JENNA
All I want to do is fall into the arms of my loving fiancé.
But Nathan doesn’t look up from where he’s playing a hockey video game in the living room in his boxers and Crocs.
“Did you bring dinner?” he asks the TV.
I’m immediately anxious.
“I’m starving.”
My mom, according to Great-Grandma Mavis, doesn’t know how to take care of a man, and that’s why she keeps driving them off. My mom would toss a handful of toasted chickpeas on a plate and call it dinner.
You have to feed a man, Granny Mavis says. That and regular sex are necessary to keep that man chained to the house and handing you his paycheck every two weeks.
I am determined that my future children won’t be raised like I was. Therefore, the man needs to come first.
I set my bags down and walk over to Nathan to rub his bare shoulders.
Nothing like McCarthy’s.
There was his traitorous voice in my head.
Thanks goodness Nathan is nothing like McCarthy.
I plant a kiss on his neck.
“Not now. I’m starving.” He jerks away. “Are you cooking?”
Well, I was striking out on the sex.
I’ll show Nathan my love via food, I decide, taking out all the ingredients for fried chicken cutlets with a spicy sauce, oven-roasted veggies, and homemade pasta.
“Dinner’s ready!” I call a while later.
“Just put it down in here. I’m in the middle of this. No, fuck! Shoot, asshole! Can you cut it up for me, Jelly Bean?”
I look to my own plate growing cold then begin determinedly to cut up his food so I can feed it to him and watch him play the video game.
This is the foundation of a happy, successful, fulfilling relationship.
“You drove past the flower shop,”McCarthy says as I white-knuckle the steering wheel. “Cupcake… you passed another one. You’re not acting like someone who has one last chance to prove herself.”
“I’m not taking you to an uncontrolled environment. I’ve revised the plan.”
Traffic is light, and we’re at the ferry dock in no time.
“Is this the part where you take a baseball bat to the back of my head and dump me in the bay?” he asks as the ferry operator waves us onto the waiting boat.
“We’re going to my mom’s house.”
“Meeting the parents. Already? So soon in our relationship? I’m starting to realize that the problem isn’t the men you surround yourself with. The problem is you.”
I’m ignoring him. He’s baiting me, and I’m ignoring him.
When the ferry docks, I maneuver the car carefully onto the island’s wooden pier then onto the gravel road that winds its way through the island.
This is a bad idea.
