Chapter 21
Brody
I may be dreading meeting Alyssa’s mom, but I’m certainly digging on the time I get to spend with my girl. Because even in the shittiest of situations, time spent with Alyssa is like finding your pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
She gave me the address to her mom’s house and asked me to meet her there. I know she did this purposefully, so as to reiterate the fact that she was not going to have people hovering over her and to prove that she could drive from her house to her mom’s house without getting accosted. I didn’t like it, but I agreed and was mollified by the fact that Wyatt did, indeed, have police cruisers going by her house periodically. So far, there have been no sightings of Chad.
Alyssa said to meet there at six PM, and it looks like I’ll be a few minutes early. I asked her the other day why she just didn’t live there when she moved back to this area permanently, and she didn’t even hesitate. “Why would I? That house was never anything more than a shelter against inclement weather. All of my great memories on this island are when I stayed at your house with Casey or over at Gabby’s house.”
Point taken.
In fact, I’ve wanted to get her over to see my mom and dad. They are intrigued that I’ve been volunteering over at The Haven, and they’ve always adored Alyssa. It’s time to let them in on the fact that their son is in a relationship now.
When I pull into the driveway of the Myers’ mammoth oceanfront home, I’m relieved to see Alyssa’s truck. As always, when I know I’m getting ready to see her, my blood starts racing and my skin tingles. I wonder if she’ll always have that effect on me, and something tells me yes… this woman will own me for eternity.
I jog up the steps to the front door and ring the bell. I can hear Alyssa call out, “I’ll get it, Mother.”
The door swings open, and Alyssa stands there with an impossibly huge smile on her face. She’s wearing a pair of white pants that hang low on her hips and a light blue, baby doll top. She looks at me for just a moment, and then her smile fades into confusion. Stepping forward, she raises a hand and rubs it along my cheek… which I just shaved smooth not but half an hour ago.
“Your beard,” she whispers.
Her hand comes up to run her fingers through my hair. It takes her about a third of the time that it normally did, because I had my hair cut today too. It’s not as short as Hunter’s but several inches came off, and there’s no need to tie it back anymore.
“Your hair,” she laments, turning her eyes up to mine.
“You look disappointed,” I murmur with a smile. “My face too ugly now that the hair is gone?”
She steps up and wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me down so her lips are near my ear. “I just liked the way your beard felt on my inner thighs when you—”
“Okay,” I say quickly, pulling back with a quiet laugh. “Enough of that kind of talk. I don’t want to meet your mom with a hard-on.”
She giggles and roams her eyes again over me. “I like it. I really do. But I liked your long hair and beard too. I hope you didn’t do it to impress my mom, because trust me, unless your bank account ends with nine zeroes, you can’t impress her.”
I give her a quick kiss. “No, I’ve been meaning to do it, and now seemed as good a time as any.”
“Then I approve,” she says, leaning in to me conspiratorially. “But I really will miss your beard between my legs.”
I whisper back to her. “Just wait… you may like my smooth face better. We’ll try it out tonight and if you don’t like it, I’ll grow it back for you.”
I love that she sucks in a lungful of oxygen over my words, and her eyes turn hot. God, this woman is amazing and suddenly, the prospect of meeting her mother isn’t daunting at all.
“Alyssa,” speak-of-the-devil calls out. “Is that your friend?”
Alyssa rolls her eyes at me, taking me by the hand to lead me into the kitchen. Her mother is sitting at the island, drinking a glass of white wine. She’s impeccably dressed in silk and linen, dripping pearls and diamonds, with her hair artfully styled. Her perfume smells like one spritz is worth a week of my wages. Alyssa told me her father never comes to the beach because he’s a workaholic and doesn’t know how to relax.
“Mother,” Alyssa begins as she continues to hold my hand. “This is my boyfriend, Brody Markham. Brody… my mother, Angela Myers.”
I pull away from Alyssa and step forward to shake her hand. She takes mine, giving me a brief once over. Even though I put on a pair of new dress pants, as well as a dress shirt, I don’t think I pass her muster.
“Hello, Brody. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise, Mrs. Myers.”
She turns her gaze to Alyssa. “Did you say boyfriend, dear?”
“Yes, Mother,” Alyssa says with what I recognize as very little patience. “I told you that not ten minutes ago.”
Her mother doesn’t even look embarrassed. She just gives a dismissive wave of her hand and says, “But what happened to Chad Gates? He was such a nice young man.”
I’m not touching Alyssa in any way, but I can feel the tension radiating off her, because let’s face it… that’s just rude as f*ck to ask Alyssa about Chad when she just introduced me as her boyfriend. I reach out and rub my fingers over her lower back in an effort to get her to calm down. It does no good.
“Mother… I told you that Chad and I broke up… months ago.”
“Did you?” she asks vaguely. “I don’t remember. A shame though. You two seemed well suited.”
