What Happens at Con Page 9

  “Is it much farther?” she asked.

  “Nah, it’s just right up here,” Abraham said. To her shock he sounded nervous.

  “So, is it one of those big farms? Like, with cows?”

  “No, nothing like that. My mom’s got some geese, some ducks, chickens, and a demonic goat. Not a big deal.”

  She blinked. Geese, ducks, chickens, and a goat? “What makes a goat demonic?”

  “Ever seen their pupils? They’re like cats’ eyes. Just unsettling.” He shuddered dramatically, and she couldn’t help herself, she laughed. “Also, he tried to take a bite right out of my ass once.”

  Can you blame him? It’s a hell of an ass.

  She kept her mouth shut on that one. God knows, she wouldn’t mind taking a bite out of that ass. But now was not the time to think about that. She did not need a booty call when she was having an academic crisis.

  Well… maybe she could use a booty call arrangement. In general. But she did not need one with a sexist asshat who was gorgeous as a ginger Norse god.

  She frowned. Well… he hadn’t been as sexist as she’d imagined he would be. He still had a lot of gender norms she found frustrating, and he was still persistent. But he also respected boundaries. And he seemed to be giving.

  Of course, he could be gaslighting her. She sighed. It was confusing.

  The plus side of having Abraham as a potential booty call was that she doubted she could develop feelings for the man. The cons: she would still be in a relationship, of sorts, with him.

  Of course, it’s not really a relationship. It’s not like booty calls were, by their nature, public. It wasn’t even friends with benefits — they weren’t friends.

  Then why is he taking you to his parents to get his Dad to help you?

  Because he wanted in her pants, she reasoned. Also, fixing mechanical things was more “manly” than, say, washing dishes. But a little part of her wobbled.

  “What are you thinking about so hard?”

  She jumped, startled. Abraham was glancing at her curiously every now and then, otherwise keeping his eyes focused on the road.

  “Nothing!” she yelped, then immediately realized she sounded guilty. “Nothing,” she repeated in a more modulated tone. “I was just thinking — the closest I’ve ever been to a goat was on a plate, I think. I wasn’t happy about it then, either.”

  He laughed. “I’ve thought about roasting Chester a bunch of times since that ass bite, believe me. Even threatened him with it. It’s like he knows he’s untouchable — my mom loves animals, so Chester’s gonna die of old age.” He paused. “Is your mom like that?”

  “What, animal lover?” She frowned. “Not really. I mean, I think she likes animals as much as the next woman, but it’s not like we had pets or anything.”

  “Why not?” he asked, sounding shocked. She imagined him, a young, red-haired boy, sleeping with some big dog.

  “We were too busy for pets,” she said. “Dad’s an orthopedic surgeon, Mom’s a trial lawyer. I was in a lot of after-school activities — piano, tae kwon do, and National Honor Society in high school. California Scholarship Federation, too.”

  “So, you never had a pet?”

  “I think maybe a goldfish?” She bit her lip. “I won it in a fair or something, I think, when I was little. I also think it died — those are usually feeder fish, and they’re not very healthy.” Or so her straightforward parents had told her. She had been, what, seven?

  “How about the rest of your family?” he asked. “Did you have a lot of cousins? Lot of aunts and uncles? I’ve got five sisters, no brothers, so it’s like they’re always swarming around with their kids.”

  She laughed. “Nope. No brothers or sisters. And… well, my family is mostly still in India, so we don’t talk to them much.”

  Which was as blatant a lie as any she’d ever told. In a world of Skype and FaceTime and phone calls, for pity’s sake, there was no reason that her family would be kept apart from each other… except for the fact that her father was Muslim, her mother was Hindu, and their respective families had never really gotten over that. Her family, such as it was, was more Western — a busy little nuclear family of three.

