“This feels suspiciously like the pink apron incident,” I say in mock protest, but I take the balloons anyway and bend down to press a kiss on the top of her head. Like the pink apron my roommates gave me, carrying a few balloons through the airport isn’t going to dent my ego.

“If I were you, I’d give them all something pink in return.”

I contemplate the pink dildo that Dean likes to take baths with. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ve got to pick up a few gifts before I head back. I’ll make sure everything I buy is either pink or full of glitter. Both, if possible.” Garret and Logan would die laughing at the thought of giving Dean a pink, glittering dildo. I make a mental note to text the guys later.

“You didn’t check a bag?” she asks as we bypass the baggage carousels.

“No, ma’am.” I don’t need to look at her face to know she’s disappointed. “You know I’ve got to get back for practice. Even if the season is sucking wind, I’m still required to lace ’em up. That’s the price of my scholarship.”

My busy schedule during the holidays has always been a source of dismay for my mother, who goes all out celebrating stuff. She lives for Christmas, which is why I made the trek home even though a lot of the guys stayed back at Briar.

“I thought maybe because this is your last year and you guys weren’t doing well, that you’d be allowed to spend the entire break with me.”

“Doesn’t work that way. Besides, soon I’ll be underfoot all the time and you’ll be begging me to leave,” I warn her.

But even as I say it, my mind zips back to Sabrina. She’s going to be in Boston for the next three years. I wonder how we’re going to make that work.

I wonder if she even wants to make it work.

It’d be a lot easier if we’d met last year. Or hell, even last semester, but we’ve only got a few more months where we’ll be in the same zip code, and for reasons I’m not fully prepared to examine, especially with Mom at my side, the coming distance between us bothers the shit out of me.

I fight the urge to climb back on the plane and return to Boston. But I’ll have to settle for texting, phone calls, and maybe if I’m lucky, a little video chatting. I’d like to see how she uses her toy when I’m not around.

I nearly run into Mom’s SUV, lost in my thoughts about Sabrina and her vibrator. I clear my throat. “Mind if I drive?”

She tosses me the keys. “I’d never complain about you being around too much. You know I’d love it if you came back and lived with me.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening. No woman alive wants to go out with a guy who lives with his mom,” I say, holding the door open for her.

She climbs in with a frown. “What’s wrong with living with your mother?

“Everything, and you know it.” Then I lean forward and press another kiss on her forehead to take away the sting.

During the four-hour ride home from Dallas, she catches me up on the local gossip of Patterson. “Maria Solis’s daughter is home from UT. She gets her hair cut in Austin now, but she still has the nicest manners. She stopped in the other day just to say hi.”

I nod absently, wondering if I had invited Sabrina to come home with me for the holidays if she would have said yes. I figured the invitation would be unwelcome, not just because she’d view it as a sign we were moving too fast, but because she needs the money from work. Before I left, she was nearly beside herself with happiness about the time and a half she was going to be making.

“You should ask her out.” Mom’s voice penetrates my daydreams again.

“Who?” I ask.

“Maria Solis’s daughter,” she replies impatiently.

I glance away from the road to give her an incredulous stare. “You want me to date Daniela Solis?”

“Why not? She’s gorgeous and smart.” Mom sits back in her seat and crosses her arms.

“She’s also gay.”

Her mouth falls open. “Dani Solis is gay?”

“I guess the appropriate term is lesbian,” I say, remembering my gender studies course.

“No,” my mother protests. “She’s far too beautiful.”

“Mom, beautiful girls can be lesbians.”

“Are you sure? Maybe she’s bi. I know they say kids experiment in college.”

“She took Cassie Carter to prom! You did both their hair.”

“I thought they were friends.”

“They had to go as friends because the prom folks wouldn’t let them attend as a couple.”

The small West Texas town I grew up in is a tad on the conservative side. Dani and Cassie were friends, only ones that kissed and felt each other up in the hallway. And drove every teenage boy in eyeballing distance right out of their ever loving minds. I’d spent many a teenage night fantasizing about the things those two girls did in private. It was probably inappropriate, but the majority of my thoughts from about age ten to seventeen fell into the inappropriate category.

Mom slumps in her seat. She’d obviously worked out an elaborate plan in her mind about Dani and me getting together.

“Remember when I told you that I met a girl?” I say slowly, deciding that I better get this out there now before she starts trying to pair me off with every single girl in Patterson.

“Oh?” Her voice is guarded. “I thought it wasn’t a thing?”

“It is now. Look, you’d like her. She’s got perfect grades, works two jobs, and just got accepted into Harvard Law.”

“Harvard? Isn’t that in Boston?”

The worry is heavy in her voice. I get it. She’s concerned that if I fall for a girl in Boston, I won’t move back home, which is why she sprang the Dani Solis thing on me before we even finished the drive home.

“Yeah. Cambridge.” I can’t even give her assurances, because at this point, I don’t know what I’m doing about Boston, Patterson, or any of it. The only thing I’m sure of is that I want to be with Sabrina.

“How long is law school?”

“Three years.” AKA too long to be separated.

“Your plan is still to come home and buy a business, right? I was talking with Stewart Randolph the other day. You remember him? He owns the real estate business over on Pleasant. He’s thinking of retiring, and that kid of his doesn’t want to move from Austin. It sounds like Randy would be interested in entertaining offers.”