“You cool with lasagna for dinner? It’ll take a while, so I thought I’d start the ragu and bechamel now. When we’re back from training, we just have to layer and bake it for half an hour. I also picked up some garlic bread.”
Her answer consisted of squeezing my waist while releasing a soft humming sound. She just watched me work the stove for a good while before speaking again when I added the tomato puree and water
“Damn, it already smells great. You told us that you could cook when you made those pancakes, but I really had no idea.” She paused, her grip on my waist loosened a little, and her expression changed to show a little pain that she quickly hid by turning her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Hmm.” I hummed, not expecting this sudden turn of topic, and unsure how to respond. I felt like it wouldn’t help anybody if I, yet again, threw accusations around, or pointed out where that distance between us came from. “Well ... just for that, I won’t make fun of the way you chew up your pen when you study.” I grinned, not looking at her.
“Wha...!?” I heard her gasp before her demeanor changed again, and she looked at me bashfully. Instead of saying anything more, though, she turned and walked back into her room.
I could be wrong, but I thought I saw her lips curl up into a little smile before her face was completely turned away from me. I continued the dinner preparations while chuckling to myself. Teasing her was fun. By the time I had the bechamel ready, the ragu had blended nicely, so I just let it simmer so it could reduce until we had to leave.
I was mentally going over the previous training session we had, when we walked into the Miller house and found the entire family dressed in gym clothes. Interestingly, while Nora seemed excited, Mia sat in an armchair with a pouting expression, and right next to her stood George Miller, who gave me a particularly disparaging look that threw me off. While Ava immediately joined Mia and Jack to chat, Nora took me by the arm to pull me into their kitchen under the pretense of packing up some water bottles.
“Spill it, Loverboy, what did you do to my little girl?” she asked with a wicked grin on her face as soon as she had closed the kitchen door.
“Come again?” I wasn’t sure what surprised me more; the question about Mia, or being called ‘Loverboy’.
“Oh please, you think I didn’t notice the way she acted towards you? Especially the difference in how she treated you before and after your training yesterday? Something happened that had her wanting for more, and she refused to talk when I tried to tease it out of her.”
I spent a few seconds too long trying to figure out what to say, which caused her to start poking me repeatedly with her finger.
“I ... I’m not sure.” I lied. “I mean, it is a full contact exercise, but I didn’t think it got to her that much.”
“MmmHhmmmmm.” The way she drew that sound out made it clear she didn’t believe a word I had said. “There have been other things as well that we’ll talk about later, but I also couldn’t help but notice how she’s been pouting ever since we told her that George and I will be joining you today. So, don’t you dare doing anything differently than yesterday. I’ll ask Jacky about it afterwards, just to be sure.” she teased, before turning to leave the kitchen.
“Wait!” I whispered, stepping close to her again. “What other things? And what do you mean by ‘refused to talk’?”
“Hmm ... I don’t know if I should tell you, yet.” Her grin stretched even wider than before while she tapped her chin with a single finger in a theatrical display. When she saw the impatience on my face, it was apparently what she was hoping to see, and finally spoke. “Nope. It’ll be a surprise. But to answer your second question: Normally, when I tease her about boys, she either just laughs it off, or straight up tells me what she thinks of him. But every time I asked why she was so eager to train with you again, she got that cute shy look and walked away instead.”
“But ... She ... I wasn’t...” I stuttered, causing Nora to chuckle before I caught myself. “She hated my guts for years!”
“Oh, Honey.” she said, in an obviously pitying way. “She never hated you. How could she, she didn’t even know you. She only knew of you, and only the things others were saying. I’m not trying to defend her actions!” she turned serious upon noticing my expression, and placed her hand on my arm as she spoke. “I already told you that we had a serious talk about her behavior. But you have to understand that there is a lot of misguided loyalty and peer pressure between the members of the cheer teams.”
I thought about what she had just told me, and what it meant for me.
“Are you telling me ... since her two best friends stopped making fun of me, she could too?”
“Yes.”
“That’s stupid.” I commented in a serious tone.
“Yes.” she laughed. “But she’s a teenager, like you. You’re still allowed to do stupid things. But the point is that you now have to decide if you want her to know you properly.”
That last part confused me. “Are you asking me to get closer to your daughter?”
“Of course I am.” she shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “When you showed us that video of Jacky, we realized that we might have spoiled them both a little too much. I’d like to see my children have friends like you. You’ve proven to be responsible, capable, you know the value of money, and, after that afternoon we spent together, I even know how caring you can be. We hope, if Mia realizes how big of a mistake she made when she wrote you off, and just how stupid it was to simply go along with her friends, she won’t do it again so easily. The change we saw in her over the few days you were around ... she really regrets it, Tim. And I’m so glad that she finally comes around.”
The women really knew how to ruin someone’s revenge plots. Yes, I had a lot of fun getting handsy with Mia during our training session, especially right in front of Jack. But that was mostly because I greatly enjoyed proving the stuck-up bitch wrong after she had spent so much time ridiculing me. Now, after what Nora had said, doing that to someone who earnestly tried to do better would feel just plain wrong.
“Fine.” I sighed. “I mean, all I gotta do is my job like I do anyway. It’s up to her if she wants this.”
“Thank you, Lover.” The way Nora smiled at me after hearing my response, while wrapping her hands around my neck and giving me a kiss, made it that much harder to even think about messing with her daughter any longer. “Of course, if you two get too close, we’d have to rethink our little arrangement. Sharing my lover with his daughter may be something George’s Mistress would encourage, but I can hardly sleep with my daughter’s boyfriends.”
“Boyfr ... where did THAT come from?” I asked, completely forgetting about whispering.
Instead of answering me, she just laughed as she handed me a sixpack of sports water, turned, and left me standing in the kitchen. Sighing once more, I joined the procession to the cars while trying to ignore Mr. Miller, who continuously gave me the stink eye. Even after everything Nora had just insinuated, I couldn’t imagine why he would be so displeased with me, and just hoped I didn’t screw up in some way. When Nora talked about me being Mia’s boyfriend, she was surely just teasing me. There was no way she didn’t just make that up and Mr. Miller suddenly disliked me because of Mia!
Since I didn’t want Ava and Mia to suffer through the same introduction as last time, I decided to let them repeat the basics while I checked on Nora’s flexibility and fitness level. It quickly turned out, however, that Mr. Miller was just as competitive as his son, as he kept questioning my instructions every chance he got. Him constantly challenging me, while still giving me weird looks, annoyed me more and more. When I warned Nora about punching with her fists, and he protested once again, it was all I could do to not lose my patience.