  She tried to imagine what it was like to have a bigger, bustling family, like the other desi kids she knew who had aunts and uncles nearby, who went back to India for a month at a time on holiday, who had weddings and parties that seemed to be like Bollywood extravaganzas to a girl who mostly blended in with the white kids at her Irvine junior high and high school. Fortunately, now she didn’t really have time to wonder, but it would’ve been nice to have the extra support, sometimes — emotional, if nothing else.

  “Here we are,” he said, then paused a beat. “Ah, shit.”

  “What?” Her heart clenched a little. “Is he not home?”

  “Oh, he’s home, all right,” Abraham growled as he drove down the long gravel driveway. “But apparently at least four — no, all five — of my sisters are here. It’s gonna be a family dinner.”

  Chapter 6

  Abraham walked into the kitchen, where his sisters and his mother had converged. His mother’s eyes were twinkling with mischief.

  “Did you call all of them after I asked to see if Dad was going to be around tonight?” Abraham said, keeping the anger out of his tone, although irritation still bled through.

  “Yes, I did.” His mother didn’t sound repentant in the slightest. Probably because she wasn’t. “You never bring girls home. I figured we’d just get the ‘meet the family’ done early.”

  “Technically, I didn’t bring a girl home today, either,” he said, ignoring her responding eye roll. “I mean, yes, she’s a girl, and, yes, I brought her over here, but that isn’t ‘bringing a girl home’ with all the baggage and stuff.”

  His brothers-in-law were riding herd on the kids, playing with hoses and squirt guns out on the wide lawn, or watching the Mariners game in the house. His sisters had brought over mountains of food, from the looks of what was accumulated in the kitchen: potato salad, sandwiches, chips and salsa, corn on the cob. It looked like his father would probably burn a few burgers. He’d nudge Ani toward the sandwiches, he thought without remorse. His father burned everything.

  His mother wouldn’t be deterred. “You said that you wanted your father to help her. You haven’t talked about a woman since Becky, and that was in high school.”

  “Yeah, and Becky wasn’t a good example.” He and Becky had been inseparable in high school. They had been Bonnie and Clyde, Sid and Nancy. In other words, they’d been massively unhealthy and codependent. He’d spent most of his high school years taking care of her, putting up with her tantrums, and dealing with her jealousy until they’d finally both gotten sick of each other, living together for the summer after they graduated. He’d signed up for the army. She’d gotten married. She was now on husband number two and child number three, from what his mother had told him — because of course she knew all the details. From the sounds of it, Becky was also still addicted to drama, possibly working on husband number three.

  A little part of him still loved Becky, and girls like her — confused girls, ones that needed care, ones that wanted to drown in attention. But he wasn’t eager to play white knight to that kind of emotional roller coaster anymore. And Ani, well, Ani hardly seemed the type who wanted to stir up trouble simply to see if he cared. If anything, she ran from trouble. And any emotion on his part, really. He frowned at the thought.

  “What’s this Ani like?” his sister Mona asked. “She’s off with Dad in his workshop, so don’t worry about her overhearing.”

  “She’s pretty,” his sister Darla said. “And so tall!”

  “And really smart, right?” Mona added.

  He frowned. What was he supposed to say? “She’s… different.”

  “Different how?” Mona asked.

  “She’s really independent,” he said. “And I guess she doesn’t really need me for anything.” At least, she didn’t need h
im to “fix” things, she didn’t need him for company, didn’t need him for emotional support. While she might want him, she didn’t seem to need him for sex, a fact that still rankled.

  “That’s got to be weird for you,” Bette said. “She doesn’t sound like Becky at all.”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” his sister Maggie added, burping his latest nephew. “Becky was high drama and high maintenance and high everything else, I swear.”

  “So why did you bring this girl here?” His big sister, Rebecca, tended to be more no-nonsense. She was often his favorite.

  “Because she’s working on her doctorate and her adviser’s a dick who’s letting her take the fall for some broken equipment. He’s got it in for her.” He gritted his teeth just thinking about it. “I knew Dad could fix it, and I figured he wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t going out playing darts with the guys tonight, or going out to the tavern to watch the ball game.”

