Oh boy.
“Kathryn. Kathryn Jansen. The woman in my life. It’s serious.”
Few words.
No beating around the bush.
Straight out.
The woman in my life.
It’s serious.
Oh boy!
“Of course you will,” he stated firmly.
I had a feeling I knew what those words meant, and…
Yikes!
“What? This Monday? Cool,” he went on. “What time are you getting in?”
Hang on a second.
What was happening?
“Great. Yeah. I’ll talk to Hawk. He’ll be cool. You want me to pick you up from the airport or are you renting a car?”
Oh my God, oh my God, ohmigod.
“Okay. Yeah. We’ll go out the first night, I’ll make you guys dinner at my place the second.” Pause and, “Yeah.” Pause and a scary “She’ll be there.” Pause and, “Great. Lookin’ forward to it, Dad. Love to Mom.” He then disconnected, looked to me, and announced unnecessarily, “Dad has had a last-minute meeting scheduled in Denver on Monday. This happens sometimes, though he usually has more notice. They’ve decided to make a weekend of it. So my folks will be here Friday.”
Friday?
Like…
Tomorrow?
“Boone—” I started.
But his phone rang again, he looked at it, grinned and told me, “Hang on,” before he took the call.
Then.
Get this.
He said, “Hey, Mom.”
He was grinning.
I was hyperventilating.
“I told Dad,” he said. Then, “Yeah, because men do not do that because we don’t need to do a deep dive into things like this when you’re gonna meet her this weekend.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
She was asking about me.
But of course she was!
“Kathryn, but everyone calls her Ryn,” he continued on a sigh. Pause and, “She’s gorgeous, she’s funny. You’re gonna like her.”
She was not.
I gave good sub.
Evidence was suggesting, for Boone, I gave good girlfriend.
What I did not do was give good girlfriend as considered such by a boyfriend’s parents.
Not one of my boyfriends’ parents had liked me.
I was too self-sufficient. I wasn’t girlie (as such). I didn’t suffer fools. I didn’t like to get bossed around by dudes (when I wasn’t subbing).
And last but oh so not least, I worked at a strip club.
Many parents frowned on that for their boys.
Like, in my admittedly not so vast experience, all of them.
“Mom, she’s right here and she knows she’s gonna meet you this weekend so she’s seriously nervous. Can we table this, seeing as you’re gonna meet her tomorrow, so I can see to my girl?”
At his sharing I was “seriously nervous,” I slapped his chest.
He grinned at me again.
I glared at him.
“Right. Love you too. Later,” he said into the phone.
He then tossed it to the bed beyond me, surged up and then down so he was on top of me.
“They’re gonna love you,” he said.
“Boone, I work in a strip club,” I reminded him.
“As a means to an end, but it wouldn’t matter. They aren’t judgy.”
We’d see about that, probably calamitously.
“I accidentally make friends with felons,” I went on.
“They aren’t gonna know about that.”
I thought that was a good call.
“Boone.” I lifted my hands to either side of his face. “None of my boyfriends’ parents liked me.”
“I think we’ve established all your exes were losers, babe, so how is that a surprise? Someone made them how they were.”
Hmm.
This was an interesting take.
“You make me happy.”
After he said this, I blinked up in his gorgeous face.
“Don’t think it escaped them I had issues after I got out of the military,” he continued. “And don’t think that didn’t worry them or that they aren’t freaked about what Jeb did because I have the same issues Jeb had.”
Right.
Now he’d brought up Jeb, it might be a good time to talk about Jeb.
Before I could instigate a discussion about Jeb, Boone kept talking.
“You think they’ll see me with a beautiful, together woman who dresses great, makes me laugh and makes me happy, and they’re not gonna like you?”
“Okay, I’ll cool it about your parents, honey. But now I think we need to talk about Jeb.”
He shook his head. “I gotta get to work so we don’t have time to talk about Jeb.”
This was true.
Still.
“Okay, but, baby,” I whispered, smoothing my thumbs over his cheeks, “we do need to find a time to talk about him.”
“The problem with what happened with Jeb is, there’s nothing to talk about. He’s dead. The end.”
“Boone,” I said gently.
“Kathryn,” he said impatiently.
I gave his face a careful squeeze before I slid my hands down to his chest and said, “I’m not gonna push it. I’m just gonna say, that isn’t the end. Not for you. And not for his wife or anyone who cared about him.”
“You’re right about that,” he grunted.
Now I was in a situation, because I didn’t want him to know that Axl and I had talked about it, but I also didn’t want to keep from him that Axl and I had talked about it.
Shit!
“Right, so it came up when we were talking things out, and he said it in a way that I know he thought I already knew, but Axl told me you look after Whitney and Muriel.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you did that?”
“Because it isn’t like I’m over there every day. But regardless, for the last two weeks, Whitney’s been in California with her folks, taking Muriel to Disneyland and the beach and shit, so there’s been nothing to look after.”
Oh.
“I’m not hiding shit from you, Ryn,” he told me, sounding a little annoyed.
