I worried we might be imposing until I saw the way Avery’s mother welcomed my Dad’s kiss—warmly and dare I say, familiarly, almost… passionately. Avery caught it as well, her eyes widening until Dad peeled himself away from her mother.
“And young Avery,” he said, reaching in for a hug that found the most passionate woman I’d ever met stiff as a board. “Carol, how come you never told me your daughter was in my class?”
Miss Shoemaker blushed, then stammered, “I suppose it never came up, Randolph.”
“No bother,” he said, nodding from Avery to her mother and back again. “It’s all out in the open now, I suppose.”
“You could say that again,” I finally blurted out, making Avery—but neither one of our parents—snort. “Hi, Avery.”
She blushed, our eyes meeting before hers flitted quickly away. Giving a little wave she murmured, “Hi Craig.”
“You two know each other?” her mom asked, making my heart skip a beat before I realized it was so much small talk. Even as I answered, “Well, just in passing,” she was already talking again. “Listen, Randy, you’re here with your son, I’m here with my daughter. Why don’t we spend Thanksgiving together after all?”
“Really?” Randy asked, acting so poorly that even his surprised response made it clear Avery and I had been set up from the beginning. “Would you mind, Avery?”
Avery’s eyes widened as she peered at me, softening before turning back to Dad. “No, Dr. Robinson,” she said dutifully, as if there was any other possible response. “Of course not.”
“And Craig?” he asked, even as he slid out the seat next to Avery’s mom. “Are you okay with this?”
I shrugged, pulling out my own chair and painting on a beaming smile. “Why not?” I sighed, wanting to wink at Avery but not wanting our folks to realize just how familiar we already were. “It’s Thanksgiving, right? Let’s give some thanks!”
There were nervous chuckles and scraping chair legs all around as Dad and I sat at Avery and her mother’s table. An ancient waiter approached, surprisingly spry in his wrinkled tuxedo, and took our drink order—plum wine for dad and a nice, dray Asahi for me.
I was grateful for the diversion ordering gave us, a flutter of menu waving and smiling and nodding as I took Avery in. She looked beautiful in a fancy black blouse—and nervous smile. Her eyes were alive and electric, no doubt waiting for me to spill the beans about what we’d been doing on the regular since that fateful Friday night.
I wanted to slide a note across the table to her, or maybe acquire the sudden ability for ESP and let her know that I’d never do such a thing, but how could I with our parents so close? I supposed all I could do was hang on for dear life and hope neither one of us let it slip out how much time we’d been spending together. From the way her mother dominated the conversation, I knew it would be a moot point.
“So, Craig,” Avery’s mother asked as the waiter returned with our drinks—just in time for me to snatch the beer out of his hands and down half of it in two long chugs. “What are you thankful for this year?”
I nearly spit out my beer. Was she really going there? I wondered silently as Avery slid a few inches down in her seat.
“Well, ma’am,” I began, knowing her interruption would buy me enough time to find an answer. I wasn’t mistaken.
“Oh, please,” she oozed, waving a hand featuring rings on four of her fingers. “Call me Melissa. After all, we’re practically family.”
I paused, slightly bemused. “Oh?” I chuckled, thinking she was just one of those familiar ladies who was overly affectionate with everyone who ever shared her table.
“Of course,” she said, purposefully sliding her hand on top of my father’s before their fingers instinctively laced together. “Your father and I have been getting very close lately.”
“Mom!” Avery exclaimed, sounding—and looking—mortified.
“What dear?” Melissa asked nonchalantly, only gripping my father’s hand all the tighter. “It’s true, isn’t it Randy?” No one called my dad Randy. This was getting weirder by the minute.
Dad nodded somberly, squeezing Melissa’s hand back before unlacing his fingers and placing both hands on the table. Pushing himself back a little, he took a deep breath and asked Avery’s mother, “Should we? Is this the right time, dear?”