I can feel Alyssa vibrating with anger. Reaching one hand back, she grasps onto mine and squeezes hard. I can sense that this get together is going downhill fast, and I immediately want to pull Alyssa out of here and away from this weirdly detached woman that calls herself a mother.
Alyssa, though, has other ideas, and she doesn’t hesitate to let her mother know all about Chad. “I suppose the fact he tried to choke me makes him a good match, right? Or maybe it’s the fact he’s stalking me and has threatened Brody? Does that make him marriage material, Mother? Oh, no… wait—I completely understand why you want me with him. It’s because he’s filthy f*cking rich, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference that he wants to hurt your daughter.”
Alyssa stands there, her chest heaving, and I raise my hands to her shoulders. “Easy, now,” I murmur to her.
Mrs. Myers sits on her stool, her face pale as a ghost, staring at her daughter in horror. I’m not sure if it’s because of how she talked to her or the things she revealed about Chad. Regardless, she certainly shocked the shit out of her.
“He did those things to you?” her mother whispers.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Alyssa says, “Yes. He’s been arrested for stalking me once and he’s continuing to come after me, even though there’s a restraining order.”
Her mom’s gaze falls to the floor, and her eyebrows scrunch in. “I had heard rumors… I thought they were ridiculous, so I didn’t pay them any mind.”
Alyssa tilts her head. “Heard rumors about what?”
Her mom’s gaze snaps to Alyssa. “There had been rumors in our social circles… that Chad had hurt some woman he was dating before.”
She leans in toward us and lowers her voice. Why? I don’t know. There’s no one here but us. “They said he raped her.”
“What?” Alyssa practically shrieks in anger.
Her mother rears backward. “It’s just an ugly rumor, Alyssa. Nothing more.”
“You let me go out with that guy and didn’t tell me about that? Did you not think that was important?”
“He seemed like a nice young man, and he’s from a respectable family,” her mother whines. “How was I to know?”
I have no clue what Alyssa is feeling right now, but I want to ring her mother’s scrawny neck. How in the world could she put her daughter in danger like that?
“You are un-f*cking-believable,” Alyssa snarls as she pulls away from my hands and advances on her mother. She gets right in her face. “What type of mother sells her daughter out for the hope she’ll marry rich? Who the f*ck does that to someone?”
Drawing herself up, her mother’s voice is like ice. “Don’t you dare speak to me that way, young lady. I am still your mother.”
Alyssa actually snorts over those words and turns away to look at me. She’s done here… maybe forever. “Let’s go, Brody.”
I nod, pinning her mother with a look of blazing disgust. She holds my gaze for a moment and then drops it, picking her glass of wine back up and taking a dignified sip while she stares at the wall.
Alyssa grabs my hand and gives me a tug. Turning around, I follow her out the door.
***
I pull out of her mother’s driveway and head down the highway toward my hometown of Avon. Pulling my phone out, I hit my parents’ number and dial. Alyssa sits over in my passenger seat, staring stonily out the window. I had convinced her to leave her truck behind and get in my car. I told her I wanted to take her somewhere for dinner, and she didn’t argue. She just climbed in and hasn’t said a word since.
My mom answers on the second ring. “Hi, baby. What are you up to?”
“Hi, Mom,” I tell her, my heart feeling full just from her voice. “Set two more spots for dinner tonight, I’m on my way.”
“Fantastic,” my mom exclaims. “Who are you bringing?”
“My girlfriend,” I say as I look over at Alyssa, and I finally get a reaction. She turns to look at me and gives me a half smile. I grin back at her. “Alyssa Myers.”
“You are kidding me?” my mom shrieks. “That is awesome. When did this happen? Why am I just hearing about it?”
“I’ll fill you in when we get there. Alyssa’s had a rough day, and I figured your home cooking was what she needed.”
“Bring that girl over here and let me spoil her. See you soon.”
I hang up and toss the phone on the seat between us. Alyssa leans her head against the window and sighs. “So we’re going to give your parents a try, since my mom is apparently bat-shit crazy.”
Chuckling, I reach over and grab her hand. Bringing it up to my mouth, I kiss the ends of her fingertips. “Your mom is… well, I don’t even have words.”
“You see why I don’t have a relationship with her? She doesn’t care about me.”
I want to deny that and make her feel better. I want to give her hope that her mom truly cares. But I can’t… I saw it firsthand. There’s no doubt in my mind she gave credence to those rumors, but she was willing to overlook it for the chance of her daughter marring a Gates.
It was sick, sick, sick.
“I’m sorry, baby. It was a shitty thing to do.”
“It was par for the course, Brody. Par for the course.”
My heart cramps in sympathy for her. I think of the five years I suffered in prison, locked away from my family with nothing but myself to soothe away any fears or pain. But the one thing I had… that prison couldn’t take away, was the knowledge my family loved me and supported me. Alyssa has gone twenty-three years without loving familial ties, which makes me think she’s had it a lot worse than I ever have.