  “You know your father doesn’t mind at all,” his mother said quickly, but her expression was shrewd. “How did you meet this girl?”

  “She’s the best friend of one of my coders.”

  “Oh — that girl, the one on the team?”

  The one on the team. One. Just the one. That’s how they remembered Tessa. Because you’ve only got one on the team.

  Maybe Ani had a point. He frowned, then brought himself back to the conversation. “Um, yeah. Tessa.”

  “The one who made you dress up like a girl last year?” Mona giggled.

  “I lost a bet,” he reminded her. “But yeah, that one.”

  “How did you start seeing each other?” His mother pressed.

  “We’re not seeing each other, Mom.” He shook his head. “We’re just… friends.”

  “Right. And I’m the starting pitcher in the next Mariners game,” his mother said with a wry grin. “Fine. Then how did you get in the position to volunteer to help her with this little fix-it project then?”

  “I’d brought dinner by…” He winced as he realized his tactical mistake. His mother pounced.

  “You brought a girl dinner?”

  “Let’s make this clear: this ‘girl’ is a doctorate student,” he said. “She works these crazy hours — like me when I’m on deadline. She doesn’t have a chance to go out and grab a bite to eat. Tessa — my coder — was going to bring dinner to her, but I volunteered so Tessa could work. That’s it.”

  At least, that was it the first time. Sort of. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them how he and Ani had gotten together at Erotic City Con. He grimaced.

  “Besides,” he said, trying to nip this in the bud, “she already told me point-blank she’s not interested in a relationship. She said she needs a wife, not a boyfriend.”

  That got them shut up… for all of a second.

  “She’s gay?” his mother asked, her voice lowered.

  He thought about letting that stand, but he’d been ingrained for too long never to lie to his mother if he could help it — man, she’d trained her kids well. “She’s not gay,” he admitted. “She just doesn’t want the hassle of a boyfriend. Said what she really needs is someone to support her. Somebody to help do the dishes and bring her food and listen when she needs it, that kind of thing. Then she said she basically needed a wife.”

  “She’s not wrong,” Rebecca said with a low laugh.

  “Who wouldn’t want a wife, right?” Bette said.

  Mona shook her head. “I’ll tell you one thing, if Craig did the dishes more, he’d be getting it a lot more, you know?”

  “Mona!” his mother chastised.

  “What? The kids are outside. Don’t be such a prude, Mom,” Mona said with a cheeky grin. “If guys did more housework, women would be less tired… and maybe more, you know, happy to see their husbands.”

  “Or boyfriends,” Rebecca said pointedly to Abraham.

  Abraham felt the gears in his mind turning. Maybe it was that simple. Maybe she was just exhausted.

  He could help with that, he thought. He was a problem solver. And the thought of her, the way she was at Erotic City… He had to suppress a shiver.

  All at once, he realized — he was in his mother’s kitchen. Abashed, he looked up to see all of his sisters and his mother staring at him. Then they looked at each other, breaking out into broad smiles.

  “Friend, my ass,” Mona said, and cackled.

  He felt a blush heat his cheeks, adding insult to injury. His mother hugged him.

  “Why don’t you have her come on in, and we’ll have some dinner?” she said. “I want to find out more about this one.”

  Abraham tried not to let that sound as daunting as it did. But he was looking forward to this dinner like a root canal.

  Ani looked around at the bucolic farm, under the gorgeous colors of a Pacific Northwest sunset, and wondered how something so beautiful could be hell.

  Abraham’s mother had taken her arm — literally linked arms with her — and introduced her to a wide variety of people. She’d had no idea Abraham’s family was so large. It was a bit like going to a wedding… much smaller, obviously, but just as overwhelming in scope, especially with the flock of children running around. There was no way she was going to be able to remember all those names.

  His sister Darla finally pulled her to one side. “Are you okay? Sorry. Mom was so excited to meet you, she didn’t think about what it might be like to experience us all at one time.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Ani said quickly. “I just… there’s no need for her to be excited. I’m not an item with Abraham. We’re not dating or anything.”

