Role Playing(19)

God, she hoped that was never truly an option.

“Sure,” Kit said, with a genuine smile that warmed her. “Well, good on you.”

“You still playing online with Harrison?”

He shrugged again. “Harrison’s been busy, his job and stuff, and his girlfriend told him he was spending too much time playing video games, so . . .” He trailed off.

She winced. So not only was he alone in his new place, he was losing contact with his best friend, the closest person he had. He’d had a few other casual friends, but Harrison was like his brother. The physical distance was hard enough.

“Maybe you could join my guild?” she suggested. It’d be fun, hopefully for both of them, since they both enjoyed playing the game, and she knew the guild members, for all their shenanigans, were engaging and friendly. At the same time, it was perhaps a bit selfish. After all, she was supposed to be encouraging him to meet new people.

“What, have my mommy set up a playdate with people online?” His expression was both irritated and agonized. “Should I write ‘LOSER’ on my forehead in Sharpie, or save time and have it tattooed?”

She saw what he was saying, even as some irritation of her own struck her. “I just hate seeing you so alone,” she snapped before she could stop herself, then sighed, taking a deep breath. “Sorry.”

His expression softened. “I know,” he said quietly. “But, Mom, you can’t fix everything for me.”

She nodded, knowing that logically. But she hated it.

“I just don’t want you to devolve into some neckbeard incel who starts shit conversations with ‘let me play devil’s advocate here’ and trolls people on Reddit,” she tried to joke, forcing a grin.

He grinned back. It was small, but she’d take it. “Damn. And I was planning on gatekeeping comics and Marvel movies, and making girls prove their geek credentials.”

She shook her head. “We both know I raised you better than that,” she said. “Speaking of girls, though . . .”

“Ugh.” He covered his face with his hands. “God, no. Please.”

“I’m just saying, anybody interesting? See anybody in your classes or your dorm or anything?”

He put his hands down. “I don’t know. I haven’t really talked to anybody.”

“But has there been anybody who caught your attention? Anybody who seems nice?”

He rolled his eyes. “Mom, I beg of you. Stop.”

“Okay,” she conceded, “that was invasive.”

“You know, you don’t need to have quite this level of interest in my personal life,” he pointed out. “It’s not healthy.”

“Probably not,” she admitted. “But besides loving you and, strangely enough, liking you as a person, I guess I just want to make sure that I didn’t fuck you up irrevocably with my less than stellar parenting skills.”

She winced. She was joking.

Kind of.

But not really.

She knew that he knew, too, when she saw him tilt his head, studying her in a way he had occasionally when he was in high school. When Trev had left and moved to Wyoming, he hadn’t come back to see Kit and had barely called. He’d traded alimony for giving her ownership of the house, even though honestly that had been more of a burden than a gift. He’d paid child support, but there hadn’t been a single birthday card or Christmas present. Kit had been hurt—but also somewhat relieved, since Trev had seemed incapable of hiding how disappointed he was with his only child and the wife who refused to let him be as harsh as he wanted to.

She’d done everything she could to make up the shortfall, but as amazing and wonderful a kid as Kit was, she still could see the cracks that the whole situation had left in him, the barely visible scars. It was why he tended to try parenting her, something she hated.

There was probably some psychological name for it. Maybe some German word with fifteen syllables. Basically, she’d tried her damnedest to make sure he was happy, healthy, and whole, without getting too creepily codependent about it.

She just wasn’t sure if it had worked, especially when it looked like he was alone and doing nothing to change that condition. She knew enough to know that long-term isolation wasn’t good.

For him, anyway. For me, it’s fine.

“What about you?” he asked. “You meet anybody?”

“Eww,” she replied reflexively, and he laughed.

“Just sayin’. You’ve been divorced for five years, and now you’ve got the place to yourself,” he pointed out. “Time to cut loose.”

“Ugh. You know I hate that,” she said. “I went to Deb’s book club, and there was a vibe of that—like a Sex and the City thing. Which, okay, they can do what they want, and I’m sure I sound judgy as hell. But they were pushing the whole ‘single and ready to mingle’ mindset. Sort of insistent that the best was yet to come, and that they were just as hot and beautiful and desirable as they were when they were young.”

“I am not going to say my mom is . . . gack, I can’t even hint at it,” he said, shuddering and wrinkling his nose, “but . . . I guess they have a point? I mean, age ain’t nothin’ but a number, right?”

“First: if you were here, I’d smack you on the back of the head,” she shot back. “Because no way are you quoting philosophical wisdom from R. fucking Kelly, especially considering he produced that song for a fifteen-year-old that he then married.”