“Getting this thing nice and hot for ya,” Cole said. “Do you have any grill spray?”
“Uh... no. Is that a requirement?”
“Not required; the stuff might stick a little more. Or maybe not. The hot dogs won’t.”
I interlaced my fingers and stretched my arms out straight. “All right, all right,” I said. “Stand back, everyone. I am about to impress you all with my grill skills.”
“Master griller and a poet,” Cole said, nudging Declan. “Let’s watch and learn.”
I took a deep breath. I could do this—all that was really required was put the burgers and the dogs on the grill, let them cook on one side, flip them over, let them finish on the other, and voila! Right? Now, though, with Cole and Declan right there watching, I felt a little wave of nervousness, like I was going to somehow mess this up.
I took the plastic wrap off the burgers and placed them down on the grill, the meat sizzling.
“Can I have a hamburger and a hot dog?” Declan asked.
Cole looked at him. “You think you can eat that much?”
“I can.”
“I better do a good job on these, then,” I said. I was less concerned about the hot dogs; they were already cooked through, it was just a matter of making sure they didn’t get too charred.
“Surprise!”
I froze, spatula poised above the grill. It was my mother, and behind her, was Bill.
“I never heard back from you, so we just decided to take the chance and drive up here and see if you were home! Which you are, apparently.”
“I kind of had plans,” I said tightly. I glanced over at Cole, who was looking at them curiously. “And I don’t even know where my phone is.”
“That’s silly of you. What if there was some sort of emergency and someone needed to get in touch with you? You should have your phone on you.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Okay,” I said. “So, you’re here. Yeah. Surprise.”
“So nice to see you again,” my mother said, going over to Cole. “And you too,” she said, looking at Declan. “This is my husband, Bill.”
“Nice to meet you,” Bill said, shaking Cole’s hand. He smiled at Declan. “And how old are you?”
I tried to tune him out. It felt like my shoulders were up to my ears, and I took a deep breath. Was this really fucking happening? Had she really just driven all the way up here with him, without even talking to me first? What if I hadn’t been here? What if I had gone away for the weekend or something? I knew the answer to that already, though—if I hadn’t been home when she got up here, she would’ve looked online and found the fanciest restaurant in the area and had Bill take her out there.
“What are you making?” my mother asked. “I didn’t know you knew how to grill.”
“I do know how to cook, Mom,” I said.
She reached over and squeezed my shoulders. “You look tense,” she said. “You need a massage. There’s probably not a good spa around here, is there?”
&n
bsp; “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure a massage would help, anyway.”
Being around Bill made me simultaneously feel sick and feel overwhelmingly enraged. He didn’t seem so powerful now, not like he did when I was a teenager. As he sat there, sipping a beer, talking with Cole about fishing, he seemed completely innocuous. Like a total gentleman, in fact, not at all the sort of person you would expect to try and make a pass at his stepdaughter. But I knew if he kept drinking, he’d get more belligerent; at first it would seem funny, like he was the life of the party, but then it would start to get uncomfortable.
What would he do, I wondered, if I stood up and slapped the beer out of his hand, told him that maybe he had forgotten all about that night when I was 15, but I sure as hell had not?
He’d probably deny it.
And maybe that was what kept me in my seat, refusing to meet his gaze, answering his queries with one-word responses. It had happened so long ago, and though I was certain that it did indeed take place, the passage of time had rendered some of the details fuzzy in my mind. Had he crawled under the sheets, or had he remained on top of them? Had he slid his hand under my shirt as I lay there, curled up on my bed? Those things I couldn’t quite remember, but what had been cemented in my mind was the way his hard one had pressed into my back, his beer breath on my neck, wafting over me, his hands, fingertips like spider legs, creeping up my flanks.
But now, so much time had gone by, what would be the point of me accusing him? Nothing had happened, after all. He hadn’t gotten any further than those hands of his brushing my sternum than I’d flailed away from him, kicking back with my heels, launching him off the side of the bed. He laughed, but then he’d stopped laughing when I kicked out again and caught him on the side of the face. For some reason, I’d been completely unafraid that he would hurt me, and if he had tried, I probably would have clawed his eyes out.