Deeper Water_Once and Forever 3

by Lauren Stewart

  He shrugged it off. “Since you don’t have a sibling to counter your horribleness, I think I’m still ahead. Plus, any damage I reap upon the world is taken care of by lawyers and non-disclosure agreements.” He pointed to himself with both thumbs. “Winner and still champion.”

  “Is there anything you don’t win?”

  “You mean that I want? Let’s see. Nope. I even won you. That’s a biggie.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered. “As if I’m such a great prize.”

  “The biggest. Someday, you’ll make all the other trophy wives hide their Ferragamo purses and Gucci heels in shame.”

  I gasped. “I’m not a trophy wife!”

  “Not yet.” The bastard smirked.

  “I swear to you right now, in front of all these people we’ll probably never see again, I will never be a silent smile-and-nod fixture on your arm, Carson Bennett.”

  “What about in my bed? I never want you to be silent, but I kind of love the smile and nod thing you do when you come. Usually your eyes are rolled back in your head and it’s not so much a smile as it is a—Oof! That hurt!” Because he hadn’t tightened his abs yet. He rubbed where my hit had landed.

  “Serves you right.”

  “Come on, babe! You know I’m kidding. I would never want you to be anything other than who you are—a strong, opinionated woman who looks amazing when she comes and can throw a decent punch.”

  “Better remember that.”

  His comeback—which I’m sure would’ve been something I’d have to pretend offended me and didn’t make me want to laugh—was cut off by the overhead announcement.

  “Flight 1025 to San Diego, California is now boarding at Gate 2. Now boarding first-class passengers and those who need extra time. Please have your boarding passes and passports out.”

  “Hurry, before they run out of ass pillows.” As Carson gathered our bags and mumbled something snide about my impressive ability to over pack, I wondered if I’d ever get tired of his unpredictability. Doubted it. Seriously, seriously doubted it.

  24

  Carson

  I’d been in worse situations. Couldn’t think of any at the moment… or for the last few months, but hey, I’m sure there had been some.

  It wasn’t as if I didn’t know how to behave properly around people. But the families the Bennett Foundation helped were easier. First off, the only reason we ever met was because they had a really sick kid. Chronic childhood illness could knock an inappropriate joke out of anybody with half a soul, including me.

  Secondly, because of the programs we offered and the help we gave, those parents would’ve pretended to like me even if I were a car dealer.

  Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, they seemed to actually like my sense of humor—the one tempered for the under-eighteen crowd, obviously. Plus, kids were just easier to be around than adults, I guess. Especially since the only adults I’d ever wanted to impress just happened to be anxiously waiting for any of my many faults to slip out.

  Lane’s grip wasn't helping either. She’d taken hold of my hand as soon as the plane landed and hadn’t let go since. Not easy to grab our bags off the carousel one-handed, by the way. Or with a slippery palm. Or with a girlfriend who was evidently as nervous as I was.

  I shook my hand out of hers to shift one bag so I could set the other one onto the cart.

  “So, are you nervous for me or because of me?” I asked.

  She didn’t have time to answer, I guess. All that frantic glancing around in a minor panic could eat up your whole day.

  “Babe? I’m the one who’s supposed to be scared. Not you. And your freak-out is starting to make me think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  She went from sixty to zero in five and slowly turned toward me. “Okay, don’t be mad…”

  Ugh.

  “You know how I told you my parents are conservative?” She paused just to make the impact more painful, maybe. “I didn’t actually tell them we were living together.”

  Oh. That wasn’t too bad. Definitely not the first time a girl had lied to her parents about me. Granted, I was a little surprised Lane had done it. She wasn’t the kind of woman who lied—even by omission—but I’d had to sit through enough bad movies about women and their overprotective, doting, clueless, and often violent, gun-toting fathers to know—

  Fucking hell. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t leave the airport. No guns allowed, metal detectors and security guards everywhere.

  Plus, if the perp brought you to the second location… Never let them take you to the second location!

  “And—” she started.

  Oh shit, there was more!

  “—I probably should’ve mentioned this before, but…”

  “But what, Lane? But what?”

  “Laney!” someone called.

  Lane flinched and swung toward the attractive fifty-something couple coming toward us. The woman waved with the ass pillow she held up. Didn’t see that every day. But I recognized them from Lane’s pictures. Sure, her dad had a little more belly and a lot more forehead than he’d had when the picture Lane kept in our living room was taken. And her mom’s hair was shorter and darker. But overall, they looked just as normal in person—nice, average people.

  The only issue was the really bad feeling I had over whatever Lane had left out of all the previous conversations we’d had about her parents.

  “What should you probably have mentioned earlier, Lane?” I asked quickly.

  She glanced at me, her smile pasted on and nervous.

  “Put me out of my misery here, woman.”

  “Well,” she said, still waving to her parents, who’d just gotten caught by the crowd. “My father might still be under the impression I’m a virgin, and the man I’m with respects my decision.”

  I swallowed my laugh. She wasn’t kidding. “Oh, I respect your decisions, babe. Completely. For instance, I respected your decision to ride me like a cowgirl the other night. And I had all kinds of respect for you when you dragged me into that restaurant bathroom a couple weeks ago because you needed to fuck right then and there. And the thing you did with your tongue the other—”

  She shushed me with an elbow to the ribs. So more like a shut-the-fuck-up tap.