While Dad and Melissa gazed meaningfully into each other’s eyes, Avery and I finally took the opportunity to glance at each other and mouth “What the fuck?” across the dinner table.
“I think it is,” Melissa purred, winking at my father as if they were alone. Gross. “After all, I think we’ve waited long enough, don’t you dear?”
“For what?” Avery asked, shaking her head over her tiny cup of sake. “Waited so long for what?”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “And what’s with all the hush-hush back and forth. I thought we showed up here by accident, Dad?”
“Come now, Craig,” Dad said in a smarmy voice that made him sound like a stranger. “I think we all know that Melissa and I planned this weeks ago.”
“Mother!” Avery said, setting her sake cup down. “You made it sound like you wanted a mother and daughter Thanksgiving for two.”
“I did, dear,” Melissa insisted. “But, I also wanted you to get used to the idea of, well, a table for four.”
Avery and I shared another confused look, even as the sense of impending doom thickened around the table like the smell of steam and spices as the waiter delivered a tray of aromatic dishes and began plating them on the table.
They sat untouched, as Melissa and my father shared another secret glance. “Tell them, honey,” she said, nodding encouragingly. “I’m bumbling over here.”
“No, you’re not, dear,” he said, looking from Avery to me and back to Avery again. “I think from the looks on their faces, they’ve already started piecing it together.”
“Putting what together, Dr. Robinson?” Avery asked, sounding exasperated as she poked a steaming dumpling absently with a single chopstick. Peering at her plate, it appeared most of her food—like mine—was still uneaten. “Can one of you please tell us why you tricked us here tonight?”
Along with a clearly frustrated Avery, I waited breathlessly for one of them to speak. When Avery’s mother finally did, I was just as shocked as Avery. Not just with the suddenness of the comment, but what it would mean for Avery and I in the very near future.
Nineteen
Avery
“Because, dear,” my mom said slowly—purposefully slow—as I waited for a response. I wasn’t sure if she was dragging it out to punish me for something—what, I had no idea—or if I was just overreacting to the surreal moment. “Randy and I are, well… well…”
She paused, maddening me even more, to consider her boyfriend. “You tell them,” she gushed at Craig’s dad, clearly smitten—and nauseatingly so. “It’s all too much for me at the moment.”
“What’s too much for you?” I gasped, exasperated at their childish antics. “What moment? What the hell is going on here?”
“We’re getting married,” Dr. Robinson announced, interrupting me and rattling the silverware on his placemat with his trembling hands as they continued to grip the edges of the table on either side of him.
“W-w-what?” I stammered, literally thinking I’d misheard them. Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe what my ears were actually hearing. Either way, my stomach clenched tight, my heart hammered in my chest and my face flushed with shock and surprise.
Craig sat frozen, pale faced and slack jawed, his beer bottle halfway to his mouth, skin pale and ashen as if he’d just seen a ghost. “W-w-what?” he stammered in a pale imitation of my own shocked response. “The hell are you talking about?”
His words came out accusingly, my head nodding in agreement as my world fell apart. The implications of my mother and Craig’s father marrying was too weird to even consider. And yet, looking at the happy couple as they gave off body language that would shock
a whorehouse Madame, I couldn’t deny what was right in front of me—no matter how sick it made me or how hard I tried.
“I told you they’d be excited,” Mom gushed to Professor Robinson, who I’d apparently being calling Dad soon—very soon from the look of it—as he sat there looking elated in his ridiculous fedora and striped sweater combo.
“Shocked is more like it,” I harrumphed, stabbing the steaming dumpling on my plate as if it was the one currently ruining my life. It looked like I felt—used, shattered, torn and bleeding in a pile of wilting plum sauce. “I mean… how long have you two known each other?”
Dr. Robinson looked from me back toward my mom, his gaze full of sickening adoration. “Long enough to know I can’t live without her,” he beamed as if Craig and I were no longer at the table.
