I was gone and headed back up to the penthouse before anyone could say as much as abonjour to me.
* * *
However,that hugely embarrassing incident didn’t stop me from introducing a difficult topic with Mick much later that night.
I should have been exhausted. After the three bouts of morning sex, and the Louvre, and Kentucky—the night club, not the state—and the car sex, then the apologetic round of “I’m Sorry We Got Caught” sex… After all of that, I should have fallen asleep as soon as Mick rolled off me.
But something he’d said earlier had my brain turning and wouldn’t let me close my eyes, even after he pulled me in nice and cozy to his side.
“Hey, Mick?” I asked.
“Hmm,” he answered.
“You keep saying that you don’t joke.”
“Cos I don’t.”
“So, earlier, when you congratulated us on getting through that Eiffel Tower argument? when you said we got it sorted without any shouting or thrown beer bottles? If you never joke, why would you say that?”
He went still. So still, I could tell I had stepped on some kind of emotional landmine. I stilled, too, wondering if he would even answer what I now realized was an intrusive question.
“Your parents, they’re the steady, regular type, right?” he asked instead of answering my question. “Nice house, two jobs, three squares a day, church at least every other Sunday sort, right?”
“You forgot lifetime Suns season ticket holders, but other than that, you’re right,” I answered, smiling at the thought of the two dependable people who’d raised me. “They’ve been living in the same house forever—they bought in Inglewood before L.A. housing prices got stupid. They’re also both career-long members of the Suns Organization. My dad’s been a Video Operations Fellow since the Suns taped everything on VHS. And my mom is a Season Ticket Coordinator—hence the lifetime passes.”
I sensed Mick would have been happy to listen to me ramble on about my parents forever, but I had to ask, “What are your parents like?”
He went silent again, but not nearly as long as the first time.
Eventually, he answered. “Me dad’s worked for the power company all his life, and me mum’s been a hairdresser long as I can remember, but they’re not like your parents.”
He heaved a sigh. “They’re the sort who’ve got to keep movin’ from flat to flat cos they get pissed and trash the place. Landlord finds out, and they’re on to the next. We moved three times the last year I lived with ’em. Ain’t a clue where they’re at now cos we don’t keep in touch. If I got married or anythin’ like that, I’d have to hire a private detective to find ’em. But then I’d never do that, would I? They’re not…”
He sniffed in that way men sometimes do when they’re trying to prove they’re still tough. Or trying to keep it together. “They’re not the kind of parents ya invite to posh events. Cos they’d do things like sneak in alcohol to your youth league football games, get blind drunk, then break off ’em beer bottles like they’re on one of ’em telly dramas and threaten to off each other with all your teammates lookin’ on.”
A rock formed in my stomach as he spoke, and it got heavier and heavier the more he said.
I didn’t need to be told his description wasn’t hypothetical or even hyperbolic. Mick had lived these stories, had lived with these terrible people—was still living with them, even if they hadn’t been in contact in years.
I swallowed back tears on his behalf.
But I kept my voice casual when I spoke. “You’re right. My parents aren’t like yours. Especially my father. He was—still is—a great dad. Always supportive, always there for me. He played high school American football, and he’s a big guy, really macho-looking. Plus, he can be a little gruff, y’know? A lot of people are scared of him when they first meet him. But he’s a huge teddy bear. He gave my brothers and me all the hugs we could ask for growing up, and he’s never picked us up late. Not once.”
I entwined my fingers with Mick’s. “My dad also never took us to meet his parents. We didn’t even know they were still alive until they died in a car accident. Drunk driving. Dad’s dad—my grandpa, I guess—ran their car into a pole. Dad told us about them then.”
My heart twinged as I thought back to the terrible look on my father’s face when he told us that his parents had actually lived nearby in Compton the entire time my brothers and I had been alive.
“We were pretty much the only people that came to their funeral. And a lot of the other people who did come seemed to be way more interested in asking my dependable dad about money they’d loaned his father than paying their respects.”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t believe those two awful people raised my kind and loving dad. I told Dad that after the funeral, as we were driving home. I was sitting in the back seat between my two brothers, and I’ll never forget what he said to me. He said, ‘It’s easy for me to be a good dad. With every decision that comes up for you three, all I gotta do is think,What would my parents do?Then I do the opposite.”
Mick’s breath hitched underneath our intertwined hands. I suspected he was fighting back tears, but I’d learned enough about him by now to know he wouldn’t appreciate me drawing attention to it.
I could envision him as a little boy, his eyes fierce and wide as he refused to cry, even when his parents humiliated him.
So, I continued with my story.
“I wasn’t going to go through with this trip, you know. The plan was to spend my vacation days locked away in my room, feeling sorry for myself. But the night before the trip, my dad knocked on my door, wanting to talk. I thought he’d be disappointed about the break-up. The Suns are obviously his favorite team, and I know he wouldn’t have minded having an NFL player as a son-in-law. But he was mad at Dwayne. Even madder than I was.”
