by B. Celeste
He’s a smooth talker.
A charmer.
A flirt.
I shouldn’t be surprised he’s somehow managing to woo my parents considering Dad hasn’t threatened to get out the shot gun or bring up how he’s friends with the local sheriff who lives on the outskirts of town.
If anyone would be able to win over the people who mean the world to me, it’s Garrick Matthews.
And then Mom says, “Do you still use drugs?”
The man who slipped a ring on my finger turns to me subtly, one brow arched, as if to say, told you so. But instead of verbalizing that, he sits straighter and faces my mother. “No, ma’am. I’ve been clean for four years now. It’s been a long journey, but one I plan to stick to.”
“Do you drink?”
“Mom,” I chide, cheeks flaming.
She ignores me. “Do you drink?”
“Occasionally, but not often these days.”
It’s my father who asks, “Are you planning on cheating on my daughter?”
“Oh my God,” I whisper, sinking into the couch hoping the cushions will swallow me whole.
Garrick doesn’t laugh at my expense or get defensive. Instead, he flattens his hand against my leg, just above my knee, caressing the inside of my leg with his fingertips until my heart thumps rapidly in my chest. “So long as your daughter will have me in her life, I will remain faithful. I take my vows and promises seriously, and I would never do anything to hurt her. If she decides this isn’t what she wants—” He looks at me then, softness in his eyes that replicates the way he looked at me last night in my room before we fell asleep together. “—then I will still stand by her no matter what.”
It’s a promise.
One that he’s said before.
What will my parents think when our time is up? What will they say to me when I become another celebrity divorce statistic when the news outlets all report on it? I know their standpoints on divorce better than I know their views on marriage. It’s one person for life, their happiness, their loyalty, and their love.
No exceptions.
So, I’m surprised when my father replies with a quiet, “That’s all I ask.”
I stare at the aging man whose hair has started to thin and beard has begun graying. His dark brown hair is why I decided to dye mine all those years ago, even though my natural honey blonde color comes from my mother. My other features are a mixture of the two, besides my short height that I inherited from my mother.
It’s a few moments of silence again, the tension lessening as the seconds tick by, before my mother speaks. “I want you to be happy, Rylee, but I also want you to be careful.” Before I can say anything, her eyes drift to the man sitting beside me, hand still on my leg, thumb still comforting me in short strokes, and body heat wrapping me in its warmth unknowingly. “Sometimes the people we think will never hurt us are the ones who harm us the most when we least expect it.”
Her words come with a warning, much lighter than the ones given to me by Garrick’s family.
But it’s all the same.
And Garrick takes it as he should. “I understand, Mrs. Simmons.”
It’s a breath or two before my mother sighs again, picks up her tea, and sits back in her chair. “You can call me Kelly.”
Garrick shoots me a secretive grin in victory while I slowly shake my head at the miracle I just witnessed.
My parents put on the TV to break up the tension, except the first thing that flashes across the screen is a video of us walking out of the airport along the clustered crowds.
22
Garrick
I think Rylee is about to cry. Or combust if the pacing is any indication. I’m not sure which is safer, so I let her have her moment as I bring our bags up to her old childhood bedroom and set them down on the full-sized mattress. At least it’s not a twin, since there’s no spare room for me to sleep in like I would have figured they’d direct me to.
Her father simply said, “It’s her room or the couch, and that couch will leave you with one hell of a backache.”
Based on the way her eyes stare at the bed before her fingers raise to her mouth to bite her nails, I’d say she’s not too happy with the idea of being bed buddies again. She never mentioned falling asleep in my room at home, or how I spent the night holding her the day before. I think she feels better forgetting she made herself comfortable around me, as if it’s a bad thing.
Clearing my throat, I stand straight and examine the room. Pink, just like she said. Except the sheets and blankets on the bed are a floral white that must have replaced the princess ones she’d once mentioned having, and the frilly curtains I imagined hanging on the windows are white sun-blockers that shade the room.
“Cute,” I remark, walking over to the half-empty bookcase and examining the odds and ends on it. I pick up a dusty frame of a younger version of Rylee and a tall girl with curly hair. “Who is this?”
She stops pacing enough to walk up beside me and study what I’m holding. “That’s my best friend.”
“Moffie, right?”
Her head jerks back slightly. “You remembered?”
“Hard name to forget,” I say casually, setting it back down. There are multiple colors splattered all over the girls in the photo like they got into a paintball war. “You two look happy. What’s on your faces?”
I look over to see her absentmindedly staring at the image from around me. “Moffie dragged me to a highlighter party. We all wore white and got sprayed with paint by the people hosting it. It turned into a rave. Well, our version of one anyway. We don’t really get a lot of them here in the boonies.”
Smirking, I examine the other knickknacks. A sad looking stuffed teddy bear is on the top shelf, missing an eye and part of its ear, next to it is a line of bear figurines in all shapes and sizes that she must collect, and a few books that don’t look like they’ve ever been read.
