Chapter 35
Stevie
Ruth’s confession on Adam’s behalf hangs over us, making my heart thump.
I want to snatch her words out of the air, examine them, and bask in them.
Instead, I put the words in my pocket like a blank check.
I’ll cash it in when the time is right, and that time isn’t when Ruth is eyeing me over a can of Coke.
I need to get Adam alone. Plus, I have a disaster on my hands. My heart thumps harder at the thought.
Every now and then I have a recurring nightmare where I can’t run. Sometimes I’m being chased—or I’m trying to reach someone, or my house is flooding—but in every scenario my legs refuse to move. I’m experiencing this terror now, only I’m wide awake.
Ike knows I’m trying to fudge the bet. He knows I’ve lost. Have I been wrong about everything—about what I saw, about the men in my life, about the choices I’ve made?
The old, familiar feeling in my Achilles’ heel is more than an ache.
It’s throbbing. I want to bolt, but I can’t run.
There’s nowhere for me to go. I can’t get away from the mess I’ve made.
Suddenly Sammie isn’t so cute anymore.
The toddler stumbles into the living area, dragging Adam’s Bigfoot costume on the floor behind her.
She flops against the couch, flinging her leg up to the cushion and hoisting herself to sit.
She grunts, tugging the heavy suit up beside her.
“Unkie Adam,” she whispers, patting her chubby fingers on the thing like it’s a big, ugly teddy bear.
Dang it. The kid’s still cute, and my mess isn’t her fault.
I let out a long sigh. I need to track down Ike and clear the air, but I’m not ready.
What we need is another Biblical rainstorm like the one we had last night.
I could hunker down here and make a plan.
Unfortunately, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and I have to face the music.
Ruth’s words are still sitting in my pocket. I have that, at least.
“Ruth.” He drags his hand down his face.
She ignores him. “You’re a major introvert, Adam.” She sips her drink. “I’m helping.”
He groans. “Being an introvert isn’t a disease you need to cure.”
“True, but you can’t deny that you’re happier now than you were before.”
Adam sighs. “You’re right, but—”
“No buts. Someone has to push things along. I want nieces and nephews, and thanks to my tutelage you have a girlfriend. Pretty soon—”
“Ruth.” Adam's stern look silences his sister.
She holds up her hands in surrender, though one is curled around a silver Coke can. It’s a partial surrender. Her partial smile is unrepentant.
I like having Ruth on my side. It feels like she’s on my side, anyway. I’m all for whatever pushes Adam out of his shell and closer to me.
With a long exhale he drags his phone out of his pocket. He swipes to answer, barely looking at the screen. “Yeah?”
There’s a pause, then he straightens. “Hi, Mrs. Sullivan.” A short pause. His face flushes. “Inger. How can I help you?”
Why is my mom calling Adam? They’re trading calls now? He has my full attention. And Ruth’s. Sammie is curled up with Adam’s ghillie suit, her eyes heavy. I wish Adam would crank up his volume. It’s impossible to eavesdrop like this.
He lowers his voice. “She’s here.” He turns to me. “I figured she would’ve told you.”
Oops. In the last eighteen hours I’ve gone on a date that I thought was a tour, gotten lost in the woods, woken up in Adam’s bed, and discovered that my supposed Bigfoot sighting was actually my boyfriend in costume.
My phone is long dead, sitting on a pile of my dirty clothes by Adam’s front door.
I haven’t called my mom, and it’s Sunday morning. She has to be panicking.
I hold my hand out for the phone.
“She’s right here, Mrs. Sullivan—” He turns red. “Inger. Would you like to talk to her?” A pause. “Okay.” Then he holds out the phone.
“Mom?”
While my mom’s tirade gets rolling, Adam scoops up his niece and whispers over her head to Ruth, “Want me to put her down for you?”
Ruth nods, mouthing “Thanks,” to her brother.
He leaves, Ruth cleans up breakfast, and my mom is only mid-lecture. “—tell me why I had to find out from Ike Wentworth that the reason my daughter wasn’t at church this morning is because she got lost during a thunderstorm.”
“I didn’t—”
“Not done.” I know the face my mom is making right now. Sullivan kids don’t no-show at church. I should’ve expected this dressing down. “And tell me why I had to find out from Ike Wentworth—”
“Why do you keep saying his name like that?”
“—that my daughter spent the night at Adam’s cabin in the woods.” She drops this information like a gotcha bomb.
I pause for a moment, making sure she doesn’t have anything else. “Is that all Ike told you?” He didn’t mention the fact that Adam is my boyfriend or any of the other stuff about the bet being over?
“Is that all he told me?” she hollers, but it’s distant, like she’s holding her phone away from her face to yell at the screen head on. “She spends the night with a man, I find out from Ike Wentworth, and our daughter asks, ‘Is that all he told you.’” She must be yelling at my dad now.
“I could’ve been on the news, Ma. Got lost at night in the woods during a storm.” I roll my eyes where she can’t see me. I’m safe. “This is what you’re choosing to focus on?”
“Stevie Saoirse Sullivan.” Rut-roh. “Your father and I are headed there now. Don’t move an inch, or so help me.”
“Ma, the road isn’t—”
She’s already hung up.
I look at her name on the screen. It doesn’t matter that I’m thirty-two years old, have a career, and am otherwise reliable. To my mother I’ll always be the little girl with braids who cried when she couldn’t keep up with her brothers. I’m a different person now, though. I think. I hope.
Crispin’s rideshare left a few minutes ago. Unfortunately that means Adam’s road wasn’t too muddy for my dad’s four-wheel-drive truck. They passed the Uber on its way out.
Adam and I are sitting on his front porch, watching my parents park. “Here we go,” I murmur, standing. “Are you ready for this?”
