Chapter 46
JACK-IN-THE-CROCK
MOLLY
Oh my god--this cannot actually be happening.
But it is. There's my dad, and there's my mom, and there's Grey, shirtless and sweaty and looking like he just saw us both get hit by a bus.
I'm frozen, heart pounding, hand shaking, fake smile glued onto my face. I force myself to stand, putting Scout down with my brain screaming.
I'm wearing his jersey.
He bit me all over--ohmygod are the marks he made on me showing? No. No, thank god. But it is so obvious what's going on, my face flames to a thousand degrees.
"Mom? What…what are you doing here?"
"Surprise!" she beams, arms out, pulling me into a tight, tight hug. "Happy spring break, honey!"
Surprise. Right--this isn't a surprise, it's an ambush.
"Oh! Wow! I didn't--when did you--" I stammer, my arms pinned in hers. I pat her awkwardly, flustered, trying to sound happy and failing.
Dad is quiet, tight. Smaller than I remember.
Or maybe Grey just makes everyone look small.
Dad's got that controlled posture he gets when he's unhappy, shoulders squared like he's bracing for a fight.
His eyes are narrowed, jaw flexed. Hands in his pressed khakis, glasses glinting.
He looks exactly like an accountant who's never swung a hammer in his life.
"Hey, chicken." He gives me a side hug when Mom lets me go. "We missed you."
"You've just been so busy," Mom says, her voice a little too bright. "We thought we'd come surprise you! See the house, come take care of you, meet your friends--"
"Meet this boy you're seeing," Dad finishes, his tone flat.
Mom shoots him a look I can't read. I haven't forgotten their fight, the one she constantly brushes off in texts, claiming she overreacted. Looking at them now, I don't think she was overreacting at all.
I want to melt into the dirt and die. They can't be serious. Are they serious?
I turn, wooden. Grey put his shirt on and is standing there calm and solid and here, meeting my eyes.
You okay? The look says.
Hell no, I hope he can hear my brain yell, because my face, I'm sure, looks very confusing.
My smile is firmly in place, but my thoughts and heart are wild, galloping ponies, tearing through me, trampling every blade of grass. I can already hear them balk, almost see their shock, and for a moment I'm terrified.
But then I feel Grey next to me, settling back into the truth of it. There is one thing nothing can compromise.
Us.
I straighten my shoulders, and my eyes land on him. You and me against the world.
And tethered to him like that, my smile eases, softens into something real.
"Well, you're in luck. Mom, Dad--this is Grey. My boyfriend."
My mother appears to glitch, her head tilting slightly and her face caught in some weird smile, closer to what a robot thinks a smile looks like than an actual smile.
It freezes as she takes the formerly shirtless, sweaty, older, massive Grey in--his height, those broad shoulders, the silver at his temples, his beard.
This is very clearly not what she pictured when I told her about the mystery guy. I watch her recalibrate in real time.
"Oh!" She recovers badly. "This is…your…it's so nice to meet you!"
Dad says nothing, just stares.
Grey steps forward, confident, polite, extending a gigantic hand to my father. "Nice to meet you, sir."
I think that my small, nerdy father is actually trying to test Grey's grip, and they engage in a brief staring contest. Mom and I watch like a couple of stunned hens.
Be nice, please be nice, please be nice.
Mom's voice is overly bright and an octave too high. "So! Grey! You're…you're the…friend helping Molly with the house?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"She hasn't told us much about you," she says, shooting me a look. "How do you know each other?"
"I'm a teacher at the high school, the baseball coach."
Dad looks at the house. "You've been doing all this?" It sounds like a sort of grudging respect. I hope.
"Yes, sir. It's been a project. Molly's got a good eye for what the place needs, and she loves to learn." I almost choke. Grey doesn't flinch. "She'll have to walk you through, show you everything she's done."
"How old are you?" Dad asks bluntly.
Shit, shit, shit.
"Dad--" I start.
"Forty-four, sir."
Mom pales. Dad's jaw tightens. Both of them silently bug out.
"And how long have you been…involved with my daughter?" Dad asks. I don't think Mom can speak.
"A few months."
Her face swivels to mine, touched with hurt. "You didn't say it's been a few months."
"I told you I was seeing someone. You knew!"
"But we didn't know it was…" Him. This. WTF.
We stand there through a moment of awkward silence. Grey is still steady and solid next to me.
