I want You Deeper

“Whatever do you mean?” Donna asked Caroline. Donna immediately sat down and picked up her fork, holding it in place as she stared down the woman with a semi-polite smile.

“I spent some time with Justin and Brooke yesterday.” Caroline spoke directly to Donna, then scanned the group as she said the rest. “Justin is Nicholas’s best friend and Charlie’s boss, as you all know. Justin slipped up and revealed that Charlie and Nicholas just met. They aren’t even engaged.” “Oh.” Donna looked at her son. “Is that the case?”

He could lie. He could tell his mother that it wasn’t the case-that Caroline must have misunderstood. But something snapped in him as he viewed his mother’s indignant expression. That something tied directly back

to the conversation he’d had with his brother just before the wedding-the one where he’d learned that his mother threw each brother’s accomplishments in the other one’s face to make them compete with each other.

It was horrible, despicable behavior.

“That is the case,” he said. “You kept pushing various women on me, including Caroline here. No offense, Caroline, but I know my type. I can choose my own dates. I just want to be left alone to live my life the way I think is best.”

In the long silence that followed Nicholas’s announcement, he worried he’d been too harsh. He didn’t want to hurt his mother. He just wanted his message to get across. But nobody seemed to be able to make eye contact with either Nicholas or his mother, and Donna was staring off to the side and taking deep breaths, probably to calm herself down.

“It’s my fault.” Charlie’s voice, as Nicholas’s had earlier, cut into the silence abruptly. Attention turned to her as she took a deep breath. That breath was to gather courage, though, he was pretty sure-not at all like Donna’s.

“Your fault?” Donna asked.

“I needed someone to go to my high school reunion with me. We agreed to a swap. If he hadn’t played my fiance at my reunion, he wouldn’t owe me the favor and I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“And you’d be seated next to Caroline right now,” the Betsy-BitsyMitzi woman said with a big smile on her face.

Nicholas had to speak up. “First of all, no. I proposed the entire thing after I heard she needed a date for a reunion. And even if Charlie hadn’t agreed, I’d be sitting right here this morning. Yes, Mom’s matchmaking worked with Nate’s wife. You know why? Because they both immediately bonded over the fact that they did not want to be fixed up. There’s a reason for that.”

“People do not like fix-ups.”

This, surprisingly, came from Caroline, who seemed to be off her bustthe-happy-couple mission and was now on Nicholas’s side? He didn’t know. What he did know was that the server returned with his coffee, and he’d never been so happy to see a beverage in his life.

“I had no idea,” Caroline said to Nicholas, who was enjoying his first sip. “Nobody cleared this matchmaking attempt with me. I don’t appreciate that.”

At that, she turned a glare on Donna, who looked properly chastised. She stared down at her plate, her fork still poised above it. He felt immediate guilt, despite the fact that this conversation was long overdue. It just was a conversation he’d hoped to have with her privately.

“It wasn’t as though I planned this well in advance,” Donna said. “I just thought-”Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

“Thought what, Mom?” Nicholas took a deep breath, telling himself this was not the time to lose his temper. “You thought maybe you knew the woman I need to spend the rest of my life with better than I did? And what about Nate? Do you feel that you matched him with someone who will provide the prettiest babies? Or just the person who looks best on the society pages of the newspaper?”

Yes, he was on a roll now. Maybe it was the jolt of caffeine pumping through his veins, but it felt as though he was suddenly free to unleash all the pent-up anger and frustration he had.

“Well,” Donna said on a sigh. “Maybe this is a conversation we should table for another day. Today’s brunch is supposed to be a celebration of family and togetherness.”

Nicholas looked around. “Family? The only family at this table is you and me. These are your friends from the tennis club and church and your neighborhood. Aside from the wedding party, which is mostly made up of daughters and sons of your friends, there’s no family here at all. That’s my point.”

Nicholas took another sip of coffee. Maybe he hadn’t clearly stated his point. He had a lot to say today, and he really didn’t want to say it in front of all of these people.

“I only wanted what was best for you and Nate.” Donna’s voice broke a little as her eyes filled with tears. “After your father left, I did the best I could to raise the two of you. It wasn’t easy.”

“And you did a great job, Mom. But we’re grown now. There’s no need to meddle in our lives or tell Nate all the things I’m doing right that he’s not. And vice versa. Yes, we compared notes. Putting us in competition with each other accomplishes nothing.”

Silence. His mother’s tears were starting to flow freely now, and he realized what a jerk he was coming across to all her friends. He was basically bullying his crying mother at a table full of people. Not a good look.

“Well, I think I’ve done enough damage here. Mom, we’ll get together and discuss things. I’m sorry for any distress I’ve caused. I’ll be going.”

He only realized once he was halfway to his room that he didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Charlie.