When I got to the door, London saw me out and stood at the doorway, watching, as I made my way back toward my house. “See you later, Kirby,” he said just before I rounded the corner and stepped into my driveway.
The moment I saw the Volvo, I knew which one of my parents was home.
Chapter 4
“Hi, Daddy,” I said, picking up my pace. He was standing at the back of his Volvo, bent over, searching through his trunk. It reminded me of my own experience of searching my car earlier in the day, and it reminded me that the apple really doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
Dad didn’t say anything right away, though it did sound like he was mumbling. He kept looking through his trunk as I continued to approach. Just as I reached him, he stood up straight, and I noticed that he was holding his cell phone next to his ear.
“I know, Mr. Swift,” he said, holding up his index finger to let me know he’d be with me in a minute.
I stopped in my tracks and stood still, thinking Dad was going to end his phone call. Instead, he kept talking.
“Yes, sir,” Dad went on. “I’ll get to it first thing in the morning.” Dad looked over and smiled at me. It was a forced smile that he wore as a mask to hide what appeared to be a pretty stressful conversation.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Okay.”
“Alright.”
Dad sounded like a “yes man,” though I knew he was much more than that. He was a high-level, high-power executive, and he was talking to one of the few—if not one of the only two people who could still talk to him as if he were inferior. Mr. Swift was one of the big bosses at Parker & Swift, and though I’d never met him (or Mr. Parker, for that matter), I could understand why Dad had to bow down to him.
“Sure,” Dad said, offering another affirmation. He looked at me and shook his head in an apologetic manner. I simply smiled back. Dad might have been an advertising genius, but he wasn’t selling me on his apology.
“Wait, but—”
“But my daughter just got—” Dad tried to add before being interrupted again.
After a long moment of silence, Dad shook his head, frowned, and looked away from me. “Yes, sir, Mr. Swift,” he said. “I’ll work on it tonight and get it to you before morning.”
Dad pulled his phone away from his ear, swiped his finger across the screen to end the call, and finally turned to greet me.
“Come here,” he said.
I walked over and gave my father a big hug, which made me feel like a little girl again.
“I guess you heard all that,” he said as our hug ended. “I’m sorry, baby…but it looks like I have to work tonight and won’t be able to hang out and catch up with you.”
“It’s okay, Daddy,” I said. “I understand.” I meant what I said. I didn’t have a job, but I did understand how a job could be demanding, especially one like Dad’s. Over the past ten years or so, he’d really climbed the ranks at Parker & Swift and was responsible for some of the highest grossing, most successful ad campaigns the firm—and the market—ever saw. I can’t say which campaigns he was responsible for, exactly…but I know it involved sports drinks, sneakers, cologne, and major airlines.
Still, even though I tried to understand the demands of his job, I wished he could spend at least some time with me, and I cursed Mr. Swift, under my breath, for putting us both in this position.
Dad put his arm around my back and started leading me toward the house. He looked at me curiously when he noticed that there weren’t any lights on, then he sniffed a little. “You better not let your mom smell that beer on your breath,” he said, giving me a silly grin.
I giggled and watched as he entered the key code into the security system, paying careful mind to remember the numbers.
“I ran into London when I got here,” I explained. “He invited me over to hang out since you guys weren’t home yet—and, yeah, we had a few beers.”
“That’s fine,” Dad said. “Just as long as it was only a few. And, like I said, don’t let your mother smell it on you. I don’t think she’d like you drinking this early in the day.”
“Okay,” I replied, following Dad into the house.
Our house has always been beautiful: well decorated, well kept, and the envy of others. As soon as I entered, I noticed that it looked even more beautiful than before. In the few months since I’d last been home, my parents must have had some major renovations done. The place looked more modern and sleek and had bursts of color and culture all throughout.
“Wow,” I said as I eyed my surroundings, wondering what the rest of the house looked like. “When did you guys do all this?”
“Over the past few months,” Dad confirmed, walking toward the kitchen. “Didn’t your mom tell you anything about it?”
“No,” I replied, following him. Mom hadn’t told me about it—and neither had Dad, though he didn’t seem to blame himself for it the same way he was blaming Mom.
“The place was getting a little stale,” Dad said. “We both wanted to freshen it up, and with our anniversary and the party coming up, we figured it was a good time to take the bull by the horns.”
“Your anniversary?” I asked. “What party?”
“Come on, Kirby, I know we both talked to you about this,” Dad replied quickly, taking on a somewhat critical manner. “Your mom and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary in two weeks, and we’re having a huge party. It’s going to be one of the social events of the year, she says, so we had to make sure the house looked perfect.”
I looked around the house again—or, at least, at what I could see of it—and it did look perfect. I felt a little ashamed that I hadn’t remembered what my parents said about their anniversary, especially since, after Dad’s comments, I distinctly remembered them mentioning it to me on several occasions.
“Am I invited to this party?” I asked. It may sound like an awkward question, but, really, it wasn’t. For most of my youth and teen years, whenever my parents had parties, they usually sent me off to a sitter or had me spend the night at a friend’s house. By the time I was a “young adult,” I was so used to not being invited to their parties that I always assumed I wasn’t—but, given the nature of this particular party, I wanted to double-check.