He joins me, taking my hand. “Not even close.”
After a few weeks of hiding my relationship with Adam, my instinct is to pull away. This is it. This is the beginning of me admitting I lost and that I have a boyfriend. We’re soft launching this relationship with the two most important people in my life. No big deal.
My very tall, dark, and handsome boyfriend—mostly sasquatch-like descriptors, I realize with a blush—squeezes my hand. “Is this okay?” he asks quietly while my dad helps my mom down from his truck.
“Yeah.” I titter breathlessly. “Yeah, yeah. Sure.”
He smirks. “I like you in my T-shirt,” he says under his breath while my parents make their way up the long stairs.
My gaze shoots down to the conspicuous University of Florida logo. This is such a bad look. “Why would you choose this moment to say that?” I hiss without moving my mouth.
He chuckles.
My mom shakes her head, taking me in as she reaches the top of the stairs.
“There you are.” I catch the moment our joined hands register in her eyes.
More wrinkles form on her already wrinkled forehead.
The war between Inger Sullivan, member of the Committee to Determine the Outcome of Bigfoot Versus Boyfriend, and Inger Sullivan, hopeful grandmother, plays out on her face.
“Good to see you again.” My dad shakes Adam’s hand. “You’ll have your hands full after that storm, huh?”
“Always.” Adam nods. “I have extra hands right now, which will help.”
The men launch into a conversation about trail preservation, and I find out that Adam gave his turkey poacher a temporary job helping him maintain the trails after this year’s unending barrage of rainstorms. My heart warms, and my dad appraises Adam with new respect.
My mom stops the conversation cold. “I have a roast in the oven, Brian.”
“Perfect.” My dad grins, turning back to Adam. “Why don’t you come to the house for dinner?”
Inger Sullivan, hopeful grandmother, must’ve won the war. “Oh, yes. You have to join us again, especially now that you’ve had my daughter over for the night and made her miss church.”
Adam chokes on nothing.
“Ma!” I drop my face into my palm. “Adam and I didn’t—”
“My sister and niece are visiting.” Adam frowns. “But I’d love to join you another time.”
My mom twists her lips to the side thinking. “Friday then?”
He grins. “Sounds good.”
“Okay.” I spin, gathering my pile of dirty clothes and my dead phone. “I need to get my parents out of here before they commit you to any more family events.”
I say goodbye to Adam, dragging my parents down the stairs while my dad prolongs the conversation over his shoulder.
Five minutes later, we’re bumping and sliding down Adam’s road, and there’s another kind of storm brewing in the cab of my dad’s truck. I’m slouched in the back, dreaming of curling up on my yellow couch with Adam and an episode of Seinfeld. Alas, reality.
“How long, Stevie?” My mom’s hurt voice comes from the front seat once Adam’s cabin is in the rearview mirror.
I want to play dumb, like I don’t know what she’s asking about. She wants to know how long I’ve been seeing Adam. My ego can’t handle playing dumb today. I’ve been wrong enough. “Only a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?” she screeches. “You were seeing each other when he came to dinner the other night? Hiding it from us?”
“Yeah.” I rub my temples. “I’m sorry I hid it from you. I only . . .” Wanted to win. That’s all. I can’t make myself say it.
My mom spins to face me. “It’s over, then? The ridiculous bet.”
The cab falls silent.
“Yes, it’s over,” I finally breathe. The sunlight is extra bright, reminding me of my recent minor concussion.
I squeeze my eyes closed. I suppose I should be grateful for the series of overcast days we’ve had lately.
“I don’t know how to tell everyone.” My skin crawls when I consider owning up to a failure on this scale.
I have a podcast episode to record, after all.
My mom’s voice is way too chipper. “You tell them you were wrong and that Adam is your boyfriend—he is your boyfriend, right?”
“Mm-hmm,” I murmur. At least I have that.
My mom isn’t done. “And you say that you didn’t find evidence of Bigfoot.” Her tone says she’s ready to be done with this foolishness. She wants her daughter back.
My eyes blink open. “I got a recording, actually. Last night.” I wave my useless phone, then bump my dad’s shoulder with it. “You’re going to freak out, Dad.”
“Really?” My dad straightens, signaling onto the paved road into town. Everything looks exactly like it did yesterday morning. The road is damp, but the sky is blue. You’d never know Crispin and I were fighting for survival twelve hours ago. “What was it like? High pitched or more like barking?”
“For heaven’s sake, Brian.” My mom swats his shoulder. “Don’t encourage her.”
“Why not? Between this and the video?” My dad shakes his head. He’s too excited to listen to his wife. “I’m loving this, kid,” he says over the seat.
The video. How could I forget? I have more to confess than a secret relationship.
“Actually . . .” I close my eyes. This is embarrassing for me and Adam. “I found out something about the video.”
“It’s just some guy in a ghillie suit?” my mom fills in.
“Get out!” I swat her shoulder. “How did you know? How do you even know what a ghillie suit is?” My disbelieving voice fills the truck.
My mother frowns. “I didn’t know it was possible to grow up with your father and not know what a ghillie suit is.”
“But why didn’t you say anything?” This doesn’t add up. My mom can’t stand the sasquatch stuff. She should’ve been eager to shut it down.
My mom shrugs. “I wanted to see what happened with the bet.”
She liked giving my friends an excuse to set me up with a lot of men, more like.
My dad tips his head to the side. “A ghillie suit makes sense, I guess,” he mutters. He sounds deflated. He was as hopeful as I was.
I might as well get it all out there. “It was Adam.”
“Adam figured out that it was someone in a ghillie suit?” My dad frowns through the windshield.
I wish that was it. “No.” I sigh. “Adam is the Bigfoot in my video.”