by Elodie Colt
“Maybe she flicked the bean in front of him and let him watch,” Leo blurts, hitting the nail on the head as usual.
The girls burst into laughter, but the second I need to save my face, is one second too long. My aghast expression catches Kendra’s attention when I launch to my feet to glimpse into the oven, pretending to check on the chicken sizzling in the sheet pan.
“Oh. My. God.” She places unnecessary pauses between each syllable, pinning me with two stunned eyes. “No fucking way.”
I’m afraid, yes. And it was the bravest, dumbest, and hottest thing I’ve ever done.
“What?” Skyla’s confused look ping-pongs between us before the penny drops. She almost chokes on her lollipop when her head whips to me. “No, you didn’t!”
Ruby peeks up from her textbook. “You hitchhiked south in front of Matthew?”
“Shhh!” I wave my hands about, just in case Matthew is already within earshot, listening from behind the door. I fire a scornful look at Leo.
She throws up her hands. “What? Jeez, I made a joke. How the hell was I supposed to know you actually masturbated in front of the guy during lunch break?”
She looks at me in disbelief, as if I had a few screws loose. Frankly speaking, I have. After all, I pushed him out into the backyard with a boner the size of my fallen tree. I could have saved us both the scandal if I’d given him two damn minutes to get his hard-on in check.
I slap a hand over my forehead, irked by my stupidity, Leo’s inexorable audacity, and the overall awkwardness of the situation.
“Alright, spill it.” Kendra clicks her fingers, waving them in my direction as if summoning her butler. “And don’t you dare leave out the juicy stuff.”
Just as I open my mouth, the doorbell saves me from answering, ringing three times in a row.
“Is that Matthew?” Skyla asks, casting a glance at the clock on the wall. “Wow, he’s early. Since when does he use the front door?”
Smirking, I open the oven to dowse the vegetables in the sheet pan with olive oil while Ruby pushes to her feet to answer the door.
“Let’s leave this discussion for tomorrow, okay?” I say to Kendra who’s still drilling me with a stare as if trying to scratch the secrets from my mind. “And no awkward comments in front of him, is that cl—”
I go rigid. Every cell in my body freezes. The breath hitches in my throat when a voice dances from the hallway. Not Ruby’s. Not Matthew’s.
Mom’s.
“Oh, it’s, uh… nice to meet you, Mrs. Kent,” I hear Ruby stammer from behind the open door. Three wide pairs of eyes swivel to me.
I’m still standing in front of the oven, my neck so tense you could play guitar on my strained tendons as I keep my horrified stare on the door. Ruby comes in first with a contrite expression on her face, mouthing a ‘sorry’ in my direction, before she leads the two people I haven’t seen for seven years into the dining room. Seven fucking years they haven’t set a foot on this continent, and now they decided to just drop by unannounced, looking as if they never left in the first place.
Dad cracks a timid smile while Mom beams at me, extending her arms for a warm welcome hug she won’t receive.
“There she is, my pretty, little girl.”
I just blink, flicking my incredulous stare between the two of them. Dad’s gray hair is growing around a widow’s peak that has become more prominent since the last time I saw him, while Mom looks as youthful as ever in her long-sleeved olive dress, with her hair as golden as mine. Only a few laugh lines circle her eyes that her crap-ass web cam has been hiding during our last Zoom calls.
Everyone waits for my response. The only sounds in the room are the chicken sizzling in the oven and my heartbeat throbbing in my throat. I have to clear it before it elicits an animalistic growl.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” I grind out at last.
Mom drops her hands and chuckles, undeterred by my snarky attitude. “Silly, I texted you we were about to visit.”
Yeah, you just forgot to give me a fucking time, date, and month.
Dad creeps forward in his cheap suit to place a quick peck onto my cheek. Mom introduces herself to the girls, brown-nosing by gushing over how many nice things I’ve told her about them.
“Ah, I see we’ve arrived right on time for dinner,” Dad says, peeking into the oven over his black-rimmed glasses before placing a five-dollar bottle of supermarket red wine onto the table.