And… “Is that a VHS tape?” I grab it and look at the cover. “Haven’t seen one of these in a long time.”
“I used to have a VCR to watch them at my apartment,” she tells me. “My grandma gave it to me as a housewarming present to be unique. She’d said it was ‘something old’ even though Grandpa Al reminded her that was for weddings.” A frown settles on her face. “I think she knew by that point that she’d never see me get married. It wasn’t too long after I moved that she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. It’d spread quickly from there.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Ry.”
She takes a deep breath and wipes under her eye with her finger. “She also gave me these bears because they’re her favorite animal. There were hundreds of these at their house until Grandpa Al told her she had to get rid of some because they took up too much room.”
“Are they both…?” She talks about them enough where I figured they’d passed on, but I never wanted to ask to ruin the memories she always got lost in that led to her beautiful smiles.
I watch her lips press together, her eyes focused on the animal figurine closest to her. “I was really close to them, like I’ve mentioned before. Grandpa Al especially. There was something special about their love, like it couldn’t be beat. He married her after she got divorced from my bio-grandpa who’s somewhere in North Carolina I think. We don’t talk. I don’t know what happened between them, all I know is that Al is her one. And Al…he always considered me one of his own. Treated me like family and taught me his passions. I miss them both, but I know they’re together and happy.”
“I can only imagine how hard that must be for you,” is all I say before changing the subject. “What’s there to do around here? Something quiet that we’d be able to enjoy?”
Her lip pulls into her mouth as she glances up at me through her lashes. “There’s a mini golf place not far from here. Right outside of town. I’m not sure it’s open right now though, they’re usually seasonal for when the weather is nicer. Last I knew, they closed around Columbus Day so we’re a few weeks late.
They serve ice cream too and people around here used to love going in the summertime.”
“Did you?”
She shrugs. “I was never very good.”
“Well,” I declare, “I say we find out for ourselves.”
“Garrick, they’re probably not—”
I hush her. “Leave it to me, Rylee. Money speaks, and I happen to have a lot of it. We can invite your parents too and extend an olive branch.”
“They’ll interrogate you.”
“I’ll take it.”
“They’ll ask personal questions.”
“I’m an open book.”
“Garrick…”
“Rylee. Deep breaths, love. Remember what we talked about? Inhale for three, exhale for three. I can take whatever they throw at me. I’m used to it.”
“You’re used to the parents of women you marry asking you a million questions about yourself?”
I snicker at her dry humor. “I’m used to people throwing questions at me for no reason at all, but unlike those situations, I have every justifiable reason to answer these ones now.”
We stare at each other, uncertainty in her eyes and determination in mine. She knows by now that I don’t give up easily, and I can tell that bothers her to some degree. Even though this is her domain, I still push her because we have a better chance at getting out of the house here than back home.
Time out together.
With her family.
Enjoying each other’s company.
Finally, she relents. “My dad does love mini golfing.”
23
Rylee
My parents decide to sit mini golfing out even though Dad grumbled about it. With his ankle, he wouldn’t be able to get around easily, so it makes sense why they stayed behind.
The owner opened just for us after Garrick pulled out his wallet and flashed him the stacks inside. Seeing how much money he carries makes me squirm, like at any minute someone will pop out of the bushes and mug us, and it bugs me for the first three holes we play.
I finally ask, “Do you always carry that much around with you?”
He pauses from hitting the bright purple ball to stand to full height. “Not all the time. And $100 is yours.” Patting his back pocket where the leather wallet is, he says, “If you’d just accept it.”
I cross my arms. “I don’t need—”
“My money,” he finishes for me, eyes flashing with mischief before raking over the way I clench my jacket around me for warmth. Shaking his head, he walks over, grabs the ends, and begins zipping it. Halfway up, he discovers the teeth are broken which is why it doesn’t close properly. He eyes me. “It seems you do need a new jacket though.”
“This one is fine.”
He rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t function the way it’s meant to, Rylee. That isn’t ‘fine’. I don’t have one to give you either.”
All I do is shrug, even if the cold air is nipping at me uncomfortably. I have no idea how he’s comfortable in the long sleeve shirt he has on considering he’s been a west coaster practically his whole life.
I fidget with a loose string and look around the open area. “At least there isn’t any snow on the ground. You can never be sure what winters will be like here. Sometimes it starts in October, sometimes it doesn’t until January. Dad said the Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a light season. We haven’t had one like that in years.”
The confusion on his face makes me crack a small smile before taking a step back and tucking my hair behind my ear. “Some people swear by the predictions in the Farmer’s Almanac. They’re usually spot on with their winter guesses. It doesn’t really matter to me here because I don’t have to deal with the snow or ice unless I’m traveling.”
One of his brows quirks. “Is that why you don’t have a working jacket?”
I choose to ignore him. “Are you going to hit the ball anytime soon? I’d like to go before my fingers need to be amputated.”