"Well," he says, "it's nice to meet y'all. I have some errands to run, so I'm gonna head out."
My insides screech like a monkey, thrashing and fighting the thought. No! No we had eleven days! Eleven whole days! And now…now…
I fight back tears. Try to smile. He sees it, looks at me in a way that makes me feel better. It's going to be okay.
It's going to be okay.
Please god let it be okay.
Eleven days. Gone.
"I'll text you later, Molly," he says, and I know he feels it too.
I nod. His keys are in his pocket, I guess. Because he says goodbye again, and waves, and my parents say it back and wave too, smiling, and it's all so horrid and strange and shitty that I wish I'd never been born. I watch him drive away, wishing I was with him.
Then I take a deep breath and turn to my parents, smiling that bullshit smile.
"So! Um. Come inside?"
They follow, assessing everything, noting things here and there, complimenting things, trying to be nice and normal.
But nothing is normal.
I haven't talked to Mom alone since that call, the one where she cried in her closet and hinted at secrets and said safe isn't the same as right.
Every time I've texted asking if she's okay, she brushes it off.
I was just upset. Overreacted. Nothing to worry about.
But seeing them here, Dad's tight silence and Mom's nervous energy, I know that's not true.
And their fight? Their fight was because Dad found out I was seeing someone.
I'm almost positive it's the same reason they're here. And somehow, I don't know that Mom had much to do with it.
"I still can't believe you're here," I say, dazed.
Mom tucks me into her side, her hand cupped on my shoulder. "Well, your father really wanted to see the house for himself. Make sure everything's…safe."
There's that word again. Safe.
I look at Dad. He's not here to help with the house. He's here to assess the threat. Grey. My independence. Everything I've built here without him.
"He did all this?" Dad asks. Funny--I've seen Mom use a screwdriver more times than him.
"We did it together. He's helping me learn."
"He seems…nice," Mom says, the word loaded.
Dad says nothing. His silence says it all.
"Do y'all want some coffee? You must have left at the crack of dawn," I say, deflecting.
"Sure, honey," Mom says, taking a seat at the table. Dad's still wandering around. "So, Grey! The mysterious boyfriend. He's…older than I expected."
"I told you he was a teacher. Did you think he'd be twenty-five?" I'm glad my back's to her, given the sound she makes.
"He's closer to our age than yours," Dad snaps.
"I'm an adult, and it's not that big of a deal." I turn with her coffee to find her trying to look cheerful again. "Of course you're an adult! I'm not saying you're not capable of making your own decisions, honey. It's just…surprising. That's all."
Translation: concerning, aka what the fuck?
I see her trying to reconcile the sweet story I told her--he was so locked up, I needed a sledgehammer to crack him open--with the man she just met. A man with twenty years on me and the body of a linebacker.
"We've been friends since I moved here. He looks out for me, is always selfless and helpful and generous. The town loves him." Maybe not at this exact moment, but…
Dad's arms are crossed. "Has he ever been married?"
"No."
"Why not? Man his age, never married?" He shakes his head. "Either he can't commit or he doesn't want to."
Dammit, here I thought I had the right answer. "He's been through a lot--"
"Honey," Mom cuts in gently, "we're just trying to understand."
But when I look at Dad, I know that's not true, at least not for him. He's not trying to understand. He's building a case.
"It's just that it worries me, chicken. You're young, this is your first relationship."
"I'm not a child."
"Of course you're not, Molly, but we just want to make sure he's right for you."
He's not who we'd choose, who we pictured. He's too old, too rough. You're too young, too inexperienced, too naive. I can hear it as if she said it out loud.
But I'll prove them wrong. They'll see. Once they get to know him, they'll see.
"He's perfect for me, Mom. Thanks for your concern. How long are you staying?" I ask, hoping I ended the conversation.
I see her working on a way back in, but in the end, she lets it go and puts that smile back on.
"Well, we were thinking through the week.
We've just been so interested about your life here and wanted to meet everyone and do all the things you love to do.
Plus, we miss you like crazy, honey. The house is so quiet without you. "
But all I hear is through the week. "Oh! That's…great! Where are you staying?"
"With you, silly! Don't worry--we brought the air mattress, and the weather is still cool, so the boarded windows are no big deal. We figured we'd…"
She's still talking but I can't hear her on account of the ringing in my ears.
Here. In my house. Of course. Why did I even ask?
And I'm left reeling, trying to figure out how my week went from heaven to hell in a handful of minutes.