"Hello," Mina said when she answered the slim white cordless on the kitchen counter. The highly polished Italian marble counters her mother had taken forever to pick out glittered in the sun coming from the window above the sink.
"What's up?" Bryan said on the other end.
Mina felt her heart rate increase and took a deep breath before she answered him.
"I'm just hanging out. What are you doing?" Mina self-consciously smoothed down her hair and immediately felt silly. Bryan couldn't see her. She couldn't believe they'd been talking for two whole weeks and she still felt shy and excited whenever she heard his voice.
"Driving around," Bryan said quickly. "Trying to find something to get into."
"That shouldn't be too hard for you," Mina said quickly.
"It really shouldn't, but for some reason, it is today."
Mina laughed.
"So..." Bryan said after a long pause. "Can I come pick you up?"
"I don't know...my mom is here so I'd have to ask her before I went anywhere." Lame excuses, but Mina knew her mother would never approve of Bryan once she saw his baggy jeans and oversized t-shirt or jersey. She'd catch one whiff of the weed smoke that maintained on his person and boot his ass off her front porch so fast he'd pick splinters out of it for a week.
Mina almost dropped the phone when there was a knock at the front door. She heard her mother leave the living room and go down the hall to open it. She was just about to ask Bryan to call back when she heard his voice not only through the phone but wafting down the hallway.
"Oh shit," she muttered dropping the white cordless back into its cradle. She was caught in a moment of panic. She wanted to rush into the living room and get Bryan the hell away from her mother, but she was wearing her tiny pink shorts that barely contained her bottom and a green tank top with no bra. She had no idea what would upset her mother more; the white boy standing in her living room, or her daughter barely dressed, standing in front of that white boy.
"Mina," her mother called from the front of the house, "you have company."
"Uh...I'm not dressed for company."
"Well, come say hello and then you can run upstairs and get dressed. Don't be rude."
Mina nodded. "Coming, mother."
Bryan forgot to breathe when Mina walked into the living room. She was so sexy. Her hair was out of the ponytail and hung down her back in a silken black sheet. Some of it spread across her generous, obviously untamed breasts. He couldn't have imagined the perfect proportions of her body no matter how hard he tried. He'd never seen so much of her. Her smooth brown arms were bare, the shirt stopped well above her navel, showing her flat stomach and those shorts...those damned shorts. The pink fabric stopped just below her crotch, it outlined her pussy and left almost every inch of her legs available for his eyes to feast on. She was barefoot and even the pale pink polish on her toes managed to add to his want.
"Hi," Mina said with a shy smile.
"Hi."
Bryan caught the surprised look on her face when she finally looked up from the floor. He held back a laugh. He knew she'd be surprised. He wore khaki pants that actually fit, with a belt, and a pale blue Polo shirt, white Nikes and a cocky grin.
"Well," Diana said interrupting the silence as each appreciated the other's outfit. "You really aren't dressed for company, are you?"
Mina felt her face grow warm.
"Why don't you run upstairs and change. Bryan came over to ask me if you could join his family for Sunday dinner and you certainly can't go dressed like that."
"I'll just be a minute," Mina offered turning immediately to the staircase. Her mother had just given her permission to go out with Bryan. This was monumental, as was the grin that broke out on her face as she bounded up the stairs two at a time. This was her first date. Excited didn't even begin to describe the feeling she had as she wildly pulled clothes from her closet. Her heart felt like it was about to burst out of her chest and she was incredibly warm all over. She was officially going out with Bryan Dillinger...and her mother had given permission.
Bryan tried not to frown at the thought of Mina putting on her signature jeans and t-shirt on to hide all he'd just seen. Technically, she hadn't been dressed for Sunday dinner, but he couldn't imagine he'd ever want to see her in anything other than that outfit ever again.
***
"You're a fucking idiot," Brenda said as she placed the giant salad bowl on the dining room table.
Bryan glared at his step-sister, but continued setting the table. "Are you going to start this shit now?"
Brenda tossed her out-of-the-bottle blonde hair and rolled her gray eyes. "Hell, yeah! You're miserable, making the rest of us miserable, and you don't think I'm going to say something?"