  Now Darla’s eyebrow went up in the universal sign of oh, really? “Trust me. The looks he’s sending you are not just I’m helping her with a science project looks. They’re more like I’m looking forward to breaking in the bed looks.”

  Ani felt her cheeks flame. Oh, God, was it that obvious? And she was hearing this from his sister?

  There had to be a hole somewhere she could hide in, right?

  “Oh! Sorry!” Darla’s cheeks flushed, too. “Abe is constantly telling me I have no filter. I just meant that he doesn’t look like that normally, about someone he doesn’t have, you know, feelings for. And besides, there’s no way he’d just volunteer to bring someone to meet Dad, either. He does stuff like that for the guys he works with, or the people he’s loyal to… family, that kind of thing. I think the last person he did anything like that for was his girlfriend Becky, and that was years ago.”

  Ani blinked. “I don’t know about her.” But she found herself suddenly inexplicably interested. Tell-me-everything interested.

  Darla looked to see if anyone was listening, then dropped her voice. Ani found herself leaning forward. “He was with her for over two years, I think. And she was…” She sighed. “Well, I suppose you could say she was batshit crazy, but it wasn’t a mental illness thing. She just had this need to be rescued. Like, a pathological need to be rescued.”

  Ani frowned. “From what?”

  “At first, from her home life. A bad relationship. Then, once she was with Abraham and things stabilized, it was like she just looked for situations to create drama so she could be rescued again.” She sighed. “Got herself in all kinds of debt. Cheated on him with a drug addict. Bad stuff.”

  Ani goggled. Abraham, putting up with that kind of thing? She didn’t blame him for being antisocial. Hell, if she’d dealt with that, she’d probably become a social hermit. “What finally got them to break up?”

  “That’s the nuts part. She finally married the drug dealer,” Darla said, and Ani gasped. “She’d been practically living with Abe, and he came home and found that she’d taken all her stuff — and a bunch of his — and up and left. Got a postcard saying she was sorry. She’d gotten married in Vegas and they were moving to Costa Rica or some shit.”

  “No way,” Ani breathed. This was Lifetime movie crazy. “At least she never went after him with a knife, I guess.”

  “She did. Couple of t
imes.” She shook her head. “But she was tiny, and she didn’t really hurt him.”

  Ani quickly figured the woman did have some kind of mental illness, which was unfortunate. Still, Abraham had dealt with a lot.

  “So anyway, we haven’t seen him with anybody since that, so Mom just wants to make sure he’s happy — and you’re not, you know, like Becky.”

  “I can assure you, I’m not a victim of any sort,” Ani said firmly.

  “Dinner, everyone!” his mother sang out happily. “Come on, come on. I’ve already made up the kids’ plates. Ani, you’re our guest, so you go first.”

  Ani swallowed visibly. There was a lot of food set out, and the barbecue had obviously been going for some time. There were ribs, chicken, burgers, sausage.

  “The sausage is homemade,” Abraham’s father said proudly. “Venison. Keith went hunting this past winter.”

  Ani felt her stomach turn a little. Everyone was staring at her like she was in a spotlight.

  “I guess this is a bad time to tell you I’m a vegetarian.”

  They stared at her like she’d said she was a Martian. Well, except for his father, who looked at her like she was one of the infectious diseases she studied. Like maybe they should keep the children away from her, for fear of her condition being contagious.

  “But the sides look lovely,” she said quickly. “Is this potato salad? And the green salad…”

  “Has bacon bits in it,” Abraham’s mother said, her face apologetic. “But the rolls are fresh, and there’s fruit salad. And corn on the cob.”

  “Perfect.” Ani quickly loaded up her plate with those items and took a place at the picnic table. Abraham sat next to her, his plate laden with all kinds of charred meat.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “Jesus. Are you okay, being around all this meat?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine. It doesn’t mean you can’t eat meat. It just means I don’t.” She tucked in. “And these rolls are awesome.”