Chapter 48. A Date? (12/13)

“As much as I’d like to stay and enjoy a home-cooked meal filled with your love, I will have to decline. It’s already pretty late and I need to get back home. My… parents would start to worry if I don’t return soon.” It was of course another lie. It was obvious she’d only bought enough ingredients for three people. I didn’t want them to split up a portion just for me. It was bought with money she worked hard for, for her own children. They were already in a tough spot financially. Adding a mouth to feed, I couldn’t accept.

“What? No way, you have to stay~ If it’s your parents you're worried about, give me their number and I’ll call them up right away to explain. I can just drive you back to your place afterward.”

My parent’s phone number? That was something impossible for me to give her. A dead mother naturally didn’t have a phone number to be called from beyond the grave, and a father who abandoned me at birth, how would I ever have his phone number to begin with? Hell, I didn’t even know what the guy looked like or whether he himself was even alive.

“My father is the only one with a mobile phone and he’s likely still at work so I wouldn’t want to bother him. My mother would be at home right now but we don’t have a landline and she doesn’t have a phone for herself.”

None of my claims were technically lies. My mother’s ashes were at home. I didn’t have a landline, and my mother had no use for a mobile phone she couldn’t use as she was already dead. My father, if presumed to be alive, would very likely have a mobile phone. I said likely at work because it wasn’t something I could definitively assert as being a truthful claim since I genuinely didn’t know. I also would never want to talk to him, hence why I didn’t want to bother him.

“Haaaaah. Fine… if you say so.” Her shoulders slumped down dejectedly, obviously disappointed that I’d be leaving so soon after we’d only just met. It seems my thoughtful response mixed with misleading truths had slipped by her discerning eye.

“Then at the very least, I can drive you home. I can’t possibly let you walk home all alone when it’s this dark outside. That would be an irresponsible thing for me as an adult to let that happen. What if you get jumped on your way home and I never get to see you again? I’d be quite troubled if I can’t see such a good boy again.”

“It’s fine. I don’t live that far from here I can walk.” It was about a fifteen-minute walk. For others that might be considered quite far, but it was a distance I personally considered short. Also, there was no need for her to waste gas for a stranger like me. Gas wasn’t cheap these days, she should use that for her own family. To go to work and drive her children where they needed to go.

“If you’re concerned about wasting gas don’t be. If it’s close by like you say then it will hardly take any at all.”

She’d easily seen through my thoughts this time and effortlessly blocked off my last path of retreat. It was checkmate, just like that. Haaaah. Adults really are harder to deal with than some naive high school kids. 

“It looks like you don’t have any more moves to make.”

“I could just adamantly refuse and run out the door on my own.” I already knew what she would say.

“Feel free to do so, I’ll follow behind you in my car anyway to make sure you get back home safely. It’s an adult’s responsibility as a member of society to ensure the safety of underage youth.”

Indeed. Though I was 40 from a mental standpoint, I was still physically 15 in terms of the age of my body.

“I concede.” I obediently resigned myself to Alicia’s mother knowing that resistance was futile.

“Good.” She raised her hand and ruffled her hand through my hair dotingly with a lovely smile on her face.

It’d been a long time since I’d been treated as a kid like this. To be driven home by someone’s parent after staying over late wasn’t something I was used to at all. I never had such an experience before. This was... a first for me.

After I finished up what was remained of the cookies and cup of tea together with Alicia I wrapped things up and headed out. It had felt like a rather short visit I’d already spent an hour and a half at her place. It was 9:00 PM when I left her place, the time I usually got off work on any other day.

In a sense today had felt like a really long day of work for me. Dragged by the arm, to prevent my escape by Alicia’s mother, I entered her car.

With just the two of us alone together it somehow felt a bit risqué. Alicia’s mother had a more refined mature look than her daughter being the older more experienced woman she was. She had a fragrant natural scent, lavender came to mind.

Her attire was quite appealing. With all the hints I had, I’d more or less deduced what one of her jobs was. The one she’d come back from tonight was the one I’d figured out. With the revelation of her first job, it was easy to understand her abilities to discern between truth and lies.

While we were in the car together, I informed her of my address, to which she looked at me with a look that suggested she knew I hadn’t been entirely truthful about how far away it was. 

Though she’d initially been silent during the drive, Alicia’s mother opened her mouth and asked, “Hey, do you mind if I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?” I was curious what this mother would want to know from me. Did she want to know something about how her daughter was in school or something?

But against my expectations it was something entirely different, “You were examining my hand earlier when you grabbed it, right?”

“Ah. Well, yeah. Sorry, was it that obvious?”

“I have a keen eye for such things. Normally people wouldn’t notice, but the way you discreetly felt under my palm and around my fingers, then completely ignored the back of my hand tipped me off, it was a hunch based on that.”

“You’re quite observant.”

“You're one to speak. Everything you did had some sort of hidden purpose with a goal in mind, right? Some things I could see through, while others left me perplexed and unable to understand.”

“You’re overestimating me. I just saw a beautiful mother and wanted to get closer to her because I have a thing for older mature women.”

“Oh? Is that so?” A mysterious smile crept on her face as her eyelids lowered a bit though still keeping her eyes on the road. Her appearance would surely make a man’s heart race.

“How about we play a little guessing game?”

“A guessing game? Is there some sort of prize?”

“Yeah, I’ll give you a reward if you get the answer correct.”

“What sort of reward?”

“A good one for a naughty boy like you who wants to try and tease an older woman.”

I raised a brow and accepted her challenge, “Sure, feel free to ask.”

“Try to guess what one of my three jobs are and you win. It’s that simple.”

“Barista.”

Her eyes shot up a bit in surprise at my immediate reply.

“I thought you’d get close or maybe even get it correct after a few tries, but I never expected you’d answer so quickly with such confidence and get it correct on your first try. You’ve won… but just out of curiosity, did you figure out the other two as well?”

“Sadly, I have not. I tried a bit, but I could only figure out one of them with the information I was able to piece together.”

“I don’t think this is the case, but… just to make sure you didn’t cheat, my daughter didn’t tell you, did she?”

“No, she didn’t mention anything to me about you. Not even your first name Ms. Sorayuki.”

“It’s Irene. You just call me that. I’d be happy to be called that by such a good boy.”

“Good boy? Did you not just call me naughty?”

“You can be both, naughty and good at the same time, can you not?”

“True enough.”

“But I feel like I lost to you right now and it annoys me a bit. I’m a bit of a competitive woman you see. Let’s have a rematch. Double or nothing.”

“No way, I want my reward.”

“Fine. You can keep your reward. But let’s still have the rematch.”