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64
Ryan and I went back to the house and packed. We made love afterwards, then collapsed and drifted off to sleep.
4AM came brutally early.
I barely remember it, actually. I sleepwalked through my shower, then slept most of the way in Mr. MacCruder’s truck with my head on Ryan’s shoulder.
Same with the airplane. I woke up for our connecting flight in Dallas, and stayed awake the rest of the trip – which I wished wasn’t the case, because all I did was worry about seeing my parents in Savannah.
Ryan tried to soothe me. “It’s going to be great.”
“Yeah,” I said half-heartedly.
He hesitated. “…you know… I could just not go.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“If you’re uncomfortable about me meeting your family, I could wait until after you’ve left, then rent a car and drive to Athens. You could tell them I had to change plans at the last minute.”
Once again, I felt horrible.
“NO! What are you talking about?!” I yelped, even though I knew exactly what he was talking about.
“You just seem a little… perturbed about the whole thing.”
“I’m just worried my family is going to embarrass me.” (True, but not the whole story.) “Like, my brothers are going to endlessly bug you to take pictures with them so they can show their friends and try to pick up girls.”
He laughed. “Anything I can do to help out.”
“I’m sorry I’m being so weird about it. I just… they’re going to embarrass me for sure. My mom’s going to fawn all over you. My brothers will act all cool and aloof at first, then they’re going to turn into puppy dogs going ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ And my dad…”
Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Is he coming to the airport with a shotgun?”
“As in a shotgun wedding?” I laughed – not because it was funny, but because it was absurd. “No. Honestly… I don’t even know that my father will come to the airport.”
“But it’s a Saturday.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Does he work on Saturdays?”
“No.”
“Does he travel for business a lot?”
“No.”
“But… he hasn’t seen you in months, has he?”
“No.”
“Oh,” Ryan said, and let the topic drop.
65
Surprise, surprise, though – my entire family was there, waiting for us at the baggage claim.
As predicted, my mom was overly friendly right from the get-go. She gave Ryan a big hug, then turned to me and whispered loudly, “He’s so
handsome!”
My brothers were all ‘sup, dude’ and ‘how’s it goin’ for the first five minutes, but by the time we got out of the airport they were circling Ryan and almost jumping up and down in giddy excitement.
My dad was my dad: polite, close-lipped, pleasant, but distant. All he said to Ryan was “Nice to meet you.” I got a “Hello, Kaitlyn,” as he kissed my forehead.
Ryan was nice as could be. He tried to engage my father in conversation, but got little effort in return – not to mention he got swamped by my mother and brothers. Ryan was all smiles as he interacted with them, though at one point he looked at me with raised eyebrows like,
Help!
I gave him a devious smirk and shrugged.
Hey dude, you asked for this.
The ride home in the Honda Pilot was more of the same, with my brothers peppering Ryan with rapid-fire questions about Bigger and being famous. Thank GOD they didn’t ask anything about Derek. Mostly just about how many Playboy models Ryan had dated.
“None,” he told them.
“What about, like,
model
models?”
Ryan glanced over at me.
“Aw, don’t worry about Kaitlyn, she doesn’t care, she already thinks she’s hot shit,” Rob said.
“I do not!” I protested.
“Language,” my father said sharply.
“Sorry, Dad. Hot crap,” Rob amended, then turned to me. “Yeah you do.”
That started a quarrel that didn’t end until we got home.
Dinner was fine. Mom kept being effusive, Tim and Rob bothered Ryan to no end, and my dad remained close-lipped as ever. Afterwards, my brothers dragged Ryan off to show them how to play their $100 electric guitar. My father retired to his office, and Mom and I cleaned up the dishes from the dining room table.
That was when the trouble started.
66
“Ryan seems like a real sweetheart,” Mom said as she sipped on a glass of white wine. It was her third of the evening, I had noticed.
Not that I could judge, since that was my usual nightly quota back in South Dakota.
“He’s great,” I said as I finished loading the dishwasher.
“What happened with the other fellow?” she asked quietly.
My eyes bugged out, and I looked around in a panic. The sounds of electric guitar drifted down through the ceiling, so I assumed I was safe.
“How do you know about that?” I snapped.
“Your brothers started talking about it a couple of weeks ago. They saw pictures of you on some internet thingee and couldn’t shut up about it.”
“Don’t say anything about it in front of Ryan.”
She rolled her eyes. “Did I say anything about it in front of him so far?”
“…no…”
“Then give me some credit, Kaitlyn. Despite whatever else you may think of me, I’m not stupid.”
I frowned. “What does that mean, ‘despite whatever else you may think of me’?”
She snorted and settled into a kitchen chair. “I think we
both
know what that means.”
Actually, she was right.
“Sit down,” she said, and patted the kitchen table.
“I should go see how Ryan’s doing.”
“He’s doing fine. Let Tim and Rob have their fun. Sit down. We haven’t had a mother-daughter chat in a long, long time.”
Feeling wary, I sat down in the chair next to her.
“So what happened with the other fellow?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Something had to have happened.”
“It ended.”
“I figured that much out. Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
