They paused, all of them eying one another before slapping their cards down on the table. Ronnie, seeing that she’d been holding an eight, surmised that they’d all lost to Jonah. Again.
“You’re all liars!” he said. His winnings, she noticed, were twice as much as anyone else’s, and as she watched her brother drag the change pile toward him, she observed that at least to this point, the evening had gone pretty well. She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d brought Will over, since it was the first time she’d ever brought a boy to meet her father. Would he try to give them space by hiding out in the kitchen? Would he try to become buddies with Will? Would he do or say something that embarrassed her? On the drive to her house, she’d already begun thinking of escape plans she could use as soon as they finished dinner.
As soon as they stepped inside, however, she had a good feeling. For starters, the house was picked up, Jonah was obviously under orders not to cling to their sides or question Will like a prosecutor, and her dad met Will with a simple handshake and an easygoing, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Will was on his best behavior, of course, answering questions with “Yes, sir” and “No, sir,” which struck her as endearing in a southern kind of way. The dinner conversation was easy; her dad asked some questions about the work Will did at the garage and at the aquarium, and Jonah went so far as to put his napkin in his lap. Best of all, her father didn’t say anything embarrassing, and though he brought up the fact that he used to teach at Juilliard, he didn’t volunteer that he’d been her teacher or that she’d once played at Carnegie Hall or that they’d written songs together, nor had he mentioned the fact that until a few days ago, he and Ronnie had been completely estranged. When Jonah asked for cookies after he’d finished, both Ronnie and her dad burst out laughing, making Will wonder what was so funny. Together, the four of them pitched in to clean up the table, and when Jonah suggested that they play liar’s poker, Will had agreed enthusiastically.
As for Will, he was just the kind of guy her mom wanted Ronnie to date: polite, respectful, intelligent, and best of all, sans tattoos… It might have been nice to have her mom there, if only to assure her that her daughter hadn’t gone completely off the deep end. On the other hand, her mom probably would have been so excited about the whole thing that she would have either tried to adopt Will on the spot or gushed to Ronnie a million times after he was gone about what a nice young man he was, which only would have made Ronnie want to end the whole thing before her mom got too carried away. Her dad would do none of those things—he seemed to trust Ronnie’s judgment and was content to let her make her own decisions without inserting his own opinions.
Which was really weird, considering he was only just starting to get to know her again, and also kind of sad at the same time, because she was beginning to think she’d made a big mistake by avoiding him for the past three years. It might have been nice to talk to him when her mom was driving her crazy.
All in all, she was glad she’d invited Will over. It certainly was easier for him to meet her dad than it had been for Ronnie to meet Susan. The woman scared the living daylights out of her. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration, but she was definitely intimidated. The woman had made it abundantly clear that she either didn’t like Ronnie or didn’t like the fact that her son liked Ronnie.
Normally, she wouldn’t have cared what someone’s parent thought of her, and she wouldn’t have given a second thought to the way she’d been dressed. She was who she was, after all… This was the first time in what seemed like forever that she’d felt she didn’t measure up, and it had bothered her far more than she’d thought it would.
As darkness fell and the game of liar’s poker began to wind down, she sensed Will watching her. She returned his gaze with a smile.
“I’m almost out,” he announced, fingering his pile of change.
“I know. I am, too.”
He glanced toward the window. “Do you think it would be okay if we went for a walk?”
This time, she knew with certainty that he was asking because he wanted to spend some time alone with her—because he cared about her, even if he was unsure whether she felt the same way.
She met his eyes directly. “I’d love to go for a walk.”
20
Will
The beach stretched for miles, separated from Wilmington by the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway. It had changed, of course, since Will was a kid—growing more congested in the summers, small bungalows like the one where Ronnie was living replaced by imposing oceanfront mansions—but he still loved the ocean at night. When he was young, he used to ride his bike over to the beach, in the hope of seeing something interesting, and he was almost never disappointed. He’d seen large sharks washed up on the beach, sand castles so intricate they could have won any national competition, and once he’d even spotted a whale, not fifty yards from shore, rolling in the water just beyond the surf.