by Kahele, J
He mussed my hair a little with his hand as he stood straight up. “Love you, little girl.”
“Love you too, Daddy.” He smiled then strolled out of my office. I sat thinking about dinner, about Chain. It had been three months since we had become a couple and still he had not met my parents. It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of opportunities, but he chose to avoid them instead. This was definitely a strange turnaround. I remember the morning I had been released from jail and avoided Chain meeting my father. He was seriously hurt, stating that he felt I only used him for sex, and now that he had the perfect opportunity to meet them, he acted like they were a plague getting ready to infect him! Men! I was positive the death of his mother and sister contributed to this greatly and being estranged from his father probably didn’t help any either. I still didn’t understand after all these years why he chose not to speak to his father. Sure, his explanation seemed plausible, but knowing Chain the way I knew Chain, it was not believable. He was just not the type of person to dismiss someone he loved so easily. He said it was an accident, that a car side swiped them, so why did he blame his father? Was his father drunk? Rushing through a light? I didn’t think so. I was certain Chain would have mentioned it, had it been that way. It just didn’t make sense to me. None of it made sense.
Someday, I would ask him about it. But first of all I needed to ask him about dinner with my parents and I most definitely had to choose my words wisely. I had learned over the few months with Chain that he had a way of sliding out of things when he didn’t want to do them and I had to make sure that I had a foolproof plan that wouldn’t allow him to do that. I was never very good at talking anyone into doing anything they didn’t want to do and knew I needed advice. I had a good idea of where to get it from. If anyone could con anyone into doing something they didn’t want to, it was Vince. He had a natural finesse and a way with words that had people eating out of his hands.
I stood up and walked out of my office and down to Vince’s. The door of Vince’s office was closed and normally I would respect his privacy and not bother him, but this was important, I really needed to talk to him. So I pushed open the door and my eyes took in the sight of Vince locked in a kiss with the new receptionist. She was kneeling on his lap and her shirt was unbuttoned and he was groping her breasts as she rubbed herself against him, moaning. There was nothing more disgusting than watching your brother in a make-out session.
I folded my arms. “Really, Vince.”
His eyes shot up to me and he grinned. “Closed door means do not open, Vi.” He patted the thin, blond receptionist on the behind and she stood up, fumbling with her shirt. “By the way, this is Marisa.”
With her back to me, still buttoning her shirt, she turned her head sideways. “Hi.” She was very young, barely twenty. Should I be surprised? Of course I wasn’t. The young girls at my work treated my brothers like royalty. They were smitten with their charm, handsome looks, power, but mostly their money, and my brothers took full advantage of that.
“Hi,” I mumbled as I walked to the front of Vince’s desk, plopping down into the chair. After buttoning her shirt, Marisa fled towards the door.
“I’ll see you at lunch,” Vince called out. She nodded and exited quickly.
I leaned on his desk. “She can’t be more than twenty years old, Vince, what are you thinking?”
“Vi, we’re just two adults having fun.” Two adults. That girl was barely out of high school!
I leaned forward. “Do you like her?”
He casually threw his hands in the air. “What’s not to like, she’s gorgeous. Did you see that body?” Ugh, my whore of a brother.
“Is she smart? Does she read? Where is she from?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s a great kisser and has amazing hands.”
“You know what you sound like right now?”
He laughed. “A normal guy?”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
He clasped his hands together and leaned his elbows on his desk. “Okay, I know you aren’t here to discuss my love life, so what’s up?”
I let out an exhausted breath. “I need your help. Daddy just came into my office and asked me if Chain and I could come to dinner tonight and I was hoping you could help me to convince Chain to come.”
He stretched his hands behind his head, leaning against the back of the chair. “Why does he need convincing?”
“Anytime our parents come around, Chain disappears, like he is avoiding them. The whole Phillip thing really ripped him apart; Phillip was his friend at one time, you know. I really want him to meet our parents, but I don’t want to pressure him into it.”
Vince quickly sat up. “What Phillip did to you was not your fault.”
“I know that.”
“If Chain cares for you the way he claims he does, he will not use that against you. He’s not using that against you, is he?” he queried, his nose flaring, a classic sign of his anger rising. Vince wasn’t one to lose his temper quickly, he would let things simmer and build up before he would explode, but when he did it was bad—really bad. The only person who could get him from zero to eighty in a second flat was Victor, but Victor could make anyone lose control.
“No, Vince, not at all. He has been very caring and supportive.”
“He better be,” he snapped.
“He is, Vince,” I reassured him as I leant forward. “So what do you think I should do?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Just ask him.” I wished it was that simple, because if it was I probably wouldn’t be here, asking him for his help!
“Come on, Vince, I just told you I don’t know how. Tell me what you would say if you were me.”
“I guess I would tell him how important it is to you that he meets our parents—that should be enough to convince him to go.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Vi. I can tell that Chain’s feelings for you are genuine. If he knows how important it is to you that he meets our parents, I’m positive he will say yes.”
