The Pact(73)

“Stephanie,” Linden says softly and he grabs my hand, “are you all right?”

I nod and swallow the lump in my throat. “Yeah. Just remembering something.”

“Your brother?”

I nod again. I don’t really talk about this with Linden, or anyone, actually. I rarely think about it myself. It’s just easier that way. So sometimes, when I’m reminded of Nate and what he used to be like, what our lives were like, it really catches me off guard.

No matter how badly you push it away and ignore it, the pain of loss never really goes away.

We go inside the house and it immediately smells like home. I guess because it is, but it’s funny how no matter where you end up living in life, some places always remain more than just a roof over your head.

We take off our shoes and I grab Linden’s hand, leading him toward the kitchen. There we find my mother, looking absolutely perfect as usual. Her hair is up and curled off her face, she’s got an apron over a dress and patent leather pumps on her feet.

Have I mentioned that my mother is probably where I got my fascination with fashion from? Whether she was taking care of Nate or playing with me and my toy horses, she never had a hair out of place and always looked put together. Even now, and my parents are on the older side, so she’s pushing her sixties, she looks like she should be in the pages of Good Housekeeping.

“Hello dear,” she says brightly and then smiles wide at Linden, red lipstick against white teeth. “Hello Linden. How was the drive over? I hope traffic wasn’t too bad.”

“It was fine,” I say and she’s coming around the kitchen island and pulling out the stools.

“Here, sit,” she says and when we don’t move she claps her hands together and says, “or sit with your father in the lounge. He just opened a bottle of scotch. Linden, you’re Scottish, you must like scotch.”

“That I do,” Linden says, making his accent more exaggerated. It also has the secondary effect of turning me on.

My mother ushers us into the lounge off of the dining room, where my father is indeed sitting in his usual leather chair and sipping from a highball glass. He gestures to the loveseat beside him where we sit down.

It’s kind of weird being with Linden like this in front of my parents, or in front of anyone, really. In this new stage of our, well, pact, we’ve usually been alone. Now that we are on the sofa together, squished against each other, I’m not really sure what to do with my hands. I wanted Linden as a buffer and I want my parents to approve of him, but I don’t know exactly how we’re supposed to act with each other. We’d never talked about that.

But Linden immediately puts his arm around me and holds me close to him. So that settles that. There are no questions now.

My father raises a good eye brow as he looks at us. “Is this a new thing?” he asks.

Well, you haven’t really been around for a few years, I want to say. But I don’t. I’m not here to rock any boats.

I can feel Linden’s eyes on me, searching for the right answer. When I don’t say anything, he looks at my dad and says, “It’s a bit of a new thing. I woke up one day and decided life was too short to be just friends with a girl like your daughter.”

My dad doesn’t look too impressed so he shouts to my mom in the kitchen, “Hey honey, you never told me that Stephanie and the Scottish guy were an item!”

“They aren’t an item, they’re just friends,” my mom yells back.

“No,” my dad says. “They most definitely aren’t just friends.”

And as if to add to that, Linden puts his other hand on my leg and gives it a squeeze.

My mom’s heels click click click from outside the room and then she’s in the doorway, peering at us in mild shock.

“Well,” she says. “Stephanie, a bit of notice would have been good.”

“Why?” I say, hating how everyone is making such a big deal out of this.

She puts a hand on her hip. “It’s one thing for me to make dinner for you and your friend, it’s another thing to make it for you and your boyfriend.”

“He’s not –” I say and then stop myself. Linden’s face is right there and he’s staring at me, waiting for me to go on. But I can’t do it. I know he’s not my boyfriend but in some ways he’s way more than that term. I lick my lips and look back at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But Linden is happy eating anything, really.”

I hear him snicker slightly from beside me and I gently elbow him in the gut.

The rest of the evening goes rather smoothly. We sit with my dad and chat about current events and when Linden mentions his family, then some big discussion about politics and Britain and other shit gets started. I know Linden hates it, but it’s true that when people find out that his father was an ambassador that they look at him differently, with more respect. Which is crazy because I respect Linden more for what he does, not what his family is a part of. I respect him from wanting to be separate from that whole thing and be his own man.