It’s not that cold, but cold temperatures have always bothered my body. My joints stiffen and take longer to warm up, and I can’t stop shaking even hours after I’m inside again. If I were smart, I would have brought gloves with me on this trip knowing where Mom keeps a stash of hand knitted ones at home, but I hadn’t planned on playing mini golf with a Grammy winner in the middle of nowhere.
Garrick is kind enough not to point out how bad I am at this game and tries his hardest not to laugh when I tell him of my many fails playing. Like the time I broke one of the props when I swung my club a little too hard for dramatic effect, or when I smacked the ball right into an old man’s back who was at the hole ahead of me and Dad.
I think the reason Dad loves doing this with me is because he’s guaranteed to win every time. He stopped letting me win when I was ten and won’t let me forget all the times he’s made himself look like a fool trying to throw the games he’s played with me over the years.
Garrick isn’t half bad, and I wonder if he’s done this before. Every move he makes is strategic, calculated. “Have you ever played?”
He hits the ball and we both watch it go right to the hole, dropping in flawlessly. Turning, he winks at me. “A time or two. It’s much more fun drunk, but I stay away from that these days. I hope you didn’t mind me telling the guys that you don’t drink, you don’t seem like much of a drinker anyway.”
I shake my head and place my ball down before studying the layout of the course. “I’ve never liked drinking that much. Moffie and I used to steal wine from my Mom when we were teenagers and got wasted at our joint graduation party on rum and coke.” I don’t think too much about the night of vomiting and next morning’s horrible hangover before hitting the ball, watching it bounce off the brick siding and land in the sand pit. Shoulders dropping, I ignore the soft snicker from Garrick and walk over to the neon yellow ball I chose. “Now, I can’t really drink because of my medicine anyway. It’s not good to mix it with my prescriptions.”
I don’t look up to see the seriousness probably carved into his face before trying to get the ball in the hole so we can move on. He says, “I didn’t think of that.”
“Why would you?”
He’s silent.
After a few more holes, he comes up and nudges my arm. “What about ice cream?”
I give him a funny look. “What about it?”
“Can you eat it?”
“It’s practically winter.”
“It’s November and warm.”
I eye him doubtfully. “You live in California. How can you say it’s ‘warm’ right now? I’m from here and I’m freezing.”
It’s the wrong thing to say because he points toward my jacket and says, “That’s because your coat is broken, love.”
Back to this. I don’t encourage him. “Yes, I like ice cream. Occasionally. I’ve never really had it during the winter though with the exception of ice cream cake because it’s Moffie’s favorite. She’s a January baby.”
“And what about you?”
I don’t answer right away while we walk alongside each other to the next hole. We both examine it, figuring out the best vantage point for a hole-in-one. Eventually, I place my ball on the tee which he gestures to and tell him, “April.”
“Ah. An Aries. Makes sense.”
I look over my shoulder. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He holds up his hand. “Nothing personal. My mother was into astrology. She’s an Aries too. May. I suppose that’s why she likes you. You’re compatible.”
Not sure what to say, I turn my back on him and focus on the ball. To my surprise, it goes right in on the first try. If only Dad were here to witness it, he’d be in disbelief too.
“We complement each other,” he remarks at random, eyes staring at the golf balls in our hands.
My brows pinch. “What?”
He taps the yellow one I hold. “Purple and yellow are complementary colors. We complement each other.”
Huh. “I was in the mood for yellow today,” I explai
n dumbly, not really knowing what else to say.
“It’s a good color for you. Warm.”
I stay quiet.
“This is where you tell me that purple is a great color for me,” he states confidently.
I roll my eyes and cross my arms over my chest. “Why would I do that? And what does that even mean? Purple doesn’t even symbolize anything.”
“Wrong.” He holds up his golf ball between two fingers. “Purple is associated with royalty, nobility, power, luxury, and ambition. Why do you think it’s my favorite color?”
I make a face. “I don’t know. To be different?”
He smirks. “That too. But it’s a symbol. Music royalty. Hard earned money. The lap of luxury. Some might even call me ambitious if they knew me well enough. See where I’m going with this?”
“And I’m…warm?” My eyes drop to the neon yellow ball in my hand attempting to connect the color to me somehow.
“You’re warm, welcoming, and kind. You may not have a favorite color, but yellow suits you well. It’s enthusiastic and enlightening. Open to optimism.”
None of that sounds particularly like me. “I think you’re making things up now.”
“So be it.” A shoulder lifts. “I suppose not everybody can see their worth that easily. But everyone who knows you would agree with me.”
“I’m pretty sure everybody would agree with you because you’re famous,” I counter, walking ahead of him. “You could tell people you were abducted by aliens and they’d probably nod along. It’s the accent. Makes everything sound—” I stop short of saying sexy.
His blue eyes light up. “My accent makes everything sound like what, Rylee? Enlighten me, I’d love to know.”
Internally groaning, I murmur, “Sexy. You didn’t need me to say that though.”
He snickers, dropping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me into him. Dropping a kiss on the top of my head, he says, “No, but it’s still nice to hear.”
