Mama's Boy

Summer Love

Nathan walked into his apartment to find Shelly there. He took one look at her on his sofa with her arms folded and he shook his head. He knew he was in for it.

"Was there any particular reason you didn't want me in Los Angeles with you?"

Nathan said nothing, looking at his mother out the side of his eye as he made his way towards his bedroom. He tried to cut his mother some slack sometimes and to see things from her side, but he felt like she didn't give him that same courtesy.

Shelly cleared her throat. "I know you heard me, Nathan."

"You don't have to come to every single game, Ma," he said simply, pulling his t-shirt over his head.

"You had that hot ass little girl there, didn't you?" she accused.

Nathan shook his head. There was no point in lying to his mother, and he was grown, so he didn't see why he would have to.

"Her name is Josie."

Shelly sucked her teeth before heaving the heaviest sigh. Nathan spared her a bored glance before making his way into his bedroom. He didn't even bother closing the door because he could hear his mother's footsteps behind him as he started towards the closet.

She stood in the doorway with her arms folded across her chest. Nathan didn't even need to look his mother's direction. The disdain was felt in her presence, her aura so strong that it hung over the room like the thickest fog.

"So you preferred to have a piece of ass with you over your own mother?" she chided. "She would have been here when you got back."

Nathan rolled his eyes, opening a drawer. "Her name is Josie," he told her again. "And she hasn't done anything to make you disrespect her like that."

Nathan set his clothes on the bed and sat down to face his mother, whose eyes were narrowed and trained on him like a laser. He ignored that. Shelly had been giving him dirty looks his whole life.

"I walked in on you mounting the tramp."

Nathan raised a surprised brow in his mother's direction as he stared her down. "Is that what you think Josie did to you? Be 'caught'," he used air quotes around the word, "Having sex?"

Shelly said nothing, just glaring at her son with her lips pursed so tightly that even the smallest molecule of air would not be able to enter or escape.

Nathan chuckled and shook his head. "I am grown, and so is Josie. It's not her fault that you didn't announce your presence. Trust me, you embarrassed that woman far more than she embarrassed you. She didn't do anything wrong."

Shelly still said nothing, and Nathan didn't flinch from her gaze. "I'm going to take a shower. We can have whatever talk you wanna have when I'm done."

Without giving his mother any more of his attention, Nathan shut the door behind himself and started preparing for his shower.

He leaned against the vanity, looking in the mirror and releasing a heavy sigh. He loved his mother more than anything in this world, but the amount of attention she required was beginning to annoy him now more than ever.

She had never much cared for any of his female companions. Distractions, she called them. No matter whether it was just a friend he had no interest in, someone he was having casual sex with, or a girlfriend. She hated them all.

He was tired now, and he really liked Josie. Whatever he had to do to keep his mother from running her off, he would do.

In the shower, he let his thoughts trail off to his time spent with Josie, reminiscing on every moment. Every smile. Every kiss. Every touch. Every look.