Chapter 17.
TJ
I straighten a pillow on the living room couch.
A chair at the brunch table is turned ever so slightly, so I most definitely fix that.
I wipe off the kitchen counter with a cloth, then realize it was already clean, the cloth coming up empty.
Then I stand in the foyer, wondering what else I can do.
Check my phone.
On a ladder in the study, I rearrange all the books by height. Decide it looks wrong. Arrange by color. Decide that’s worse. Then settle on organizing by genre. What genre is a thesaurus?
I adjust the picture frames down the hall, all of them looking crooked because either my eyes or the leveler is lying to me.
Check my phone.
Walk into each guestroom with a dramatic sniff, testing if they smell fresh or not.
“What’s all this for, sweetheart?” asks my mom, noticing me in the two and a half seconds I flit from one room to the next, and I go, “Not now, Mom.”
Check my phone.
“Are you—?” she asks. I cut her off with, “Cleaning,” as I dash into another room with a dust rag. “We have people for this!” she calls out sweetly from the hall.
I adjust another picture frame.
My bed and my desk and my floor become covered with every shirt and every pair of pants or shorts I own, and literally nothing is good enough to wear.
“Too casual,” I mumble, holding up a set in the mirror, flinging it aside.
“Too uptight.” Then: “Trying too hard to look cool.” Then: “Not trying hard enough.”
It takes a lot of effort to look effortlessly good.
“Enough,” says my mom, stopping me at the top of the stairs. “What in the ever-lovin’ heck is going on?”
“Austin,” I answer. “He’s staying here for two weeks.”
Her face registers like I literally said nothing.
Then her eyes flash. “And you’re telling me this now??”
Ten minutes later, I’m on a ladder by the back door trying to dust a chandelier in the late afternoon sunlight while my mom is on the phone with a caterer friend asking advice on lunch meats.
I’m in the bathroom counting toilet paper rolls and my mom is in the upstairs study organizing the books by author.
“Should we redecorate the guest wing gazebo?” she asks from across the house, fussing with her poinsettias by the sliding patio door.
“He’s arriving in half an hour!” I shout back from under the dinner table, tightening a nut or two that keeps making it squeak.
“That’s plenty of time!” she sings back.
I’m straightening window curtains when my mom lets out a hoot of excitement from behind me and cries, “This means he’ll be here for my Fourth of July Boomin’ Barbecue!
” I can’t even when I shout back, “I thought the Strongs were doing it!” She laughs me off and cries, “Nadine’s got waaay too much on her plate as Mayor.
I took it off her hands. What’s that look on your face for? ?”
I should’ve told her already. Days ago. I meant to, I really did. But it just kept turning into this big nightmare in my head I kept telling myself I’d deal with later. And now it’s later.
The last thing I needed was two of us spiraling. Nevertheless, here we are. Like mother like son, or something?
Then my phone dings. My mom and I both pop our heads up from opposite sides of the guestroom bed we just remade.
I meet my mom’s eyes across the sheets. “Five minutes out.”
“But I haven’t checked the last guestroom!”
“I … He’s …” I swallow hard and fight for the words. “He’ll just stay in mine. In my room. With me.”
“Are you insane?” she politely asks. “Why would our valued guest crowd you in yours when we have plenty of empty rooms to choose from?”
“Valued guest? What are we, a Marriott?”
“He can stay in the one right next to yours.”
“Mom …”
“Everyone needs their space to rest, and you sweat up a storm when you sleep and kick around a lot. Besides, you’ll be spending every day together. Ooh, should we get the projector set up? We can do a movie night right after dinner! You two are joining us for dinner in an hour, aren’t you?”
I’m seriously regretting this. “Please don’t go making plans. I don’t want the whole town here for a ‘welcome TJ’s new friend to town’ party you throw at us Saturday night or something.”
“No, that’s planned for Sunday.” At the look on my face, she narrows her eyes. “Kidding, TJ, relax.”
“And you wonder why I almost didn’t tell you. Oh!” I catch my gaze in the floor-length mirror. “I haven’t changed!”
“You look fine, don’t worry! But if you are changing, I vote for the yellow top with matching shorts.” Obviously she’s been by my room and saw the clothing catastrophe. “It being summer and all.”
I fly back to my room. I go through seven outfits in a hurry—and end up in the yellow top with matching shorts.
When the house fills with the daunting dissonance of our loud and severely outdated doorbell, I shit my pants.
Then appear at the front door like a butler. Forget how to breathe. Suck in air. Then pull it open.
