by Max Walker
Behind her was Oliver’s dad, his face much more set and stern than Emma’s. His forehead wrinkled before he smiled, his lips tight. He had Oliver’s sky-blue eyes, but his features were darker, his hair almost jet-black.
Emma stepped to the side. Oliver introduced us.
“Nice to meet you, Beckham. I’m Eduardo.”
“It’s a pleasure, Eduardo.” I shook hands with him. He didn’t go in for a hug like Emma. I felt him sizing me up through the handshake.
“Come, get inside, you two. It’s so hot out there,” Emma said. I stepped into the air-conditioned home, scared of slipping on the thick ice that would hopefully soon be broken.
“This is a stunning home,” I said as Emma walked us through the foyer. Everything was white leather and clean glass and shining crystals. The vaulted ceiling added an almost cavernous effect to the already large foyer and even bigger living room. There were stunning paintings hanging on the walls, all perfectly curated and yet still feeling like spontaneous purchases. Everything about the house felt natural and expensive, but still approachable. The tan couches in the living room were worn by constant use, and no one was checking shoes at the door.
The kitchen took my breath away. It was something out of a television show, a beautiful dark blue-and-white backsplash above the light gray marble counter, with brushed copper hardware and all-white cabinetry. A wide window looked out to the picturesque backyard, a sliver of setting sunlight breaking through the window and shining on the large marble island.
“This is… wow.” I looked around, my jaw dropped.
“Thank you,” Emma said, beaming as she looked around the kitchen, her hands to her chest. “You should have seen it before the renovation. Are you into design shows? Oh, I love the House Hunters stuff. How about Dance Moms, you watch that?”
I heard Oliver laugh as he and his dad walked past us holding barbeque tools.
Turned out, Emma and I had a lot more in common than an appreciation for great kitchen design. She also loved watching Love Island, the UK version, which I had an affinity for as far as trashy reality TV shows went. We chatted about the islanders on the most current season as I helped Emma get ready in the kitchen. She tried swatting away my help at first but soon gave up when she realized how persistent I could be.
We were laughing up a storm as we carried out the salad bowls to the dinner table.
Eduardo stood by the table, talking to Oliver. He spotted me and stopped his conversation. I didn’t stop talking to Emma, but I could see Eduardo walking toward me, an extra beer in his hand.
“Hey, Beckham.”
I turned. Eduardo and I were about the same height, his eyes locked on mine. “Wanna chat?” He lifted the beer to me. A peace offering of sorts. I accepted it and smiled.
“Of course.”
Emma excused herself to go grab the salad dressings. Eduardo walked us over to the pool. I could feel Oliver’s eyes pinned to us like a hawk watching its next meal. The sun had completely set, so the yard was illuminated by the soft warm glow of the outdoor lights set up around the yard. The pool was illuminated, too, from lights that kept changing colors, slowly turning from blue to red to purple.
“Oliver’s a good kid.” Eduardo looked out to the yard. “He’s made me so proud. As a father, that’s really all you can ask for. I did my best, and he took the baton and ran with it. Just ran with it.” He took a drink of his beer. I mirrored him. “One thing about Oliver is that he always chased what would make him happy. And he always had impeccable judgment. So we let him run.”
Eduardo looked to me. “He’s found you, and I can see you’re exactly who he’s been chasing after for all those years. He’s genuinely happy with you. I can hear it in his voice.”
“And I’ve never been happier. Everything changed for me when he stepped into my life.”
Eduardo studied me. I could feel the scrutiny. I started to feel a defensive wall come up.
I didn’t exactly have a great history with dads.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Love him?”
“More than I love the air I breathe.”
“Would you ever hurt him?”
“I’d hurt myself before I’d ever even think of hurting him, sir.”
I don’t know what had me saying sir. An awkward energy filled the air.
“I believe that.” He looked back out to the yard.
