Page 125 of The Promise Of You

“Why would I ever see them?”

Dad shakes his head. “Never seen you with a girl, son. Now you’re bringing her to your Mom. Or you will. You’re gonna have to deal with her family.”

Shit. I hadn’t thought of that.

“It’ll go fine. You don’t need to love’em. Don’t even need to like’em. But they’re her folks. You might wanna have a little talk with yourself about how you’re gonna deal with that when it happens. Make sure the one gets hurt isn’t Chloe.” He squeezes my shoulder gently. “Helps to prepare.”

“Thanks, Dad. You’re right.” As always. As I give him a quick hug, my left side clenches, phantom pains shooting up like a memory.

“Funny how life goes, son,” Dad mumbles as we part.

It’s still light when I get home. I stare at the screen of my phone, the last message from Chloe sitting there like a wound. Sorry, can’t make it tonight.

I mean, what the actual fuck kind of message is that.

We need to talk, I answer back.

My phone rings right away. Chloe calling. I clench my teeth and pick up.

“Hey,” she says.

“Everything all right?” I ask her.

“Yeah. I uh… I had to work later than planned.”

“Someone sick?”

“No um… admin stuff.”

Admin stuff? That’s why she bailed out on dinner at my parents? That’s why she’s not in my bed after close to two weeks of sleeping together? She’s gonna have to give me more than that. “Yeah?” I bite.

“Yeah,” she breathes. “Um… Emma’s not gonna work out, and I already fired the other guys, so I’m catching up on bookkeeping and stuff.”

“Emma’s not working out?” That’s new to me.

“Yeah, we had a um… productive meeting, and turns out, she’s not a good fit for now. So uh… I can do the bookkeeping, and then I’ll just hire one of the usual suspects for reporting and stuff. It’s for the best.”

Bullshit. I can sense the tension in her voice. Something else is up. Is she getting ready to close down the restaurant? Does she feel she can’t tell me, because of the back rent that’s owed? I hate that this is between us. “My dad wasn’t happy about you not showing up,” I say with what I hope is a lighter tone.

“Ohmygod. I’ll… I’ll… should I send flowers?”

What the fuck? “No, Clo, I was kidding. I mean, yeah, we missed you. But my parents don’t care. I mean they care,” I fumble, “but if you can’t make it, you can’t make it. They understand.”

“Right. Good. I guess I should invite them over then, some time?”

Oh. That’s new. My parents don’t get invited that often. They do the inviting, and they’ve for sure never been formally invited to one of their son’s girlfriends. I don’t know how I feel about being the one to experiment with that.

“Yeah, you don’t have to.”

“Right,” she answers softly.

Shit. Did I hurt her feelings? “Want me to come over?”

“No,” she answers quickly. “I’m pulling an all-nighter.”

That’s not good. Not good at all. A restaurant manager shouldn’t spend the night doing bookkeeping.

Something’s up.

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