Sell you a Bridge chapter 79 (Patreon)

O'Malley penthouse August 9th 6:00 PM EDT

So  here we were, at dinner at our penthouse. It was Paula, Artemis, me, my  mother, Zee, Wally, my moms new boyfriend Satoru, and a partridge in a  fucking pear tree. Mom had wanted to invite Reggie's family too, as she  and Claire had really bonded on the cruise, but knowing how important  this night was to Zee I didn't want to pull focus more than we already  had. That said, I was in fact not focused. I busied myself checking on  and the food and getting bowls to get away from everyone as Zee helped  ease Wally and Paula's meeting.

The  older woman was pretty blunt at the best of times and while she was  being perfectly nice to the redhead, she was also horrifying him with  poignant and deeply personal conversations about his sex life with  Artemis and future plans. The poor guys face was as red as his hair and  he looked like he wanted to climb in a hole and die, with Artemis right  on his heels. Personally I thought it was funny given his usual forward  and flirtatious nature, but hey she wasn't my future mother in law (her  words). No I was distracted by something else. Or rather someone else.  Satoru. I'd checked the guy out in my aura sight and I almost black out  from mind numbing terror.

Not  that I knew what I was afraid of, just that he was fucking scary. I  couldn't really understand his aura at all, it was complicated and  abstruse, but whatever it was it was powerful. The thing was I was  positive looking at it that he had no bad intentions, mostly because if  he did I was pretty sure he could wipe the whole city from the face of  the planet. Plus the cruise was safe by virtue of the nature of my  powers, and I had to trust that those worked or what the hell was I  doing. In the end I had no option here but to be nice, besides having  him around would make my mom, Artemis, and Paula safer.

So  I carried the bowls to the table, making a mental not to have Jim come  and check him out, but figuring playing along was my only option here. I  sat down next to Zee, who was already chatting with my mom, and took  her hand under the table, squeezing gently to let her know I was here  for her. She gave me a grateful smile, before nodding to my mom.  "Morgan! Wow, that smells delicious, thanks baby, your mom was just  telling us about the cruise, it sounds fascinating. I haven't even heard  of some of the places they went."

Which  was her way of letting me know that the cruise had indeed left this  dimension like I'd suspected. Places you've never heard of is a pretty  broad description but the phrasing made me think the ship would be  moving between worlds. That actually explained Satoru, because whatever  the hell that guy was, he wasn't someone that I could imagine people  being unaware of. Despite his sunny, friendly disposition, which was  obvious even just after meeting him, anyone with an ounce of any kind of  power would feel the raw predatory strength rolling off the man in  waves. Satoru Gojo was strong enough to beggar belief, and he knew it.  He carried himself like an apex predator, relaxed and happy because he  could be.

Weirdly  though, he also seemed to genuinely not care he was so scary. The guy  was a major goofball and it was hard not to like him. When Zee finished  talking he hopped his feet energetically and exclaimed "And that's where  I come in! Marie-chan ended up visiting Tokyo to take in the sights,  and when we met I just fell head over heels." He waggled his eyebrows.  "I don't know if you know this kid but your mom is quite the cutie. She  stole my heart at first glance." He put a hand to his forehead and  tilted back his head with an exaggerated sigh of nostalgia. I blinked a  few times, this guy was kind of hard to keep up with. He dropped his  head back down to grin at me. "And please, call me Gojo. First names  sound strange to me."

Mom  reached out with a delighted smile to take his hand. "Ah, yes, sorry  honey. Satoru has been teaching me about his culture, and using first  names is reserved for close loved ones, usually romantic ones. He  doesn't bother with stuffy honorifics but going by his last name will  help him feel more at ease." She blushed brightly. "Well, he only uses  honorifics for me. He says Marie-chan sounds pretty, and I like it too."  Wow. Now I kind of got how Artemis felt around me and Zee, watching  family members fawn over their significant other was kind of gross.

It  didn't help that Gojo looked like a male model. Seriously, aside from  being cut as hell (though not like me, more martial artist than body  builder). The dude's hair was fine and silky and his jaw cheekbones were  razor sharp. Plus he had weirdly delicate eyelashes, like almost  girlishly delicate and long. Still, as long as Jim gave the ok I was  happy for mom, she deserved to find someone. She spent so much of my  life focused on me, now that I had my own life I guess she felt like it  was time. I wasn't enough of an asshole to stand in the way of my  mothers happiness if Gojo was on the up and up.

