52. Fresh New Model
FRESH NEW MODEL
ANDERS
The fire pit crackles in the center of the massive patio, orange light dancing across the stone beneath our feet.
The mountains have disappeared into darkness, leaving only their outlines against the sky, while the lake reflects the last traces of sunset like someone spilled melted gold across the water.
Emelie and Jen are curled up together in the small swinging chair across from us. Luca is sprawled out on one chair, using another to prop his legs up. Vincent is off to the side making a business call because apparently the world doesn’t stop when you’re on vacation.
“It feels illegal being here,” I whisper into Parker’s ear. We’re slumped into the outdoor loveseat. Every few minutes, his fingers tighten against my shoulder or rap against my waist, and I end up tucked against his side again before I even realize I’ve drifted away.
“I’m one of the grown-ups now,” I smirk.
Back then, the firepit seemed impossibly far away.
The adults stayed outside long after the sun disappeared.
They drank wine and laughed at jokes I didn’t understand while the television glowed through the windows and all of us kids slowly fell asleep wherever we happened to land.
I used to sit inside and stare through the glass, wondering what it felt like to belong out here.
“I could still send you to bed,” Parker whispers softly to me. Quieter than usual, because I think if my brother could hear him say shit like that, Parker would lose a few teeth.
Sighing, I wrap my arms around his waist and settle into him, inhaling his subtle woodsy scent.
“You’d have to carry me,” I tell him. “Actually, you’re gonna have to carry me to bed no matter what.
” My body feels heavy in the way it always does after I spend an entire day bracing for disaster.
I don’t think I realized how tightly wound I was until Luca came home and the world didn’t end.
Now the exhaustion is finally creeping into my bones.
“Are you trying to get me murdered?” he laughs. And then he digs his own grave by giving me a quick peck on the lips.
“Aaannnddd that’s strike two,” my brother warns, snapping his fingers. “Strike three and you’re kicked out.”
“Which I would have zero complaints to,” I mutter, my mouth pulling into a brazen grin.
Emelie cackles from across the fire pit. “Luca, cherie. Do you remember when you used to love me like that?”
Jen snorts. “Careful, Emmy. You know the only way he knows how to prove his love is by putting another baby in you.”
“If he wants to die,” she mutters, bringing her own bottle of wine to her lips.
“You know I’m still waiting for my boy,” Luca shrugs. “Luca Junior.”
“Luca Junior’s inside sitting on that recliner,” Em retorts, nodding towards my eldest niece. “Scrolling on her TikTok.”
The conversation falls onto our plans for the rest of the summer. Vincent returns at the perfect time, right in the middle of Jen explaining in vivid detail how she’s planning on hogtying him up and dropping him off at the clinic to get a vasectomy.
My brother and sister will be entertaining Em’s parents for the next couple of weeks. I promised them a week in Minnesota. Luca immediately made a comment about how weird it’ll be when Parker sleeps in my room instead of the guest room downstairs.
And then the conversation lands on us. Parker and I. A few days ago I actually decided against Georgetown for my Master’s program. I got accepted at NYU, and I’ve always wanted to live in the city, so I think I’m finally up for the challenge.
I almost stayed in Georgetown because of the whole scholarship thing, but then Parker narrowed his eyes at me and looked at me like I was a dumbass. I know some people would try to act all noble about not letting their rich boyfriends pay for their tuition, but I’m also not an idiot.
Parker called it our money one time and I absolutely fucking ran with it…
“And he’s publishing one of his short stories,” Parker adds in. “Gaten publishing.”
“The people who offered you that ghostwriting job?” Luca asks me. “So you are gonna take it?”
“No,” I scoff. “I’ll write my own shit. No one’s gonna take my hard-earned work and pass it off as theirs. No amount of money could get me to compromise on my artistic integrity.”
“Yeah, but you’re only saying that because he’s loaded,” Em says to me, pointing her bottle at Parker. Her mouth curls into a grin. “Just like I taught you, mon fils. Maman is so proud of you.”
Parker and Luca both sigh at the same time. The sigh only a victim of gold-digging would make. Jen laughs as if she isn’t richer than the both of them combined. Vince is, like, Elon Musk-loaded from his huge surveillance tech company.
My brother’s expression softens. The firelight catches in Luca’s blond hair, turning it almost copper. His blue eyes look lighter in the dark, closer to the color of the lake than the sky. “Mano…wow. I’m so proud of you. Look how far you’ve come.”
I give him a tender look, opting to give him a head nod because I don’t trust myself with words right now.
“He’s amazing,” Parker murmurs, automatically cupping my face and swiping a tear away with his thumb. The warmth from the fire reaches one side of my face while the cool air coming off the lake touches the other. Parker’s thumb brushes against my cheek so gently that it almost hurts.
There’s a silence that lingers for a moment, and I think this is the first time since we’ve been here that the silence is filled with something positive. No one is judging as much as they’re just taking it in and processing everything.
But silence can only last so long in this family.
“You never looked at me like that when we were married,” Jen sighs dramatically. “What’s up with that?”
Emelie snorts. Luca and Vince both throw each other a look, rolling their eyes. Parker just keeps looking at me, his mouth tugging into a grin that’s wider than necessary. “He’s cuter than you,” he says to Jen. “I got a fresh new model.”
“Sounds like you’re asking for a fresh new black eye,” Luca retorts. “I would call that a strike three, but I don’t want to give you the satisfaction.”
“No,” Parker shakes his head. “That’s okay…” He breathes softly, pulling me in closer to him. “I think I wanna live in this moment a little longer.”
I can’t fight the quiver of my lip when he says it. Or the tears. Or the way my throat swells. And then my brother hammers the final nail into the coffin…“Yeah,” he breathes. “Me too.”
Parker’s fingers tighten slightly against my leg, and when I look over at him, he’s already looking at me…
just because he can. For the first time since we arrived in Tahoe, nobody is angry or afraid.
Nobody is leaving. And sitting beside the fire with the people I love most in the world, I finally understand why Parker wanted to stay in this moment a little longer.
Because I do, too.