  “How much did you actually tell them about me?”

  “Lots of good things.”

  It was always her pauses that worried me. And the longer they were, the more concerning.

  “I just may have forgotten to mention anything… they could use to look you up. And I also might have accidentally mispronounced your last name so they couldn’t guess how it was spelled.”

  As insulting as that was, it was also smart. Typing my name into a Google search was something I’d never had the courage to do. If half the shit I’d done was on there, it would only scar her folks and make them hate me. Better to let them figure out they hated me in person. Wait a second…

  Nope, no time for waiting. It was time to meet the parents.

  After the first round of family hugs, Lane said, “Mom? Dad? This is Carson.”

  “Good to finally meet you, son,” her dad said. I hadn’t felt such a firm handshake since… never. But it was the fact he’d called me son that rendered me speechless. Unless you counted the grunt I let out when Lane’s mom pulled me into a bear hug, the ass pillow smooshed between us.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, not letting go. I carefully put my arms on her mid-back, not wanting to accidentally brush anywhere I shouldn’t on the way around. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  I’d heard of people like this but had never met any of them. Real people. People who’d never understand why anyone would feel more comfortable kissing the air near someone’s cheek than getting some skin in the game and actually touching. People who accepted someone just because their daughter had left out all vital, truthful, and identifiable information about him.

  I’m not sure why Lane was so worried. They were great. I just
had to be myself. Mostly. I just had to be the good part of myself. The well-behaved part. It might be shriveled and rusty from non-use, but I could do it.

  After all, it was only a few days, right? I could be not-me for a few days.

  Lane glanced back at me with an apologetic look as her mom ushered her out of the baggage area, leaving her dad—“Call me Bill”—and I to bring the bags. Our talk was kept small: how our trip was, criticism of airline food and no legroom, and a raised, suspicious eyebrow when I joked about Lane’s reaction to being in the first-class section. The other eyebrow rose when I mentioned the trunk of their Honda being twice the size of my car’s as we put the suitcases into it.

  “You have a car in San Francisco?” Bill asked suspiciously. “Lane told me she couldn’t get a parking spot there for less than a hundred dollars a month.”

  I swallowed my laugh just in time. Lane must have been referring to the cost of parking in 1980. In this century, downtown garages charged four times that.

  “Right,” I started. “Luckily, my apartment came with free underground parking.” I’d hoped that would halt the topic.

  It felt like I was speaking in an avalanche zone, except in this zone, volume wouldn’t bring the mountain down—the wrong answer would.

  “Must be a really nice building,” he said. “When Laney first moved up there, she looked at some places with parking. Ridiculous prices.”

  “Yep. I got really lucky.”

  Lane saved me by slipping in between us and shoving her carry-on into the trunk and slamming it shut. “Drive fast, okay, Dad? I can’t wait to get home.”

  I watched her change her mind as soon as she eased herself gently onto the back seat, cringing at the reminder of her encounter with the jellyfish. After the first speed bump, and Lane’s painful explanation of her injury, her mom handed her the sex toy—I mean, ass pillow—and her dad slowed.

  25

  Carson

  Mrs. Temple—“Don’t be silly, Carson. Call me Jane”—gave me a quick tour of the local attractions as we drove past them. The marina, boats, the bay—yes, we have those in San Francisco, too—downtown, the suburbs, the suburbs, the suburbs, the suburbs. And, hey look! Even more suburbs. Until we finally got to the neighborhood Lane had grown up in.

  We passed the high school she’d gone to—“Go, Dolphins!”—the field where she’d played soccer until she was nine, when a broken leg ruined her lifelong dream of playing all the way till she turned ten, and the grocery store where they’d shopped for over twenty-five years.

  Oh yeah, I got caught up on all the latest news—unfortunately, the customer service wasn’t as good as it used to be, so Jane was considering switching to the new chain store that had opened up nearby because their produce was nicer. But she wasn’t sure she could because of her loyalty to the local store. Plus, their meat was fresher.

  I nodded. I made sounds of understanding and agreement. But honestly, I was scared shitless. Bill and Jane were perfectly lovely people, living in a perfectly lovely suburb of a perfectly lovely town. But holy fuck did I hope this wasn’t what Lane wanted our future to look like.

  * * *

  Their house was almost dead-on how I’d imagined it. Plus, back home, Lane had a dozen or so huge scrapbooks filled with pictures, ticket stubs, and random kid crap. Adorable Lane as a pigtailed little girl straddling a Barbie bike with training wheels on the sidewalk in front of the house. Studious Lane in her bedroom, looking up from a pre-teen romance novel with a smile that showed off her braces. Grumpy Lane standing in front of a Christmas tree that took up the entire living room, her awkward adolescent posture barely hinting at how beautiful she’d be a few years later. Embarrassed Lane, wearing the least flattering prom dress known to man, standing in a group of happy teens and next to the lucky idiot who was the first guy to ever put his lips on hers.

  Now I was here, right where all that stuff had actually happened. An endless supply of things to tease her about.

