CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The previous days’ leisure (and pleasure) seemed like a distant memory as Gabe pulled into Chloe’s parent’s driveway.
The sunshine today looked somehow bleaker, more ominous.
Almost like a threat.
He pushed the thoughts out of his head. He could do this.
They could do this.
“I can do this,” Chloe whispered.
“You can do this,” Gabe said, reaching over and squeezing her hand gently. “I love you.”
She looked at him, startled, then laughed softly and muttered something. “You are...the one,” she replied after getting hold of her scattered thoughts.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yes. Really. And don’t feel awkward about it.
I don’t care if I’m not your ‘one’. I don’t need that, evidently.
But you just...you are the one. The one for me.
You’re the man I’ve been waiting for. I mean, I knew that already, to be clear.
It’s just, I don’t know, something about this moment is perfect.
The way you’re handling it, talking to me, looking at me, it’s all so...
exactly what I want.” She leaned in and kissed him suddenly. “Come on, let’s do this.”
Gabe saw Ellen in the rearview smiling a sweet smile. Beside them, Liz, Krystal, and Holly had parked in Liz’s jeep.
“Let’s do this,” he agreed.
They all got out.
The day was very cold, which only added to the tension he felt.
He ignored it, leading their group with Chloe up to the front door.
She rang the doorbell and the door opened almost immediately.
Her parents knew that they were coming and knew what they were discussing, but they didn’t know about all the others.
Her mother and father stood in the doorway now.
“Hi, mom, dad,” Chloe said awkwardly.
“Chloe...who are all these people?” her father asked.
“Um...we have some things we need to discuss,” Chloe replied.
Gabe studied them carefully. Her mother seemed...he wasn’t sure. He thought it was a poker face at first, but as the seconds ticked by, he became convinced it wasn’t that. It was something closer to...resignation?
No, not quite that, either.
Was it (please God) acceptance?
Her father, on the other hand, just looked bewildered. Like a cat that had been doused with a bucket of water.
“Apparently,” he said finally, “come in.”
They came in, one by one, in a line, and Gabe could feel the surreality of the moment. He imagined that of all the things Chloe’s parents had imagined her telling them about her current life situation, none of them involved four other women.
They were led into the living room, where Chloe’s mother looked around awkwardly. “Um, we don’t quite have enough seats.”
“I don’t mind standing,” Liz said.
“And I can sit pretty happily on the floor,” Holly murmured.
They took a moment to get settled. The tension was worse than ever. Gabe suddenly found himself wishing her sister was here. Vanessa was pretty reasonable.
“So...what is happening?” her father asked.
“All right. I’ve made several large changes in my life,” Chloe began, “and I didn’t exactly...
plan, for them. I’ve been intending to tell you about it–about all the changes–because I love both of you and I want you to stay in my life, and I don’t want to lie to you.
So I’m not going to. This is me telling you everything that’s happened. ”
“Okay…” her mother replied cautiously.
“I’m just going to tell you plainly what happened, and where I’m at now.
I did meet Gabe at that party and we did get to know each other then.
We started dating not long after that. That’s all true.
However, at the time, Gabe was already dating Ellen and Holly,” she said, indicating the two women.
“He told me this the night we met, so there was no hiding of anything. There was no BS. I...wanted to pursue him.”
“Even though he was already dating two women?” her father asked.
His expression indicated he didn’t like where this was going.
“Yes. They were all up front about it. They knew about me, and I knew about them. We met that night. I want to be clear about that. Everything I’m going to tell you, I’ve gone into with both eyes open.
We began dating and...basically, Gabe and Ellen and Holly offered to let me move in with them, quit my job, and begin pursuing my passion of streaming. ”
Gabe actually watched her father’s tolerance for this conversation collapse in real time as she spoke. He was getting red in the face and hardly before she’d even finished speaking, he was shaking his head, getting out of his seat.
“Uh-uh. No. Absolutely not,” he said. “Chloe–”
Gabe was prepared to at least try to intervene, to salvage the situation, but Chloe shot to her feet with a look of rigid determination and rage he had never seen before.