“Okay,” I replied.
“I take care of it if something goes wrong in her house. I mow the lawn in the summer and trim her bushes. It isn’t like I’m over there all the time.”
“I’m not saying that’s an issue, Boone. It’s sweet you do that for her.”
“She gets another man, obviously, I’m out.”
“Is she going to get another man?” I asked carefully.
“I can’t tell the future, Ryn.”
“Would that bother you if she got another man?” I asked.
“Is there something about the concept of ‘we don’t have time to talk about this’ that you don’t get?” he asked in return.
I shut up.
His face softened and he murmured, “That was dick speak, sweetheart. Sorry.”
I drew in a breath and let it out, liking how quick he was to back down from that mood and apologize for acting on it.
“We’ll talk about this, I promise,” he promised.
I nodded.
“I miss him,” he shared. “I’m pissed at him. I’m pissed at myself I didn’t catch any signs. And I hate it that his daughter is gonna grow up not knowing how great her dad was.”
“That’s a lot,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he sighed.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I said.
“Yeah,” he repeated.
“I’m just gonna say now, before we end this, I know I’m not going to be able to take that away. That hurt. The anger. I’ve never lost anyone close, but I had a friend who had a girlfriend get really sick suddenly, and she didn’t make it, and my friend still isn’t the same. Grief isn’t a journey to getting over it or getting past it. It’s about adjusting your life to accommodate it. So I’m here to help you wi
th that or just,” I shrugged against the bed, “to listen.”
Boone stared down at me and he did this so long, it began to freak me.
“Or, maybe you can get over it,” I said quickly. “Maybe—”
“Quiet, Rynnie,” he whispered.
I shut my mouth.
“I never thought of it like that,” he told me.
“Oh,” I replied stupidly.
“I thought one day I’d just get what he did, and understanding would make it right in my head. Or I’d wake up and be on the other side of it and it would just be another thing that happened in life.”
“Well, I don’t have personal experience, Boone, but I don’t think it happens that way.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, clearly shaken by the epiphany I’d led him to.
I considered not saying what I wanted to say next, but since we were here, and Boone wasn’t shutting it down, I went for it.
“And I don’t want to get too deep into the philosophy of suicide, but only Jeb knew where he was at. And I hope at least you can find your way past the anger you have at him for what he did, even if it’s shifting it to anger at a system that failed him.”
At these words, all of a sudden, he rolled to his back, taking me with him so I knew he wasn’t upset about what I said. And I knew it more by how tight he was holding me against him.
“Boone,” I semi-wheezed, lifting my head to look down on him.
He took some of the pressure off.
I barely felt it when I saw what was in his green eyes.
Yeah, I was leading my man to a number of epiphanies that morning.
“Only Jeb knew where he was at,” he said softly.
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“I hate that he was at that place,” he told me.
At the tone of his voice, I felt tears I did not try to fight wet my eyes, and I lifted my hand to stroke his jaw.
“I hate it too, and I didn’t even know him.”
“He would have loved you, Rynnie. Just loved you for you, but also for me.”
I loved he thought that.
A tear fell over and slid down my cheek. “I’m glad.”
Boone lifted his hand and swept the wet away with his thumb.
Then he focused on my eyes, not my cheek, and admitted, “You have these really shitty thoughts that you feel like a total dick for having, about how selfish someone is who does that, seeing what they left behind and not understanding why they didn’t get that. It never occurred to me, not once, Ryn, to think where he was at. Not where he left us. But where he was. I didn’t think once about my friend who was in pain.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“And that’s really it, my friend was in pain in a way he had to end that pain and I hate that he was in that much pain, and I wish there was another way he could find his way out of it, but it’s not my choice how he dealt with it.”
I nodded again.
“So, even though I promise you my parents aren’t, I guess with this, I was being judgmental.”
“No,” I refuted. “You were just grieving.”
His eyes sparked before he framed my face in both hands, and said, unbearably sweet, “Thank you, baby.”
I gave him a shaky grin.
For comfort, I had to shift my hands from his jaw when his brought my face down to him and he pressed his mouth hard against mine.
When he pushed me gently away, he asked, “You good to get out of the heavy?”
“Only if you are.”
“I am.”
I nodded again.
Boone did another surge, this time to roll us out of the bed.
We held hands as he guided me to the bathroom.
And there, he loaded my toothbrush for me.
Chapter Nineteen
Meet the Parents
Ryn
It was Friday.
The day of doom.
Boone was right then picking his parents up from the airport.
He was going to check them in to their hotel, then for a drink and some catching-up time, just mother, father and son.
And Mag was dropping me off for dinner with them in a couple of hours, after we stopped by Boone’s place so I could unload my stuff.
I was in my bedroom, packing my bag for the weekend, Pepper and Evie lazing on my bed with Juno.
Mag was in my living room, avoiding any further girlie time like the plague.
