She laughs. “Well, that explains the three screeching voice mails I’ve gotten from my mother and the cryptic text from my father about ‘these damn Kellys.’”
“Did you talk to your dad? Has he talked to my dad?”
“Yes. He just texted me that your parents were in a helicopter after landing in Westchester.”
“Oh God. So, they’ll be here soon.”
“According to my dad, yes. They left the Bahamas earlier today. They thought Gunnar fucking drowned. My dad is the one who told them he was home.”
“My stomach hurts,” I mutter as the meat sweats bubble my guts. I haven’t had any meat—or any other food for that matter since Julia’s date had me all fucking torn up—but it doesn’t matter. I’m one sighting of my dad away from explosive diarrhea. I’m a big dude, but Thatcher Kelly is bigger in all the ways that count. Muscle, sheer determination, number of fucks he’s lost the will to give.
I might as well make peace with God now because I’m pretty sure I’ll be meeting him soon.
“Are you okay?” Julia asks, pushing me toward the couch that’s officially relocated to the wall by the linen closet and sitting me down. “You look clammy.”
As she finishes asking, the elevator doors open again, and a pig with a service vest comes running out. My parents’ pig Philmore, a pet born of a ridiculous prank war between my parents, is in his twenties and aging considerably, but he’s still got some pep in his step. Especially, I suppose, when he’s arriving to a party in his home with all manner of YouTube starlets and TikTok influencers in attendance.
People start cooing and freaking out at his cuteness, but I feel a different sense of doom. His arrival heralds the arrival of my parents.
Julia stands at my side, a hand squeezing steadily at my shoulder as my parents step inside, surveying the scene around them. They’re both wearing sunglasses—even though it’s ten p.m.—so Ican’t get a good read on them, but they don’t start screaming right away.
I pat Julia’s hand twice before standing and turning to whisper in her ear. “If I don’t make it back, just know that I loved you.”
She giggles, not taking me seriously at all, which is just fucking perfect, really. Truly, it’s right on par for how this whole damn night has gone anyway.
“Go on, buddy,” she reassures. “It’s going to be fine. This is Thatch and Cassie we’re talking about, not the Kennedys. They’ve seen this before.” Her head whips around as the pirate stripper walks by. “Except maybe that.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Are those your parents?” Whatshisface asks in his big, lumbery, dumb voice.
I don’t nod or answer, but Julia does, her little laugh making my skin crawl because it’s directed at the wrong fucking guy—aka not me. “Yes. They are two of the wildest people you’ll ever meet, which honestly explains their youngest son. It’s the full power of their DNA combined. I think—”
As she keeps talking, turning to look into his eyes while he plays with the ends of her hair like he has any fucking right, I walk away. Toward the flogging. Toward the yelling. Toward hell.
Honestly, at this point, even a bloody beating from my parents seems like a better option than staying here and watching them reenact an episode ofLove Island.
My dad spots me pretty easily as I head for them—we’re the two tallest people in the crowd—and waves me over with a crook of his fingers. I gulp and comply, heading toward him and my mom in the back hallway that leads to the movie theater.
Did I mention that my billionaire investment and accounting firm father also moonlights as a tattoo artist in his free time? Or that his and my mother’s favorite pastime is playing pranks on each other?
And I’m not talking sitting on a whoopee cushion pranks. I’mtalking hiring a mariachi band to follow their best friends around on their Valentine’s getaway trip. I’m talking, when they were first dating, my mom bought my dad a mini pig that ended up being a real-sized pig and got him certified as an emotional support animal for my father’s nonexistent depression and anxiety just to screw with him.
Not to mention, the first day of my freshman year at Dickson, my dad showed up to my first class with a fucking backpack and school supplies, saying he’d enrolled himself in all my classes and was going to experience college again with me.
I don’t know for sure what my punishment will be, but I know it won’t be good, and it won’t be swift. I’ll probably be paying for this for the rest of my natural-born life.
“What the ever-loving fluff is going on here?” my dad asks, moving me into a scary place against the wall. His hand doesn’t press on my throat, but it lives on my shoulder, perfectly in pouncing position. “Kline texted. Said there was some big fucking blowout going on at our place.”
“Without us!” my mom adds, as though the primary complaint is that there is a big party happeningwithouther.
My dad tsks. “Like always, Kline and his big dick are right.”
“Yeah, well, you know Gunnar,” I lie. “He’s unhinged. He… I tried to stop him, but he…he’s not right. One minute, it was just the two of us, and the next, half the city was here.”
“Is that Dr. Bunnfield?” my mom asks, watching with interest as our dentist keg stands in the kitchen.
Something smacks me in the back of the head, and when I notice Gunnar standing in the vicinity of the origin of the projectile, a wave of panic washes over me. His eyes say I owe him, and owing Gunnar is absolutely terrifying in every imaginable way. Plus, I owe him for the actual party and the lie about him being the reason for the party too. So, I owe him twice. And if you include my parents in the payback-punishment scenario, it’s safe to sayI amfucked.