This was why Vince and I were so close. He had this way of making every mountain I created into a molehill.
Relieved, I stood up. “Thanks, Vince.”
“Anytime.” I walked towards the office door. “Hey, Vi.” I stopped and turned towards him. “Knock next time, okay?”
I rolled my eyes and walked out to the hallway and could hear Vince laughing. Even though he was the best brother a girl could ever have, he was still a disgusting man whore.
***
I thought about what Vince said for a few minutes before getting up the nerve to call Chain.
He answered on the first ring. “Hello, sweetheart, how is your day?”
“Good. Am I bothering you?”
“You never bother me, Violet, I love hearing your voice.” I was suddenly nervous, maybe not nervous, but a little afraid. What if he said no? How would I deal with that? This was my family and Chain knew how close we all were and if he loved me the way he claimed then he would know that it was very important to me that he had some sort of relationship with them. I wouldn’t expect him to bow down to them, to hang out with them on a daily basis, I just wanted him to know them and them to know him.
“Sweetheart, are you still there?”
“Yes, sorry, I got sidetracked…um…the reason why I was calling was that I need to ask you something.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“My parents were wondering if we could come over for dinner tonight.”
He grunted. “I don’t know, Violet, I really don’t feel comfortable being one on one with your parents.” Okay, it was obvious he didn’t want to go, so now what was I going to do? Should I back off? I decided to instead ask the obvious question.
“Why not?”
“’Cause I’m not ready to have the talk with your father.”
“The talk?” I queried.
He let out a slow breath before saying, “When David met Callie’s father for the
first time, he said he took him into the den, sat him down and had ‘the talk’ with him. What the talk consisted of was Callie’s father basically telling David that he knew that he had his filthy hands all over his daughter, doing nasty things to her, and he didn’t appreciate it at all, that he needed to find God and respect Callie’s body like it was a sacred temple until he married her.”
I began laughing loudly. “You’re kidding?” Although I found it humorous, I was not at all surprised by what Chain had said about Callie’s father. He was an ex-marine, God-fearing Christian and Callie was his only child and a female, the perfect makings of an overprotective father.
“It’s not funny, Violet. I don’t want your father threatening me or talking about our sexual relationship like it is something dirty, because it isn’t.”
My father may have a temper, I will admit that. But the last thing he would ever want to know was that his little girl was having sex. “Oh God, Chain, my father is not like that. Not at all. My mother, on the other hand, is very nosey and tends to ask a lot of questions that aren’t normal, but she would never ask you about our sexual relationship, I promise you that.” My parents were decent people, they would never interfere in a relationship of mine, not purposely anyways.
“I don’t know,” he whispered and I could hear the hesitation in his voice. I felt like I was at a dead end until Vince’s words rushed through my head, giving me newfound hope.
“Chain, my parents are a very important part of my life and it is equally important to me that you meet them.”
The line grew silent.
“Chain?” I murmured.
“I’m here,” he answered.
“So do you want to go to dinner at my parents’ tonight?”
“Alright, Violet, but I swear if your father mentions one—” I interrupted.
“He won’t. I promise. They are having dinner about 6:30, so I’ll meet you at my house after work?”
“I’ll be there.” I could still hear the uncertainty in his voice, but it didn’t worry me enough to be concerned.
“Thanks, Chain, you’re the best. I love you,” I said in a small voice, trying to cheer him up.
“I love you too, baby, see ya tonight.” It worked.
“Goodbye.” I hung up the phone and smiled. Vince was right, all I had to do was ask, it was that simple. Everything was perfect. I frowned. Nothing was ever perfect. What if something went wrong? My brothers and father were very overprotective and were not afraid to show it, even if it made Chain uneasy. Should I talk to them? Yeah. I could talk to them and tell them how important it was that they went easy on Chain. Oh sure, like they would listen to me. The bad thing about my brothers and my father was that they shared the same wicked temper and often instead of calming each other down, they egged each other on. I needed reinforcement. I had to make sure that Chain had someone to help him if my brothers or father backed him into a wall. I knew the one person that would have Chain’s back no matter what—David.
This was going to be difficult. David was not one to get involved with family problems and I knew if I called him he would probably make an excuse why he couldn’t go. So my womanly intuition told me to call Callie. If there was one thing I was sure of, it was that David never, and I mean never, said no to Callie. I lifted the phone and dialed her number.
“Hey, Violet,” she answered.
“Callie. I was wondering, are you and David busy tonight?”
“Not that I know of. Why, what’s up?”
“I’m taking Chain to my parents’ for dinner. It’s the first time he is going to meet them and my brothers are going to be there too, so I was hoping that maybe you and David could come by.”
“Afraid that your father and the twins will pick on Chain?”
“Yes, you know how they are. I’m not saying they will, but who knows with them.”
“How did you live in a house surrounded by all that testosterone?”
I laughed. “I spent most of the time locked up in my room, you know that! So, can you come?”
“Of course we’ll come. I haven’t seen your mom in a few months, it will be nice catching up with her. What time is the dinner?”
