“What? Oh.” I looked down at my legs.
“Those are shorts?”
“You seem really horrified,” I told him.
“Why are they shorts?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Women can wear shorts; this isn’t the 1860s.”
“I just…” Mark shook his head. “I didn’t think that was a thing.”
“This discussion is not about me and my poor life decisions,” I told him sagely. “This is about you and self-care and healing.” I turned him around to face the pond. “Throw that ring away; throw away all the bad memories! Cunt punt that ring into the pond, if you will.”
Mark took the sparkling engagement ring out of the box, inspecting it for a moment, then took a deep breath, wound up, and threw it. It skipped across the water twice then sank. I applauded, and Beowulf yipped.
Mark pulled me to him and hugged me then kissed me. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said, snuggling me against his chest. I kissed his jaw.
“That felt good,” Mark said as I rubbed his back. “Who knew throwing an eighty-thousand-dollar ring into a lake could be so therapeutic?”
I froze. “That was an eighty-thousand-dollar ring?” I ran to the edge of the pond. “What the fuck!”
41
Mark
“Idon’t know why you’re so upset about the ring,” I said as we drove away from the Holbrook estate.
“That was an expensive ring,” Brea said in shock.
“But it had bad memories attached,” I argued. “What happened to self-care and letting it go?”
“Shit, I would have bought you a ring pop to throw, and we could have pawned that diamond in self-care.”
I laughed, feeling freer than I had since before Rhonda. I reached over and took Brea’s hand. I wanted to say something cheesy, like that I would make sure her ring cost twice that amount. But Brea already looked wigged out, and I knew my mother, though she tried, could also be quite intimidating. For once, I wished Carter or one or all of my cousins were going to be at this casual dinner on the terrace, as my mother had put it.
“You grew up here?” Brea asked as she stepped out of the car and set Beowulf down on the ground.
The puppy had never been out to my childhood home, and he seemed as apprehensive as Brea to be out on the vast grounds. Though not as big as my uncle’s estate, my mother and father’s house still had an award-winning garden, impeccable decorations, and a lovely terrace to look out over the landscape.
Brea grabbed the wine and the flowers out of the car. I wrapped an arm around her waist to take her up the wide stone steps to the grand front door.
“Mark!” my mother announced as my father, Jack, opened the door.
“Mom, this is—”
“Brea!” she exclaimed, hugging her. “Yes, of course I’ve heard all about your girlfriend. We’re so glad to meet you.”
My father beamed at her. What was going on? Usually all anyone got from my father was a scowl. My mother was too polite to make people feel unwelcome, but even she was being warmer than normal.
Brea handed my father the wine and my mother the flowers.
“Or you can switch,” she joked.
My father studied the wine label.
Please don’t make a snide comment.If my father made Brea cry, I was going to turn right around and take my girlfriend and my dog with me and leave.
Brea looked at the label of the wine. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh shoot, I grabbed the bad wine. So sorry.” She tried to take it back.
