Chapter Thirty-One
Lemon
Piece of crap, three-dollar, monstrosity!
I twist myself silly in the unbearably snug hammock, rearranging my limbs until I’m tumbling from the sheath and ripping it off the trees altogether.
“Stupid fucking flash sale.”
And it’s not just the hammock. I’m angry and hungry, because I was not about to eat that fish we caught, what with all the parasites in the water…
I also hate fish.
Blah.
I hate it even more than him.
Oliver.
I practically sigh his name into the wind, pining at the moon like the damsel in every movie I pretend not to love, hopeless.
And then there’s Tina. She keeps buzzing my phone. It’s only got about fifteen percent battery, thank fuck, because then she can’t ask me for the trillionth time if I’m doing the show.
I’m not. I made up my mind in the river.
But every time I try to type that sentence, a brick weighs down my entire arm and I’m back to shoving the phone away for another day.
What if this is my last chance for adventure?
What if I say no, and I miss out on destiny?
But what if destiny is here?
Does having the choice even make it destiny?
Ugh! I can’t breathe.
I slide open my speed dial tab and hit the first contact, fanning myself with my shirt collar.
“Hi, Papa,” I crack.
“Zitrone? Bist du in Sicherheit? What is this?”
“Papa, I’m fine!” I sigh. “Everything’s fine. I’m just…I can’t sleep.”
I hear Sylvia mutter something soft in the background, and he whispers back to her, “No, it is okay. It is Lemon. Go back to bed, my sweet.”
“Gagging internally,” I tease him. “My sweet.”
“Oh, hush. You call me at four in the morning and expect me to be alone in bed? I am not such the old man you thought.” He chuckles, and yeah, it’s my papa, and it’s gross and all, but I’m genuinely happy he’s got someone to fall asleep beside.
That he’s moved on from the pain of my mother, or he’s starting to.
Maybe you never really move on from pain, like with Mom or Randall. You always feel the connection, but it isn’t so painful.
Not anymore.
“Do you really think I’ll make a good CEO?” I ask.
He grumbles, and I can hear him readjusting to the squeaky leather sofa of his office. “Did you call me to ask this at four in the morning?”
“No,” I admit. “It’s…it’s Oliver, Papa.”
“Olly? What is wrong? At the campground? I’ll send a car.”
“No, he’s fine, Papa. That’s the problem. He’s fine. He’s perfect and kind and responsible and smug, and he labels his leftovers and makes adorable faces when I switch up the sticky notes to fuck with him.”
“Leftovers?”
“Papa, I love him.”
A long stretch of silence follows.
Footsteps sound on the line.
Liquor pours in the background.
And when I finally hear the squeak of his sofa again, he speaks. “Zitrone, you are a beautiful young woman.”
“Papa, ew, that’s not what this is.”
“But he is an older man, is what I mean. Not my age, no, but he has a family.” He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “Is it possible you just think he wants more?”
“No!” I snap, silencing the very thought. “It’s not possible, Papa. He loves me, too. He’s just too afraid to tell you. Scared for his job, or because he thinks I’ll just leave him like the others…I don’t know.”
“Won’t you?” Papa asks. “Leave him like you have left the others? I know about the mountain show. The one where you are to appear naked and survive on what? Nuts and berries?”
“That’s the other part of why I can’t sleep.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I wanted to at the start of this summer, but then—”
“You fell in love.”
“Yeah.”
“It hurts, oder? Love.” He hums into the phone, and I know what he’s doing. He’s rolling both rings in his palm, one from Sylvie on his finger, and the other around his neck, my mother’s.
I noticed it there when he caught us at the park.
“Does it hurt you?”
“Every time, every day, my Lemondrop. But ask yourself a question. When have you ever turned your back on an adventure before?”
No.
That isn’t where he’s supposed to steer me.
“You’re supposed to convince me that love is worth everything or some shit like that, but you’re saying I should go on the adventure? Choose the mountain?”
“I’m saying you need to choose the adventure you wish to take. They don’t always look how we think, Zitrone. When I met your mother, I never could have imagined one kiss would lead me to this country, to Perkins Global, or to fathering you, my biggest adventure. And my proudest.”
“Stop,” I tease. “We all know your company is your pride and joy, not your mess of a daughter.”
“Like I say, adventures can sometimes be hidden right in our own home. Ask yourself one more question tonight, M?uschen.”
“Shoot.”
“Where is home for you? Maybe that’s the answer you seek.”
“Wait.” I stop him before he ends the call. “Just to be clear, you’re still going to let me be the CEO even if I get naked on a mountain on national TV?”
“No. Definitiv nicht. You choose your adventure, like I say, but Zitrone?”
“Yes, Papa?”
“You are my pride no matter what. Ich dich liebe, Kind.”
I pad barefoot back to the campsite, where my tangled and tossed hammock mocks me from downriver, the light of the moon over the water creating a spotlight for said mockery.
Not my best judgement call.
A branch crunches in the woods, and I startle, but I check the girls’ tents, and our whole group is sound asleep, so I hurry into Oliver’s as quietly as I can and pray I’m not eaten by a bear.
I hear a few more crunches before there’s nothing but crickets and frogs humming a tune. I slow my breathing and lie beside him.
I’m more confused than before after my call with Papa.
If I go on the show, I lose Oliver and the company.
But If I stay, I lose my freedom, don’t I?
For tonight, I curl around the man I love and close my eyes, drifting to sleep to the beat of his heart.