Trashed (Stripped 2)

I glare, but it’s good-natured. “Why on earth would you have a pet bear? That’s crazy.”

“Wolfhound, babe. Not a bear.” Adam is grinning.

“Bear, wolfhound, the size of that thing makes it moot point, if you ask me.” I watch nervously as Iggy ambles away, turns in a circle three times, and then lies on the ground behind Adam’s chair.

“So did you have any pets growing up, Des?” Lani asks.

I shake my head. “No. I…moved around a lot, so pets weren’t really a possibility.”

“Oh, was your father in the military or something?” Lani’s questions are innocent, but so hard to answer.

“Mom.” Adam gives his mother a meaningful glance and a slight shake of his head.

And now it’s awkward. I take a fortifying sip of the wine. “I didn’t have a…traditional childhood,” I say. Everyone at the table is rapt. “I grew up in the foster system in Detroit.”

“Oh.” Lani’s gaze goes soft and understanding. “I see.”

That’s the look I hate. That right there, even though I know she means well, is the reason I don’t talk about it.

I shrug. “There was this one family I stayed with for a few months, and they had a parrot.” I can’t help smiling. “He was kind of an asshole. I think he was actually a cockatoo, now that I think about it. He was really bizarre. He would climb up your arm and sit on your shoulder when he first met you, and he would just stare at you. It was creepy. You couldn’t get him off or try to pet him, or even talk to him until he got down on his own, or he would bite you.”

“What was his name?” one of the twins asks. Lia? The one wearing jeans.

“Cartmann.”

“Like…the South Park character?” she clarifies.

I nod. “Yep.”

“That’s kind of funny,” Lia says, grinning.

“Yeah, until he takes a chunk out of your ear,” I say, touching the small divot in the outer edge of my ear where Cartmann had bitten me when I first met him.

“Yeesh.” Lia makes a face.

“So, Tory, how long are you in town for?” Erik asks.

“Till September or October,” Adam answers.

“Oh, for awhile, then.”

Adam nods. “Yeah. All I’ve got is the premier next month, but I’m off for the summer except for that.”

Erik peels the label off his beer bottle, glancing at his son. “So what are you going to do with yourselves?”

Adam shrugs. “Dunno. Show Des the city. Hang out and not memorize lines. Not spend twenty or thirty hours a week in the gym.” He glances at me, and there’s a glint of humor in his eyes, or maybe it’s a promise.

Something tells me those twenty to thirty hours a week in the gym will be transferred to the bedroom, and it’ll probably involve me on my back. Or my knees. Or standing up, bent over. He’s very imaginative. My core tightens and goes damp at my train of thought, and I force my mind out of the gutter and back to the conversation, which has moved on to Lia and Lizzy’s coming transition to college in the fall.

I pay attention and keep quiet, watching Adam interact with his family. It’s so incredible to watch. They all know each other so well, they’re each so invested in the others, and they each have their own unique way of talking to each other. The girls obviously adore and idolize their older brother, and Adam is fiercely protective, interrogating them each in turn on the kinds of guys they’ve dated, who they hang out with, and spends several minutes lecturing them on keeping out of trouble when they start college. It’s adorable, and a lot sexy. He’s tender and respectful with his mom, macho and manly with his dad. And with me, he’s a little of all of that. He goes out of his way to include me in the conversations, guides the topics away from anything that might make me uncomfortable.

At some point in the afternoon, Lani quietly leaves the table and moves into the kitchen and begins pulling things from the fridge. I get up and join her in the kitchen.

“Can I help?” I ask.

She smiles at me. “Sure. Would you like to mince a few cloves of garlic for me?”

I smash the cloves with the flat of the knife blade, peel them, and then start slicing. “Adam is really incredible,” I say. “You and Erik should be proud.”

She beams. “Oh, we are. Very proud. He’s accomplished a lot in a very short time.” Lani opens two packages of ground beef and dumps them into a huge pan and stirs. When the meat is sizzling, she turns back to me and glances past me, at Adam. “I was worried about him when he signed with the Chargers. I was proud of him then, too, of course, because making it to the NFL is an enormous accomplishment for a football player. But even in the four years he played for Stanford, he got injured several times. Very badly, once, and actually missed half a season. His Achilles tendon, that was. The NFL is so competitive, and I worried for him.”

“How do you feel about him acting? Some of the stunts he does are pretty dangerous.”

She shrugs. “Well, he’s a very tough and athletic man. He always has been. He wouldn’t be content doing something that wasn’t physically demanding. So yes, I suppose the stunts are dangerous, but the overall risk is less, I think, than the NFL.” She glances at me. “Did you know he got a full ride to Stanford?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t. I knew he went there and played ball, but…”

Lani’s pride is evident. “Well, yes, he played football, too, but his full ride was an academic scholarship, not athletic. He wouldn’t mention this, because it’s not his nature to brag, but he was Valedictorian when he graduated. He has a degree in psychology. That’s on top of starting all four years he played football as well.”

My head spins. “Wow, I didn’t know. I mean, I know he’s smart, but…” I shrug. “When it comes to Adam, though, not much surprises me.”

“What about you?” Lani asks, putting water on to boil for pasta. “What do you do?”

“I’m working towards a master’s degree in social work.”

“What will you do with it?”

“Work with foster kids like me. They need an advocate. Someone who cares, because there’s just…there’s not enough people in the world who care for the kids who get lost in the system.” I slide the cutting board with the minced garlic to Lani, who dumps it into the pan with the now-browned ground beef and tomato sauce. “I want to be someone that I wish I’d had myself, growing up.”