  “Make yourself at home, Carson,” Jane said.

  Home. Sure. All I could think about was how different it was from where I’d grown up. It was warm and lived-in, as opposed to the Bennett’s sanitized house that was more showpiece than home, perpetually ready for the next magazine article or cocktail party.

  “Get the Champagne glasses?” Jane asked her husband.

  He took four flutes from an oak display case and set them down on the coffee table. When Jane returned from the kitchen, Bill sat on the worn blue recliner. I took the off-white couch across from him. Lane eased her ass down onto the pillow I’d put down next to me.

  “Thank you.” Wishing they’d offered something stronger, I took the glass and watched the bubbles escape. “It was a long flight.”

  “I’m sure. We promise not to keep you up too late.” Smiling, Jane held up her glass. “To family.”

  “To family,” we all repeated.

  I should’ve known something was off, since the liquid was darker than any Champagne I’d ever seen before, but it wasn’t until I took a sip that I realized how off it was.

  “Sparkling cider,” Lane whispered to me as I tried to keep the disappointment off my face.

  Damn. Should’ve known. It was going to be a long couple of days.

  * * *

  Grilling is great for meat and whatever hot dogs are made of. Delicious. Fun. Makes you feel like a man. But the grilling I went through was far less pleasant and way more emasculating. It took every ounce of concentration both Lane and I had to dodge all the questions I didn’t want to answer. They were normal things parents wanted to know about their daughter’s boyfriend, I’d guess. Where I grew up—San Francisco—if I had siblings—one and a half—what my career goals were—um… to never have a career goal?

  I loved my life, was proud of it, even. I had Lane, the foundation, and no worries about where my next paycheck would come from. But until Lane came clean about who I was and how we’d actually gotten together, most of our reality was off limits. Thankfully they didn’t ask about our love life, so Lane’s virginity wasn’t in question. But she hadn’t even told them we were shacking up.

  So we redirected the conversation to her art work about sixteen different times. She told them about her upcoming project and a little of what had inspired its theme. But even that story had holes in it.

  Lane had designed the installation for the building’s lobby as a reflection of her life.

  “Each table is shaped like a lily pad,” she explained anxiously. “Symbols of each step on the journey leading up to the infinity fountain at the far end of the lobby, which represents the future. Get it?”

  They nodded either out of support or politeness, but it sure wasn’t understanding.

  The big piece she’d left out was that each step on the journey was actually symbolic of every guy she’d dated, every man she’d thought she had a future with, every asshole who’d turned out to be a frog.

  “Well, it’s getting late,” Bill said. “I’m sure you two are exhausted. We can talk more in the morning.”

  It was eight-thirty. I hadn’t gone to sleep at eight-thirty since I was ten, if then. But I was tired, and I definitely needed a break from their well-intentioned interrogation, so I was perfectly happy with my new bedtime.

  My new bedroom was less satisfactory. There was no tongue in my goodnight kiss. No sexy brunette waiting for me under the covers. No cute little ass rubbing up against my cock as I fell asleep.

  Yep, it was going to be a long couple of days.

  26

  Carson

  I reached over to Lane’s side of the bed and squeezed. But her ass wasn’t there. In fact, none of her was there.

  “Damn it, woman,” I grumbled. At least I could smell coffee. That almost got her off the hook.

  Wait a second. When my eyes popped open, I saw the puffy, light blue blanket, the over-fluffed pillows, and a dainty dresser with little swirls engraved into the whitewashed wood.

  Oh crap, I was still i
n Kansas. Or the Southern California equivalent of it, at least. The only things not nauseatingly homey were a few pieces of Lane’s artwork hanging on the walls. She’d told me once that she hadn’t painted since high school. And, while I’d never say it out loud, at least while I was sober, there was a good reason for that. My woman was a great artist, but her talents with manipulating and cutting wood into different shapes and putting varnishes on them hadn’t translated into painting. Unless she’d done the walls—nice lines, no smudges.

  When I rolled onto my back, the edge of the fairytale book I’d fallen asleep reading last night poked me. All those portrayals of helpless women waiting around for a prince to show up was the best sleep aid I’d ever tried. No wonder mothers read them to kids before bed. Not my mother, but I was pretty sure all the others did.

  How ironic that the cover of all those happy endings was currently poking my end. I pulled the children’s book out from under my ass, hoping I hadn’t just blown any good karma I’d accumulated in the past year with Lane. I really needed to keep track of that stuff better.

  With my eyes mostly open, I climbed out of bed and went to look for her. She wasn’t in her room, so I wandered down the hallway toward the smell of coffee. The art in the hall was a lot better. Nothing like the cold, impressionistic crap hanging on the walls of my childhood hell. This stuff had heart—lots of landscapes that didn’t exist in California, flowers that didn’t grow here. All signed with the same squiggle. If I’d had caffeine in my system, I might have been able to identify it.

  I’d never actually cared about art before meeting Lane, but ever since she moved into my place, I’d been forced to learn about it. Our place was littered with big picture books and biographies of artists. Again, didn’t really care, but human beings are capable of all sorts of odd behavior when their significant other is watching reality television.