Page 27 of Sweatpants & Sweet Tea

“It was.” He nodded as he turned his head toward me. “What about you? Are you close to your parents?”

I never talked about my parents, especially my dad. Not in a real way. I told people we weren’t close and he lived overseas, but never in more detail than that.

“Um, no…I wasn’t ever close to my dad. He drank a lot, and I just sort of tried to stay out of his way." I smiled, feeling vulnerable for my admission.

Beside me, I could feel Harlan’s energy shift to protective. It was palpable. “That’s…shitty. What about your mom?”

“She was mainly concerned with keeping my dad happy. She’s gone now. She passed away when I was twenty.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What about your mom?” I asked, trying to turn the conversation away from my family.

“She died when I was three.”

Damn.I wouldn’t have asked if I had known that.

“I don’t really remember her, though.” He shook his head. “It’s so weird I never talk about them.”

“I don’t talk about my parents, either.”

“Why not?” He stepped over a log and held out his hand to me.

I shrugged as I placed my palm in his, as he helped me over. “I think most people that ask don’t actually care about the answer.”

“I do,” he rasped as I stepped down in front of him.

His sincerity washed over me like a gentle breeze. Even though this was, objectively, a very depressing conversation, it didn’t feel that way to me. It felt intimate and real.

I took in a shaky breath. “What about you? Why don’t you talk about them?”

He sighed as we continued walking. “I guess no one ever asks me, because everyone in town knows.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Small town.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“We moved a lot. From the time I was in kindergarten until I graduated high school when I was sixteen, I went to fourteen different schools.”

“Holy shit. Fourteen?”

“Yep, fourteen,” I confirmed as we reached a cluster of trees.

Harlan led the way through the mini-forest to a clearing with a large pond surrounded by weeping willows. Fireflies flitted above the water, giving the entire atmosphere an even more surreal feeling than it already had.

“Wow. This doesn’t even look real. It’s…magical.” I was now convinced this had to be a dream.

“Do you want to go out?” Harlan asked as he walked down to a tiny dock with a rowboat tied to it.

“Sure.”

Harlan held my hand, steadying me as I stepped down into the boat. I felt like Julia Roberts in the elevator with Richard Gere inPretty Womanbefore they went to the Opera in San Francisco. I wanted to thank Harlan because I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but it was already the most memorable, romantic night of my life. I lowered myself onto a seat as he untied the rope that tethered the vessel to the dock. He sat directly in front of me and began rowing the boat into the center of the pond.

Lightning bugs flitted through the air, illuminating the drooping branches of the trees. The scenery was breathtaking in itself, but all the oxygen was stolen from my lungs when I glanced up, and my eyes met his. The intensity in his stare vibrated through my entire body. It washed over me like a physical touch.

Unable to maintain eye contact, I turned my head and tried to lighten the mood that was thick with sexual tension. “This is veryLittle Mermaid.”

“The cartoon?” Harlan questioned.

---