“Whatever, we were two hot bitches. Don’t be jealous ladies.” Riley laughs out, slapping Brad on the shoulder as he stands.
“Kelsey and Riley, it’s your turn. Get up on the stage,” a man announces over a loud speaker, causing our whole table to fall silent. I look to Riley, unable to breathe as he pulls me up from my seat.
“You didn’t?” I whisper yell, shaking my head.
“Nope. Not me.” His eyes shoot in Jen’s direction and she’s wearing a smirk I know all too well. It says I told you we’d get you up there to sing.
I smile at her, slowly shaking my head. “What are you having me sing? Some trashy rendition of Bennie and the Jets?”
“Uh-huh,” she laughs. “But I do love some rock and roll.”
As Riley pulls me towards the stage, Jen stops us. “Here, drink this,” she shouts, thrusting another shot in my face. I slam the golden liquid back before handing the glass back to her.
“I’m going to kill her,” I mumble under my breath so that only Riley can hear.
“You don’t want to do that now. She’s too much fun.” He defends her just as we come to a stop in front of the DJ booth. “We’re Riley and Kelsey.”
The DJ looks at us and nods. “Over there is the monitor if you need help with the words. Go ahead and take your places on stage.”
“Wait? What?” I swing my head to look at Riley, which is a bad move when you’re already drunk. I sway to the side and Riley’s arm shoots out, grabbing me around my waist. “You’re singing with me?” I slur.
“Yeah, babe. We’re partners, remember?” He laughs.
He helps me up on stage, and just as I look at the monitor, the beat kicks off. “I saw him dancin’ there by the record machine,” I sing as I point my finger at Riley.
I laugh during the next verse as Riley sings to me how the beat was goin’ strong and playin’ my favorite song.
Riley takes my hand in his and pulls me into him, my back to his front and we belt out together about how we love rock and roll and putting another dime in the jukebox.
We completely butcher the song, not even paying attention to the words scrolling on the monitor. It’s just Riley and me up on stage, in our own little world, laughing, kissing, dancing, and singing with and to one another.
The mid-July heat attacks me with a vengeance. Even the sea breeze does nothing to help the sweat beading on my skin.
“It’s so damn hot out here,” Candace says from beside me as she lies on her towel.
Ever since that night at the karaoke bar, two weeks ago, Candace and I have developed a friendship, and it helps that she and Jen get along, too. She told me about how she and Brad were high school sweethearts in a small town in Mississippi and when he left for the Army, they couldn’t see a reason not to get married. When he left for Basic Training, that’s when he met Riley and the rest his history. Candace told me that she would have lost it, had it not been for Riley being by Brad’s side during both of their deployments.
“Hell, yeah, it is, and even though you can’t see a speck of sand in that water, I’m seriously debating going in.” I lean up, resting back on my elbows as I watch the waves crash along the shoreline.
“Can you believe them two?” She sits up and tips her head in the direction of Brad and Riley running back and forth up and down the beach, playing catch with a football.
I shake my head. “You’d think they’d remember we’re here.” I laugh.
“Yeah, but that’s the thing about the south. When it comes to football, pretty much nothing else can capture their attention,” she says in her thick southern drawl.
“We’ll see about that?” I stand, look over at her, and grin.
“Hey Riley!” I yell. When I don’t get so much as a glance, I try again. “Hey Riley!” I saunter down the beach towards where he and Brad are throwing the football. As I get closer, I reach up and begin to untie the knot of my bikini at the nape of my neck.
I can hear Candace laughing in the background at my attempt to catch Riley’s attention.
Just as the strings begin to fall, Riley yells, “Babe, I swear to you if you take that top off, there will be some hell to pay!” Not once does he look at me or stop throwing that damn pigskin.
I laugh at his threat.
“You’re laughing now, but you won’t be when I bend your ass over.” Finally, he looks at me with raised eyebrows.
One night while we were having sex, wrapped up in the moment, he spanked me. Never before did I think it would be something I’d like, but I was wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong. He doesn’t do it all the time, but when he does, the orgasms I have are out of this world and it seems like his are, too.
