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.
“That’s what he said.”
He shakes his head at my bad joke as he lets go of my foot. “Take a shower then I’ll wrap it up for you.”
“All my stuff is upstairs.”
“Stay right here. I’ll be right back.”
A few minutes later he returns with my makeup bag and some fresh pajamas and panties.
He sets them on the countertop and stares at me for a moment before he turns to leave. “I’ll be right outside. Just holler if you need anything.”
He’s about to shut the door when I call out to him. “Wait!”
He pops his head in and raises his eyebrows questioningly. “Did I forget something?”
“Can you stay in here with me? In case I need some help. I don’t have Life Alert.”
One side of his mouth pulls up in a devilish half-smile. “Of course.”
He turns on the water as I untie my bikini top and climb out of my bottoms, all the while hopping on one foot and balancing my weight on the countertop. He opens the shower door and wraps his arm around my waist to help me into the shower. I pretend not to notice him staring at my breasts as I step inside and close the door behind me. The bottom of the shower turns a murky brown as the mud rinses away under the warm water.
Once the muck is gone, I can see that half my toenail is missing, but I don’t think the toe is broken as it’s only slightly swollen and pink.
“You okay in there?”
“I think I’m going to make it.”
He opens the shower door and makes no attempt to disguise the way his eyes roam over every inch of my body. “Hey, beautiful. I’m going upstairs to use the shower up there. You sure you’re okay? You don’t need a hand in here?”
I throw him a thumbs-up and he smiles as he closes the door.
When I get upstairs, he’s already showered and lying in the pink bed with a roll of gauze and medical tape next to him and his feet hanging off the end.
“Jamie’s bed is not the most comfortable bed in the universe,” he says as I set my soggy bathing suit down on top of the suitcase on the floor and climb into bed. “But it just got much cozier.”
I hand him the gauze and the medical tape and he wraps up my toe. He kisses it softly before I tuck myself in under the covers. I switch off the lamp on the bedside table and turn onto my side. He slides in behind me to spoon me.