Cortland and my father exchange glances and share a light chuckle together like they’re a couple of old pals bonding.
“Your father said as a child you were addicted to chocolate ice cream. Said you wouldn’t do anything unless they bribed you with it,” my khaki-outfitted suitor says.
“Oh. Yes. That’s right,” I exhale my words along with a handful of relief. “As a small child, yes.”
Dad sits up and dabs his napkin across his mouth. “You two have been courting now for, what, a couple of months?”
“Seven weeks,” Cortland says.
My mothers all grin and tilt their heads like he’s some romantic dreamboat.
“I think it’s time you two spent a little one on one time together,” Dad says. “Why don’t Jane and I run you down to the local ice cream shop. We’ll keep our distance, but this will at least give you two a bit more time to talk.”
Wonderful.
“That would be great, Mr. Miller,” Cortland says. “I’d love that. Bellamy?”
“Can’t say no to that.” I force another smile and drop my fork against my plate. This night needs to end. If I could blink and be in my bed alone right now, that’d be amazing.
Aside from seeing him at Bible study each Wednesday, Cortland comes over on Saturdays. He usually dotes on me for a little while and then ends up helping my father with things around the house. After that we finish the evening with a board game in the family room.
He hasn’t had an opportunity to touch me or kiss me or pin me in weeks, and he wears the expression of a sexually frustrated man aching for a chance to take me to bed and have his way with me once and for all.
That is, after all, his ultimate goal.
That also explains his territory switch at work. He wants to spend more time here. He wants to fast-track the courtship.
“Shall we head out?” My father’s plate is empty, and he motions for my mother to grab the keys to the car. “Cortland and Bellamy?”
Waverly, Kath, and Summer rise up, clearing dishes and starting dinner clean up. I’d give anything to be washing dishes right now.
***
The backseat of the car is dark, and Cortland’s hand twitches on his knee. His stare is penetrating, and I’d give anything for my father to turn around for a second and see the way he looks at me when he doesn’t think anyone will notice.
My father pulls up to the ice cream emporium and shifts his Buick into park. “All right. I’ll let you two skip ahead. It’ll be like we’re not even here.”
Yeah.
Right.
He’ll be watching our every move like some crazy, stalker dad.
Cortland walks me straight up to the cash register where he orders a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a dish for me and a scoop of mint chocolate chip for himself. He doesn’t even give me a chance to browse the fifty other available flavors, and I hate that he ordered for me.
He declines waffle bowls, which are only a fifty-cent upcharge. I’m not sure if he’s cheap, or he doesn’t think I need the extra calories. Either way, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to eat ice cream, and I don’t want to be with him.
“Here you are,” he hands me a pink spoon and a small dish of chocolate ice cream. We find a spot in the corner, a little table for two with two connected swivel chairs. The hard plastic is just as uncomfortable as the turmoil boiling beneath my faux-façade. “Chocolate. Your favorite.”
Chocolate was my favorite when I was, like, five.
“Thank you.”
“This was kind of your father,” he says, using his skilled tongue to lick green ice cream from his spoon. His tongue used to be pure magic. Now it’s a dangerous weapon. “Maybe this’ll open up more opportunities for us to hang out solo? Like really solo.”
I shake my head. “Never. He won’t allow that.”
“Psh.” Cortland scoffs, as if to say, “I’ve got this. I can handle Mark Miller.”
“You don’t know my father very well. He’s crazy protective of his daughters’ virtues and the family reputation.”
I realize how utterly ridiculous I sound considering months ago I had no problem hopping in the backseat of a car with a random guy from church and doing everything but…
And the only reason I never had sex with Cortland was because neither of us had condoms, and I’m not on the pill, and we weren’t about to risk being seen trying to obtain such things.
I stare at deceptively handsome Cortland and can’t help but wonder if he’d be relentlessly pursuing me if I’d given it up already.
He probably wants to screw me just as bad as I want freedom.
Only one of us will win.