“6:30, 7ish. Whenever you can get there. But try not to be too late, you know how Janis can be!” Janis was my mother and she was a stickler for serving dinner when it was hot. The one thing we never did was be late for dinner. My mother was very stern about dinner time. I remember when I was seventeen, I was fifteen minutes late for dinner and my mother refused to feed me, making me go up to my room and think about what I had done. At seventeen, missing a meal was torture. I was busy and had a habit of missing a meal here and there, but never dinner.
“Alright, Violet, David and I will be there no later than 6:45.”
“Thanks, Callie, see ya tonight.”
“See ya.” I hung up my phone and felt relieved instantly.
Chapter 2.0 – Chain
Why didn’t I tell her no? I should have told her no. I couldn’t tell her no!
For months, I did a good job of avoiding Violet’s parents. It took precise timing and quick thinking to steer clear of them, especially her mother. After Phillip’s attack, her mother was constantly over, caring for Violet. It’s not like I didn’t appreciate her for all her help, I did, I really did. Violet needed all the support she could get. I was just not prepared to meet them. I felt pressured. It was too much, too soon. God, how the hell did I get myself into this?
I could have easily made an excuse not to go to dinner tonight, but when she told me how important it was to her, my heart melted and the ‘no’ that had been on the tip of my tongue slipped out as a yes.
I had nothing in common with her parents. What would I say to them? I didn’t know how to deal with parents, I hadn’t had parents the entirety of my adult life.
I wish Violet hadn’t told me how important it was to her. How could she put me under so much pressure! Why was I blaming her, this wasn’t her fault. This was my fault. Had I not made such a big deal out of her ignoring me and not introducing me to her father the morning she was released from jail, I probably wouldn’t be in this predicament. I thought at the time that this would show that she had real feelings for me, that she wasn’t just using me for sex. And now here she was openly wanting me to meet them and I was dreading it! I didn’t realize at the time that my actions would come back to bite me in my ass!
It seemed like a good idea at the time. But now that she loved me and I loved her, what was the point? As I saw it, she had me and I had her, why did we need others in our life? All I could see was disaster in the making. Fuck! What if they didn’t accept or like me? As close as Violet was to her family, I knew she would break things off with me if her family didn’t care for me and I could never live in a world without Violet. What made it worse was that I had no family. What would they think when they found out that I was an orphan? They were a close-knit family, they worked together and even met once a week to have dinner. Double fuck! I didn’t have a chance in hell!
My head was beginning to throb, the stress, the anxiety beginning to drag me down. I rubbed my temples, trying to relieve the pressure. This was the downer of not having family, someone you could talk to, someone who wouldn’t judge you no matter what you said. If only my mother was here. She would know exactly what to do. She was always my rock, helping me when I was conflicted. She always had the right words, the right answers.
I inhaled gently as I opened the drawer of my desk and pulled out a picture of my mother. Her dark hair was pinned up on the side, the length cascading down her shoulders. Her blue eyes shone brightly, the white of her teeth gleamed through the photograph as she smiled widely. How I missed that smile. It was the smile only a mother could have, the one that comforted you in a time of need, the one that helped wash the nightmares away, the one that told you everything was going to be alright. How I wished I could see that smile right now. I missed her so much! A lump began to form in my throat as I stared down
at it. The anger and hurt I felt at the time of her death resurfaced within me, the pain still as fresh as if it was yesterday.
“Hey, I need you to sign these,” David said as he walked into the room. I slipped the picture back into the drawer and closed it.
David blinked before saying, “What’s wrong?”
I wiped the stray tears from my face before glancing up at him. “Nothing,” I whispered.
He sat down on the chair. “You’re lying. Talk to me, Chain, what the fuck is going on?”
“It’s nothing, Violet wants me to meet her parents, that’s all.”
“Well you knew this would happen someday. I mean if you love her and say she is the one for you, yours forever, then you do have to meet her parents, you know.”
“I know, I just really don’t know how I am going to handle it. She is very close to her family, David. If I screw up, I could lose her forever.”
He nodded before saying, “You’re worried.”
“Yeah, David. What if they don’t accept me?”
He laughed. “What’s not to accept? You’re a nice, considerate man and you make their daughter happy. Why wouldn’t they like you?”
“I don’t know, I guess I’m just being paranoid.”
“Yes, you are.”
“What if they ask about my family, what do I tell them?”
“The truth. You did nothing wrong, Chain. Your mother and sister were killed in an accident.”
“And my father? What do I tell them about him?”
“Tell them he’s a fucking asshole,” David blurted out. I didn’t know why but that made me laugh hard and I needed it.
After Violet and I got together, I finally sat down and told David the story about my relationship with my father. Although I didn’t tell him the entire truth, he understood and supported my decision to not have my father in my life. “Just relax, Chain, Violet loves you and you love her, that’s all that matters.”
“You’re right. But what if—” He silenced me with a raise of his hand.
“Stop with the ‘what ifs’, you will drive yourself insane.”