Talking to Darby is fun.
It’s such a basic thought to float through my head as we take the exit off the interstate for her parents’ home, but it’s true. We talked the whole trip, so much so that my voice is hoarse, and I’m feeling grateful that I met her now and not a couple of years ago, when I was drinking too much and not taking anything seriously.
Then I remember why I’m here, and I clench my hands around the steering wheel as we wait for the light at a busy intersection near a Cheesecake Factory attached to a shopping mall. This is all a joke, something I’m doing because I was bored and a little lonely, and it amused me. If things go according to plan, her family will be ecstatic to never see me again after this week. But it only took a few minutes into our first meeting to figure out that I liked this woman. The text messages made my infatuation grow, and the car ride just hammered it home. Part of me wishes I was going to meet her parents for real, and not while wearing Cardinals gear I bought for the occasion.
Oh well. It’ll make for a good story someday.
By now, we’ve pulled up outside a brick house that looks like Macaulay Culkin’s fromHome Alone. Christmas lights outline the roof, and wreaths hang in every window. Somehow you just know there’s good eggnog waiting for you inside.
I turn the truck off, silently apologizing to everybody in this nice neighborhood that I didn’t pick Darby up in my Charger this afternoon.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
She says the words quietly, directing them at her hands, clenched into balls in her lap.
“What do you mean?”
She falls back against the seat, gesturing to the house. “The fake boyfriend thing, asking you to be a terrible person, lying to my family for days. I can’t pull that off. That’s not what I do.”
She exhales, deflating a little, and I unbuckle my seat belt to face her. I’ve known her for a month, but it’s clear that lying and sabotage don’t come easily to her.
Good thing she’s got me.
“Okay, hear me out, and know that no matter what, I’ll do whatever you think is best.” She turns too, her forehead knotted with worry. “Is what you’ve been doing working for you?”
Her expression’s clouded, so I try to make her see what I see when I look at her.
“You’re a cool girl who loves her job and her friends. But your family makes you so miserable that you’re bringing home a stranger to get them off your back. Maybe what you’ve been doing isn’t working.”
She nibbles on that delectable lower lip but doesn’t respond. Since she’s not disagreeing with me, I continue. “People stick up for themselves in all kinds of ways. When I was a teenager, I thought I was doing that by arguing nonstop with my dad. And your approach up until today has been…”
She hears the question in my voice. “Avoidance.”
Ah, avoidance. Not something I’ve ever personally understood. But if that’s her MO, no wonder she’s getting cold feet.
“So this time you’re not choosing avoidance. What would you say you’re hoping to do this week?”
“Be passive-aggressive,” she says. “Wait, beaggressive-aggressive.”
“You’re being creative,” I correct her. “You’re trying a new approach to a problem you haven’t been able to solve. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“My parents kick us out and never speak to me again?”
“I highly doubt that. Even my parents talk to me after I was an insufferable shit for all those years.”
She studies my face, her eyes reflecting the ambient light in the dark truck cab. “Yeah, why aren’t you with them this year? I’ll be honest, I kind of assumed there was bad blood between you.”
A car heads down the street in our direction, the driver staring hard at the crumpled fender illuminated by his headlights as he cruises past. I glare back before returning my attention to Darby.
“Thankfully, no. We’re all good now. But my brother and his wife just had a baby, so Mom and Dad flew to Hawaii. That’s where he’s stationed, and me going along was one person too many to cram into military housing for a week.”
Darby latches on to the most important part of my explanation.
“Your brother’s military?”
“Yep. I’m the disappointment of the family.”
I keep my tone light, but I’m afraid she hears what I’m not saying. I don’t fit in with my Army dad and my Army brother, and even though I’ve gotten my life together, there’s no reason for me to fly all the way to Hawaii to feel out of place.
