Shock - Marie Johnston Page 0,27
noise turns into a chuckle. She relaxes and cracks the window. “I’m going to pay for it, so you’d better make sure I enjoy it.”
That’s a challenge I want to rise to in the worst and most wicked way possible. But that’s not what she means, so I kick my mind out of the gutter and cruise town.
We pass a large warehouse and she says exactly what I’m thinking. “Remember the guy that fell off the roof?”
“That was a bad call.” I wasn’t sure we’d get him to the hospital in time for him to be life-flighted to a trauma center. Both of us worked our asses off to keep him with us.
“Did you see the last note his wife sent?”
“That he took his first steps?” The doctors didn’t think he’d walk again.
“Yeah.” She rests her head against the seat. “I rush to please my parents and get all worked up when I really just need to remember the cookies we get every month because a family still has their husband and dad.”
“Five minutes late then?”
Her grin is sly. “Make it ten.”
We stroll into the country club like we just walked off the beach, well vacationed and reluctant to enter the hectic fray of everyday life.
We’re five minutes late on the dot and Lia’s phone has been blowing up for the last twenty. I took her mind off our tardiness by showing her a few of the places I ran around when I was growing up.
The park on my end of town where I coached boys’ soccer during high school. The pool I used to lifeguard at. My old elementary school. I didn’t think she’d be so interested, but for the last half hour, she’s been laughing at stories of me running and getting dunked at the pool by the first team of seven-year-olds I ever coached. She only paused once to send her mother a text reassuring her that we were on our way.
As we stroll into the country club dining room, I have no problem picking out Lia’s parents in the crowd: the mutinous couple with flat lines for mouths and eyes pinched with worry and aggression.
Lia looks more like her mom, and if she’d stayed in the world of politics, she might’ve developed the same fan of lines around her eyes from either scowling when things didn’t go her way, or forcing a smile on those she thought could advance her career. The demeanor of the woman, even from across the room, is nothing like her daughter’s, but I have no trouble picturing a younger Lia mimicking her mother in that world. They’re doubles, but only one version is correct, and it isn’t rubbing-elbows Lia.
Her dad, with his thinning hair trimmed short and wire-framed glasses, wears such a frown I wonder if he ever smiles. He definitely doesn’t when he spots us entering the restaurant. His brow drops further and he looks like he’s ready to give Lia a good scolding for worrying her mother.
She stiffens against my side. I squeeze tighter for a second, still marveling at how she fits next to me, and murmur, “Relax,” moving my lips as little as possible.
She does, but it’s so infinitesimal I can only tell because she’s tucked into my side.
We near the table. Her dad rises but her mom continues to sit, her expression getting frostier by the second.
“Mom, Dad, sorry we’re late.” She stops short of the table. Neither parent moves to greet her with a hug or a kiss. I have a feeling that’s standard practice.
My mom had the cards stacked against her but she was, and still is, affectionate.
“Yes,” Mr. Wescott rumbles. “Why were you late?”
I have no doubt Lia’s going to make up some reason on the fly and it won’t make sense and shit will get awkward. So I laugh and smooth down the tie I loosened on the way inside. “Oh, you know how it is, Your Honor. State secrets.”
Mr. Wescott opens his mouth to say something, but he must decide he doesn’t really have anything to add. He snaps his mouth shut and sits, smoothing his own impeccable tie. I busy myself with helping Lia get settled.
“So,” Lia says once she’s in her chair and I’m seated. It’s a shame to cover up that body with the table, but fake dating or not, I’m not going to ogle a man’s daughter in front of him. “This is Ford.”
I’m sure introductions would’ve been much more pretentious had we been on time, and