“Are you okay?”

He jerked like I had electrocuted him, and when he looked down at me it was like he was looking at a stranger. I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down and his hands curled into fists at his sides. His head shook slowly from side to side and he took a step away from me, so that I was no longer touching him. I was baffled by his sudden change in demeanor, so I gave a forced little laugh and asked him, “Did seeing me with braces and knobby knees really scare you that much?”

I was happy in almost every single picture on that wall. It was my life before him laid out in snapshot after snapshot, and I wondered if the reality of coming with me to meet my mom, the seriousness of letting him into every single part of my life, was finally sinking in. He looked like he was struggling for words when I heard shuffling as my mom came around the corner, undoubtedly wondering what was taking us so long. She had a glass of wine in her hand and a welcoming smile on her face as she chirped, “Did you get lost?” I saw her eyes get big and her mouth drop open in a little O of surprise when her gaze locked on Asa. I thought she was probably just stunned by how ridiculously good-looking he was until the wineglass slipped from her fingers and sent red liquid splattering all over her fancy Berber carpet. My mom could be flaky but she typically was as graceful as an old Hollywood starlet.

“Mom!” I yelled at her, and took a step forward as she fluttered a hand in front of her face and jerked her gaze away from Asa to the mess she had just made. She laughed a bit hysterically then turned to run to the kitchen, only to return a moment later with a towel and a bottle of floor cleaner. There was a high flush on her face and I noticed she wouldn’t look up at me, which was totally out of character for her.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She got on her hands and knees and I frowned at her and then back at Asa, who looked like he had been carved out of stone. I had never seen him look so hard and so remote. Not even the night I arrested him for something he didn’t do.

“Mom, this is Asa Cross. Asa, this is my mom, Roslyn Hastings.” My mom looked up from her position and then immediately looked back down to the floor.

“Um … It’s nice to meet you, Asa.” She sounded cold and not at all welcoming.

Asa opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. He lifted a hand to his face and rubbed it across his jaw like he was trying really hard to think of something to say. I scowled at him and crossed my arms over my chest. I was two seconds away from stamping my foot in irritation in a full-on fit.

“What is wrong with you?” I mean I knew my mom was dramatic and that she hadn’t made the best first impression, but the stone-man impression seemed a little extreme, especially when he had just assured me he could handle her with very little effort.

Then it was like a switch flipped. Suddenly his stony and hard expression fell away and the harmless good ol’ boy underneath was revealed. An easy grin pulled at his mouth and he dipped his chin in a polite nod.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” I had never heard his drawl so thick or so purposeful. It made goose bumps rise up on my skin and chills race along my spine. He had slipped into a role. Asa was playing a character all of a sudden and it made my stomach hurt to watch the change happen so seamlessly right in front of my eyes. Especially since he was doing it to someone that was so important to me. Something was seriously wrong and I had no idea what it was.

I helped my mom to her feet and was puzzled as to why she was shaking. She gave me a hug and hastily ushered me off to the kitchen with Asa trailing behind us. She started rattling off a hundred questions at me about work, Dom, everything under the sun besides me and Asa, which I thought was superweird. Even if she had enough tact not to openly ogle him in front of me, there was no way she wouldn’t at least give him an appreciative once-over. All women did. It was part of the magnetism he exuded so effortlessly. If you were born with a vagina, you were going to check Asa out when you got the opportunity. It was just a fact.

I kept looking back and forth between the two of them, but he was staring at me like he was trying to work out something important to say, and that made me really nervous. I don’t know what had happened when we walked in that front door, but I felt like I had entered an alternate dimension.

My mom had us help take dinner to the table, and when we sat down it didn’t escape my notice that Asa sat at the very end of the table, as far away from both me and my mother as he could get. It also didn’t skip my attention that he didn’t touch anything on his plate as my mom chattered on and on about nothing and everything at an alarming speed. She was acting more erratic than I could ever remember seeing her. I set my fork down with a clatter on my plate and narrowed my eyes at her.

“Mom.” She closed her mouth with a snap and blinked at me like an owl. “This is the first guy I’ve brought home to meet you in years and you’ve spent the last twenty minutes talking about your dry cleaners and a stain in your blouse. Don’t you want to know how we met or anything about Asa? You’re being very rude.”

She balked at me and turned wide eyes to Asa and then looked back at me with a bright red stain on her cheeks.

“Oh … I’m so sorry. I promise, I usually have better manners than this.” Asa grunted as I reached out a foot to kick him under the table. A smile instantly flashed across his face and he shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it, ma’am. I appreciate you making dinner for us.”

My mom gave a high-pitched laugh and raised a hand to fiddle with her necklace. “So obviously you’re from the South. Where would that be?”

“Kentucky.” He kept the smile on his face but there was no pleasantness in his voice at all.

“Oh, I bet it’s pretty there.”

“Not the part I’m from.”

I jumped in before it could get any more awkward. “Asa bartends at the bar I told you I was hanging out at.”

“A bartender. That sounds like a fun job,” she said a little too brightly.

“It has its moments.” Asa’s deadpan response was the last straw. The tension was as thick as a blanket and so heavy I felt like I couldn’t breathe through it anymore.

I pushed away from the table and rose to my feet with my hands on the edge. I swung my head back and forth between the two of them and asked, “What on earth is going on here?” I needed answers as to why he was acting so strange, needed them, like, yesterday.