CHAPTER 17 -TELLING THE PARENTS #2
The waiter appears, ready to take dinner orders, but everyone ignores him.
Robert pushes his bourbon away. “Does your mother know?” he demands.
Tara shakes her head. “I’ll tell Nancy soon. But I wanted to tell you first.”
The older man sits back, crossing his arms. For a moment, I think he’s going to explode. Instead, he sighs—a long, broken sound. “I want you to be happy, sweetheart. I just never imagined it would be like this, with your stepbrother.”
Tara’s voice is gentle. “Me neither. But I’m happy with Hunter, and that’s that.”
I let the silence stretch, then raise my glass. “I know this has been a shock, but I hope you accept us one day. Maybe not tonight. But one day. So I want to toast to potential new beginnings.”
Catherine raises hers, just barely. Tara clinks with me, eyes shining. Robert reluctantly does as well, although I can see that Tara’s dad is obviously not thrilled with this development at all.
We drink, and for the first time all night, I feel a bit calmer. We’re over the worst part, and now need to survive the rest of this meal.
The waiter returns with his notepad in hand, and Catherine regains her composure enough to ask if the chef is still doing the truffle risotto.
Tara smiles at me slightly, and I squeeze her thigh below the table.
There will be fallout. There will be gossip and judgment and maybe even tears. But for now, we’re together, and the world hasn’t ended.
The main course is an exercise in theater. Plates arrive—rare steak for my father, salmon for my mother, a complex vegetarian thing for Tara. I don’t remember what I ordered, and when the plate lands in front of me, I stare at it like I’ve never seen surf and turf before.
The conversation turns mechanical, small talk about Minneapolis weather, the recent renovation at the Guthrie, developments at my company, Justify AI. Yet my mother keeps circling back, like a bloodhound. She’s not angry. She’s probing for the details I won’t give.
She asks about the amnesia again, and Tara gives her a polished answer: “It was like waking up from a dream where you forgot your name. Hunter helped me remember.”
I nod, eyes on my plate. Every time my mother glances at me, the hairs on my neck go up.
Catherine’s searching for the real story—what happened between us, the before and the after.
But I won’t answer. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and I definitely don’t think our parents need to know details in this case.
But I watch Tara with increasing pride. She fields every question with a new sort of grace—confident, but never brittle. She’s better at this than I am, and I love her for it, even as I wonder when the next hammer will fall.
Halfway through the meal, Robert sets down his fork and asks, “Is this permanent?”
The room goes still.
Tara doesn’t flinch. “We’re taking it one day at a time. But yes, that’s our plan.”
Catherine pushes a pea around her plate. “If you’re happy, we’ll support you,” she says. “Again, you’re not biologically related, so at least we have that. Plus, the world is strange, so families can be, too.”
There’s a pause, and Tara’s dad grunts. “I suppose you want us to act normal about this?”
Tara laughs, the sound bright in the heavy air. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But we want to be honest with you because we don’t want to hide. That’s no way to live a life.”
Robert rubs the bridge of his nose, a gesture of defeat. “I just want you safe, Tara. And happy.”
She softens, her posture relaxing. “I am, Dad. For the first time in a long time.”
There’s another silence, but it feels less like the edge of a cliff and more like the bottom of a hill, right before you climb up again.
We make it through the meal. We don’t talk about the logistics of sleeping arrangements at holidays, or how vacations will work. We don’t talk about informing friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. There’s time for that later.
When the check arrives, my mother insists on paying. It’s her way of blessing the mess.
We stand to leave. Tara grabs my hand, her palm warm, and I feel the squeeze of her fingers. My mother sees it, and instead of looking away, she studies our clasped hands for a long moment.
“Hunter,” she says, her voice low. “You take care of your stepsister. She’s your girlfriend now.”
I meet Catherine’s eyes for the first time all evening.
“I will.”
She nods, satisfied, and hugs me, before departing with Robert in tow.