“And longer than I needed to for me to know he’s the one,” my mom said, ignoring us as well. It was clear she only had eyes for Craig’s dad, and that our presence at the table that night was merely obligatory. They had to tell us sometime, why not over Thanksgiving dinner?
While they gazed adoringly into each other’s eyes, the room seeming to fall away around them, I glanced back at Craig. His eyes looked helpless, his face frozen in shock. I slumped down in my chair, admiring how beautiful he looked even wearing a deer in the headlights expression.
More than just being a pretty boy between the sheets, he’d touched me somewhere deep inside. More than just mere infatuation, I’d come to covet any time I spent with Craig. Whether it was walking down the street, curled up on the couch, or lingering on the barstools around the kitchen counter, he made me smile, laugh and feel better about myself. Life wasn’t just sexier when Craig was around, it was better.
And now? Now it was all going to end. I knew that as surely as I knew Thanksgiving would never be the same for me again. If Mom and Dr. Robinson got married—it was clear they were going to—that would mean Craig and I would be brother and sister.
That sucked worse than anything in the world right now.
We were going to be related—possibly even living in the same house. Although it made me blush to think about what we’d already done together—I regretted we’d never be able to do it again. Not as step brother and sister and that made me sick to my stomach. How could my mom do this to me? The moment of sudden realization made me grateful for the fact that I’d picked him up outside of the stadium that night, but heartbroken that something so beautiful had to end.
Should I never have started it at all? I wondered, silently, as Mom and Randy seemed to remember we were there and peered back at us, bewildered, as if surprised we were still sitting around the table.
“So?” Mom asked, reaching over to squeeze my arm. “What do you think, babe?”
“I… I’m not sure what to think yet, Mom,” I said, as honestly as possible. I didn’t want to get into why I was so shocked and saddened by her announcement. “I mean, give me—us—some time to process this first, okay?”
Mom nodded, her eyes crisp and unfocused like she often got with clients when a big sale was inevitable and she already saw her name in fresh ink on the contract. “Well, don’t take too long, dear,” she teased, nudging Professor Robinson’s shoulder conspiratorially. “We’re planning a Christmas wedding, so—”
“This Christmas?” Craig blurted, jostling the table slightly as he set down his empty beer bottle and toppled over a bottle of reduced sodium soy sauce before quickly righting it. “That’s like a month away!”
“Less than a month,” I noted, arm sliding out from mom’s insincere grip to poke and tear at my poor, uneaten dumpling again. “How can you possibly get ready in that amount of time?”
Before my mom could answer I continued. “I mean, there are old friends to call, bridesmaids dresses to pick out, a cake, a venue… have you even started any of that yet?”
Mom and Professor Robinson shared one of those infuriating “isn’t she charming?” chuckles before he said, “Avery, we’re not doing any of that. We’re going to have a very small ceremony with a few close family friends and of course, you two.”
I shook my head. “That’s all well and good,” I fumed, struggling to find a reason—any reason—that might keep mom and my English professor from getting married. “But Mom can’t even get her shopping done before Christmas Eve. How are you ever going to throw a wedding by then?”
“That’s where you two come in,” Mom said, nodding at me and then Craig. “We have you two to help, so between the four of us, we should be ready in no time. Right, dear?”
Twenty
Craig
Fuck.
Me.
Every word Dad and Mrs. Shoemaker spoke—and speak they did—drove a wedge further between what Avery and I had spent the last few weeks creating. All that time and energy, all that forward motion, me finding ways to be around her every day, her finding ways not to turn me away, now seemed for naught.
Even now, watching her sink lower and lower into her seat with every word, my heart broke for what never would be. For all the dates I wanted to take her on, the things I wanted to show her, to share with her and learn with her. I mean here I was for the first time in my entire adult life, ready to commit myself fully to this beautiful woman when fucking fate had something very different in store.
I felt myself leave the table long before the dinner party was over, nodding and responding absently as Mrs. Shoemaker raved about some client who was letting her borrow his mansion for the holiday wedding, and what dishes she might make for the reception afterward. And the honeymoon—couldn’t forget the honeymoon.
