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There’s no way that Athena’s twenty four year-old daughter—who, having only recently graduated college, is currently living alone and undertaking an underpaying internship—would turn down free groceries.
But then again, said daughter did just recently drop a cool sixteen hundred dollars on a date with a man who would have gone out with her for free, had she just asked. So maybe May isn’t as financially savvy as Athena has been assuming.
Still, in this economy, you’d have to be a real idiot to turn down the free groceries offered to you by your mother out of the kindness of her heart.
…Or the cunningness of her mind.
And, look—it’s not that Athena is trying to manipulate her daughter. She just needs a ploy to get herself through the door and start a conversation without attracting too much suspicion over her true intentions. Because May Grant is most certainly not an idiot, and therefore Athena will not be very successful in her mission if she doesn’t play her cards right.
Which is why she’s standing at May’s door, hands full of paper grocery bags. She’s just about to maneuver them around so she can knock when the door swings open to reveal May, dressed nicely and on her way out.
May almost jumps out of her skin at the sight of her; Athena almost sneezes at the overwhelming scent of floral perfume May has evidently doused herself in.
“Mom!” May exclaims. “What are you doing here?”
Athena’s brows lift challengingly. “A mother can’t come by and see her daughter?”
“She can,” May amends, already suspicious. “She just usually calls first.”
Despite the unexpected and poorly timed visit, Athena knows she raised her daughter right. Meaning that May forgoes whatever previous plans she may have had and steps aside to let her mother through.
“Well, I was in the neighbourhood and thought I’d drop some things off,” Athena justifies, holding up her grocery bags of excuses. “Where were you off to?”
“I was just going to drop by the fire station,” May shrugs, doing a poor job at feigning an air of casualness. It’s clear she’s trying to make it sound like it’s not a big deal, but it’s not working.
“Ah,” Athena says, matching May’s attempt at nonchalance as she sets the bags down on the kitchen island. “To see your brother? Or to see your boyfriend?”
It’s also possible that she could be going to see Buck, but he’s pretty much covered in the brother category at this point. So the binary still remains.
Athena doesn’t need to be facing her daughter to know that May, predictably, rolls her eyes.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” May protests.
“Uh huh,” she mollifies. “My mistake.”
“We’ve only been on a few dates,” May explains, unprompted. “A really good few dates. But… we haven’t exactly put a label on it yet. It’s… casual.”
Athena does her best not to scoff, but she can’t quite control how high her eyebrows climb. “Sixteen hundred dollars is casual to you?”
“It was for charity,” May says, somewhat sheepishly. But then she points an accusatory finger at Athena when she remembers, “And you bid one thousand dollars to spend an evening with your son."
“I was protecting him from all those cougars out there who were trying to get their paws into him,” Athena reasons. “It’s a mother’s job, you know. To protect her babies.”
“We’re not babies anymore,” May argues.
“You will always be my babies,” Athena declares. “And I will always protect you both.”
May narrows her eyes, spotting the deeper meaning behind the words and trying to decipher what it is. “And what is it that you think I need protection from exactly?”
Athena sighs. “I’m just concerned, is all. You seem to be getting… attached. Very quickly.”
“And that's a bad thing?” May asks.
“I didn’t say that,” Athena corrects. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“You mean a relationship?”
“With a firefighter,” Athena adds. May turns her head away and sighs, like she was expecting this. “You and I both learned the hard way that it’s not exactly the safest job.”
“You let Harry be a firefighter,” May points out.
“I didn’t let your brother do anything,” Athena counters. “He made his own choices.”
“We both know you could have stopped him if you wanted to,” May replies bluntly.
“Oh, I wanted to.”
Athena had told Harry as much. She had wanted him to quit. She had wanted him to stop growing up and growing older. And—fair or not—she wants May to do the same.
Maybe that’s unrealistic. Maybe it’s overprotective—No, it’s definitely overprotective. But they’re her babies. Like she said—It’s her job to protect them. For as long as she can, at least.
“But you didn’t. You let him make his own choice,” May reminds her. “You supported him. Why can’t you do the same for me? I’m not the one putting myself in the line of fire. And I mean literally in the line of fire.”
Well, no, she’s not. But Athena has been in the line of fire, and she’s been the person whose loved ones are in it instead. So she can confirm with great certainty that the latter experience is far more painful.
