The Other Guys

Chapter 9

When I go back home, I find Erin in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the carpetered floor, reading a book and enjoying a glass of red wine, even if it’s still light outside.

Her pin-straight, ebony black hair is up in a messy ponytail and she’s wearing black yoga pants and a tight-fitting tee that looks more flattering on her than it ever will on me.

People always assume I’m joking when I tell them that Erin’s my mom. Although I don’t remember ever calling her anything else but Erin throughout my life. Mom’s a foul language in our house, like fuck and shit are in others.

Erin Powell, cool mom, extraordinaire.

To her credit, Erin doesn’t look a day over 25; 28 if she’s been pulling one too many all-nighters. But despite the fact that she had me when she was still pretty much a kid herself, when I see Erin, it’s like I’m looking in the mirror and I have my reflection staring back at me. I have her round blue eyes, thick black hair, and tan skin, but that’s basically where our similarities end.

I don’t say anything, but merely drop my backpack on the ground before I lie down next to her and heave out a huge sigh. Erin dog-ears the page she’s reading and I rest my head in her lap before she buries her long fingers in my hair.

“Rough day?” Erin asks, still running her fingers through my tangled curls and I mutely nod my head.

“Turns out,” I mumble, my voice coming out muffled because I don’t bother to raise my head, “Noah might be in love with me or something.”

“Oh, so you found out at last,” Erin remarks and before I know it, I’m sitting up and gaping at her.

“At last?” I repeat, having trouble wrapping my head around it. “You knew about it, too?” I gasp, not believing that I’m the last one to find out.

“How come am I the last to know?” I put my hands up in the air dramatically, rolling my eyes before resting my chin atop knees.

“Don’t take it the wrong way, honey,” Erin starts, gazing at me apologetically, but there’s a twinkle in her eyes that tells me she’s not as apologetic as she wants me to think, “but you tend to be a little self-absorbed sometimes.”

“So what?” I bellow, slapping my hands on my thighs. “Everybody knows my best friend’s in love with me but me?”

“Not everybody, exactly,” Erin replies, sipping her wine and taking a moment to deliberate, “but it doesn’t come as a surprise.”

“How did you know?” I ask curiously, wondering why my own mother would keep that big a secret from me, especially after knowing that I was clueless and blissfully oblivious to it all. I tell her everything; she knows that I don’t know.

“Well, for one, it’s obvious by the way he looks at you,” Erin explains calmly, making me frown at her in befuddlement. Upon noticing my blank expression, Erin hastens to clarify herself, probably finally realizing her daughter’s a moron and can’t read between the lines. “It’s just the look in his eyes, Syd. You can’t mistake it for anything else,” she assures me, but I’m still skeptical about that whole theory.

“You obviously can because I most certainly did. There’s nothing unusual about the way he looks at me, Erin,” I tell her, thinking that there’s some sort of conspiracy against me because my closest ones have been keeping secrets from me all this time and they don’t even feel the least bit guilty about it, the traitors. Why didn’t anyone bother to mention something to me?

“If you say so,” Erin agrees with me, shrugging and taking another gulp from her wine, but I can see her trying to hide a knowing smile.

“I hate it when you do that,” I say sullenly, “agree with me and yet make it blindingly clear to me that I’m wrong and you’re right.”