And suddenly I understand why I didn’t tell my mom.
How do you prepare anyone for someone like this?
Austin Chase Love. A vision, even in a casual pair of jeans and a loose white tee, tucked in partly at the front to show off his belt with a not-too-dinner-plate-esque buckle, and a maroon-and-white threadbare baseball cap shielding his eyes from the sun.
His lips curl up. “Howdy.”
Just fuck me right here in the doorway. “Hey.”
Then a third and highly unnecessary, “Hello!” from my mom, who appears immediately at my back like an intrusive thought. “It is so great to see you again, Austin! Come in out of the sun! You must be thirsty. How long was your drive? I’ll fix you something to drink. Lemonade? Iced water? Sweet tea?”
“Mom,” I mutter under my breath—but Austin steps in, takes her hand into a warm shake, and says, “Thank you, Cissy. I’ll take a sweet tea, awful nice of you.”
“Oh, it’s—it’s nothing,” my mom swoons, breathless at the use of her name, no doubt—I roll my eyes—and then she’s off for the kitchen.
“Make yourself at home!” she calls out behind her.
“TJ, go help him bring in his things! Austin, hope you parked closer than before! You can use the covered parking at the side, y’know!
And if you want—” She’s in the kitchen now, which is basically a soccer field away from us at this point, and no words can be made out.
The three of us stand around the counter with drinks in hand, my mom chatting away nonstop about all kinds of nonsense—after ensuring we are, in fact, staying for dinner, currently filling up the kitchen with an irresistibly appetizing aroma of meats, herbs, and something sweet—I comfort myself with the fact that this initial hell is about to be over with.
Then the back door opens. In walks my dad, authoritative yet calm, shiny shoes clacking on the tile, eyes friendly yet sharp as he approaches. Guess he was in the guesthouse office this whole time and just now chose to emerge.
“You must be Austin,” he says, extending a hand.
Wait, how’d he know?
Oh. Mom. Of course. She either clued him in just before Austin arrived, texted him while preparing dinner, or has been talking to him about Austin every night since his last visit here. My parents love talking to each other about me and everyone in my life. I’m their favorite topic of gossip.
“It’s nice to meet you, sir,” returns Austin, shaking his hand.
“You can call me Tim,” he insists back. The men let go of each other’s hands.
“I heard you’ll be staying with us for a while.
That’s good.” He smirks at me. “TJ needs … more entertaining company than his deeply uncool parents.” He offers a heavy chuckle at his own joke. Mom and Austin give it a polite laugh.
That makes two parents I must endure tonight—two too many.
My dad is as kind and hospitable as my mom, don’t get me wrong, but their energy is night and day.
Where my mom laughs easier at jokes, my deadpan dad takes these long, painful moments to determine whether or not something deserves his laughter, and if the joke flies over his head or doesn’t immediately land, he questions it to death until there’s nothing left to laugh at.
Also, he’s a believer that aliens exist.
Apparently so is Austin.
Thus begins an entire dinner of two grown men geeking out.
“I mean, how can they not?” asks my dad with these childlike sparkles in his eyes I haven’t seen since he saw me play a dragon in my fifth grade play.
Calm down, I had two lines, and my scaly skin was made out of a bed sheet with green paper plates taped to it.
No one needs to revisit that cringey memory.
“Right?” Austin’s eyes are similarly lit up. “Sayin’ they don’t exist is like takin’ a teaspoon of ocean water, seein’ no sharks in it, and declarin’ sharks don’t exist! C’mon, now.”
My dad nudges my mom. “He gets it.” She and I are staring at each other across the table like neither of us know these men.
A substantial amount of time later when we all finish eating (and after far too much talking about stars, black holes, and NASA) my dad takes Austin off to show him his telescope—he has three—leaving me and Mom in the kitchen cleaning up.
“They certainly hit it off,” says my mom for the third time, laughing to herself.
“I don’t think your dad’s ever taken to one of your friends that fast.”
Friends.
The word goes in one ear, bothers me for half a second, then flies out the other.
I glance over my shoulder at the upstairs landing, wondering what else they’re talking about, if they really are just interested in stargazing and technology, or if it’s a secret ambush mission of my father’s to figure out Austin one-on-one.
I can’t even imagine how Austin will answer if my dad interrogates him on what he does for a living, how he can afford traveling all over the place, how we met—all the same questions I dreaded him asking during dinner.
I should write a thank you card to the aliens of the universe for occupying them from appetizer to dessert.
“Sweetie?”