I drank the cold beer. A warm wind rustled through the air, shaking some of the thick leaves in a nearby palm tree. “I know our relationship may seem more unconventional than most. I can see what others see from the outside. But I promise you, Eduardo, we’re in love. Deep. I want to live my life for your son, and I won’t let anything ever hurt him. He’s safe with me.”
I could see the corner of Eduardo’s lips twitch into a smile. “That makes me glad to hear, Beckham. I just want what’s best for my son. He’s felt the ultimate heartbreak. I just want the rest of his life to be the best it could possibly be.”
“And it will be.”
He looked to me, and this time it wasn’t a ghost of a smile but an actual cheek-moving grin. “All right, enough of this grilling. Let’s get to the food.” Eduardo clapped a hand on my back. There would still be some work to do between us, but whatever ice had been making me slip since I got here seemed to have melted away. I walked back to the table with a pep in my step, feeling like everything was lining up. Things were working out the way they should.
We sat at the dining table, the four of us all filling up our plates and digging in. Everything tasted excellent, from the perfectly cooked mutton chops to the flavor-packed potato salad to the spiced rice that had my mouth watering with every spoonful.
It was a great dinner, and the conversation was just as good. The little awkwardness simmered away by the time we hit the main courses. Laughter filled the spacious dining room as we all started to share different stories, starting with Eduardo telling the story of how Oliver and Jonah had snuck in their first pet. The conversation bounced around from there, but it never stalled.
I felt at ease, like I’d been sitting among people I’d known for years. I looked around, seeing smiling faces and caring eyes, and I felt like I was at home.
Like I’d finally found a home. After all the searching. After being kicked out of my own home, trying to make it on my own, crossing entire oceans in search of something. I never really found what I’d been searching for.
Not until now. This was it. My heart felt full, brimming over with emotion. At one point, I had to excuse myself to the bathroom because I felt a swell of emotion coming through me. Sure enough, I closed the bathroom door and tears started to flow, as if on cue.
I patted my face dry and went to rejoin the table. My phone started to buzz then. I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced at the screen.
It was Anya.
I unlocked the phone, standing in the hallway, and read the message.
ANYA: Stay tuned. I think I’ve found something.
My pulse quickened. I shot a quick reply and went back to rejoin the table, my mind starting to race.
I hadn’t told Oliver, but I didn’t think this case was closed now that Juan and his brother were locked up. Juan admitted to the stabbing, but Mario still denied having any part in it. Juan also denied having anything to do with the threats Oliver had received. If he admitted to the killing, then I didn’t think the threats would be an issue to cop up to. Meanwhile, Mario said he had an alibi, that he was with his friends at the time of the attack. It was suspicious since he had been so adamant on not remembering anything when I interviewed him, but all of a sudden knew exactly where he was on the night of the attack.
Still, I didn’t feel like we had everything figured out, and that unsettled me. So I asked Anya to do a little more digging. Not only into Juan and Mario, but also into Greg’s life. I wondered if maybe there was something I missed.
I rejoined the table and fell into the conversation, setting aside thoughts
of the case.
At least until my phone buzzed a second time while Emma recounted the story of Oliver finding out Santa wasn’t real. Apparently he had dug through her purse and found the receipt listing every single item he had on his list.
“So I panicked and I said, ‘Oh honey, no, no. This isn’t mom’s purse, this must be Santa’s. He must have gotten it confused when he came to pick up the list.”
The entire table cracked up at that quickly and terribly crafted lie. Oliver broke through the loud laughter. “And so for another entire year, I kept asking why Santa never had any of his purses with him in all the drawings and movies. So, Mom, what did you tell me?”
“I said he keeps them all in the big sack he carries with him.”
More laughter rang out around the table.
“So there I was, thinking Santa was hoarding all his Chanels and Louies in that big red sack he carried with him everywhere. I thought that was so ingenious and stupid at the same time.”
My phone buzzed again, yanking my thoughts to the case. What had Anya found?
