Date Me, Mr. Archer

eight | one-sided attraction?

As I walked into my childhood house, the first sight that beheld me was mom sitting on the huge, beige sofa, a bowl of popcorn in her lap and the television playing Enola Holmes 2.

Her face was overtaken by a huge grin as she looked at me walking inside the house and she pressed pause on the movie.

Instantly throwing her arms around me, she brought me in for a fierce hug, cooing at how soft my hair was. Laughing, I pulled back and examined her face. "You look good, mama," I complimented her.

She smiled and slapped my bicep before bringing me to sit on the sofa. "And you look even thinner than the last time you were here," she chastised and shook her head, also sitting next to me. "I swear you should never have moved to your own apartment. For one, you visit so little and when you do, you're like this, all skinny as if malnourished."

I groaned. This had been a routine everytime I entered my house, except I'd usually find my mom in the kitchen making food and dad either having fun on his only hangout day or watching television. But dad was nowhere to be found and mom was sitting on the sofa, so something didn't match up here.

Pulling my legs under my butt and folding them, I reached forward to pick a few popcorns from the bowl sitting between me and mom, and popped them in my mouth. "Where's dad?"

My mom laughed, soft and saccharine, and rolled her eyes playfully. "Trev is in the kitchen. He wanted to make food today and, he said and I quote," mom giggled and dramatically raised her arm in the air mimicking something like the Statue of liberty as if commanding a crowd and quoted dad, "I'm hereby banning all the ladies from the kitchen every Saturday. Now shoo off."

My eyes widened, shocked and amusement floating through them. "That's not like him to give up his once-a-week hangout sesh," I muttered, shaking my head. "He gave up getting inebriated for cooking?"

"Uh-huh," my mom hummed, pulling her feet underneath her as well, getting comfortable, and leaned back into the couch, her hands going behind her head.

"Why would he do that?" I asked, still confused.

"Because your mom promised me cuddles." I turned my head in the direction of our kitchen, where dad stood proudly with a spatula in his hand, a white apron tied around his waist, covered in red sauces, his hair a fuzz and a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

I narrowed my eyes at my dad, then turned to look at my mom, my lips threatening to curve upwards. "Really?" I asked her, incredulously. "That's all it took to make him stay home? Cuddles?"

"Yes," my dad answered again, securing my attention back to him. "I'm totally whipped for your mom. What can I do?" He shrugged a non-chalant shoulder, grinning from ear-to-ear.

My mom grunted from besides me and I supressed a laugh. "You should've told me," I fake-winced. "If I had known you'd be all I needed to make him stay at home, I wouldn't have threatened to cut off his Netflix account." I told mom, slightly leaning in her embrace.