by Cassia Leo
Say something, Claire, my inner voice shouts at me.
“Okay.”
“You’ll go?”
I nod fiercely and he leans over to kiss me so fast we both flip our boards and slip into the water. A tangle of seaweed snags on my foot and I scream. He laughs as he gathers our boards.
“All right, no more fooling around. I’m about to give you a serious lesson.” We climb back onto our boards and hold hands as we watch the waves break against the shore. “Pay attention to the rhythm and movement of the water.”
He lets go of my hand and I draw in a deep breath. The water dips and surges beneath my board and I can feel my body relaxing as I grip the rails, paying close attention. There’s a definite rhythm to the rise and crash of each wave. Without knowing, I realize I’ve closed my eyes and I’m visualizing the waves based on the sound. It’s so peaceful out here.
“Are you ready?” he asks, and I nod as I open my eyes.
He points at the waves as he tells me what to do. I try to repeat all his instructions in my head as I lie down on the board. Push the nose down… lean into the direction of the wave…. Let the momentum of the water carry you.
He shoves my board forward and shouts, “Start paddling!”
My first lesson is a disaster so as soon as the sun starts to set behind us, I breathe a sigh of relief and make my way back to solid ground. My jelly legs give out beneath me and I fall to my knees next to my beach bag. I wipe the saltwater from my face with a towel, lay the towel out on the sand, and collapse facedown.
“Hey, you didn’t do too bad,” Adam says as he pulls a bottle of water out of my beach bag and hands it to me.
I take the water and turn onto my side so I can guzzle it down. “Yeah, not so bad. I never once stood up.”
“That’s okay for your first time out. In fact, it’s expected. Trust me, I’ll have you riding in the curl soon.”
“Are you going to take that weekend job on Shell Island?”
“Are you going to be my first student?”
“I can’t afford surf lessons.”
“I’m sure Jason won’t mind me donating some lessons to a few hopeless cases every now and then.”
I roll my eyes as I turn over onto my back. “I don’t have the energy to be outraged by that comment.”
We’re both silent for a moment before I realize that the sun is about to set. I sit up and the intense look in his eyes tells me his mind is far away from this beach right now. He grabs my hand and the sand rubs between our wrinkled palms as he laces his fingers through mine.
“Claire, I asked you to go with me this weekend for more than one reason.” He pauses for a moment before he peels his gaze away from the dazzling pink sunset to look at me. “I’m falling in love with you.” I open my mouth to respond and he presses his finger against my lips to stop me. “I don’t want you to say anything. I just want you to know that. I love you.”
He waits a moment before he removes his finger from my lips.
I want to say it back because I think he deserves to hear it and because I do feel something strong like love growing inside of me. But I’m not certain yet. I scoot forward a little on my towel so our sides are touching and lean my head on his shoulder. He kisses my forehead as he wraps his towel around me. We watch the sunset in silence as I think to myself, Adam loves the sunset and me.
Chapter Thirteen
Relentless Bickering
“Are you sure you don’t need any more help packing?” I ask as I slip my feet into some strappy wedge sandals.
“If you ask me that one more time I’m going to hide your keys and lock you out of this apartment,” Senia says, pushing me out of the bedroom. “Get out of here. Go ride some horses on your cowboy’s ranch. And while you’re at it, ride your cowboy.”
“It’s not his ranch.”
“Don’t sass me, Claire, just do as you’re told.”
She pushes me all the way to the front door, still managing to grab my purse off the breakfast bar along the way. She pushes the purse into my chest and I pull her into a bone-crushing hug.
“I’m going to miss having you here,” I blubber into her hair. “Who am I going to watch Toni Collette movies with on my birthday.”
“Girl, I’m taking August 9th off whether my dad likes it or not. We will be dancing and sobbing to Muriel’s Wedding together. Now go.”
I gave her one last squeeze before I release her. I bite my lip as I scurry out of the apartment, trying really hard to convince myself that being separated by a hundred miles is not going to change our friendship. When I moved out of Senia’s house in May, I did it knowing she had promised to spend the summer with me. Now that she’s leaving four weeks early, I have to fight the sinking feeling that our friendship is going to wither like the flowers on my nightstand.
I climb the stairs to Adam’s apartment and knock softly. I’m beyond nervous about meeting his family, but the thought of spending an entire weekend with them is enough to make me want to confess my secret to Adam and go back to school—anything to get out of it. I’ve never done well meeting new people, especially when I feel like they’re scrutinizing me.
I knock again, a little harder this time, and he answers the door quickly. He’s dressed, but his hair is still damp and sticking out in every direction. And he smells heavenly.
“Hey, babydoll,” he says, planting a quick kiss on my lips. “Go ahead and sit down. I’m almost done.”
Babydoll.
I try not to grin too widely as I head for the sofa while he heads back to the bathroom. I can hear a blow-dryer whining as I gaze around the living room, taking in the various objects I’d never really paid too much attention to with Adam providing such a delicious distraction. In the corner, on top of his drafting table, I glimpse blueprints for some kind of building and my curiosity gets the best of me. I want to know what he spends his time looking at all those long hours we’re apart.
