Page 2 of His Determined Bear

I frowned and shook my head in quick denial. “I’m not worried. Why would I be worried?”

Mom snorted at my reaction and turned back to finish what she’d been doing, “Tell that to the deep furrow between your brows, son.”

I smoothed out my face immediately, not that it stopped my brain from going to the worst-case scenarios or my heart from racing. But I tried to convince myself everything was okay. It had to be. If it wasn’t, mom would tell me. She wouldn’t draw it out and make me worry. I nodded that I was right, and if it was bad, my mom would have told me. We were close, which meant very few secrets between us, and certainly, nothing that could affect the other person.

Mom walked over to the table where I now sat and put the platter with the chicken on the table, then went back to grab the gravy boat. The moment of truth that proved my suspicions arrived when she grabbed her laptop that I had somehow missed sitting on the counter.

Now thoroughly confused by this strange behavior, I asked, “Are we watching some Netflix while we eat?” I nodded down to the laptop, “Why don’t we just dish up and have dinner in front of the TV?”

She shook her head as she came over, “Not watching Netflix.” But she didn’t say any more than that as she took her seat.

“Dig in,” she said nervously, “what you waiting on, an invitation?”

I pressed my lips together to keep my thoughts to myself. Okay, so we were pretending there wasn’t this thing between us that needed to be discussed. I went about filling my plate, all the while keeping one eye on my mom as she fiddled with the new laptop I’d gotten her just a month agofor her birthday.

My mother was an accountant. It wasn’t tax season, so I knew whatever she was looking for couldn’t be work-related. Still, like the good son I was, I did as she asked. It helped that I was starving, and the food smelled amazing.

When my plate was loaded, I looked up at mom to see that she was weirdly pinching her cheeks. The next thing I knew, she’d taken off the scarf that she’d used to tie back her dark blonde wavy hair. My eyes widened in surprise at how different she looked from the last time I had seen her. Evidently, she had gotten a haircut which was nothing new. However, this time, it seemed she’d added layers and light blonde and caramel highlights to her hair.

My mom was a beautiful woman. Everyone that knew us always said that I looked just like her and often referred to me as pretty.

“Mom,” I said around a bite of chicken.

She looked up at me with a shy smile on her face causing all the questions that I had in my head to stall.

“You look really pretty.” Most of my features were from my mom, and objectively I was a handsome man.

Her smile got wider, and she smoothed her hair down, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

I didn’t take my eyes off her even as my stomach rumbled with hunger. My confusion grew when I heard the familiar sound that told me she’d signed into Skype. What the hell was going on? She couldn’t have called me here for a client meeting.

“Mom?” I asked, not even sure what I planned to ask her.

She glanced up at me, and the shy look was back on her face, along with excitement and apprehension. Her new hairstyle and the look on her face had my stomach turning upside down for some reason.

“I know you have a thousand questions, Cooper, but after giving this a lot of thought, this just seemed the easiest way to do this out of all the other possibilities, and …” She bit her bottom lip, causing the nervous butterflies in my belly to become bloody birds.Giant birds with big claws.

Did I mention I wasn’t a fan of surprises? I didn’t hate them per se… but I could definitely do without them.

Mom ran her fingers through her hair, and the waves fell back perfectly. I had to admit the style looked amazing on her. so much younger.

The next thing I knew, the ringing sound when you made a call and waited for someone to answer on Skype echoed through the kitchen. For some strange reason, all this anxiety I was feeling had me holding my breath.

Suddenly a deep, slightly gravelly voice said, “Hey there, honey. How are you?”

My mom blushed, and my brain pulled to a screeching halt. Like full-on paused. I wasn’t even sure which one did it, the honey or the blush growing from my mom's cheeks all the way down to her neck.

I’d never seen this side of her before. Who was this guy? What the hell was happening? My mom was acting like a teenager in the throes of her first crush, and I wasn’t sure how to even handle that.

“Mom?” I called out slowly in as low a voice as I could manage. “Who is that?” Why did that uneasy feeling that had been screaming that this wasn’t just another routine dinner invitation return tenfold?

She looked up at me and shot me a sheepish smile, “I guess it’s time I introduced the two of you.”

The voice on the computer said in a teasing tone, “I’d say so.”

Before my addled brain could even compute what the hell was happening, my mom picked up the laptop, moving to sit beside me so that I was suddenly faced with a handsome stranger.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do or say, but the next thing I knew, my hand was up, and I was waving at the handsome stranger. I groaned internally, immediately returning it to my lap before looking over at mom, brow raised.