Outside, the air is clean and cold. Tara leans into me, and I realize we’ve cleared a major hurdle. Not all of them, but a big one.
On the curb, the beautiful blonde looks over and smiles. “We did it.”
I grin, unable to help it. “Yeah. We really did.”
She puts her hand on my thigh. “You’re trembling.”
I laugh, shaky and stunned. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
She leans over and kisses me, slow and soft, and I realize something I never would have guessed:
Sometimes, the truth can set you free.
We get into our car at the parking lot, but I don’t start it right away.
Instead, Tara and I sit in the vehicle for a long time.
Maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. The outside world is blue with cold, Minneapolis streetlights slicing up the dark.
I don’t turn the key; I just sit and listen to the slow tick of the engine as it cools, feeling the way the tension unwinds from my neck and shoulders, the slow, flooding relief of a wound that isn’t going to kill you after all.
Tara is quiet beside me, one hand still linked in mine.
Her thumb traces small circles over my knuckles, hypnotic and soothing.
I study her in the rearview mirror: the light from the restaurant sign painting her cheekbones silver, her eyes soft and dreamy but a little wild.
She looks back at me, and I get the weirdest sense that she’s about to leap out of her skin.
I let out a breath I’ve been holding for two hours. “You okay?”
She nods, then shakes her head. “I can’t believe we did that.”
“You were perfect.”
She turns in her seat, pulling her legs up beneath her. The hem of her dress slides higher, catching on the seatbelt, and there’s this obscene moment when her thigh is bare and moonlit, and all I want is to bite it.
She sees me looking and smiles, slow and feline. “I know that expression,” she says in a coy tone.
I smirk. “Do you?”
She leans in, close enough that I can feel the heat of her breath. “It means you want to fuck me senseless, but you’re too polite to say it in front of my dad.”
I laugh, sharp and brutal, and the sound is loud in the small space. “You have no idea.”
She slides across the console, graceful as a cat, and straddles my lap. The dress rides up more, exposing the soft curve of her ass as she settles on top of me. The car is too small, too public, which means it’s absolutely perfect.
Tara kisses me. Not the slow, careful kiss from before, but a hungry, desperate one, all teeth and tongue and hot, wet need. Her hands tangle in my hair, tugging until I groan. I grip her hips, greedy, pulling her closer, wanting to sink inside her and never let her go.
The windows start to fog, a cliché that makes me laugh into her mouth. She bites my lower lip, hard, and I gasp.
“Someone might see,” I groan, but I don’t slow down.
She grinds against me, the heat of her skin searing through my pants. “Let them.”
I slide a hand up her thigh, fingers digging into the meat of it, and she whimpers—just once, a soft, animal sound. My other hand finds the back of her neck, holding her there as I kiss her deeper, drinking her in. She tastes like wine and adrenaline and no trace of regret at all.
After a minute, she pulls back, panting, forehead pressed to mine. “I love you, Hunter,” she says, voice small but unbreakable.
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
We sit like that, tangled, our breaths coming in tandem, until the air is thick with want and something close to peace. For the first time all night, there are no eyes on us, no expectations, no threat of exposure. Just us, raw and real.
I run my hand up her back, under the fabric, and feel the goosebumps bloom on her skin. The beautiful blonde sighs and melts into me, her curves a perfect fit against my hardness.
When we finally break apart, she climbs back to her seat, smoothing her dress. Her hair is a mess and her lips are bruised, but she’s never looked more alive.
I start the sports car, the engine thrumming. She puts her hand on my thigh, higher than polite, and I glance over at her. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, satisfied.
“I want you the second we get inside,” she mewls.
I squeeze her hand, not trusting myself to speak.
The drive home is silent, except for the sound of her nails on my skin, the scent of her perfume in the air, the constant, electric promise of what comes next.
When we get to the penthouse, she immediately clasps my big form to hers, before seizing me in a passionate kiss, and I know—really know—that nothing will ever come between us again.
Not family. Not the past.
Nothing.
Tara and I are finally free.