Hotline Fling

Epilogue 3: Tell Her

Damian's POV

"Damian, I'm dying," a desperate voice croaked.

"Seriously?" I rolled my eyes at her ridiculousness. How could Shirley think this was the call I needed to answer first? Three preferable alternatives blinked on my phone.

"Don't you 'seriously' your mother," her voice lamented with a moan. "I have cancer."

"Ma, did you look up something online again?" I rubbed one hand over my forehead, throbbing with a threatened headache. It was always fucking cancer. "And don't ask June for another inspection."

Away from the crammed schedule of meetings on my computer screen, my phone's red blinks persisted. This was June's fault. Connect more with my mother, my ass. What was I going to do with her? My dick, of course, twitched with its own opinion, not that it had any different reaction to June. Her splayed on my desk, thighs split, pussy weeping, trembling to hold back her cries of pleasure while I scolded her to be silent was the most erotic curse. I pushed aside the torturous mental image and adjusted myself under that ruined desk. Every fucking time.

Emma met June on our first date, but I hid June for as long as possible from Mom. Six days after I asked June to be my girlfriend, Ma barged into my place. June's warmth melted the most frostbitten of assholes, but Ma went cuckoo and googly-eyed for her. Ten minutes into their conversation about plants, I got slapped behind my head for waiting so long to introduce June.

As expected, Ma couldn't have cared less about June's previous job and loved her more than me. Everybody did. Every fucking person in my life loved June because she was the kindest, sweetest person. Mom's reasoning behind not caring about June being a phone sex worker, though? Still gave me nightmares.

"So, she helped guys as they rubbed ones out." Mom shrugged from where she sat at my kitchen island, her fork poised over her plate. "How do you think I met your father? At a titty bar."

Thankfully, I hadn't taken a sip from my water glass because I would've choked to death. "Ma!" Every muscle in my body cringed, and I desperately wanted all related images wiped from my mind. "You said you met in high school!"

She did not fucking just say–

"Calm your tits, Damian." Mom waved a dismissive hand at my now near-hyperventilating state. "We did, then met up again when I waitressed at NipNTuck because it paid the most. They tore it down after a year, put some fancy high-rise condo in its place."

"I could've lived a happy, scar-free life if you'd taken that to your grave, Ma." I palmed my forehead, which, of course, wouldn't wipe out that mental image.

June, however, giggled through the conversation.

"I was quite the looker. Your father never stood a chance." Ma rubbed salt into my mental wound, and her hands clasped a vice grip around my cheeks. "You keep her, Damian Alexander. I like this one."

For once, Mom and I were on the same page. Any conversation with her was an instant deflation, and I groaned before she invited herself to dinner. "I can't do this right now. I'm–"

"Working," her huffed response cracked static in my ear. "You're working, not married to that beautiful girl Juneau, with good birthing hips, and I'm dying without a single grandbaby having the Rivera name. Nothing new."

I loved June's hips for other reasons but doubted June would take Ma's description as a compliment. "We're not having kids, Ma. June's still in school, but we haven't even talked about...that. Not touching the fact I'd be a horrible father."