I excused myself from the table and walked down the hall, but I didn’t step into the bathroom. Before I could read the text, Oliver was at my side.
“You okay?” He looked genuinely concerned. “Wasn’t anything we cooked, right?”
Another buzz drew both our eyes down at the phone. “Anya?” Oliver asked, reading the name on the screen.
“Oliver—”
“What’s going on? Oh God, did Juan escape?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Breathe. Breathe.”
I could see this running away from Oliver. His pupils were blown, his eyebrows raised.
“I just asked her to look into Greg a little more, that’s all. I want to make sure all the bases are covered.”
“So… you don’t think it’s Mario, then?”
“I don’t know.” I answered truthfully.
“So you’re saying someone else is out there? Someone who could still want me dead?”
“Oliver…”
He took a deep breath. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He spoke more to himself than to me. “What did Anya find out?” he asked me, still a little pale in the face but not shaking.
“Let’s see.” I unlocked the phone, unsure of what the hell we were about to read.
31 Oliver Brightly
“Nothing,” I said. “She found nothing.”
I read the text message. Anya said that Greg’s digital tracks were spotty but still pointing toward innocent. I could feel my blood pressure rising like a freaking geyser. Beckham tried to talk me down, but this was intense. Not only did I have my parents a few rooms away from us, but I now had to deal with the idea that this six-year saga wasn’t actually over.
I had been feeling so lifted, so free. Maybe it was dumb to let myself feel that way, knowing that Mario was still fighting any charges and not admitting to anything. But still, I let myself float along on the lazy river of blissfulness and naïvety.
And you know what?
It was really damn nice. Like really nice.
Now, the lazy river I’d been floating on turned into a white-water rapid infested with hungry piranha.
“Jesus,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “It’s going to be okay. Right?”
Beckham grabbed my elbows. “It’s going to be fine.” He kissed me. “Now let’s get back to your parents before they start thinking things.”
“Gooood point.” I stole one more kiss from Beckham before we turned and went back down the hall, passing by photos of my family on the way. There was a sequence of school photos of both my brother and me. I smiled the same in all the photos, even though I looked different in almost every one. From braces one year to a wispy mustache another to a terrible bowl cut that wasn’t doing anyone any favors.
“I’ve clearly had some awkward phases,” I noted. Beckham looked at all the photos as we passed. I loved that about him, how interested he was in knowing every single facet of my life. Like he needed all the details to paint the full picture.
“You should see my awkward phases,” he said.
“Oh? Were they as bad as this?” I stopped in front of a particularly bad school photo. I was a sophomore in high school and had gotten a terrible sunburn from PE class the day before. So not only was I beet red for the photo, but I also had gone slightly cross-eyed because a sneeze was imminent.
“Okay, that is kind of bad,” Beckham said with a laugh.
“And you want to know the biggest tragedy of them all?”
“What?”
“No one asked me to retake it! They all let me walk off that stage with a pre-sneeze school photo.” I shook my head and covered my face with a hand. “Monsters. All of them.”
We laughed our way back to the dining room, where my parents had already started to clean up the table. Beckham and I offered our help, but they told us to go grab seats outside and that they’d bring the dessert right out. I could sense Beckham about to put up a fight, but I grabbed his hand and gave him a look; it was pointless. We left them to clean up and walked out into the warm night.
A cricket jumped across our path as we walked to the seats surrounding the stone firepit. Thankfully, it wasn’t on tonight, because I could feel myself already getting a little sweaty.
“So, are you having a good night?” I asked as we took our seats. I’d been so nervous about this night for what felt like months now. It relieved me to see how well he and my mom got along, but I never doubted that would happen for a second. It was my dad who worried me. He had two sides to his Gemini self: the warm, goofy dad side I saw on the regular, and the hard-faced and all-business heart surgeon most everyone else saw.
Tonight, I could feel my dad had his guard up. I sensed he wasn’t as open as my mom, and that made me nervous.
