Page 86 of The Parent Trap

“Both.” I’m red in the face, squirming on the couch. “For different reasons.”

“If you had to pick only one part do all over again, which would you choose? The first part, or the second?”

“Not a fair question,” I answer.

“Maybe not. But still. Which one?”

I try to pick, but it’s impossible. “I can’t pick, Thai.” I can barely hear my own voice. “I liked both. I…I want to do both again.” I try to speak louder, more confidently. “I want to do more of both with you, Thai. A lot more.”

I try to summon the uninhibited wildness I felt in the ocean, touching him and being touched by him. Heat unfurls in my belly, and my voice loosens, just a little, and I manage to bring a tiny fraction of the fire and desire I feel for him into my words.

“I want to do more than what we did today,” I continue. “You make me want things, Thai. You make me…you make me want things I didn’t know I could ever want, make me comfortable doing things I never imagined I’d feel comfortable doing.”

“God, Delia.” His voice is tight and thick, now. Heavy. “You havenoidea what it means to hear that. I was worried you’d…I dunno. Wise up. Decide I’m no good after all. Decide it was all a mistake.” A huff, a rough clearing of his throat. “I want you to feel comfortable with me. Safe. I want you…well, full stop, there. I want you. But I want you to feel safe exploring…I don’t know how to say it. Yourself?” He pauses, and I wait through the silence, dearly wanting to know what else he’s going to say. “You are so beautiful, Delia. And I hate that I’m responsible for making you feel shitty about yourself, in your body. In your, um…in your sexuality. I want you to be…free. Safe. Comfortable. In your body, and your sexuality.” He sounds embarrassed, and I can’t manage words to reassure him, because I’m too fraught and choked up to speak. “And—um. If…if I can be the one to help you explore all that, to open up and do whatever makes you happy and makes you feel good and makes you feel like…like a powerful woman in tune with yourself, then…then I think that would be the most…unexpected but incredible kind of redemption I could imagine.”

“Wow,” I breathe. “You really have a way with words, Thai.”

“I’m not just saying that.” I hear the tab of a can crack open with a hiss, and he takes an audible sip. “This is just water, by the way. I don’t really drink to get drunk much anymore.”

“You don’t have to explain that to me, Thai.”

“I guess I kind of feel like I do. I want you to…believe in me. Trust me.” Another sip, and I hear a sliding door open, close. “Anyway. I wasn’t just saying that to sound good. I meant every word with every fiber of my being.”

“I know you did. I can tell.” I laugh, but it’s an awkward, weird laugh. “Here’s the weird thing, that I’m kind of struggling with in all this—I have a hell of a bullshit detector. I can smell a fake a mile away. There’s nothing so obvious or noxious to me as someone who isn’t genuine, and a liar is the absolute worst thing you could be, to me.” I speak my truth to him, because at this point, I want it all out there. “Aside from being just plain mean, that is. Mean people really suck.”

“Oof,” he huffs. “Bullseye.”

“I don’t say that to hurt you.”

“Don’t hold back, Delia. I’d rather know you’re being honest and truthful with me.”

“It’s kind of where I’m at, too, honestly. I’d rather say what I really mean. So there’s a clean and open slate between us.” I stand up, move outside onto my front porch and sit on my rocking chair and listen to the frogs and crickets. “What I was getting at was that I can tell you’re being genuine. If you were to say something just because you think it sounds good or it’ll…I dunno, win me over somehow, I’d know.”

There’s an oddly companionable silence between us. Thai breaks it, after a moment or two. “Delia…I want you to know that you are, without a doubt, the most amazing person I know. I truly cannot think of another person who could go through what I put you through, all the mockery and pranks and cruelty and all that, and—and turn around, even a decade later, and give me the time of day. Let alone…trust me, much less…the other stuff. Trusting me with your business, your time…your body.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” I admit.

“Tell me.”

“Really? You want to hear this?”

“Absolutely.” A pause. “If you can talk about it.”

“No, I think I can, now.” I rock in the chair a moment and think. “Work was easier, once I just accepted that I couldn’t get rid of you. And then you started proving that you really were here to work, to contribute, to be a real member of a team, and that you really did have something to contribute. That was the first hurdle.” He’s quiet, waiting for me to continue. “Then, I had to admit—or start to admit,tryto admit—that you really have changed, and that you really aren’t such a bad guy. Hurdle two, and a much bigger hurdle. I’m mostly over that one. It’s just still an odd thing mentally to accept that you, Thai Bristow, whom I’ve spent my whole life hating and whom I long considered to be the evilest, shittiest, douchiest human being I’ve ever personally known—you…are a decent guy.”

“A decent guy.” He laughs.

“I just mean—”

He cuts me off. “No, for real, coming from you, that’s a lot. Two months ago, I would never have imagined you would ever call me even that,a decent guy.”

I swallow hard. “Admitting to myself that you’remorethan just a decent guy is another hurdle, and I’m still working on that one. But honestly, you’re making it easy. You really are more than just a merely decent guy, Thai. I’m…slowly, maybe—and this might be more on me than you—but I’m slowly starting to see that…that you’re actually…” I almost laugh as I hear myself say it. “A good man.”

He’s stunned, I can tell.

More than stunned.

His voice, when he speaks, is thick. “No one…no one’s ever accused me of that, before.”