Page 42 of Want Me
“You remember Eric, Ma?”
“Of course,” she said warmly, drawing him in for a hug that seemed to catch him off guard.
“His mom and stepdad are still overseas.”
“Well, we’re glad to have you. Just call me Lana.”
“Like Lana Turner.” Eric smiled as she let go of him.
She laughed and smoothed over her hair. “Oh, a charmer. You just go ahead and keep that right up.”
The house was fragrant with her cooking, and as we dropped our bags in the foyer and wandered into the kitchen after her, I asked, “How many are coming tomorrow?” Because it was never just us.
“The Finleys. That’s it, I think. Y’all want snacks? Your father stole the cold-cuts tray I was making for tomorrow. It’s with him in the living room.”
I glanced at Eric, and he shook his head. “We’re good.”
We went to say hello to my dad next. He was parked in his recliner watching sports highlights, which was pretty much where I expected him to be during most of this vacation.
“Good trip?” He glanced up with a smile, then straightened in the recliner and held out his hand as he spotted Eric.
“Yeah. You remember Eric, right?”
He nodded as Eric took his hand and shook. “Sure do. Homecoming weekend last year. Glad you’ve decided to join us.”
“Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.” Eric darted a glance at me, then moved on to the TV screen as my dad tilted his head toward it. “Derek Striker’s just fucking whiffing it to hell this year.” And then Dad was off, launching into football stats as Mom called from the kitchen, “Language, honey—you’re too old to try to fit in with the college kids now.”
* * *
Eric roamed my bedroom,touching the odds and ends on my shelves, the little wooden truck I’d made in shop in sixth grade, the old paperbacks from high school reading lists, the photographs stuck here and there, some in picture frames, some just lying around. Mom had rushed to make up the bed in the guest room next door, trying to be surreptitious about it, and now she was back in the kitchen. My dad’s mutterings at the television rose from the living room and filtered through my open door.
“You’re looking at my stuff like you’re wandering around in a museum or something.”
“The Museum of Nate. Very masculine.” Eric quirked a smile as he touched the tip of a bat on a baseball trophy. “My room at my mom’s and Bill’s place is the spare room now. Nothing like this; we moved so much I never really accumulated anything. Or what I did keep usually got lost in a move at some point. This is cool.” He leaned in, peering at another trophy. “Good Citizen Award, hmmm.” He narrowed his eyes at me skeptically.
“Soccer wasn’t my sport, obviously.”
He chuckled and picked up a picture of my mom, dad, and me on graduation day. “Your family is so…normal.”
I snorted. “You expected us to be like something out ofTexas Chainsaw Massacre?”
“Nah. I don’t know.” He seemed to consider for a moment. “Reminds me of when I was a kid and learned the term American Dream. I didn’t understand the concept at first. This place is like…” His gaze jumped from my bookshelves to my desk. “Standing in the middle of a snow globe depiction of it.”
I followed his gaze to a couple of the posters on my wall, one of a girl in a bikini, the other an MC Escher print. “It gets shaken up every now and again.”
“I guess,” Eric said, sounding unconvinced. He poked through my closet for a few minutes, then wandered over to my nightstand, bending to look at a photo of me and some of my high school buddies.
I pointed a couple of them out. “That’s Paul and Jensen. You’ll probably meet them when we go out tonight. They’re cool, though.”
Eric murmured something and yanked open my nightstand drawer.
“Go ahead, rummage through my shit.” He glanced at me over his shoulder and grinned, raising his brows as he pulled out a bottle of lotion wordlessly. “Standard issue for every dude, right?” I chuckled as he opened the cap and sniffed it.
“Smells like baby powder.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, think I yanked it from my mom in desperation last time I was home.”
“Desperation, huh?”