I hold her hand the entire way to my parents’ house. When we pull in, Mom comes trotting down the stairs, still wearing her nursing scrubs from work. Lillian Markham is a stunning woman at fifty, but it’s her caring and empathetic nature that reflects her true beauty. It’s why she went into nursing.
Mom opens the passenger door and practically pulls Alyssa out, straight into a hug. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen your gorgeous face,” my mom coos, and Alyssa grins at me over her shoulder.
My mom barely gives me a glance before she pulls Alyssa up the stairs and into our house. I follow behind with a smile on my face.
As soon as we get inside, my dad gets up from his recliner, where he had apparently been watching the evening news, and bends over to give Alyssa a hug. Butch Markham is a big dude… it’s where Hunter, Casey, and I get our height.
“Casey’s in her room if you want to go say hello,” my dad tells Alyssa.
My mom grabs my hand and pulls me into the kitchen. “You can help me finish dinner.”
The message is clear and definitely not subtle. Pack Alyssa off to Casey’s room so my parents can grill me about our relationship. Alyssa’s no dummy—she gets it—and I know this by the wink and grin she gives me before taking off down the hallway.
I follow Mom into the kitchen with Dad right on my heels. It smells of meatloaf, and my stomach rumbles. This will be so much better than whatever fancy shit Alyssa’s mom was going to serve. Probably caviar and toast points.
I practically slam into my mom when she spins on me with a look of wild excitement on her face, and I have to put my arms out so I don’t knock her over.
“You and Alyssa?” she says in a screamed whisper of schoolgirl excitement.
“Calm down, Mom,” I say with a grin. “You act like I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”
“Well, you’ve never had one as wonderful as her,” Mom says tartly. “This is an exciting time for your mother.”
Dad claps a hand on my shoulder and heads to the fridge. He pulls a beer out and doesn’t offer me one. He knows I won’t accept, but rather hands me a bottled water. “I’m happy for you, Brody. She’s a good girl.”
Setting the bottle down on the counter, I lean back against it and cross my arms over my chest. I look at my mom, and she looks like she’s about to hop out of her shoes in joyful abandon. My dad shoots me a wink and heads back to the living room.
“What’s with you?” I ask her, shaking my head in amusement.
“It’s just… I had actually hoped for this… been trying to figure a way to push you two together for years.”
“Really?” I ask with skepticism.
“Alyssa is wonderful, and my son deserves someone lovely and kind and generous. I knew she would grow up to become an amazing woman years ago when she first started hanging out with Casey and Gabby. So, yeah… I had my eye on her for you.”
“Why didn’t you pick Gabby out for me?” I ask in curiosity.
She looks at me as if that were the dumbest question ever. “Because… I had already picked her out for Hunter. You could see that girl always had it bad for him.”
“You’re a pretty smart woman,” I tell her, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.
She takes her hand and puts it on my chest. Looking up at me, she says, “I like your haircut and I’m not sorry to see that beard go. You look more like the boy I knew before you went away.”
My gut tightens at the pointed reminder that I was a different person then.
“I might look like that boy, but you know I’m a different man now, right, Mom? I mean… you get that some changes are forever.”
My mom gives me a soulful stare and shakes her head a bit. Her voice is kind but firm in her beliefs when she says, “Yes… I know you changed in prison. It broke my heart to see what you had lost… what you had become. But you’ve changed even more. Three weeks ago, you would not be in this kitchen talking to your mother about your girlfriend. Three weeks ago, you didn’t have that easy smile or that sparkle in your eyes. We are always changing, Brody. I expect you still have more to come, but for now, just know that it soothes my heart to see you this way.”
I have to blink rapidly at my mom to stop the prick of moisture in my eyes over her proclamation. I know I’ve hurt her greatly. My choices… my terrible, terrible choices have devastated my family. The fact I was withdrawn and unable to connect with them after getting out of prison only hurt them more.
Here I now stand… with the simple gesture of wanting to bring my girlfriend over to my parents’ house for dinner, and my mom is about ready to perish from happiness. How did I not know how badly she must have been hurting? Because I’m only now just truly understanding it by virtue of the fact that she’s swimming in joy… all from a simple gesture.
“Hey, Brody,” Casey says as she walks into the kitchen with Alyssa.
I reach my hand out and snag Alyssa’s, pulling her into my side. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I tuck her in as I ask Casey, “So, how’s work been going?”
Casey grabs a beer out of the fridge and twists the cap. She hops up on the counter while Mom turns to get the meatloaf out of the oven.
“It’s been going really good,” Casey says with passion. “I mean, I’m really good at it… natural-born salesperson, I guess.”
“You get that from your father,” my mom says as she sets the steaming meatloaf on top of the stove.
“Get what from me?” my dad asks as he walks back into the kitchen.
I just stand there, with my arm around Alyssa, watching my family talking about mundane life stuff. It’s a conversation that’s probably occurring in millions of households across the world.
Nothing special, definitely not news worthy.
What it is, though, is f*cking awesome.