Page 104 of Not So Goode

She knew what I meant. “He’s something else, isn’t he?” she whispered. “Cassie has started calling him Papa Bear.”

I stared at her. “The hell you say.”

She laughed, and didn’t even correct my swear word. “She does. Really.”

I noticed they were both dressed up a little—Mom in a tight little black dress, wedge heels, her hair longer than it had been for most of my life, loose and little messy, him in nice jeans, plain shirt, and black boots.

“Did I interrupt you guys going out?” I asked.

She and Lucas locked eyes, and I caught something pass between them. “We were just on our way back from a date,” she said. “You didn’t interrupt anything.”

“Few minutes later and you may have,” Lucas muttered, under his breath, but I heard it.

So did Mom. “LUCAS!”

He ducked his head. “Sorry.” But his shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter.

I couldn’t help a snicker. “Eew. But…I’m glad for you, Mom.”

She sank onto the stool next to me. “You are? It took Cassie a little bit to warm up to the idea of me in a relationship. I’m most worried about Torie and Poppy handling it.”

“I’m happy for you. I really am. I was old enough that I saw how unhappy you were, there at the end before Dad passed. I’m glad you found someone who seems to make you happy.”

She hugged me. “He does make me happy, Charlie. So happy.”

“Did I really interrupt you guys, um…being alone together?”

My mother actually blushed. “Well, yes. But it’s not like we’ll never get any other time alone.” A pause. A deeper blush. “Or like we don’t find…um…plenty of, um…time.”

“Quit talking saucy, you little minx, or I’ll really embarrass you,” Lucas grumbled.

I rested my head on my hands on the counter. “Sorry I asked. But, um, good for you two.”

My mom. Getting it on, alot.

I could tell, just by the way she was glowing, by the way she looked at him. By the blush. She was covering a whole host of things I probably didn’t want to know about with those ellipses in her speech.

A moment later, Lucas slid a plate in front of me—a huge egg white omelet, filled with melted cream cheese and sautéed spinach, and several slices of crispy bacon.

“Damn, Lucas. You delivered on the breakfast food.”

He grinned, munching on a piece of bacon. “At your service, m’lady.”

I ate, and ignored the meaningful googly eyes Mom and Lucas were making at each other. It was so sweet it was saccharine, yet I couldn’t mistake the undercurrent of heat sizzling between them.

Weird.

Very, very weird.

Seeing your mom in love, making sexy eyes at a man you’ve never met before is just…weird.

But she was radiating happiness, looked healthier than ever—as if she’d even put a little weight on, some extra softness to her build, which was good in her case as she’d always been so hyperactive, and after Dad’s unexpected death she became so obsessed with health and fitness that I worried she’d get too skinny.

So I was happy for her.

Even though it made me miss Crow all the more.

I ate, wolfing down the food in record time.