“Whatever. I’m going to get in the water.” I wave my hand in dismissal at his retort before retying the straps to my top.
He jogs over to where I’m standing. The waves lap at our feet.
“Love you,” he whispers, leaning in and placing a kiss on my lips.
“I love you, too.” I smile and shove his shoulder. “Now go finish your game so we can hang out.”
“Keep her!” Brad yells from a few feet away.
As Riley runs back to finish his game of catch, he turns around, looks at me, and yells over his shoulder, “I plan on it.”
A smile the size of Texas spreads across my face at his words.
“You know you’ve just won Brad’s vote, right?” Candace asks from beside me.
“Why’s that?” I snap my head in her direction.
She laughs. “Because any woman who will let a man finish a game of football, instead of whining about her boyfriend, husband, whatever,” she waves her hand, “not spending time with her, is a keeper.”
We inch our way into the warm water, the waves crashing against our legs.
“I don’t really mind if he hangs out with his friends.” I shrug.
“I can see why he loves you.”
As we make it out waist deep, just beyond the breakers, Candace asks, “Are you nervous about meeting his parents?”
My arms sway back and forth, my fingers skimming on top of the water. “Yes and no. Riley’s certain they’ll love me. Don’t get me wrong. It’s important to me that they like me, especially when I don’t have a relationship with my own parents, but I won’t change who I am to sway their vote in my favor. All I know how to be is me and I hope that’s enough.”
“It’ll be fine. Trust me. Brad was kind of leery of meeting you at first.”
“Why?” My eyebrows lower in confusion.
“Riley’s kind of a private person. So when he said he wanted to introduce us to his girlfriend, it took Brad by surprise.”
“You weren’t surprised?”
“Not at all. I know Riley. Not as well as Brad, but he’s a smart man and I trust his judgment. If you were important enough to him, which you are, he’d introduce us sooner or later.” Candace shakes her head.
I nod as I think about what she’s just said. Riley must be a lot like me in the sense that I wouldn’t just introduce him to whomever if I didn’t think he was sticking around. Now that I’ve met Candace, I realize I would be losing more than Riley if things between us don’t work out.
“You all right?” Candace asks.
I smile at her and nod. “Yeah.” I look out at the ocean, such a vast area with no land in sight. “I just want you to know that I love him. I really do. Don’t think the thought hasn’t crossed my mind that if I were to lose Riley, that it wouldn’t just be him I’m losing.”
She splashes a wave of water at me. My hands fly up wiping the water out of my eyes.
“What the hell was that for?” I laugh.
“I am my own woman. Neither Riley nor my husband tells me who I should and shouldn’t be friends with. Riley is like a brother to Brad and we share a great friendship, but unless you cheat on him or purposely hurt him we’d remain friends.”
I smile at her.
“Now. I need another beer. You want one?”
“No.
I’m all right.”
I watch as she gets out of the water. Not long after she makes it on shore, Candace squeals through laughter when Brad throws her over his shoulder and jogs towards our stuff.
Suddenly, I’m startled at the feel of hands on my waist. My breath catches in my throat and my heart races a hundred miles a minute. And then a deep rumbling laughter washes over me, calming me back down. I spin around, slapping Riley on his shoulder.
“You jerk!”
He pulls me into him, laughing at my reaction, and my legs wrap around his waist as he holds onto me.
“Did I scare you?”
“Well, yeah!”
“I’d apologize, but I’m really not sorry.” He laughs harder and kisses my neck.
“Don’t you know not to scare people in the ocean?” My arms snake around his neck.
He shrugs as he softly kisses my lips.
“Mmm… you’re forgiven.”
“If that’s all it takes to be forgiven, then I may have to get in trouble a little more often.”
“You do that. Who won the game?”
“Me, of course, but don’t say anything to Brad. I think he’s a little salty about it.”
“Salty? Don’t you mean sour?”
“No.” He chuckles. “I meant salty. You know, like rubbing salt in a wound, it stings.”
“To-may-toes, to-mah-toes.” I smirk at him with a wink.