I creep across the carpet to the desk and push the stool aside so I can get a better look at the prints. It looks like plans for a house, though I can’t understand why he would have these. He told me his father’s construction company only builds government buildings like prisons and military facilities.
I pull up the corner of the first page to see what’s underneath when Adam’s voice startles me.
“What are you doing?”
My heart hammers against my chest as I turn away from the drafting table and find him standing right next to me. “I was just looking.”
His nostrils are flaring and I have a horrible feeling I’ve violated some sort of privacy rule I wasn’t aware of.
“That’s a project I’ve been working on for a few years. It’s not finished yet.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s go.”
The first ten minutes of the drive to his uncle’s ranch are filled with awkward silence followed by another ten minutes of bad pop music once he puts on the radio. When a Chris Knight song comes on, I quickly turn down the volume and pull my iPhone out of my purse. He changes lanes on the highway then turns to me, his expression still solemn.
“I’m sorry if you think I’m being unnecessarily mysterious about those house plans. I know you weren’t snooping around. They’re right out there where everyone can see them. But I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
“Does it have to do with why you’re still working for your dad even though you detest it?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
I hold up my phone and nod at the stereo. “Can you plug this in?”
He reaches across the console and takes the iPhone from my hand. It takes him a minute to plug it into his stereo as he’s driving. He opens my music app and begins scrolling through the list of songs.
“You should let me do that. You’re driving.”
I reach for the phone, but he switches it to his left hand so I can’t reach it. “Don’t worry about that. I’m paying attention.”
He scrolls for another minute or so until he settles on a song. The first notes play as he hands the phone back to me.
“Waiting in Vain?” I say. “Really? Could you be any more of a cliché? You surf, you smoke weed, and you listen to Bob Marley.”
“Just shut up and listen to the song. This is my song for you.”
I listen to the lyrics carefully, though I already know them by heart. Bob Marley songs always remind me of the spontaneous acoustic concert Chris put on for me and a few of our friends in his parents’ garage. He performed an entire set of Bob Marley songs and, though he never dedicated this song to me, it was one of his favorites.
I gaze out at the green hills along highway 74, afraid that if I look at Adam he’ll see my traitorous thoughts. When the song ends, I feel like I’m expected to comment on it, but I don’t know what to say. Music was something I shared with Chris. It was such a huge part of our relationship that I had to delete half my music collection after we broke up because it was driving me insane.
Adam grabs my hand and I finally turn to him. “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind and meeting my parents right now probably isn’t at the top of your bucket list, but I want you to know that you can talk to me about it—any of it. Even if you think that what you have to say will make me uncomfortable. I’m here for you. Okay?”
I nod and give his hand a reassuring squeeze then go back to gazing out the window. There are some things that can’t be discussed with a new boyfriend, like the songs that remind you of your ex. There are other things that can’t be discussed with anyone.
Three hours later, we arrive at Adam’s Uncle Harvey’s 91-acre ranch near the outskirts of Charlotte. I count eleven cars and trucks parked in a dirt lot outside a pale-yellow, two-story house with a gorgeous wrap-around porch. As soon as Adam parks his truck, two children, a boy and a girl, who look about eight or nine years old come running outside to greet him.
The girl throws her arms around Adam’s neck and he laughs as he spins her around. It’s a picture-perfect Hallmark moment and I feel a little like I’m intruding, so I stay on the passenger side of the truck and wait for them to finish their greetings. The boy hugs Adam around the waist and I can see the adoration in his face as he closes his eyes and buries his cheek in Adam’s stomach.
“Hey, I have someone I want you to meet,” Adam says, peering over his shoulder and beckoning me to his side. “Claire, this is Beatrice and Nick. They’re my favorite cousins because they always let me win at Monopoly.”
“We don’t let you win. You cheat!” Beatrice squeals as she punches him in the arm.
Adam tickles her and all is forgiven. “Hey, don’t be rude. Say hi to Claire.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” Nick asks.
“She’s all mine so don’t get any ideas.”
A man in a T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy hat comes down the front steps and I know this is Adam’s father. He’s very handsome for an older man, but it’s the confident smile on his face that gives him away. However, he’s not smiling at Adam. He’s smiling at me.
“Hello there, Claire. I’m Jim Parker,” he says as he approaches me. I hold out my hand and he pulls me into a tight hug. He holds on a bit longer than I expect. When he finally lets go, he looks me up and down. “No informal handshakes here. Adam told us all about you. Any girl he’s willing to subject to this crowd is as good as family, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Hello, Mr. Parker. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He’s charming and I’m beginning to think this weekend isn’t going to be so bad, until I see the look on Adam’s face. His father throws him a curt nod then makes his way back to the house.
“What was that?” I whisper as Adam retrieves the small suitcase packed with our things from the cab of the truck.
He shakes his head as he slams the truck door, visibly irritated. “Trust me, you don’t want to know what that was.”
I follow him inside where we’re bombarded with greetings from at least thirty of his family members, but none of them are his mother.
