Have Baby, Need Beau by Rita Herron

by his house. His anxiety magnified a hundredfold when his father climbed from the car, waving a newspaper with a color photo of him and Mimi entering an elevator in Magnolia Manor. A potted plant shielded most of his face, but his Harvard ring gleamed in the background. Mimi, with her wild auburn hair and that killer body, would have been recognizable anywhere. Especially wearing that hot-pink bridesmaid dress.
    “What do you mean by this?” his father asked.
    His mother gasped. “And what happened to your face? You look like you’ve been in a brawl.”
    Seth rubbed a hand over the bruise around his eye, remembering the tumble with Mimi. He grinned in spite of himself. “I had a little fall. No big deal.”
    “Please tell me you haven’t hooked up with that heathen Hartwell girl.” Mrs. Broadhurst fluttered a hand in front of her forehead as if she might faint at the appalling idea.
    Seth’s temper flared. “She is not a heathen, Mother. Don’t be so dramatic.”
    “My God, you have hooked up with her,” his father said in an accusing tone.
    “Dating the other one was tolerable—at least she was a doctor,” his mother continued, “but after humiliating you in front of the whole town, how can you even consider seeing her sister? Why, the gossip has barely died down from the first debacle. Now you want to start another?”
    “Thanks, Mom. I hope you’re not on the sunshine committee for the hospital. You really know how to make a person feel better.”
    His father slapped the paper against his hand. “Have you considered what publicity like this might do to your reputation at the hospital?”
    Seth gritted his teeth and pushed past his parents to open his front door. “I’m not worried about my reputation. And who I see is none of your concern. I’m an adult.”
    “You certainly aren’t acting like one,” his mother said. “Not if you’re cavorting with women like her .”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Seth asked, irritated when his parents followed him inside.
    “So you are seeing her?”
    “No. I…” Seth bit back the words, refusing to give them an explanation. “You don’t have to insult Mimi.”
    “Why not? She’s always in the paper with her dad. That man’s the biggest spectacle in Sugar Hill,” his mother said.
    “And she was dating that hoodlum from her father’s dealership. They might all be crooks.”
    “Mimi was cleared,” Seth said. “She had no idea DeLito was a thief. She feels terrible about the whole episode.”
    His mother waved her hand again. “I can’t believe you’re actually defending her.”
    “I’m telling you the truth.” Seth folded his arms and faced them, his pulse hammering. “If Mimi is guilty of anything, it’s of being too trusting.”
    His mother leaned against the sofa table, sending the crystal vase into a wobble. “She’s a hussy.”
    “She is not.”
    “Need I remind you she’s a waitress in a coffee shop,” Mr. Broadhurst said. “She’s simply not on your level.”
    He and Mimi had certainly been on the same level the night before in bed, but he refused to be goaded. “Mimi’s not just a waitress, she manages the place,” Seth said. “And you two are snobs.”
    His mother’s heels clicked as she stomped toward the door, her nose in the air, her head thrust back like an angry ostrich. “I don’t know what she did to you—probably put you under some kind of spell,” Mrs. Broadhurst said. “But one evening with her, and you’re not the same man. You’ve lost all respect for your family.”
    She was right—he was a different man. A sexually sated, happy man who’d been in total ecstasy only hours after his former fiancée had married another man. All thanks to Mimi.
    “Look, son,” Mr. Broadhurst said, “I know a man has needs. If you want … you know, sex, for God’s sake, at least find a woman who doesn’t flaunt her picture in the paper all the time like these Hartwells.”
    Seth fisted his hands.