Page 37 of Must Be Love - Irresistible Bachelors

Before I answer, I try to remember the last time we spoke. I don’t think I’ve answered her call since she told me about her neighbor or friend or whatever.

I sigh and answer the phone.

“Hi, Mom,” I say.

“Aaron! My darling boy. Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”

I roll my eyes. She calls me multiple times a day, on top of her usual Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at eight p.m. calls. I admit, I’ve been avoiding her. It’s exhausting, talking to her all the time.

“I’ve been busy, Mom. I’m working on a new product for Blake Cosmeceuticals.”

Mom clicks her tongue. “You work too hard. You know that will give you wrinkles. Just look at me.”

“I don’t mind wrinkles. And I told you I’d give you a serum to help with that.”

“I don’t need a serum, AJ. Wrinkles are a sign of life.”

Of course, she goes back on what she was just saying about wrinkles being bad. That is what my mother does. She shifts her argument to fit whatever point she wants to make, even if it’s the opposite of the point she made earlier.

“You should make time for your mother, though. After everything I did for you…”

I appreciate the sacrifices my mom made after my dad died. She did a lot to make sure Adam and I lived good lives. That doesn’t mean I need to talk to her three times a day, every day, though.

“I’m making time now,” I tell her. “Did you need something?”

Mom starts talking about the people she knows in Florida. I don’t get why she feels the need to call me all the time if she has so many friends. Well, I guess I do get it. She may have friends, but none of them are her family. She’s basically alone down there while Adam and I are up north. These phone calls are her way of keeping her family close.

But they make me feel like I’m still a kid. Even when I was in college, my mom was constantly checking in on me. She lived in New York, just a few blocks from Columbia where I was studying, but that didn’t matter. She would call to make sure I was eating and sleeping well. It was endearing…until it became overbearing.

That’s why I let my mom’s calls go to voicemail periodically. I always feel guilty when I do, but it’s self-preservation. The guilt is why I still answer at least once a week.

“You know, my neighbor Cynthia has a granddaughter about your age. And she’s single!”

“Mom, you’re not going to hook me up with your neighbor’s granddaughter.”

She scoffs. “Well, if you would do something about your love life, I wouldn’t have to! Do you have a girlfriend yet?”

Amber pops into my mind, but I file that away before I can get myself into trouble. We haven’t even gone on our date yet. I texted her about the date, but we both have busy schedules. It’s already been four days since I last saw her, and I have to wait two more until our date.

“I don’t, Mom. And I don’t need one.”

Mom sniffs. Nina Blake will not stand for her son being single. The highlight of her life was when Adam got married. She was disappointed that her youngest son got married first, but a wedding is a wedding. Now, my mother is dying to plan another.

“What about Marnie?” she asks.

I blow out a breath. My mother should know better than to mention that woman to me. I haven’t thought about Marnie in a long time.

For a while, it seemed like I was going to be the one to get married before Adam. I was fresh out of medical school when I met Marnie, and we hit it off. She was a nurse at the hospital where I was doing my residency, and I’d thought we were in love. So much so that I proposed to Marnie after we’d been together for only a year.

We decided to have a long engagement. We were young, and she was going back to school to get her MD. It made sense to wait.

A year into our engagement, I found out she had ulterior motives for wanting to wait. I caught her screwing one of the ER doctors in the on-call room one night.

Needless to say, I broke off our engagement immediately. I didn’t even ask for the ring back. I told Marnie she had twenty-four hours to clear out of the apartment we shared, and that was it. I haven’t seen her since.

That was two years ago, and I haven’t been in a relationship since I broke it off with Marnie. I’m not very trusting of women after that whole experience. She and the doctor had been together in secret since before she and I started dating. I was just a cover for her because he was married.

---