Riley laughs before asking, “Did you get Friday through Sunday off next weekend?”
“I did.”
“And are you excited to have a whole weekend alone with me?” he asks, leaning and capturing my bottom lip between his teeth.
“If you call being at your parents’ house ‘alone with you’, then you’ve painted them in a different light than I’m expecting,” I reply my words coming out slightly muffled.
He releases my lip and stares at me. “And what are you expecting?”
“To get to know you better and your family, too. I’m hoping to see baby books with you naked in a bathtub.” My hands glide up his neck and into his hair where I begin to massage his scalp. “You missing your first tooth. The dreaded prom date pictures and pictures of you playing T-ball. I want to see images of a blond hair, blue-eyed little boy ripping wrapping paper to shreds on Christmas morning. Everything that’s made you the man you’ve become, that’s what I want to see.”
“I love you, you know that. You don’t say shit like you want to see pictures of my exes to see who’s prettier or worry about how to behave in front of my parents. You want to know what made us a family. One day, I hope I can give you everything that you deserve.”
I cup his cheek in my hand and lean in, brushing my lips against his. “I love you, too. And you already are. You’re giving me love.”
“Babe?”
I snap my head towards Riley. “Yeah?”
“Would you please stop fidgeting?” he laughs.
“I’m not fidgeting,” I deadpan.
“No?” He raises an eyebrow. “Your leg is bouncing a mile a minute and if you don’t quit chewing your fingernails, you’re going to end up with nothing left to chew on.”
Riley and I have spent the last seven hours in a car on the way to his parents’ house. I was fine earlier until we turned on the road that leads to his childhood home. And now I’m a nervous wreck. One would think growing up the way I did, that meeting Riley’s parents would be a piece of cake, right? Wrong. When I met people then, I stood in the shadows of my parents, never allowed to press forward and make my own path. When I met Todd’s family, it wasn’t because it was something I wanted. His family already knew mine. I’d seen and spoken to them in passing or at galas. Plus, I wasn’t in love with Todd either, so I didn’t give two shits if his parents liked me or not.
Riley’s different though. I’m madly in love with him. He’s it for me. When I look into my future, I see him by my side, no one else. I never imagined that one person could become like oxygen to me, but he has. So meeting his parents is a big deal. It’s important that they think I’m good enough for their son, that they like me, that they accept me.
“Oh.” My hands drop away from my mouth, only for me to tuck them under my legs that I have forced to stop bouncing. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. I don’t know why you’re so nervous. They’re going to love you and I know I’ve already told you that. Just trust me, okay?” He reaches over and pulls my hand from beneath my leg and laces our fingers together. Gently, his thumb brushes back and forth over my knuckles as he places our joined hands on my lap.
Silence fills the car again. I pull my other hand out from underneath me and reach over, adjusting the vent so that the cool air blows on me. My nervousness has me sweating and the last thing I need is to be drenched when I meet Riley’s parents. The poor people would think he pulled me out of a drainage ditch. Riley laughs at me as I stick my face in front of the vent. I give him a pointed stare and shrug.
“Sue me. I’m nervous. If I have to deal with my nerves, so do you.”
He shakes his head. “We’re almost there,” he announces as he makes a turn. When he said he lived on a plantation, he wasn’t joking.
Lush fields of green grass blanket each side of a paved driveway. When the house comes into view, I look over at him. “You must have had so much fun living here? All this open space to do what you want.”
“Yea.” He smirks.
We pull up in front of the house. He shuts the car off and turns in his seat to face me. My gaze is still fixed on the house in front of me.
“Look at me, please?” Riley asks, tugging on my hand. With eyes wide, I turn to him. He cups my cheek. “Relax. Neither my parents nor the situation is as scary as you’re making them out to be.” Riley leans in and kisses me sweetly on the lips. “I love you. I’ll be right by your side. It’s going to be fine.”
My eyes close and I take in his strength and encouragement. “You’re right. I’m just over exaggerating the whole thing.” With a deep breath in, I exhale slowly and nod.