Athena reaches out and cups her daughter’s cheek, gently stroking her thumb across it as she looks into the eyes of the little girl she would die to protect.
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt like I did,” she confesses quietly.
May softens at the admission, leaning into the touch. “Mom, Harry’s a firefighter. Buck’s a firefighter. Hen. Eddie. Chimney. You’re a cop. And I don’t take that lightly. You know, I lost Bobby too. But—” she cuts herself off and sighs heavily. “Almost everyone I love risks their lives every day. I mean, really, what’s one more?”
“So it’s love now?” Athena teases, an edge of playfulness in her tone as she lets her hand fall. “That seems like a big jump from not your boyfriend.”
“You know what I mean.” May rolls her eyes. “What if it was Bobby?”
“Until I see a ring on that finger I don’t think that’s a comparison you can really understand,” Athena says. She wiggles her fingers, showing off the diamond ring that lets the world know she’s forever taken.
“Just—hear me out,” May insists eagerly. “If you could go back in time, knowing how it all turned out… Would you do it all over again? With Bobby?”
Athena lets out a shaky breath. “In a heartbeat.”
“Then don’t you think the possibility of pain is worth it?”
May’s words remind Athena of the conclusion she had reached in her own mind, floating around in the darkness of space and looking for a reason to fight: Pain is the price we pay for joy. And it's a fair trade, a good deal, because any second, instant, moment of joy is like a diamond in the darkness. Like stars.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen between me and Ravi,” May continues, before Athena gets a chance to respond. “Maybe it won’t go anywhere. Maybe it will, but we’ll break up. Or maybe we’ll end up like you and Bobby.”
Athena doesn’t know quite what she means by that. Are her and Bobby the blueprint for a couple that wants to spend the rest of their lives together? Or a couple that don’t get to?
“The point is,” May presses on, shaking her head. “I like him. And I don’t know where it’s going to lead. But… don’t you think we deserve the chance to find out?”
“Of course you do, baby,” Athena agrees. She reaches out to hold May’s hand, then sighs a little. “I always knew you were too much like me for your own good.”
“And proud of it,” May declares, resting her other hand on top so that Athena’s are sandwiched in between.
Athena smiles fondly at her little girl. The little girl who used to spill grape-flavored juice boxes all over herself, but is now a woman who comes over and drinks wine with her. The little girl who used to dress herself in princess costumes, but now dresses herself up for dates. It feels like Athena blinked, and suddenly her little girl was all grown up.
And she couldn’t be more proud of the woman she is turning out to be.
“But you’re not me. You are your own person, who gets to make her own choices. Pave her own path. I may be scared of where that path is leading you, but it is yours to walk. And if you need me, I’ll be right behind you, watching you make your own way.”
“I love you, Mom,” May says.
She embraces Athena in a bone crushing hug, arms wrapped tightly around her neck.
“I love you too, May,” Athena replies. After a moment, she pulls back and adds, “And for what it’s worth, I think you picked a good one.”
“Yeah?” May asks hopefully. There’s a tentative smile on her face, that Athena’s approval could make or break.
“He’s a kind man. A good one. Bobby never had a bad word to say about him.”
May frowns. “I didn’t know you and Bobby talked about him.”
“Oh, we did. I even remember one time—Bobby told me he thought Ravi might have had a little crush on you,” she recalls.
“What?” May’s eyes widen curiously. “When was this? What did he say?”
It was several years ago. Apparently, Ravi had been curious about May’s plans for the summer, and Bobby had been suspicious about where exactly his interest was coming from.
But this is May’s relationship. She’s a grown up! If she wants to know how long her man has been holding a torch for her, she can ask Ravi himself.
“That’s not important,” Athena dismisses. “But you should know, Bobby really loved Ravi. And I think he would be very happy that you two found each other.”
May offers her a small, genuine smile. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Though I’m not so sure he would approve of how you’re spending your inheritance money,” Athena adds pointedly, shifting the tone of the conversation.
May rolls her eyes again. “Okay, not that it’s any of your business, but Ravi offered to pay me back for that.”
“And did he?”
“Half of it. I wouldn’t let him pay the full thing so we had to compromise,” May explains. “Plus, he’s been paying for our dates. And spending a fortune on flowers.”
Athena looks around at the array of flowers in the living room and kitchen. “So that’s why it looks like a florist in here.”
“What can I say?” May shrugs. “I’m worth it.”