Page 208 of Untouchable

“I’m not trying to say anything,” Parker says. He can feel himself getting flustered, which isn’t good. If he’s flustered, he’ll say something he regrets, will hand his mother ammo he wishes she didn’t have. “I just want to spend Christmas with my boyfriend.”

"And what's so wrong with someone your age?" she demands. She drops her voice for the next bombshell. "Parker, is this about money? If you need help, you only need to ask—"

“Mom, please—” Parker says, loud enough that the people next to them glance over. He lowers his voice and leans forward, finally meeting her eye. “It’s not—why do you even—look, we get along well, okay, and—”

He stops. He doesn’t want to get sucked into defending why he cares about Harp to her.

The words of Harp’s text come back to him.

You can do this. You’re an adult. Let her be mad. She doesn’t control your life. I’ve got your back, whatever happens.

He sits up straight and squares his shoulders, looking her right in the eye.

“Look, Mom, I’m spending the holiday with him, and I would appreciate if you respected my decision. Thank you for coming all the way up here to see me. I’m looking forward to catching up with you, but I’m done with this discussion.”

The look on her face makes him shiver.

"Parker, what is going on? I don't hear the first thing from you since Thanksgiving, then you're in a car accident and begging for help, and now suddenly everything is fine but you, what, can't speak to me and your father anymore? Who is that man, Parker?"

“I wasn’t begging—” he says. He desperately wishes he’d never even told them about his car and the accident. “And—I’m taking care of stuff with my car, okay? I—I set up a payment plan. It’s getting fixed. This isn’t—this isn’t anything to do with Harp. I’ve been busy, and I’ve been concentrating on other things—”

Let her be mad.

“And, honestly, Mom? I had a terrible time at Thanksgiving. Uncle Rick was being an asshole to me, and so were Celia and Vanessa. You’re right, I do love Christmas. Which is exactly why I want to spend it with… someone who treats me well. And that’s Harp.”

He grabs his water glass and only realizes his hands are shaking badly when he spills water on his lap.

"I'm sorry to hear you felt you were treated so poorly at Thanksgiving. I really wish you would've brought it up with us then rather than just cancelling your Christmas with us. The girls want you there, too, Parker. And what about your nieces? We always do Christmas together. It just doesn't make any sense. Is he putting you up to this?"

The words sound so close to sincere that Parker feels himself losing his nerve. Maybe he hadn’t been right. Maybe it was unfair of him to simply disappear, withholding his presence in some melodramatic gesture of—he didn’t even know what.

He shakes his head as though trying to dodge a gnat, attempting to clear his head.

“It’s not—look, he invited me and I said yes and—and I’m going, okay? That’s just—it’s not about you guys it’s about—I want to be with him—”

He’s all tangled up in his thoughts, backtracking, saying the opposite of what he means, contradicting himself, and he knows that if he keeps this up, he’s only making himself more and more vulnerable to her.

"Well you know I only want to see you happy."

Parker eyes her suspiciously. She sounds like she’s backing down, but it’s hard to trust that.

“Well, thank you,” he says. “I’m really looking forward to spending time with him.”

"What do you know about him? What does he do? How did you meet—Oh, that's right, he's a client? A current client?"

The questions seem innocent enough, and he wonders if somehow, inexplicably, he’s managed to placate her.

“He does, like… freelance writing and stuff for a job. But he does a lot of… I dunno, he has a bunch of animals and does woodworking and stuff like that. He’s… good at pretty much everything. He’s… he’s a really good cook, and he’s super smart, and he lives up on Storm Mountain in this beautiful cabin in the middle of nowhere. It’s gorgeous, and there’s no one around for miles, and the first time I went up there I got totally lost, but now it’s my favorite place ever.”

He feels better, more centered—it’s rare that his family lets him chatter on this long uninterrupted, and he takes it as a sign that maybe she’s taking his comments about Thanksgiving seriously. Maybe she really does want to learn about Harp.

"And does he have any children? Has he ever been married?"

“Er, no, he doesn’t have kids and—I mean, does it matter?”

"Well, if you're spending the holidays with him instead of your own family, you're presumably pretty serious about this."

Parker bites his lip, considering this. The truth was, for better or for worse, he was serious—and he was fairly sure now, especially after their weekend at The Stewart, that the feeling was completely mutual. As soon as he opens his mouth, though, the food arrives, and so Parker waits awkwardly until they’ve been served.

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