While Ruby and Skyla keep my parents busy offering refreshments, I pull Kendra aside with a sharp tug.
“Guess it’s a date for four, then,” Kendra muses with an apologetic look. “Poor Matthew.”
I shake my head at her. “Are you insane? I don’t want him anywhere near them,” I hiss, keeping an eye on Mom who makes herself comfortable on one of the kitchen chairs as if she’s a regular in this house. I throw a nervous glance at the clock. “He should be here any minute. Do me a favor and tell him that dinner is canceled.”
Kendra looks as if she’s about to argue, but then Mom decides to butt into our conversation, so she ushers the girls out.
“I see the porch is shining in new splendor.” Mom nods to Matthew’s impressive handiwork outside the window. “Looks nice. Must have cost a great deal of money. I thought things were tight at the moment.”
“They are,” I grumble in response to the accusing edge in her voice, pulling out the finished dinner I’d rather trash than share with the two people currently sitting at my table. Despite the aromas of fennel and cinnamon wafting from the meal, I wrinkle my nose in response to the spicy odor of the torment Mom is sure to put me under for the following hours. “A… friend was kind enough to help me out.”
“Oh, what friend?”
“Me.”
I almost drop the pan when his voice floats over the room, spinning around with a gasp. The sight of Matthew looming in the doorway, wearing the same shirt as last time we shared dinner and a groomed hairstyle that makes him handsome enough to break the heart of a stone statue, drops a heavy weight of mortification down my stomach. At the same time, weirdly, it bounces up again with a small wave of relief.
Matthew’s brief, hard glance in my direction signals that Kendra warned him of my unexpected guests.
Why the hell did he come anyway?
He tears his gaze from me, putting on a radiant smile as he glides into the dining room with more confidence than I can muster at the moment.
“Good evening.” He nods his head in respect, approaching my unwelcome guests with an outstretched hand. “You’re Sam’s parents, I take it? I’m Matthew Mallory.”
Mom’s face lights up with a surprised smile at his gentlemanly manners. She shakes his hand. “Oh, a pleasure to meet you. I’m Ira Kent, and this is my husband, Steven.”
Dad stands from his chair to welcome Matthew. “I’m sorry, we didn’t know Samantha was expecting guests tonight.”
A simple call would have cleared that up, Daddy dearest.
Bristling, I switch my focus to the meal and load four plates with pieces of chicken, cabbage, and carrots.
“It’s fine,” Matthew says with a friendly smile I probably won’t be sporting the entire evening and pulls out a chair to sit down. “Knowing Sam, she’s been cooking for an entire army again… Right, honey?”
And with those two words, he electrifies an organ in my chest that threatens to squeeze up my throat and land in a pumping puddle on the kitchen floor. He reciprocates the stunned glance I flash him over my shoulder with a warm, cheery look that seems more authentic than we both know it is. Immediately, Mom’s eyes brighten with a beaming smile.
What the hell are you doing? I ask him with my panicked stare, but he just winks at me with his irritating bad-boy allure.
Payback for my payback, that’s what this is. I’m so screwed…
While Matthew strikes up small talk with my parents, I go through the robotic motions of setting up dinner, my mind reeling. He has busted into my home again, the presu
mptuous bastard, meddling in my personal affairs and running over my privacy like a bulldozer. The sad part is, I won’t get him out of my hair unless I physically kick him out and therefore turn this evening from supremely unpleasant to downright unbearable.
I set my plate down before I sag into the seat next to Matthew, my eyes riveted on my steaming meal that holds no appeal for me anymore.
“Looks delicious, honey.”
His sweet purr drags me from my morbid thoughts, and I turn to face him just as he leans in to plant a peck onto my cheek. That damn floppy strand again. It tickles my temple and, in return, every other square inch south of my belly button. The proximity forces the scent of his cologne up my nostrils, reminding me of the passionate, toe-curling kiss we shared in my tree house. That day, I swore to myself to never let his lips touch my skin again, something I’d apparently forgotten when I kissed him today. Your loyalty to yourself is astounding, Sam.