“Dad sit the fuck down and you fucking listen to me!” she screamed, which froze him like a statue.
“You are not doing this! Do you understand me!? You are not fucking doing this! Every time you hear something you don’t like you just start in with the bullshit and bluster!
You stop listening! I am telling you right here, right fucking now that if you force me to choose between you and them I will choose them! ”
It was in that moment that Gabe realized their relationship wasn’t quite as smooth as it had appeared. Her father stood frozen in his spot, a lot of comical shock on his face. He slowly looked over at his wife for support.
He found none.
“Paul,” she said, gently, “she isn’t a child anymore. She isn’t a teenager anymore. And you know that going no contact is a thing these days. I suggest you sit down and listen to your daughter, if you really respect her. Because I intend to listen.”
He looked at her for a moment, then back at Chloe, then at the others.
A complex melange of emotions played across his face in the span a few seconds, but when he looked back to Chloe, he must have seen steel resolve in her hard gaze, and he realized he was actually playing with fire by trying to pull his usual bullshit he apparently did when the going got tough, emotionally speaking.
In truth, Gabe felt for him.
A lot of men lacked emotional intelligence simply because no one tried to teach it to them.
Certainly they weren’t managing to teach each other.
And they hobbled through life with the emotional intelligence they managed to scrape together, but that often left them with little in the way of actual tools to use when the shit actually went down.
Finally, he sat back down. “Is this really where we’re at, Chloe?” he asked, his voice quieter, if not exactly calmer.
“Yes,” Chloe replied harshly, then made an effort to contain herself.
“I’m sorry, but you have to know that I mean this.
I really do mean this, dad. I love you, but this is my future, all right?
I’ve been spinning my wheels meaninglessly since I left high school but I finally have some goddamned traction in my life!
“And not just because of the job thing. This isn’t a fucking money thing.
I’m getting traction in, like, everything!
I’m happier! I’m healthier! I’m fucking saner!
I have friends now, real friends! I live with people I actually trust and like and respect!
People who won’t fucking screw me over or abandon me the moment I become inconvenient!
I know you don’t know what it’s like out there for us, not really, but it’s bad out there.
Everything is fucking transactional now.
Finding this relationship has basically been like finding an oasis in a desert! ”
“Chloe,” Gabe murmured, noticing she was getting even more worked up.
She looked at him sharply, then seemed to take his meaning. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then sat back down beside him.
Her father still seemed both confused and at least somewhat defeated, but he looked like he kept trying to climb back on that anger horse. Gabe imagined the only thing really keeping him from successfully doing so was the fact that his wife was not backing him up in the way that he’d hoped.
“I just want you to listen,” she said, more calmly.
“We are listening, Chloe,” her mother replied, looking at her husband.
He looked back at her for a moment, and then the fight really seemed to go out of him. “Yeah...we’re listening. I just...I don’t know how I’m going to wrap my head around this, Chloe. I really don’t.”
“I know, and I want to help you.”
“...all right. Keep going,” he said.
“Thank you,” she whispered harshly. “All right. So. I got to know Gabe. He was kind, he was patient, he was respectful. He listened to me. And so did Ellen and Holly. They had a house they were living in, a place they were renting for cheap from a woman who owned it and wanted to give an author a good deal. Like a patron of the arts kind of thing. So she offered to let them all live there for three hundred a month, flat.”
“Jesus, that’s a good deal,” her mother muttered.
“Yes, it was. And is. And, by the way, I have met this woman, too. Her name is Sadie, and she’s just as kind, caring, and respectful as they are.
I genuinely believe she isn’t going to just pull the rug out from beneath us at some point.
I want you to understand that I believe everything about this situation is authentic.
And it’s not just hormones. It’s not just a fucking phase. ”
“I will never live that down,” he muttered.
“No, you won’t, because that was the most disrespectful, cliched-ass middle-aged parent shit you have ever said in your life to me,” Chloe replied.
Gabe was pretty surprised that her parents were taking her basically yelling and cursing at them so well. All right, well, her dad wasn’t, but her mom seemed almost happy.