Then I step outside and start lugging grocery bags out of my trunk. When I take a step toward the front door, Wobble steps out from nowhere, making me jump again. I swear, the kid is the black ghost of death. “Hey,” he says.
I wonder if he’s going to make a complaint about something I did wrong again, but he just reaches into the back of the VW, grabs a couple bags, and heads toward the front door. Then, he actually holds the screen door open for me.
I stare after him, as Dax comes down the stairs and plants a kiss on my forehead. He’s wearing another tight t-shirt and loose cargo shorts. “You look hot,” he says.
I stop gaping after Vincent and look down at my short, flowered sundress and flip flops. It’s pleasantly middle-ground between dressed-up and laid-back, since I figure that’s where I need to tread today.
“Thanks. Um. Did you talk to Vincent and tell him to play nice or something?” I ask him, twirling my hair up into a loose knot at the base of my neck.
He shrugs innocently. “Why, is he?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. In a beat, he’s out the door, grabbing the rest of the groceries.
I’m shocked that there really isn’t much to do. The inside of the house is relatively clean, and all the windows are open, letting a nice breeze blow through. There are coolers set out with enough Yuengling to drown a small elephant and even a Quoits pit set up. All I have to do is get the sides ready, and now that I’m slightly more familiar with the kitchen, it isn’t so hard. Even so, by the time people start to arrive, my stomach is tied up in knots.
Dax introduces me to a bunch of family members, and though I can’t remember all the names, they’re all friendly. Some of his formerly scary high school friends show up, too; Abel, a large, red-headed guy with a ridiculously loud laugh, and Win, a skinny guy with long dreadlocks.
I recognize them because though they’ve filled out, they still have the same tattoos and piercings and fuck-you look on their faces.
Their girlfriends are wearing too much makeup and too little clothing, and one of the girls has her purple hair up to bare a long tattoo of vines that starts at the back of her neck and snakes over her shoulder, down over to her bare midriff, all the way down her leg, stopping at her toe.
I approach them, swallowing, and they give me more than a once-over. They look me over three, four times, obviously wondering what the hell Dax sees in me. Finally, Abel extends his hand. “Hey,” he says gruffly. Then he punches Dax. “So this is your little lady, huh?”
I smile stiffly, wondering why that makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old.
“Where’d you find her?” Win asks, which is the million-dollar question.
Dax laughs and looks at me. “I won her in a lucky round of poker,” he deadpans, and then gives his friend a shove. “I told you. She went to high school with us, dumbass.”
They all regard me, eyes narrowed, as if I’m an alien from the planet Nerd. It’s obvious they never saw me at Friesville High, especially since I was one to hang out in classrooms, instead of detention and behind the dumpsters.
Dax mimes smoking a joint and mumbles, “Don’t mind them. They were all kind of wasted those four years.”
“Hell yeah,” Abel says, laughing his big, belly-shaking laugh. Dax brings them beers and I sit down with them at a table. Abel leans over to me and says, “What the hell are you feeding that boy? I’ve never seen him so whipped.”
I grin. He’s actually nice. They both are, because I’m instantly at ease. I end up having a great conversation with this group of people that I once thought would tear my arms off if I so much as looked at them the wrong way.
Abel keeps making jokes about Dax and how he could probably fix a blown motor with a button and a little bit of dental floss. Win and his girlfriend, the one with the long tattoo, ping Doritos at unsuspecting people at other tables. They’re loud and raucous and irreverent and . . . I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in all my life.
And then my parents show up.
My mother always has this thing about being fashionably late, so I expected her to be forty-five minutes behind. But Dax’s family and friends don’t give a shit about social etiquette, so my parents end up being the last ones to arrive. When the Jeep pulls up, the party is in full swing. People are starting to do shots and there’s the definite scent of weed wafting from Vincent’s bedroom window. I see my father and mother approaching up the driveway, my mom wearing pearls and clutching her Tupperware dish of potato salad, my dad in his loafers, both of them looking like they’d rather be anywhere else, and I have the urge to slink away.
I can’t do this.