“Of course you are. Don’t be silly,” Dad said. “In fact, you’re not just invited…you’re required to attend.”
Dad laughed and grabbed a bottled water from the fridge and searched the nearby snack drawer until he found a bag of trail mix. “I really have to go take care of this work crap,” he said. “Your mom should be home soon, and she’s bringing dinner. Sorry, again, that I can’t stick around and chat.”
I watched Dad walk out of the kitchen and then looked around at the stainless steel, marble, and Formica surrounding me. It was lovely, but cold, and the hum of the appliances, though quiet, was deafening. I felt incredibly small, alone, and intimidated, like I’d been abandoned in some strange place without a guide. Mom would be home soon, but she wasn’t home yet—and until she got home, I knew I’d continue to feel this way. I hoped, against the odds, that this wasn’t any indication of what was to come.
Chapter 5
By the time Mom finally got home, I was half-passed out on the lush new couch in our lush new living room. She woke me up by squeezing my foot—which is something she did ever since I was a kid—and as soon as I awoke, she was ready to pick my brain.
Unlike Dad, who had to retire to his office to do some work, Mom was all up in my face and wanted to catch up on every little detail of my life. We discussed everything from my relief over being done with school and her concern over me not having a job yet to my dating life (or lack thereof) and their upcoming anniversary and party.
Once it got to that last point—about their upcoming anniversary and party—Mom told me all she could as we ate Thai food at the kitchen table. Dad had popped in, at some point, to grab a container of curried tofu, but he popped out just as quickly when he heard Mom rambling about th
e party.
“It’s going to be great, Kirby,” she told me. “I’ve invited everyone who’s anyone in this town, and the guest list is shaping up to be mighty impressive. The caterer is exquisite, and we’ve got the most incredible seasonal flowers just waiting to be plucked and set into the centerpieces. We’ll have to get you a new dress—something young and fun, but tasteful. There’ll be a lot of eligible young men there, you know.”
“Huh?” I asked. To tell you the truth, I was a little confused. “It’s your anniversary party,” I reminded Mom. “Won’t the guys there be family?”
Mom looked at me as if I’d just asked the most ridiculous question ever. “This party isn’t for our family,” Mom replied. “It’s for me and your dad, to celebrate everything we’ve shared over the past 25 years. Yes, we shared a lot of that with family—and some of them will be there—but we also shared it with a lot of other people who’ll be there, too. Coworkers, old friends from school, former neighbors…and lots of them have sons your age.”
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Mom to turn a sentimental affair like an anniversary into an opportunity to show off and schmooze, and leave it to her to try and set me up with some rich, prodigal son in the process. She was a kind and loving person, but she was also pretty stuck-up and opportunistic.
“Oh, Mom,” I whined. “I don’t need you to introduce me to guys. If I want one, I can find one on my own.”
“Can you?” Mom asked, raising her eyebrows. She didn’t have to say it, but it was obvious that she was referring to Jeremy, the ex who’d pulled the Legally Blonde move on me.
“Whatever,” I spat back defensively. “You know what I mean. I don’t want you trying to set me up with anyone. I’m not really even interested in dating right now, but if I was, I’d want to be the one to pick the guy. Not you.”
Mom shrugged her shoulders and stood up to clear the table. “Fine,” she said. “Have it your way.”
A moment later, she spoke again, as if she hadn’t paused, and as if I hadn’t said what I’d just said.
“London’s home for the summer,” she cooed. I fought back the urge to tell her that I already knew that. “He’s looking pretty good these days.”
Mom turned at me and gave a mischievous, grown-up smile.
“Ew, Mom!” I shouted like a startled child. “That’s gross! London is 21, and you’re like 50—you can’t say he looks ‘good.’”
“I’m 48,” Mom corrected, “and I’m a woman. All I said was that he looks good. I do have eyes, you know.”
Yes, London was good looking, and yes, Mom was a woman who had eyes—but there was no way I wanted to hear about my old mama checkin’ out some young dude. It made me feel a little dirty, even though I knew Mom wasn’t some cradle-robbing cougar.
“Well, if you think London’s so hot, maybe you should go out with him,” I said, trying to make the best of the situation.
“I don’t think your dad would like that too much,” Mom replied, walking back over to the table. “And it would kind of defeat the purpose of celebrating our 25th anniversary, don’t ya think?”
Leave it to Mom to gross me out, then make me laugh.
“You’re right,” I replied. “But, still, I’m not interested in London. You know how evil he was to me when we were growing up.”
“He was child,” Mom countered. “And don’t forget, you gave him a hard time, too. You both are different people now. You grew up. You changed. The older we get, the wiser we become, and we learn to overlook the little things in favor of what really matters.”
“And what matters here, Mom? That London is hot?” I asked. I was getting a little heated.
“No,” Mom answered. “That’s not what I’m saying…. What really matters is giving people a shot and getting to know them before you pass judgment. You can’t just judge a man by what he did as a boy. You have to see what decisions he makes with more years behind him.”