I’m still leering at him when he pulls his face back to focus on his dinner. The prick is dead sober for once. Not even a whiff of booze clings to his lips. The thought makes me reach for the bottle of red wine. Call me a hypocrite, but I won’t survive this evening nibbling on my water glass.
“How long will you stay in Florida?” Matthew asks nonchalantly as I fill my wine glass to the rim.
“Until the end of the week,” Mom says to my relief, forcing her knife through the caramel crust of her chicken. “We came here for a meeting with one of our main donors in Miami who will fund a big charity this year for our cause.”
A business trip, that’s what that is. God forbid they boarded the plane to visit their only daughter.
I opted for just a big gulp of wine, but then find myself chugging down the rest in one go. Matthew tenses beside me, squeezing my knee underneath the table as if sensing how my heart shrinks at her words. The touch is far from erotic or romantic, just comforting and surprisingly alleviating.
“How nice of you to drop by,” I can’t help but hurl at the table with a false smile.
Mom just shakes her head with a sigh like I’m missing the point before Dad explains, “We wish we could stay longer, but we’re under enormous time pressure with our current project to help small farmers improve their productivity. The climate change is pushing them into drier areas, and…”
By the time Dad finishes finding very plausible excuses as to why I am and will always be their second priority, I’ve downed another glass of wine and chewed on three pieces of cauliflower. Matthew’s hand hasn’t left my knee, warming my skin with soothing circles.
“We were hoping you would pay us a visit this year,” Mom says while I push my food around my plate. “Surely, you do have some free days this summer?”
Translation: Surely my workload doesn’t exceed five hours per week, so why would I expect my busy parents to waste their free time in Florida if I could fly to Nairobi where I’m supposed to be anyway?
Instead of the sneer my face is itching to show, I go for a tight smile. “Oh, I sure do, but a vacation isn’t in the cards for me this year. As you know, my finances are tight at the moment.”
“Life in Kenya isn’t expensive, Samantha. And we’re happy to pay for your flight.”
“Oh, I thought your hands were tied, seeing as you still haven’t transferred me the three hundred dollars you promised me.”
She blinks at me, opening her mouth to say something, when Dad finally senses the tension in the room and beats her to it with a harrumph. As opposed to Mom, he couldn’t care less if I worked for them in Nairobi or as a gravedigger in Tajikistan. ‘She’s old enough to make her own decisions,’ he used to say, which makes him a tad more bearable than Mom but also so aloof and unattainable, I sometimes have to wonder if we even share the same bloodline.
“So, Matthew,” he starts, munching on the crispy chicken edges. “You told us earlier you owned an orange plantation.”
Matthew slides his hand from my knee to grab his fork and continue eating. I immediately feel the loss of warmth.
“Mallory Fruit Farms, yes.” He offers Dad a brief smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s not feeling the warm fuzzies in front of these two, either. “You may have heard of my business. We’re shipping citrus fruits to Africa that can’t be sold anymore.”
“But of course!” Mom yowls when recognition strikes, a smile building on her face. “The children love your oranges. They’re always giddy when your trucks arrive. Thanks a lot for your generous donations.”
Matthew dips his head in a respectful nod. “I’m happy to help.”
I fumble with my earring so agitatedly, my whole ear has probably turned an angry red. At the drop of a hat, he’s conquered Ira Kent’s black heart. That one, tiny spot I’ve been fighting to get for years, and it took him barely an hour to worm his way in.
“No surprise then that you know how to swing a hammer.” Dad nods to my new porch. “Amazing work you did there.”
“Thank you, Sir, but that wasn’t just my doing. Sam and her friends were of great help,” Matthew says in an attempt to shed me in a bright light, which slaps the first genuine smile that evening onto my face. “To be honest, that tree crashing down was the best thing that could have happened. I don’t know who was hired to build the porch, but the entire wooden structure was a botch-up. A miracle it hasn’t collapsed yet.”