Even though Lottie and Mo offered to let me stay with them for the weekend so Boone could have some one-on-one (on-one) time with his folks (and I might get a break), Boone had decreed we weren’t changing how we did things because his parents were around.
I was sleeping in his bed.
And we were spending our weekend together (just for a lot of the time, with his parents).
I could have fought this. I knew Boone would have given in. I knew he didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable.
But after that convo about Jeb, even if I had to do it around his parents, it was important to me to stay close to my guy to keep my finger on his pulse.
Boone had come to terms with some things, but I knew with my realizations about how deeply my father had affected my life (and I didn’t know it), understanding it didn’t mean you were beyond it.
Especially not the “it” Boone was dealing with.
I was nervous because Boone really loved his folks, and so I needed them to love me.
I was also not in a good space because, in her daily check-in call, I’d also told Mom Boone’s folks were coming to town, and I was meeting them.
She didn’t say anything outright, but I could tell she was hurt that she lived in Denver, and she was sensing he was important to me in a way that he’d be important to her, and she hadn’t met him yet.
And they lived in Pennsylvania, and I was meeting them.
Honestly, we should have figured out how to let Mom meet Boone that would be safe for her.
But I was so in my happy, I-finally-found-the-best-guy-ever daze, okay, it didn’t say much about me as a daughter, but it didn’t occur to me.
So I was nervous, about to meet the parents and then there was all of that.
I already had a lot of stuff over at Boone’s.
But I was packing because I’d just hauled my girls’ asses (plus Mag’s, hence him in the living room, as far away from us as he could get) through Flatiron Crossing mall on a whirlwind shopping spree where I’d spent far too much money.
And now—even though I had a house I had to invest in, a mortgage on that house, rent I was paying on a pad where I hadn’t slept in weeks, and a job I was on hiatus from (though, with pay, but Smithie couldn’t do that forever, because I wouldn’t let him, and this Brett/Dirty Cop sitch seemed like it was going to take that long to sort out)—every outfit, including undies, shoes and handbags, was brand-new for my weekend Meet the Parents.
And I was a mess.
“You’re a mess,” Pepper declared.
Juno giggled.
Hattie, by the by, had declined to come with us.
Hattie, by the by, as reported by the girls, showed up at work just in time to get tarted up and go out onstage, pull on some clothes and took off right after, because, by the by, Hattie had suddenly become very busy.
Doing what, by the freaking by, none of us knew.
Even though we’d asked.
Repeatedly.
“What if they don’t like me?” I asked, folding a new pair of kinda-ripped skinny jeans (that would go with a new pair of fawn-colored, open-toed, high-heel booties, a close-fitting white ribbed tank, and a pale pink lightweight slouchy boyfriend cardie).
“They’re gonna love you,” Evie said.
“And who cares if they don’t like you?” Pepper added. “Boone likes you.”
Such was my buzzing freak-out, I suddenly homed in on Pepper and shrieked, “Who cares if they like me? I care!”
“Babe, relax.”
This came from the door where Mag was
standing.
“For Evie and all of womankind, please take this in, a man telling a woman to relax almost always has the opposite effect on that woman,” I educated him.
His lips quirked, he ignored what I said, and stated, “I’ve met Boone’s folks a couple of times. They’re solid. They’re ridiculously adjusted. They really dig their son. And not to creep you out or anything, but you remind me a lot of his mom.”
“Gross,” Pepper muttered.
“Danny,” Evie whispered urgently.
“It’s not a bad thing and you’ll get me when you meet his mom,” Mag told me and smiled. “So obviously, his dad is gonna like you.”
“Gross,” Pepper repeated.
Juno giggled.
Evie rolled her eyes.
“And his mom will too,” Mag finished.
“He’s the one,” I laid it out for Mag.
“I’m gettin’ that,” Mag replied.
“I’m the one for him,” I kept going.
“Totally got that since Boone shared that with us straight when he reamed our asses for being dicks to you,” Mag said.
Yikes.
Though also not yikes because…how sweet.
“I’m still kinda ticked at Danny that he did that,” Evie told Pepper.
“I get that,” Pepper told Evie.
“He wasn’t mean to me,” I said to Evie. “He was just distant and backing his boy.”
“It’s still not cool,” Evie replied.
“Whatever,” Mag cut in. “It’s done. What I’m saying is, even if the impossible happens, and Boone’s folks don’t like you, Pepper’s right, he does. They’ll see that, so if they don’t, you’d never know.”
But I felt the blood drain out of my face when he suggested they might not like me.
Which was probably why Evie snapped, “Danny!”
“I said it was impossible,” Mag said to Evie.
“You shouldn’t have mentioned it at all,” Evie returned.
“Okay, we need to stop talking about this,” I announced. “I need to focus. I need to pack. I need to meditate. I need to take a shot of tequila. I need to rethink my outfit for tonight. I need a Valium.”
“Your outfit is fantastic,” Pepper said, scooting off my bed. “If you change it, you’re crazy.”
Juno scooted off with her and came to me. “You always look super pretty, Rinz.”
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