I thought of the empty beer cans, pizza boxes, garbage, and lingering scent of pot that pocked the Gallaghers’ pool house. If I’d had more years behind me, or more balls, I would’ve asked Mom if I should have used that to judge London.
“What you’re saying makes sense,” I responded. “But no thanks, I’m not into London.” I stood and walked to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of juice to wash down my late dinner, and Mom shrugged her shoulders again, got up, and returned to her kitchen chores.
Without saying any more, I left the kitchen and headed toward my room. But right then, two strange, bewildering thoughts hit me: (1) with all the recent renovations in our house, I didn’t know if my room was still where my room used to be, or if I’d recognize it; and (2) with all the recent conversation about London, I didn’t know if I meant a damn word I’d said.
Chapter 6
The next morning, I woke at what any college-aged individual would call a reasonable hour, though my parents were already long gone from the house. If the night before had proven anything about family dynamics, it was that the world didn’t stop spinning just because a kid comes home from college.
I was a little beside myself all alone in my parents’ house. It was so familiar, yet, with the renovations, so different, and I frequently found myself trying to remember how things looked before, and trying to figure out why my parents saw the need for such great change.
Once I was done exploring a bit, I found myself in the kitchen, searching through the fridge, cupboards, and drawers for something to eat. There was a ton of healthy yuppy food, but for the life of me, I wanted something with processed sugar and/or an excess of fat. After looking and looking, I settled on the best thing I could find, which was a pouch of wasabi-crusted peas and another pouch of dried, sweetened coconut strips. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, by any means, but it was flavorful enough to do the trick.
Instead of sitting down at the table to eat my pouched breakfast, I stood and grubbed at the window that looked out over our back yard. It had an ample view of the Gallaghers’ back yard, too, and I could clearly see the pool and pool house. I stared and wondered what London was doing inside. If I had to guess, I’d have said he was sleeping. It was 10 a.m., and what reason could he possibly have to be awake?
Why was I wondering what London was up to, or why was I even thinking about him at all? I must have still had the aftertaste of Mom’s conversation in my mouth, and the thought of London was only making me drool.
As I indicated earlier, I hadn’t done too well when it came to dating. When I was dating Jeremy, I thought I’d landed the best boyfriend ever. Once he got accepted to law school, I realized just how wrong I had been. The fact remained that Jeremy had been my first “real” love, and, seeing as how we dated through most of college, I never really had the chance to play the field.
Jeremy was one of only three people who I’d ever been intimate with, and by “intimate” I mean sexually active in any way beyond second base. In other words, I’d only ever had sex, including oral sex, with three guys—and Jeremy was at the top of that list, in terms of frequency and rating.
I pondered my somewhat limited dating/sex life as I crunched away at the contents of my pouches, and I thought about how now, with Jeremy out of the picture, I could broaden my horizons. Yet, as much as I wanted to broaden them, I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities that were right outside my door.
London was sexy. I wondered if his skills matched his looks, and if he’d be any good in bed. I found myself thinking about what he looked like naked and trying to imagine the length, girth, and intensity of his cock. Certain parts of me were telling me to rush out of the house and run over to the pool house to find out—but other, more rational, parts were telling me to stay put.
Surprisingly, I listened to whatever common sense I had left in me and decided not to run over to the pool house. Instead, I slowly walked around the house a bit more, until I made my way to the newly renovated, tech-savvy game room on the lower floor. The couch in there was much more comfortable
than the one in the living room, and the other amenities were totally insane. The moment I flicked on the 60-inch plasma, I was lost in a sea of HD colors and larger-than-life images on the screen.
I laid back with what was left of my food pouches and watched daytime gameshows on a local big-four channel. Our cable system probably picked up 400 or more channels, but I was just fine with one of the standard, basic ones.
I wasn’t really tired, per se, but I dozed in and out of sleep for a few hours, to the point where I lost all concept of time. I was brought to a more steady waking state when I heard a car pull into our driveway—and when I saw that it was only 4 p.m., I was a little confused.
I hopped up from the couch in the downstairs game room and went back up to the main floor. The moment I stepped off of the final step, I saw Dad standing in the kitchen, going through his briefcase at the table. He smiled when he saw me, then asked me to sit down and join him for a chat.
“I got out of work early today,” he said, stating the obvious. “I know that doesn’t make up for being unavailable last night, but it’s better than nothing, right?”
Before sitting down, I went over to the refrigerator to get a drink. Out of both habit and hunger, I scanned the interior for something good to eat, but, again, saw those healthy yuppy foods, which didn’t really appeal to me at all. I gave a sigh of resignation, turned, and went to sit with Dad.
“Sorry,” he said.
“No big deal, Daddy,” I replied. “I know your job is demanding.”
“I’m not talking about my job,” Dad said with a booming laugh. “I’m talking about the food. Your mom’s on a real health kick these days. She only keeps healthy food in the house, and we get takeout a few nights a week, but that’s usually healthy stuff, too.”
I hadn’t realized it, but when I thought about the Thai food we’d had the night before, I realized it was all relatively “healthy”—tofu, chicken, vegetables, etc. The sauces weren’t too thick and there wasn’t a speck of breading anywhere to be found.
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