Bryan shrugged. It was hard to believe that Brenda wasn't his mother's biological child. They had matching personalities and both were always talking shit. He couldn't figure out if it was the fact that his mother had raised Brenda for half her life or Brenda's own genetic code that brought her into being a younger version of his mother.
"When are you people going to stop giving me shit?"
"Never," Andrew, his thirty-year-old step-brother said as he dropped the bread basket beside the salad. Andrew looked just like his father, tall, dark brown hair and piercing dark eyes. He'd been married to Jenna, or as the rest of the family called her, 'the bitch-wife', for three years. They had two kids, Morgan, three, and Miley, who had just turned two.
Bryan was tempted to retreat up the stairs to his bedroom and not come out until everyone had left. He'd managed to avoid these dinners for months, refusing to drive to his siblings' and being conveniently absent when they were held at his house. Linda had caught on and made him promise not to duck out on this one. Bryan couldn't bring himself to break a promise he'd made to his mother...no matter how much everyone picked on him.
"Leave him alone," Linda said entering the dining room with a pan of baked ziti. "He knows what he did and he's already suffering. Stop giving him shit!"
Brenda sighed and Andrew shrugged.
"Thanks mom," Bryan said with a sigh of relief.
"Don't even think that I'm on your side here," Linda snapped. "I just don't want you getting jumped on by your brother and sister. That's my job."
Don dropped into his seat and smiled at Linda. "Will this family ever get through one of these meals without an argument?"
"Dad," Brenda said taking her seat, "Are you new here?"
David walked into the dining room from the kitchen holding a platter of roasted red potatoes and onions. He was a cross between the other siblings in attendance. He had the same dark hair as Andrew; his eyes were light gray like his older sister. He wasn't quite six foot like his father and older brother, but he was handsome. He had a square jaw, linear nose, and the perfect smile.
"No, no, Bren," Don said shaking out his napkin and placing it across his lap. "I'm just doing a little wishful thinking."
"It would be boring as hell around here if there wasn't a reason to yell all through dinner," David said sitting in the chair beside Bryan.
Logan picked that exact moment to crash into the kitchen pulling an especially thin woman behind him. Sandie smiled and waved at the family gathered around the table.
Linda frowned...not pleased with the uninvited guest. "Did you bring the baby?" she asked flatly.
"No," Sandie said with a shrug. "He's at home with my mom."
"Oh," Linda said, not even bothering to hide the disappointment she felt at having to deal with the idiotic stick figure and not getting any grandma time out of it. Dorian was over a year old now and surprisingly fat considering how thin his mother was. Then, her disappointment turned to annoyance when 'the bitch-wife' entered from upstairs.
"They're finally settled," she told no one in particular as she took the chair beside Andrew. "I put in a Sponge Bob DVD so we've got at least two hours of peace."
Linda had stopped insisting on Morgan and Miley having dinner with them. After twenty minutes of the toddlers shoveling, throwing, or refusing food, Jenna was an absolute wreck and morphed into Super-Bitch-Wife for the rest of the evening. Instead, the kids ate an early dinner and stayed upstairs until it was time to leave.
Linda missed Mina at Sunday dinner. She would help with the cooking. She would help with the dishes. She'd always politely thank Linda for dinner and tell her how delicious everything had been. Mina was the perfect dinner guest. She didn't stumble in at the last minute still reeking of sex like Sandie and she didn't wrinkle her nose and recite the calorie content of everything like 'the bitch wife' did. Sometimes Linda was sure that she'd stab her dear daughter-in-law with a fork if Jenna said one more thing about Italian food being "full of bad carbs and heavy sauces".
"Well," Don said snapping Linda's attention back to the dinner at hand. "Let's eat then!"
"Pasta, potatoes, and bread," Jenna sighed wrinkling her nose, "This is going to wreck my diet."
Linda clenched her fork until her knuckles turned white as Don instructed Andrew to say the grace.
***
Mina hugged Linda the next Wednesday. She was dropping Ava off so she could get some serious writing done on her Ethics term paper.
"I miss you so much," Linda said when they finally separated.
