“Her parents are going to think we raised a bouffon.” I have to laugh when she calls me a bouffon, but then I look down, trying to ignore the comment about her parents. I think about if I should tell them about her parents or not. It takes me over a minute of not saying anything for my father to pick up on the silence.
“What’s the matter?” I think about lying to him about what is bothering me, but I also know my parents will want to meet her parents to show them that I’m not an idiot. I also know I don’t want her to feel bad about it.
“Her parents kicked her out.” My words come out crystal clear, and the silence of the room just makes the words echo more.
My father’s hand comes up and he slams his hand down on the coffee table, the movement making the phone shake a bit. “Stefano,” he hisses out my name.
“Dad, you don’t think I know this?” I ask him, sitting on the edge of the bed as I hang my head down. “I feel.” I blink away the stinging of tears, but for the first time, I let them out. “I don’t even know what I feel, it’s like this burning in my stomach,” I tell them both and my mother uses her thumb to wipe away the tears that are coming out of her eyes. “And then my chest is tight and I feel like I’m going to throw up every seven seconds,” I say breathlessly.
“It’s called love, you dumbass,” my father says softly. “We are coming down tomorrow,” he reiterates what my mother just said. “We’ll take them out.”
“You can’t,” I tell him. “She said they are already eating out on Saturday.”
“Stefano.” My mother grabs the phone from the table and makes sure I can see her whole face.
“You call her and tell her that your parents are taking her out because we owe her a lot more than a meal.” The glare and tone are something I’m not going to argue with, especially after what just happened.
“Fine.” I take a deep inhale. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”
“Idiot,” is the last thing my mother says before she hangs up on me.
I toss my phone to the side and look up at the ceiling before I rub my face with my hands. I then
lean forward, putting my elbows on my knees and hanging my head. It’s maybe five minutes before I hear the sound of footsteps running up the stairs. I look at the door, hearing a knock for one second before the door opens, and Matty stands there in shorts and no shirt. “You told your parents?” I just stare at him. “The Bat Signal has been unleashed.”
“Well, it’s been five minutes,” I say, looking at my watch, “the family is slacking, if you ask me.”
Matty laughs and shakes his head. “I just got four messages from Uncle Max and Matthew asking if they have rentals in the area.”
“Say no,” Sofia yells from somewhere in the house, “they can stay with us!”
“Are you insane?” Matty yells over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare even speak that out loud, they might have Spidey senses.” He walks out of the room. “This is going to be fun,” he states right before he closes the door behind him.
I pick up my phone, wanting to speak to only one person. I pull up her name, and instead of calling her, I text her. If she’s sleeping, I don’t want to wake her.
Can you talk?
I look down at the phone and see the gray bubble with the three dots pop up before my phone pings with a text.
Haven’t we spoken enough?
addison
. . .
I press send on the message and put the phone down, but the phone rings softly beside me. I can hear his laughter fill the phone as I bring it to my ear. “Hello.”
“Am I bothering you?” His laughter is still coming through. I don’t know why, but his laughter makes me smile.
“Well, it’s been about twenty minutes since the last phone call,” I reply, sinking into the bed.
“I called my parents,” he says, and everything stops. I don’t even think I’m breathing at this point.
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah, they are coming down tomorrow.”
I immediately sit up. “What?” I say in a whisper, but it comes out in a yelp.
“And asked if they can take you out for dinner to meet Avery.” My heart, which is normally beating in my chest, is now beating so freaking fast and hard I feel like it’s about to come out of my rib cage.
“Ummm,” I start, closing my eyes to get my heartbeat to normal as my ears now start to buzz. “I don’t need to be there.” I put my hand on my head, thinking that maybe I’m going to faint or maybe I have scarlet fever.
“What?” he shrieks. “Of course you have to be there.”
“Ugh.” I put my hand on my stomach. “I don’t know. I don’t do well with parents.” My head is just about ready to explode. This is too much; this is all just too much. “I mean, look at my own.” I laugh bitterly, trying to joke about it, but the pain still hurts, even after all this time. The emptiness is still there. The fact they haven’t even tried to get to know Avery just breaks my heart because she’s the best, but I also know it’s their loss. They don’t deserve her awesomeness in their lives.
“You need to come and maybe protect me from my mother,” he declares, and I am not rolling my lips to stop from laughing at him. His tone is both equally scared and panicked. “She is not pleased with me.”
I don’t even know why, but the words come out without me knowing. “Okay.” I give in. “I’ll go.
Now, I need to get to bed or else there will be bags under my eyes tomorrow, and that isn’t the look I want to have when meeting your parents for the first time.”
He chuckles. “Addison, you could be wearing a potato bag and war paint on your face that is dripping down, and you’ll still be the most beautiful woman in the room.”
My heart stops. Completely. “Good night, Stefano,” I say before I hang up on him and put my phone on do not disturb. I’m not doing this with him. He has a girlfriend, and I’m not the one who is going to walk in there and just steal him away. I’m not that person. “We have a child together, so I’m going to have to be nice to him, but that’s it when it comes to Stefano and me,” I huff, putting my phone on my bedside table. But isn’t he sexy? my head screams out. Remember when he did that thing with his tongue? I put my hands on my ears. “I’m not listening to you anymore.” I turn over and close my eyes but that makes it even worse because now all I can see is me ripping his shirt off him while he places me on that hotel desk no one actually works on. His hands roam up my legs that are spread with him standing in the middle of them, our mouths devouring each other. My eyes spring open. “That didn’t help anything.” I turn onto my back before turning over on my side. “He’s in bed with his girlfriend right now,” I tell myself. “Yeah, so shut the fuck up and go to sleep.”
I don’t know how long it takes me to fall asleep, but the next day, I have to literally peel myself out of bed. I spend more time than I should picking an outfit, knowing that after work I’m going to see him. We get into the car with seconds to spare and only when I pull out of the parking lot does Avery start to ask me questions, “Momma, is Stefano really my dad?”
I glance in the rearview mirror, seeing her look out the window. “What do you mean?”
“He said he’s my dad,” she says, her feet going up and down, “so now I have a dad.”
“Well, you always had a dad,” I tell her, gripping the steering wheel.
“But now I can tell people that my dad ate dinner with me.” I pull into the parking lot and put the car in park. “So if Ms. Terry asks me what I did last night, I could say I had dinner with my dad.”
“Yes.” I look over at her. “You can say you saw your dad.” She nods her head at me as she unbuckles her seat belt before jumping down from her booster seat. I open my car door and then open hers. She jumps out of the car and holds my hand as we walk into the school. The minute we walk in, she takes off to her classroom door.
“My dad came to see me,” she announces as soon as she sees her teacher, who looks at her and then at me. The shock is all over her face, especially since I told them her father is uninvolved in her life. “He brought pizza, and he got me princess dresses.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun,” Ms. Terry says.
“Okay, come give Momma a kiss,” I say, squatting down, and she comes over to me.