Page 18 of Money Shot

“I dumped it in some sand,” I said.

“Stephen Vincent. Both your eyes are stitched up, and you look like hell. What happened?” she asked.

I pointed at the jar with my fork.

She shook her head. “Hell isn’t a curse word, it’s a place. And it’s a place you’re going to end up living if you keep telling your mother fibs.”

“I dumped the bike, Mother,” I sighed.

“It doesn’t have a scratch on it,” she said, shaking her head from side to side as she spoke.

I cocked my head and stared in disbelief. “It’s covered in scratches, how would you know?”

She raised her index finger in the air and glared at me. “I rode on that bike for years. I know where every scratch is. Fine, Stephen, just fine.”

“I met a girl,” I said flatly as I picked through the pile of chicken.

“Pardon me? I would have sworn you said you met a girl,” she said.

“I did,” I said as I continued to pick through the chicken. “Did you buy a breastless chicken?”

“Here, take mine,” she said as she handed me her chicken breast. “Now, about this girl. Is she the reason you got beat up?”

“No, I met her one night when I ran out of gas. She gave me a ride to the gas station. She was really nice. It’s nothing, I was just making conversation,” I said as I bit into the chicken.

“Bradley’s starving, give him your bones,” she said as she waved her hand toward my plate.

“He shouldn’t eat chicken bones, and he weighs fifty pounds anyway. And thirty of it’s fat,” I said.

“Take it back, he’s not fat,” she said.

“You can’t take things back after you say ‘em, and he is too,” I said.

“You sure can. You say ‘I take it back.’ Now, who’s this girl? Does she want kids?” she asked.

“How the hell would I know? I told you, she gave me a ride to the gas station,” I responded.

One thing my mother always detested about Natalie was that she was outspoken regarding her lack of interest in having children, and my mother dreamed of the day she would have grandchildren. It was a subject Natalie and I discussed often and never quite agreed on.

“Is she pretty?” she asked.

I nodded my head. “Beautiful. Dark hair, like yours.”

“Does she have tattoos?” she asked.

“None that I could see,” I said.

My mother accepted the fact I had tattoos, but believed everyone else with tattoos was an obvious criminal or had spent time in prison. Women with tattoos, as far as she was concerned, were trouble.

“So are you seeing her?” she asked.

I dropped my chicken breast onto my plate. “Gas. She took me to get gas. That’s it.”

“Did you get her phone number?” she asked.

I rested my forearms on the table, glared at her, and raised both eyebrows.

“You need to get a phone, Stephen. This is ridiculous,” she said. “Everyone has a phone.”