Would You Rather

28 - WYR: shake her sheets and make her bed or... well

FIDAN

 I'm fucked.

Finley is at my kitchen table, wearing her EMS gear, holding a mug of my Mom's tea, discussing absolutely God knows what with her, probably my deepest darkest most embarrassing secrets.

"You had a pair of my socks?" I manage, desperately trying to stop gaping like a fish.

She's got her hair up in a ponytail and I'm sort of staring at the way the uniform fits kind of a little too well despite the bulk of the pockets. Maybe I have a thing for how it looks around her waist? Maybe it's flattering? Maybe I'm just with Finley and that's what's going on? And I'm also stuck on the fact that my mother, who swore up and down this morning that she was going to wait until I got back to make mercimek çorbası so she could teach me, seems to have fully made it to teach my fuck buddy. Which. Great.

"Yeah, I'm not sure how you managed to leave them behind, considering how cold it is outside." She sets her mug of tea down, starting to get up to go show me them but I do remember, after a certain prompting, looking over at them, my utter haste to leave the last time we were in the same room alone. Now we're not alone, I still want to leave, and my mom is here.

"Um, no, I think... I think I just put on my shoes without socks. It was dark... y'know, because of your power."

"Right, yeah." She's glancing between my mom, sipping her tea like nothing in the world is going on, and I. I know my mother is gaining some sort of insane intel off of this that is both incriminating and probably not exactly right.

"Hold on." I hold up a finger, asking Finley for just one moment, and then I address my mom, talking in just Turkish so she knows I'm serious. "Anne, what are you doing?"

She makes a face at me, slightly, taking another sip of tea. "She's very sweet, Fidan, and now she knows how to make my soup so maybe she can teach you. Wouldn't that be an adorable little date."

"Anne!"

"I'm just speeding up a process here, Fei. She's going to be a doctor. She was just telling me about a science conference she's going to next week. She's very intelligent and she's very kind to your mother and would you look at those big doe eyes? I know I raised you soft but I did not raise you to be an idiot."

Finley and those 'big doe eyes', which, she's right, she does have and I do notice and I do think about all the time, is looking back and forth between us, just a little bit amused.

"Anne!" I scold again. "I know! But she's going to medical school and I'm staying here and she's not interested in dating me."

"Oh? But you are?"

I groan, dropping my head back.

"And I wouldn't be so sure about that, Fei," she tuts her tongue at me. "This is quite far to come in quite bad weather after a long and hard shift on her feet working on an ambulance, an ambulance, Fei, she is very intelligent, to deliver your sorry butt your socks."

"She's not interested."

"Oh, maybe I did raise an idiot." She, all dramatic like she normally is, presses the back of her hand to her forehead like she's checking for a temperature, feigning a bigger expression than needed to push a point.

"You're not around her as much as I am. She's just a very nice person that you've trapped in my apartment for, oh, God, how long has she been here? She probably wants to go out with her friends tonight and you've got her stuck here."

My mother makes a face, getting more dramatic by the gesture, "trust me, Fei, she asked about the soup and she did not seem at all interested in leaving early. Look at this sweet girl! Drinking tea with your mother! Maybe my presence is better than yours if she's so desperate to leave when she's around you. I told you that you need to get that tooth fixed so you look less like a street cat when you smile at people. Makes you friendlier." She huffs and I just stand there, gaping at her.