Bedside Monster (House Beasts #1)

Mother's Call

He was at work when he got the call from his mother.

He didn't have many people that called him during the day - mostly because a lot, if not all, of his friends worked as well. That's why he generally didn't think of turning off his phone.

Big mistake. It rang in the middle of the office during work time. It startled Oliver, that practically jumped on his bag to retrieve it. When he rose his head with his finger on the answer icon of its screen, he saw that all of his colleagues were glaring at him. This made him blush and mutter some excuse before he scurried out of the office.

"Mom, I told you not to call during work hours," he said.

"Aw, you're still at work?" She asked. He could almost see her as she always was during calls with people, sitting on the couch with her legs propped up on a stool. She was probably scratching Teddy Pompom behind the ears too - Teddy Pompom being one of her Pomeranians. "I missed you."

Hs rising anger melted instantly. It had been a while since he had last seen her. "I missed you too. Is there something you wanted to tell me?" As he asked her, he passed in front of his manager's office. He was a diligent worker and he had almost finished his workload for the day too - unless something unexpected came up. It was fine if he took a five-minute break.

"Oh, no, I just wanted to hear the lovely voice of my Oli-poo. I was thinking about you today, you know."

"Oh?"

Oliver quickly walked in front of the glass windows between the hallways and another office area. He didn't want Remy to-- A rats, Remy had seen him and was waving at him. Oliver pointed to his phone, making sure that the other man saw that he was busy before he could walk over and try to start a conversation. Oliver had no idea why the man was so hellbent on becoming his friend. He knew that Remy had a wife too, so he was quite sure that it couldn't be romantic. It was a mystery.

"Why were you thinking of me?" asked Oliver once the threat was passed.

"Oh, well the other day I saw Paulette. Do you remember Paulette? She had family over - her daughter and granddaughter. The girl's twenty-one years old, but she's so mature for her age, Paulette assured me that she was, and so I thought that it would be marvelous to invite them to dinner..."

Oliver knew where this was going before she was finished. "You want me to come over and meet them?"

"Only if you want to."

Oliver repressed a sigh as he finally arrived outside. He worked in an industrial area and people from different offices had gathered around the ashtray for a smoke. He made sure that he was far enough from them that his conversation would remain private.

"And when will that dinner be?"

"Oh, well we didn't exactly agree on a date, you see, just to make sure that you could organize yourself around joining us, but it would be this week if it happened at all."

Rats. He was going to have to be honest, he couldn't get around this by pretending that he had something planned exactly on that evening. He hated deceiving his mother when he could help it.

"Mom, I don't think that it's a good idea."

"Why that?" she asked. "I think that it's a great idea. Paulette hasn't seen you in such a long time, she was looking forward to having you over, and her granddaughter is such a sweet girl too. How can you not give her a chance?"

"Because... well, for one, she's twenty years old."

"That is not a problem! Oh, Oli-poo, I know you might think that she's young but I'm sure you will get along. After all, girls mature faster compared to boys - even if I must say that it must be hard for you, after all, you haven't spent a lot of time with them so you can't realize that. I was twenty-two when I met your father, you know, and we got along splendidly."