“That could get expensive,” Dad offers. “Do we need to do any shopping or research while you’re here?”
“This weekend is about Strider. I’ve been researching at home. I’ll be okay, but thanks, Dad. It means a lot.”
At home. That truth is an arrow through the heart. Denver is home. My little townhouse is home. Home is where… I change the ending of my errant thought tohome is where I can be me.
“Oh, Lorien, Sam’s friend”—she says the word like it tastes bitter—“wants to bake this weekend. I have a new recipe, but I really want to do smaller batches of lots of things. Want to help?”
Yes. “I’d love to. I’m always in for new recipes.”
“This lemon one has potential for sure.”
“What’s his name?” I ask.
“Who?” Mom and Dad reply in unison.
“The man Sam brought home. I can’t call him ‘Sam’s friend’ all weekend. And friend or boyfriend?”
Dad releases a sigh that could propel the truck we’re in. “She sayspartner, but I don’t get it.”
“So not a friend but someone significant.” I say to the windshield.
“We don’t know that,” Mom argues. “We’re just now meeting him. She says they’re living together, but—” She stops abruptly. “Jimmy, do you think they’re living together, as in a couple and not roommates. Did I misread the situation?”
“Do you think?” Dad looks at Mom in the rearview mirror. “No. She wouldn’t.”
She would. She so would. And the last time we spoke, she was quiet until she walked into another room.
Dad turns into the driveway of their home, the one I grew up in. “She wouldn’t bring home a live-in boyfriend for Strider’s birthday. Not our Sam.”
I watch them bounce back and forth as to whether their thirty-eight-year-old daughter brought home someone significant and they assumed he was just a friend.
My guilt for not bringing Liam lessens. What would my parents do with him?
Although my guilt for feeling less guilt has the opposite effect. He’s been my safe haven in the worst moments of my life.
I exit the car, leaving my parents to deliberate their adult daughter’s behavior, and head into the house.
Sam’s partner is William but he goes by Billy. You can’t make this up. The only thing I can find that hers and mine have in common is their given names.
Billy is thin in the extreme, has longish blond hair pulled back in a man bun and has a soul patch on his chin. He’s wearing denim and a colorful tee and walks barefoot around the house “grounding.” He’s kind and funny, likeable even, if not a bit opinionated. He comments on lots of things, how my sister takes her tea, which you think he’d know already, the position of the coffee maker in Mom’s kitchen, and the fact that the furniture isn’t feng shui in my parent’s house.
I try to picture Liam’s reactions to Billy and waiver between him giving the smaller man a knuckle sandwich, and him making pithy comments under his breath for only me to hear with every word Billy utters. I think my husband would want to do the first but probably get more satisfaction from the latter. I also think Liam would quietly reassure Mom, though she wouldn’t need it, that her coffee maker is in the exact right spot, as is her sofa.
The fact that I think of the man at all, picturing him in my parents’ house does not bode well for my heart at the end of this. I already know it will be brutal to be in an empty bed with a bare ring finger. And that’s the least of it all. His presence is huge. I see Sariah’s point—he’s solid, planted, an unbreachable fortress. His outside and his inside match in how unwavering he is. But to the people he lets in, the inside is a safe harbor.
Me: You’d be miserable here. I’d be happy if you were here to provide commentary on the goings-on.
I contemplate changing his name in my phone. No one would question texting with work or colleagues or girlfriends. I’m glad I don’t because his reply is within a minute.
William: Happy to provide orgasms along with commentary, Dr. Anderson.
For a moment, I wish he’d called me Wifey. Something about the huge brut of a man having such a playful name makes me melt.
It takes me longer than I should to realize he’s protecting me. He’s not outing me, though, the O-word is a bit bold in that text if I do say so.
“What has you smiling?” Sam asks, and I lock my phone, sliding it under my thigh, fighting the blush that wants to creep from my navel to burst across my face.
“Nothing,” I reply as everyone moves around the room. All the while, my phone buzzes too close to the spot that buzzed me into oblivion just hours ago.
