Would You Rather

30 - WYR: be a son with dirt for brains or have your ass printed on a blanket

FIDAN

My mother, bless the woman, is standing immediately inside the door the second I get back.

"Hi," I step inside and shut the door behind me. "Why are you so close to the door?"

"Why have you been gone for an hour? Surely she doesn't live halfway across the country."

I pull my coat off, giving her a slight smile. "Got distracted."

"Oh, I'm sure."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She hmphs and turns toward the stairs to head up. "Nothing, nothing, just mad about my son treating a very lovely woman like a sex object!"

I jog up the stairs after her. "Her roommate distracted me by doing my eyebrows, good glory, Anne."

She turns, giving my face a once-over. "They look... well, it does not matter how they look. Can't possibly let me fix them because there's not much left to fix."

I immediately stick my head into the bathroom to check to make sure Nat left any eyebrow on me. To confirm my trust in her, my eyebrows look normal and cleaned up. "Why are you so determined to be angry with me about Finley? What would you tell me to do to fix it since you seem so convinced I'm wholly in the wrong?"

She's in the kitchen angry cleaning. Regular cleaning and angry cleaning have completely different energy: it's stored in the angle of the elbow.

"How would you have done this?"

She presses her hand to the top of her head, looking at me. "I just... I thought you were better than treating a woman like this."

"I am in professional hockey."

"That is not an excuse to act like your teammates! I taught you to... to treat every woman with the utmost respect."

"And I do! I do respect her."

"Not enough to take her out on at least one reasonable date before cheapening her!"

I set my hands on my hips, mimicking her position. "Neither of us have the time to do this. She doesn't want to commit to anything because she's going to medical school next year out of the region and doesn't have the time to give me outside of her classes. I don't have the time to put into it either, I'm in my second season and I'm trying to be the best I can be this early in my career. I don't have the time for something like this."

"You certainly have time to see her multiple times a week, if her joking was accurate to how much you're around her!"

"Yes, with our schedules right now, we both have time. That's not to say about a month from now or next semester, or, God, the playoffs."

She's still got her hands on her hips, squaring off with me in the kitchen. "I am simply disappointed in you."

"Anne! Officially dating me is a hassle! Some other girlfriends of teammates have made it most of their career! She'd have to be at the games or..." I wave my hands. "It's a hassle. My job is a hassle. I'm a hassle."

She gestures the spatula she's stopped washing toward my door. "She likes you."

"She's friendly."

"You have dirt for brains, Fei, I have raised a son with dirt for brains."

"Anne!"

"Come help me clean."

Just like that, the conversation is over. And it, thankfully, doesn't start again that night.

***