Page 13 of Bite Me
Which was what it felt like walking up to the door. Chet fell in step beside me, matching my stride.
The door opened before we were up the steps, and my mom waved. She wore an orange cardigan, a black pearl necklace, and a smile that widened as she took us in. “You both look so handsome.” She sounded cheerful, but there was effort in it, and I could tell she was relieved we’d shown. I gave her a hug and kissed her cheek, then released her so she could sweep Chet into a hug, saying, “Come in and eat something. Marta made appetizers.”
“We can’t stay too long,” I warned her. “I pulled jump scare duty in the haunted maze this year.” I made a face, though I was secretly glad it gave us an excuse to bail if shit turned sour. “Is Dad here?”
“He’s working in his office. I’m sure he’ll come out and say hello. He’ll be glad you came.” The way she said ‘glad’ did a shitty job at hiding the truth, but I gave her points for effort. She’d spent the last six months walking a tightrope of tension between my dad and me. The least I could do was make this visit as painless as possible.
She led us toward the kitchen, one arm threaded through Chet’s as she peppered him with questions about his classes.
We turned into the kitchen and found Marta at the marble island, arranging cut-up veggies on a platter. She glanced at us and dropped the knife in her hand in favor of clutching her chest. It was so damn dramatic I couldn’t tell if she was feigning a heart attack or pretending to be awestruck. Either was likely. “My god, is there a Hellenic porn star convention in town?” She peered closer at us, particularly Chet, fanning herself while Chet cracked up and my mom let out a laughing admonishment. Then, her gaze turned scrutinizing. “That toga better not be from the set of sheets I gave you. Those are your mom’s Egyptian cotton and?—”
I cut her off before she could get more specific and make Chet feel bad, because they were, in fact, the Egyptian cotton sheets.Marta had a thing about sheets. “It’s not. We grabbed a cheap set at Walmart.” She didn’t need to know that the sheet had sustained enough liquid damage over the last several months that it seemed like a natural sacrifice.
Satisfied, Marta went back to her board of veggies, fiddling with a garnish before she nudged it toward us, along with a Halloween-themed charcuterie. Mom took a few pictures of us in our costumes, and then Marta took some of my mom and us. The longer we were there without my dad appearing, the more I relaxed, deciding maybe he was planning to avoid us altogether. Fine by me. Chet and I dove into some kind of salami and cheese thing Marta had arranged in the shape of a skull, and my mom poured herself a glass of wine.
And then came his footsteps down the hall, measured as an executioner. He appeared in the doorway, still wearing his suit. Cufflinks, silk tie, every hair in place and as controlled as ever. I’d looked up to him once. Now that seemed so far away.
He hesitated in the doorway for a beat, which was enough time for me to steel my jaw against the adrenaline that shot through me. Then he gave us a nod, all business. “Your mother said you’d be coming by.” He came fully into the kitchen, his gaze diverting to the spread on the counter, before skipping aside and lingering on the arm I’d slung around Chet’s shoulders out of protective instinct. Not that he needed it.
“Chet,” my dad said next. It came out as stiff as his shellacked hair.
I tensed, ready to step in if he got ugly. It’d happened before.
And then my dad stuck out his hand for a handshake.
I blinked, caught completely off-guard. Chet was much smoother, taking my dad’s hand and meeting his eyes evenly.
My dad’s handshake was the kind of vice grip that had broken lesser men, forged by bankers, golf club rivals, and the numerous people he’d fired over the years.
“Mr. Farrow.” Chet held steady, not flexing a muscle, even when I could tell my dad cranked his grip a little tighter. And fuck, the grip, the eye contact, the subtle swagger, the fearlessness... If I wasn’t already in love with the guy, this moment would’ve tipped me headlong into it.
A muscle in my dad’s jaw jumped, like he was fighting the urge to say something and then thought the better of it. He released Chet’s hand and took a backward step, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. I imagined he wasn’t used to getting psychically pantsed by a guy half his age wearing a bedsheet. Chet was gonna be killer in a courtroom.
Dad gave my leather tunic a once-over, and then Chet’s toga a longer look. “You’re not cold in that?”
He was actually making conversation on top of the handshake? Were we in the Twilight Zone? I shot a look at my mom, then Marta, who stood just outside of my dad’s visual field and offered a clueless shrug. Maybe my dad was high.
“Nah, it gets pretty hot at the Sigma house. I’m sure you remember,” Chet said, smiling.
My dad stiffened. It was just a flinch of motion, but I’d learned to read his subtle cues and could tell he’d picked up on the undertone in Chet’s comment.
As soon aswe climbed back in my car thirty minutes and a few awkward canapés later, I rested my chin on the steering wheel. “What the actual fuck just happened?”
Chet’s fingertips teased over the nape of my neck and squeezed. The pressure felt good, drained some of the stress from me. “You need beer and loud music.”
I couldn’t disagree. “Seriously, though. What was that?”
Chet jabbed his seatbelt in place and chuckled. “No fucking clue. Only explanation I can come up with is we jumped timelines somehow.”
“God, it was weird.” I cranked the car and wasted no time getting out of the driveway. I didn’t know what to make of that visit. Was it groundwork for acceptance? A pyrrhic victory? “I’m not sure if that was better or worse than the last time we went over there.”
Chet snorted. “I’m going with improvement, but I’ll wait for more data to decide.” His hand wandered to my thigh, squeezing it as I drove. “Maybe it was the togas and tunics. Got him all randy, made him reminisce about his younger years.”
“Gross.” I wrinkled my nose. “And never use ‘randy’ and my dad in the same sentence. In fact, just don’t use ‘randy’ at all.”
“Not even if I apply it to you?” He waggled his eyebrows at my subsequent glare.
“Nothing like fucked-up family dynamics to get a person all hot and bothered.” When I shifted in my seat, Chet’s hand slid higher, palm warm and rough on my bare skin. He smirked when I glanced over at him, then inched his hand higher, fingertips skating beneath the hem of my tunic. He brushed his thumb along the crease of my hip, then hooked beneath the elastic of my briefs to graze my shaft. I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “You wanna get to this party in one piece?”