“My mom’s the CFO of Parker Construction. She’s even more of a workaholic than my dad,” Adam whispers in my ear when I ask where she is. “He’s only here early because he got in yesterday to discuss a new project with Uncle Harvey. You’ll meet her in the morning.”
Finally, after two hours of hearing stories about Adam’s surfing achievements, which seems to make him very uncomfortable, we wrestle our way through the commotion and make it upstairs to the room we’ll be staying in. As soon as he flips the light switch in the room, it’s obvious we’ll be staying in the bedroom of a teenage girl. Pictures of her and her friends are plastered all over the mirror and the walls. The bright-pink and black color of the striped wallpaper is echoed in the bedding. I breathe a sigh of relief that we’ll at least have a full-sized bed to share.
“Whose room is this?” I ask as I reach for the zipper on the suitcase on the bed.
“My cousin Jamie. She’s a freshman at UNC. She won’t be here until tomorrow.” He pulls my hand off the suitcase and turns me so I’m facing him. “Listen. There’s a lot of bad shit between my dad and me, but that’s between us. I can tell he likes you so don’t let my issues with him cloud your judgment. Okay?”
“Adam, I think I’m perfectly capable of making up my own mind about your father. I mean, he seems nice enough, but I care about you. And whatever issues you have with your dad may be your business, but I want you to know that I’ll always be on your side. So if you want me to be friendly with your dad, I will. But if you want me to tell him to stick his cowboy hat up his ass, I’ll do that too.”
“God, I fucking love you.” He gives me a quick kiss before he grabs my hand. “Come on. You can unpack later. You wore your bikini under your clothes like I asked, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, why?”
“We’re going for a night swim in the creek.”
Adam and I make our way out to the creek that runs along the west end of the property. Beatrice and Nick stay behind because they’re too young, but we’re joined by three of Adam’s older cousins. Julia and Locke are twenty-three and fraternal twins who look nothing alike. Julia is the only one in the family with red hair and fair skin. Everyone else has the same sandy-brown hair and skin that looks like it’s been crisped by long hours spent working on the ranch or surfing in the Carolina sunshine.
Julia and Locke are extremely friendly, but River is my favorite of the three. River is twenty-two, just a few months older than Adam, and he’s the shyest of the bunch. Somehow, this puts me at ease. Everyone else exudes the same gregarious confidence as Adam. I find it comforting to know that not everyone in the Parker family is inhumanly beautiful and charismatic.
We spend almost an hour in what appears to be a muddy creek with water that reaches just to the bottom of my chin. Adam assures me it’s just the lack of sunlight that makes it look murky, but I’m not convinced. Every time something brushes up against my leg, I scream and threaten to leave.
“Come on, Claire, the critters are half the fun!” Locke shouts as he hangs from a tree branch above the creek. “They’re harmless so long as they don’t slither into your swimsuit.”
Adam grabs my foot to stop me from swimming away. “You can’t leave yet.” He yanks me back and wraps his arms around my waist as he pulls my back against his chest. “We haven’t even played Marco Polo yet.”
His hand slides over my belly and I turn around to face him. I throw my arms around his neck and wrap my legs around his waist, confident that no one can see our bodies through the black, mucky water. The startled smile on his face makes my stomach flutter. I’m pleased to see I’ve surprised him.
“If you take me inside,” I whisper in his ear, “I’ll play Marco Polo with you upstairs.”
His hands slide under the waistband of my bikini and over my ass as he lets out a soft groan. He kisses my neck before he pulls his head back and looks me in the eye.
“Not here. I
want our first time to be perfect and this is not the right place or the right time. Not that I don’t want to take you upstairs and destroy you. Just not tonight.”
“I can see your boner from here!” Julia shouts at Adam.
He shakes his head as he puts me back down on the creek bed and something definitely slithers over my foot. I kick my foot hard and end up kicking a large stone.
“Ouch!” I cry.
I can feel I’ve cracked my toenail and the searing pain is enough to make my eyes water.
“What happened?”
“I kicked a rock. Fuck!”
I swim quickly toward the edge of the creek and scramble out of the water. I plop down on the damp grass and try to look at my toe under the dim moonlight. It’s too dark out here and my foot is covered in too much mud and grass to see whether I’m bleeding. Adam scrambles up the incline and scoops me up into his arms.
“Let’s go clean it up.”
“Put me down. I can walk.”
“Fine.”
As soon as my foot touches the ground, a sharp pain slices through my toe and I hold in my scream, but I can’t hold back my grimace. I may have broken it. He reaches for me to pick me up again and I push him away.
“You’re not carrying me. The house is like a quarter mile away. It’s too far. I can walk.”
He turns his back to me and looks over his shoulder. “Hop on my back. I’ll be your horsey.”
“In case you couldn’t tell, I’m trying not to make several comments about riding you,” I say as I climb onto his back.
“In case you couldn’t tell, I’m trying really hard not to ride you,” he replies.
I try to keep my grip on his neck a bit loose so I don’t choke him as he carries me all the way to the house and into the downstairs bathroom. He sets me down on the countertop and kneels down to look at my foot.
“You’re too dirty,” he mutters.
