Evenly Matched

Chapter 4

"... And that's how I ended up giving my first blowjob in a mall bathroom."

Brent burst out into laughter and scrunched his nose up in disgust. "That sounds horrible."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, now imagine living through that."

After a comfortable silence Brent asks, "How did we get on this topic of conversation again?"

"Hey, first sexual experiences are great conversation starters. And they're helping us make up for lost time."

"Alright, alright." He said, sipping on his drink.

I raised an eyebrow. "So are you going to tell me about your first time then?"

Brent choked on his drink. "Um, maybe that's a story for another day?"

I felt like he was hiding something, but I decided to not push it due to Brent's obvious discomfort. That was fine. There was plenty more I still wanted to ask him.

Just as I opened my mouth to pose yet another question, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks.

In the far corner of the café was my mother, about to sit down at a table. Across from her was a familiar looking woman. The longer I stared, the longer an image of her nine years younger formed in my mind. Then it clicked.

I gasped, grabbed Brent's hand, and dragged him under the table with me. The table cloth did little to cover us, but it was better than nothing.

"What the hell?!" Brent exclaimed.

I didn't response right away—I couldn't, as I was still baffled by what I was seeing. Instead, I pressed my finger to my lips in silent communication.

"I swear you've gotten so much weirder since we were kids..." He muttered to himself.

"Hush!" I retorted. I grabbed his chin and forced his gaze into the direction of this anomaly.

            It was my mom. And sitting directly across from her was Brent's mom.

Even from a distance, I could tell that the aura of their conversation was frigid cold. My mom sat upright rigidly, and held a firm grip on her mug. Brent's mom, Cheryl, was in a similar composure. She had really changed over the years. Her hair had grayed further, crow's feet began to appear in the corners of her eyes, and she had packed on a little more weight. Not that I'm saying anything is wrong with that.

"What are they doing together? I was under the impression that they hated each other." Brent questioned.

"So did I. And by the looks of it, our guesses were right. That does not look like a friendly conversation going on." I responded.

We watched in amazement for several more minutes. At times, we could even manage to catch slivers of their conversation. We heard snippets like, "...come back?" and "You've always been a pain in the...".

The more we strained to listen, the more confused we became.

I sighed in frustration. "We need to get closer."

Brent nodded in agreement, and held a finger up to his lips. Then he pointed across the room, to an empty booth that happened to be directly behind the table our moms were at.

"I just haven't figured out how we can get over there without being seen." He confessed.

I surveyed the restaurant and a plan formed in my mind.

"Follow me." I replied, grinning.

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