He shakes his head at me. “Don’t do that.” His tone is soft yet serious.
“Do what?” I ask, confused.
“Discount your feelings with me. I want to know what you’re feeling and thinking. You’re justified in feeling how you feel. Never let anyone, not even me, make you feel like your feelings aren’t warranted.”
For the first time, besides Jen, someone is telling me it’s okay to feel. I don’t have to put on my dazzling, fake smile and pretend that everything is just as it should be, when in all reality, I’m suffocating and no one cares. I’m allowed to feel overwhelmed, anxious, nervous, happy, and scared. And the best feeling of all? I can share how I feel with this man without worrying that he’s going to tell me it’s baseless.
I smirk at him. “All right, let’s do this,” I say with more enthusiasm and less trepidation.
“That’s my girl,” he says, kissing my lips one more time before stepping out of the car.
Riley comes around the front of the hood, opens my door, and helps me out. It’s a two-story, white, plantation-style home. My head turns from side to side to take in the extravagant home with a perfectly manicured lawn. The warm, summer breeze carries the smell of jasmine and gardenias. Orange and yellow marigolds blend in with dainty, purple sweet Alyssum that expand out in front of the stunning, magenta azalea bushes lined up in front of the house.
Three colossal, white columns sit on either side of the set of stairs leading up to the porch, and help support the overhang coming off the roof. Four large windows graced with black shutters are on either side of the massive oak door. A balcony juts out from the second floor in front of a set of double doors, making the house look grand and stunning. As we climb the stairs leading up to the porch, black wrought iron fencing runs along the front of the house, framing it and the stairs leading to the solid oak door. Moldings with detailed designs accent the windows and door.
“This is gorgeous,” I
whisper.
“Thank you, honey. It’s been in the family since the mid 1800’s.”
My focus switches from the moldings to a very beautiful woman standing before me. Her light brown hair rests on her shoulders, cut in long layers that frame her heart shaped face. Dark eyelashes make the same blue eyes as Riley’s pop. Very few age lines grace her face, making a woman who’s probably in her fifties look ten years younger. “Mind you, it’s had a facelift and modern upgrades, but we’ve left everything as original as we could.”
“Well, you’ve done an amazing job,” I answer.
I reach out to shake her hand, but she bats it away and pulls me into a hug.
“It’s so great to finally meet you, dear. I’m Lana, Riley’s mother.” She leans back, her eyes scanning me, and a look crosses her face that I can’t decipher. “You look familiar,” she says.
My body tenses and my heart begins to thunder in my chest at her words. All I can think is there is no way this woman knows who I am.
Riley laughs from beside me. “Mom, I can assure you that you don’t know her.”
She shakes her head and smiles at me. “Of course not.” She laughs as she drops her hands from my face and studies me one last time before turning to her son. She smiles at him with so much love and devotion. “You come here.” She waves him over. Riley embraces her and she wraps her arms around his neck. “God, I’ve missed you, son.” She leans back after kissing him on the cheek. “Georgia must be treating you well.”
“It’s been treating me well, real well.” Riley looks at me out of the corners of his eyes and smiles.
“Well, come on in,” Lana says, stepping out of Riley’s arms and looping her arm with mine.
“I’m going to get our bags and I’ll be right back.” Riley smiles as he looks at me.
His footsteps thunder on the hardwood as Lana pulls me into the house. It’s rustic but warm, lived in, and filled with love, nonetheless. Walking down the long foyer feels as if I’m walking down the path of a mountain of memories. A slow, sweeping, curved staircase with wrought iron handrails and spindles winds its way up the grand staircase leading to the second floor. “The floors are original walnut wood and so are the walls, with the exception of new paint every once and a while. It’s one of the things that we haven’t updated, just taken very well care of.” As we make our way throughout the home, she points out certain things. “To your left is a study, at least that’s what my husband calls it,” she laughs, “but I call it an office.” Taking a peek inside, it smells faintly of burnt wood. I notice a large desk with two wing-backed chairs sitting in front of it. In the corner of the room sits a wood burning stove.
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