Page 43 of Dire Straights

I felt weak and silly, but having his arms around me felt kind of amazing, I couldn’t help but nuzzle into him more comfortably. As comfortable as we could be on a park bench, anyway. As if he could sense exactly what I wanted, he repositioned himself too, so he could hold me more tightly.

“It’s not that. I don’t care if he gets remarried. It’s not like I expected or wanted my parents back together or anything.”

“You were just… surprised?” He guessed, trying to understand.

“My parents fight all the time, basically anytime they have to see each other. They’re always complaining about the other one, or trying to make the other one look bad. I’m just so fucking sick of being in the middle of it. And now I either have to tell my mom and deal with her throwing a tantrum over it. And if I don’t tell her, and she finds out I was at this stupid fucking party, she’s going to blow up on me for not telling her.”

“Why would she get mad at you?” Ren asked softly.

His hand raised up from where it had been resting on my back to stroke down my hair. I wasn’t so touch-starved anymore, not like I’d been before I’d started fooling around with him all the time, but it still felt so good to be… Comforted? I wasn’t used to this feeling. Guys weren’t supposed to need this. But it seemed like it came second nature for him to give it to me.

“I don’t know. She won’t be mad at me, but I’ll have to hear about it. And the twins, too. It’s not fair that any of us have to be subject to her bitching all the time. And his, too. You haven’t been around long enough to notice, but he’s always bringing up shit about her. I’m just tired of hearing it.”

“I understand,” he murmured. “I’m sorry you have to. Maybe you should talk to them about it.”

“They wouldn’t listen to me.”

“They might. And even if they don’t respond positively right away, at least they’ll know how you feel. You hold your feelings in too much.”

“I do?”

He snorted a little. “Um, yeah, Maddy. You never face anything, you just run away from it when you start to feel too strongly.”

“That makes me sound like a fucking loser.”

“You’re not,” he denied quickly. “You’re, like, my favorite person ever. You just… I know it’s hard for you to feel emotional.”

“Am I really your favorite person ever?” I asked. It was dark, but when I raised my face to look at him, we were so close I could see his features perfectly.

“Yeah. I told you before. I really, really like you. A lot.” We stared at each other for a few moments, the silence broken by dry leaves rustling in the night breeze and crickets and owls in the distance. “But you… I…” He hesitated, shaking his head. “I didn’t say that just so you would say it back or anything, so… I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you have to-”

I wanted to tell him to shut up, but I knew silencing him with a kiss would be way more effective. I swear he had to have taken a class or something on it. The way he manipulated his tongue in my mouth was fucking heavenly. If you’d have ever told me that I would be awkwardly perched on a bench in the middle of the night, with a guy kissing my brains out to the point I could barely think, I would have called you psychotic. But truthfully, there was nowhere else I would have wanted to be in that moment, and definitely no one else I would have wanted to be with.

The shine of headlights pooled over us, flooding us with bright, unforgiving light. We yanked apart, Ren flinging himself to one end of the bench. The chill in the late October air hit allthe parts of my body that he’d been pressed against before, and I shivered.

It was my dad’s car, pulling right up to us. He braked and turned the ignition off. Had he seen us making out? I don’t know how he could have missed it, and we’d been directly in the spotlight, everything around us shrouded in darkness. My heart was pounding in my chest as he opened his door and stepped out.

I couldn’t really get a read on his expression, but I noted that his eyes darted between Ren and I for a moment, before settling on me.

“Maddox, we need to talk.” His tone was serious, but I wasn’t sure if it was aI just saw my son making out with a guytone, or if it was amy son just majorly offended my new fiancée and ruined my expensive partytone.

“I’ll, uh, just go wait over… Somewhere else,” Ren offered awkwardly, and my heart, already beating faster than a rabbit’s, clenched. Would my dad scream at me? Disown me? Or would he just be disappointed?

“No,” I said, hating how weak my voice sounded coming out of me. Please don’t leave me. “H-he can stay, right?” I asked, my hand clenching nervously on the worn wood of the bench. I would have given anything to be back in the moment when I’d had Ren’s fingers intertwined in mine, leading him through the dark woods to the little park.

My dad stared at me for a moment, like he didn’t know what he was looking at, before answering. “Sure. That’s fine. If he wants.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Ren echoed. I could practically hear his concern for me dripping from his words. We couldn’t do anything or touch each other, but just the pitch of his voice made me feel marginally better. Safer.

My dad took a deep breath before speaking. “Maddox, I had no idea you’d be so upset about the engagement. Missy told me I should let you know in advance, but I thought it’d be fun to surprise you. I… I really owe you an apology.”

Shocked, I didn’t know what to say. Maybe he hadn’t noticed us as much as I’d thought? We’d pulled away from each other right away, but it had to look strange that we’d been in an embrace like that. Maybe his eyes had been flickered down to his phone or the speedometer or the rearview mirror at the exact right moment, and he hadn’t seen anything.

“Um, no,” I managed to stammer out. My heart didn’t quite feel as though it were going to bust out of my rib cage now. He wasn’t screaming, and didn’t seem angry. “I shouldn’t have run out. I ruined your party. I’m sorry. I just freaked out.”

“Do you think it’s too soon for me to remarry?” He wondered, and I shook my head. “Is it Missy?”

“No,” I answered quickly. “I mean, she seems nice and everything. But… Don’t you think Mom’s going to get pissed?”

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