Relentless(34)
“Hey, I have someone I want you to meet,” Adam says, peering over his shoulder and beckoning me to his side. “Claire, this is Beatrice and Nick. They’re my favorite cousins because they always let me win at Monopoly.”
“We don’t let you win. You cheat!” Beatrice squeals as she punches him in the arm.
Adam tickles her and all is forgiven. “Hey, don’t be rude. Say hi to Claire.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” Nick asks.
“She’s all mine so don’t get any ideas.”
A man in a T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy hat comes down the front steps and I know this is Adam’s father. He’s very handsome for an older man, but it’s the confident smile on his face that gives him away. However, he’s not smiling at Adam. He’s smiling at me.
“Hello there, Claire. I’m Jim Parker,” he says as he approaches me. I hold out my hand and he pulls me into a tight hug. He holds on a bit longer than I expect. When he finally lets go, he looks me up and down. “No informal handshakes here. Adam told us all about you. Any girl he’s willing to subject to this crowd is as good as family, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Hello, Mr. Parker. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He’s charming and I’m beginning to think this weekend isn’t going to be so bad, until I see the look on Adam’s face. His father throws him a curt nod then makes his way back to the house.
“What was that?” I whisper as Adam retrieves the small suitcase packed with our things from the cab of the truck.
He shakes his head as he slams the truck door, visibly irritated. “Trust me, you don’t want to know what that was.”
I follow him inside where we’re bombarded with greetings from at least thirty of his family members, but none of them are his mother.
“My mom’s the CFO of Parker Construction. She’s even more of a workaholic than my dad,” Adam whispers in my ear when I ask where she is. “He’s only here early because he got in yesterday to discuss a new project with Uncle Harvey. You’ll meet her in the morning.”
Finally, after two hours of hearing stories about Adam’s surfing achievements, which seems to make him very uncomfortable, we wrestle our way through the commotion and make it upstairs to the room we’ll be staying in. As soon as he flips the light switch in the room, it’s obvious we’ll be staying in the bedroom of a teenage girl. Pictures of her and her friends are plastered all over the mirror and the walls. The bright-pink and black color of the striped wallpaper is echoed in the bedding. I breathe a sigh of relief that we’ll at least have a full-sized bed to share.
“Whose room is this?” I ask as I reach for the zipper on the suitcase on the bed.
“My cousin Jamie. She’s a freshman at UNC. She won’t be here until tomorrow.” He pulls my hand off the suitcase and turns me so I’m facing him. “Listen. There’s a lot of bad shit between my dad and me, but that’s between us. I can tell he likes you so don’t let my issues with him cloud your judgment. Okay?”
“Adam, I think I’m perfectly capable of making up my own mind about your father. I mean, he seems nice enough, but I care about you. And whatever issues you have with your dad may be your business, but I want you to know that I’ll always be on your side. So if you want me to be friendly with your dad, I will. But if you want me to tell him to stick his cowboy hat up his ass, I’ll do that too.”
“God, I fucking love you.” He gives me a quick kiss before he grabs my hand. “Come on. You can unpack later. You wore your bikini under your clothes like I asked, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, why?”
“We’re going for a night swim in the creek.”
Adam and I make our way out to the creek that runs along the west end of the property. Beatrice and Nick stay behind because they’re too young, but we’re joined by three of Adam’s older cousins. Julia and Locke are twenty-three and fraternal twins who look nothing alike. Julia is the only one in the family with red hair and fair skin. Everyone else has the same sandy-brown hair and skin that looks like it’s been crisped by long hours spent working on the ranch or surfing in the Carolina sunshine.
Julia and Locke are extremely friendly, but River is my favorite of the three. River is twenty-two, just a few months older than Adam, and he’s the shyest of the bunch. Somehow, this puts me at ease. Everyone else exudes the same gregarious confidence as Adam. I find it comforting to know that not everyone in the Parker family is inhumanly beautiful and charismatic.