Every word was just another nail in our coffin. Avery’s face wilted as well. Her once radiant expression now pinched and tense as her mother and my father continued to relentlessly squash our hopes and dreams without having a clue about our feelings.
Then again, what did I know? Could Avery have possibly known how infatuated I was with her? Sure, I was positive she knew how attracted I was, but on this most special of weekends, I’d finally been determined to tell Avery just how much she meant to me. Now that was ruined. Why bother? Why unload my deepest hopes and wildest dreams for our relationship now that I’d never get to pursue any of them?
My head reeled with the implications of what might have been. For years I’d been hitting it and quitting it all over campus, never wanting for female companionship but never too fond of that whole “companionship” part. Women had played a big part in my life, but a very specific part: sex and sex only. It was fun while it lasted, but the minute it was over—we both knew the rules. She left and I rolled over and went to sleep. Period. End of story. No whining, no begging, no tears. “See ya later, babe, thanks for the good times but don’t let the door hit you on that fine, supple ass on your way out.”
It was safe. Nobody got hurt and everybody had fun. Until I met Avery, that is. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough just to bust my nut and roll over in bed, content to let her find her way home in the dark so I could start a fresh hunt for my next piece of ass the following day. This time I was hooked. I wanted more—much more—and as soon as I did… bam! it was gone.
Was it punishment—or simply karma—for all the chicks I’d turned and burned over the years? Was this how they felt when I kicked them out of bed so swiftly and unceremoniously? I shook my head at the realization that I’d finally found a girl worth caring about—one I wanted to see more than just once—and as soon as I did, her mom had to go and marry my dad! What were the odds of that happening?
Sure, Worthington College was a small campus, and Dad one of its most popular professors, but Avery had told me her mom was a realtor. I mean, how did they hook up? And why, oh why, did they have to go and make it official? I knew it was more than a comedy of errors though, and this shit was real. The way Dad looked at Mrs. Shoemaker, the way he spoke to her, even about her… I’d never seen him like this before.
And I was happy for him. I truly was. He’d suffered enough after mom passed and I’d neve
r seen him act this way with a woman since. So, in that respect I wanted my dad to find someone the way I had. Someone special, a quality girl he could spend the rest of his life with, someone to give his life meaning beyond his office and beloved classroom.
But what about me? I thought selfishly as Dad waved the waiter over for the bill and he and Avery’s mom gathered up their things to leave. What about my happiness? Had I waited too long to find someone special? A quality girl of my own?
Was it too late for me?
“Well,” Dad announced, standing abruptly once the check was settled and his fedora resting just so on his head. “I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one night, don’t you all?”
“I’ll say,” Avery’s mom replied as Avery herself lingered in her seat, finally rising as she avoided my eyes completely and focused on folding her unused linen napkin before setting it on the table next to her plate.
I wondered if, like me, she feared what might happen if we looked each other dead in the eye. Would I snort with laughter? Rage and howl or mutter something I couldn’t take back? Would I let our parents know how much Avery meant to me? How much I longed for her and how much damage they were doing to what might have been? As it was, I could hardly contain my emotions as she came around the table, the four of us clustered together near the restaurant’s lobby, my hand aching to reach for hers and squeeze it tight.
“Well,” Mrs. Shoemaker said, looking at each of us in turn before reaching for my father’s hand. “Just think, the next time we all meet like this, it will be as one big happy family.”
Avery bit down on her lower lip so hard I thought she might yelp from pain, then set free a gusher of blood. Dad glanced at her, as if just noticing her bittersweet reaction. “Maybe,” he said, looking uncertain for the first time all night as his eyes finally came to rest on mine. “Maybe we should let them walk home together, dear?” he suggested, turning back to Mrs. Shoemaker. “Let them get better acquainted as they stroll across campus?”
Time Out: A Holiday Sports Romance Page 10