My smile freezes on my face, my mind doing a bumpy Rally race as I try to grasp what he just said. Matthew knows my Dad built the porch. I told him. He purposely insulted my father and belittled his handiwork for whatever reasons.
I quickly press my glass to my mouth to hide my secret smile and dart a sidelong glance at Dad. He goes very still, throwing his wife a helpless look through his glasses as if hoping for her support, but for once, Mom is lost on words and steers the topic to safer ground. The kind of terrain that puts her on a steady surface and me into a swamp.
“How’s work going, Samantha?”
Good enough to land me a renowned agent. Which is not what I say for obvious reasons.
My hands clench underneath the table until the cut on my palm screams in protest. “Still the same since you asked me three days ago.”
Matthew stands to clear the table, acting the perfect son-in-law. Mom and Dad nod to him in thanks when he takes their empty plates to put them into the sink.
“Don’t sell yourself short, honey,” Matthew tosses in before Mom can add her two cents, sauntering back to the table to halt right behind me. He puts his hands reassuringly onto my shoulders before he addresses my parents. “Her business is blooming. She’s working her ass off twenty-four seven to get all the projects finished, and still finds the time to do the household and get a little creative. Have you seen that little table on the porch?” He points to my handiwork from last week. “She made that one all by herself, my little master craftswoman.”
My throat squeezes shut, choking me up as he finishes his heart-melting speech with a slow, sensual kiss he’s bestowing on me from behind. Just like he’d done last time when he hovered behind me, and I almost died of heart failure.
But this time, he’s not in a hurry to detach his lips from mine, not even when someone fidgets and clears their throat. The kiss is a promise. A silent warning to let me know that he won’t back down just because I rejected him last time. And dear God, the thought alone sends a flood of liquid pleasure down to the apex of my thighs until I’m close to moaning into his mouth.
Thankfully, he severs the connection before this reaches an outrageous level of embarrassment and resumes his seat with a laid-back attitude that makes me wonder if the guy’s got a ‘turned on-turned off’ switch stashed somewhere he can flip at a whim. I definitely came without that handy gadget, and I lower my head to let the shorter strands of my hair cover my boiling cheeks.
Mom shares a questioning look with Dad before she puts on a closed-lipped smile. “Well, we’re happy to hear everything is working in your favor at the moment, and…”
Her voi
ce gets lost in a far corner of my cerebral gyri as I try to calm down the tornado wreaking havoc in my head, my belly, and every damn organ and nerve and muscle in between. Everything is upside down, running backward, getting tangled in total disorder. My heart is dizzy, my brain is pounding against my skull, and my stomach is suffering a whiplash. I snatch the water bottle from the table, fill my wine glass, and knock it down in one swig until I’m halfway assured I won’t faint on the spot from my heartbeat pulsating in my eyelids.
I had it all wrong. Matthew didn’t come here to pull my leg just for some evening entertainment. He didn’t slip into the boyfriend role to tease me, to push me, or to pick on me.
He came to have my back. To stick up for me. To side with me when no one else would. To show me the respect I’ve never deserved in the eyes of my parents.
“… still do all that in Kenya, Samantha.”
My gaze flicks up to Mom piercing me with a hopeful yet stern gaze.
“I get that you love what you do,” she goes on, “and we’d be happy to offer you a job in that field. You can edit our brochures, text our pamphlets, and help us with the website. You could even—”
“No.”
She blinks at me, shocked by what she obviously considers a rude interruption, whereas she’s the ignorant one of the two of us. Her constant drive to thrust me into a life I don’t want to live is slowly becoming an offense against my personality, and my subconscious, perpetual need to receive her approval irks me to no end.
‘Why on earth would she be proud of you?’ Matthew said to me that day in the tree house. ‘She doesn’t know you.’
She opens her mouth to say something, but I beat her to it, showing her my full disdain with a hard, unrelenting glare.
“Samantha, try to be reasonable. We—”
I shoot from my chair as my temper flares up all of a sudden, sizzling somewhere in my eardrums. Mom gasps as my tantrum almost knocks over all the glasses on the table. Time to lay it on the line.