“It’s been going great.” Beckham gave a genuine smile. “Nervous at first, I won’t lie. But all of that’s gone. Your mom and dad have been nothing but welcoming. I feel like I’m at home.”
That really warmed my heart. I reached across and grabbed his hand. “Good, because you should. This is as much your home now as it is mine.”
“He’s right, you know.”
The voice surprised both of us. My mom walked up holding two cups of cookie dough ice cream with hearty dollops of whipped cream on top, sprinkled with fresh chocolate chips.
“Oh, you are too good to me, Emma.” Beckham grabbed his bowl, and I was almost sure I spotted some drool.
I grabbed mine, thanking my mom. Dad came out right after, handing a bowl to my mom before sitting down with his.
“Thank you, both. I’ve had such a wonderful night.” Beckham looked to my parents, the four of us smiling, a bond being formed over ice cream and family. A cricket sang loudly nearby.
“Oh and you’ve been wonderful company,” my mom said, taking a big scoop of ice cream. “Really, you have.” She tried talking through the ice cream, covering her mouth with a laugh when it was too much.
The night went by in a flash. Before I knew it, Beckham and I were standing back at the front door, hand in hand, both my parents standing in the doorway with smiles on their faces. It comforted me to see them so happy. It really did feel like every single piece of my life was falling perfectly into place.
“Have a great night, you two. Drive safe.”
“Will do,” I said, hugging my mom and dad before stepping aside.
Beckham said his goodbyes, my mom giving him a warm embrace. My dad surprised me. He didn’t settle for the handshake. He went in for a hug, too.
When they separated, my dad took Beckham’s hand. “You’re a good man, Beckham. The perfect one for my Oliver.”
I could feel tears streak into my eyes.
“Thank you, Eduardo.”
“Please,” my dad said, “call me Ed.”
That made me turn around so I could shield my tears from everyone else.
“Bye!” I shouted, waving as I walked down to th
e driveway, happy tears starting to slide down my cheeks.
I stopped next to my car, Beckham joining me. We had driven here separately since I had planned on making a quick detour so I could feed Mason and Jar. Beckham had also been pretty adamant on getting me out of his house for about an hour. He said he had a surprise for me but didn’t want to spoil any more of it.
In the driveway, Beckham grabbed my hand, a toothy grin on his face. “That was such a great night.”
“My dad doesn’t tell everyone to call him Ed. That’s a big sign.”
“I felt like it was.”
I kissed my man, feeling nothing but love inside me. I couldn’t wait to feed my kitties and then find out what in the Fab Five of surprises was he planning for me. Was it a totally redone living space inspired by Bobby or maybe an entirely redone closet by Tan?
An avocado sandwich with avocado butter spread inspired by Antoni?
Whatever the surprise was, I couldn’t wait for it.
“All right, I’ll see you in an hour,” I said, kissing him again and then getting into my car. Before I could reverse, there was a knock on my window.
“Text me when you’re on your way so I can make sure I’m ready.”
“Okay, will do.” I tried not to show how giddy I was, but I was pretty sure the giggle that escaped me gave it away.
I pulled out of the driveway and drove back to my apartment feeling like the entire road was a cloud. Like I’d somehow found the secret path into paradise and was currently setting up permanent shop.
This all felt sooo good. I forgot all about what Beckham and I talked about in my parents’ hallway. All I could focus on was how good I felt, how good life felt. I wanted to savor every one of these seconds.
I reached my apartment and parked in my regular spot. It was dark out, but there were plenty of streetlights shining down on the sidewalk and up the stairs to my apartment. I climbed the stairs, taking two at a time. The faster I cuddled the cats and re-topped their bowls, the faster I’d get to Beckham and his surprise.
The key slipped into the lock. I twisted and turned, stepping into my dark apartment. The light switch that worked was across the room. I could hear Mason and Jar running toward me through the dark, but my eyes still hadn’t adjusted enough to see them. I shuffled my feet as I crossed the room, not wanting to step on them by accident.