here and listen to them talk about me like I’m not in the room. I’m thirty fucking years old, and still, they make me feel like I’m three.

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