I  wondered how dad would react to this, and mentally smirked at the  thought of him trying to use the family name to bully this absolute  beast of a person. Aside from being too damn strong to push around, Gojo  had the most obvious case of not giving a single fuck about anything I  had ever seen. Oblique threats would roll right off him, hell overt  threats would roll right off him unless you tried to actually hurt him.  Or at least that was the impression I got of him. It was hard to figure  him out without my aura vision, but apparently the combination of aura  sight and perfect memory had given me a small talent for reading body  language. I guess I subconsciously learned to associate certain  movements with emotions.

Gojo  spent the next twenty minutes entertaining us with dramatic tales of  meeting my mom and their instant connection and his harrowing battle to  win her a stuffed bear at a Tokyo carnival, almost thwarted by the  nefarious stall owner and his hidden machinations. It was silly and over  the top and my mom loved it, giggling like a school girl the entire  time as the grinning man loudly proclaimed his victory over a slightly  too heavy stack of bottles with a baseball at the eleventh hour.  Honestly I was amazed. There was something about Gojo that just put  people at ease.

I  even managed to adjust my perception enough to start picking up very  slight impressions from his aura, with only a constant pain in my skull  to prove it wasn't going perfectly. What I saw from him was...weird. He  seemed relieved. Like he had been pressganged into doing something hard  and awful before but now for the first time he was free. I wasn't sure  where Gojo came from exactly, but I was glad my mother wasn't there  anymore, because the grief and weariness coming through his aura was so  strong once I noticed it I had no clue how I had missed it before.

On  the upside I saw his aura shift when he looked at mom too. He really  cared about her. He had felt so trapped and isolated where he was and he  saw her as a savior. She came and took him away from that awful place,  though I had no clue why he hadn't just left. Was his old world really  that bad all over? Was every place on earth so horrible that escaping  from the entire universe was his only out? What a scary thought. Though  he didn't seem afraid of where he came from, just sick of it. I could  feel that same overwhelming apex predator vibe still shining through.

Once  I learned to read his aura a bit better I felt much more at ease around  Gojo. I could tell he genuinely cared about my mother and that's all I  needed. I would still mention him to Jim to check out of course, though I  would caution my mentor to be careful, but all in all I decided to give  him a probationary ok. In the meantime my mother and Zee had gotten to  chatting and mom was thrilled. She turned and gave me a grin. "I like  her much better than the last one honey. Annabel was nice enough but she  was so controlling in so many little ways."

I  blinked. I hadn't ever gotten the impression mom didn't like Annabel.  They seemed to get on great. She saw my expression and shrugged. "She  was your girlfriend, I wasn't going to butt into your relationship. If  you didn't mind her being in charge that was up to you. If I'd seen her  mistreat you I would have said something, but she seemed like a sweet  girl, just a bit domineering." She smiled at Zatanna. "This one I like  better though. She doesn't want to change you, I can tell. She just  wants to keep you." Her warm gaze turned back to me. "Besides you gave  Satoru the benefit of the doubt, it would pretty rotten of me not to do  the same."

The  sense of pride and gratitude coming off her in my aura sight was  suffocating and I walked around the table to give my mom a hug. She had  been worried about me meeting Gojo. It had been just us for so long she  thought I might pull a stereotypical child of a single parent move and  be a brat about it. But I had accepted her boyfriend and she could tell  and she loved me even more for it. I tried to tell her with my hug that  of course I had. She'd done everything for me, I would never get in the  way of her being happy. No one deserved it more than my mom.

I  was pretty sure I was going to sleep at the clock tower most nights  though. The thought of my mom having a sex life made me nauseous. I  wanted her to be happy, but I didn't want her to do it close enough for  me to hear it through the walls. Meanwhile Artemis had seemingly managed  to weather the storm of probing and unusually personal questions  without Wally turning into a bowl of red mush, and her mom seemed to  have accepted that Wally was sticking around. I was happy for my best  friend, and glad we had invited her.

Everyone  loved the Jambalaya, a recipe I had put a ton of work into because I  absolutely loved the stuff and desperately wanted it to be perfect, and  after dinner I brought out the dessert I had made without telling  anyone. Of course since we had Cajun food there was only one dessert  worth making, and I put out a plate Beignets proudly and listened to the  delighted sounds as everyone dug in. I had expected them to be a hit,  but they loved them so much Paula made me promise to make more for her  for her birthday and I was pretty smug about that.

Finally  it was time for everyone to go. Zee's dad would be home soon and she  couldn't stay, so I walked her outside to say goodnight. When we were  outside she adjusted her glamour so I would be able to see through it  and pulled me into a tight hug, putting her head against my chest.  "Thank you. I haven't had a family dinner like that in...years. Even  before we lost mom dad was always working. It was everything I hoped it  would be, and so much more." She leaned up to give me a soft kiss, her  lips tasting of guava. "Love you Morgan. Goodnight." And as she  teleported home I had to smile. It certainly had been a good night  indeed.