Above us, someone opens the door to the windblown observation deck, sending a blast of cold air between our bodies. This time, the goose bumps aren’t from passion.
So many times, I’ve tried to talk to him about his parents. I can understand him defending Marijke. For all her flaws, she loves her son and had to make compromises to provide for him. I can’t begin to comprehend when it’s Tor, his father in name only.
But we’re supposed to communicate when it’s easyandwhen it’s hard. And today, we’re practicing letting go of the old rules, and making new ones. Ones about us, and our love.
I wrap both hands in his faded, fraying, beloved sweatshirt. “Oh, Tobe. I was hoping we’d spend our anniversary together, alone. Can we tell them we’re busy that night? See your dad Wednesday, maybe?”
His expression is heartbreakingly certain. “You know Dad—his social calendar’s always full. We’ll still have time for the movie. Mom’s so excited. Dad says he’s got a surprise that will bring us together.”
Tobin’s dad loves having secrets bubbling on the back burner—one to give him an excuse to come home, and another to “force” him to leave. Tor is clever, never triggering a full-fledged fight, never hanging around long enough for Marijke and Tobin to figure him out.
“Okay, but this isyour dad. You know, Tor Renner, whose all-time parenting high score was three continuous months with you and your mom before taking off again? Who’s stopped mentioning the eight grand he owes us? It wouldn’t be bad to shake up that relationship a little.”Break the rules with me,I silently beg.Break the rulesforme. For us.
“Come on, Diz. We all need second chances. I’ll turn it down if you say no, but… I want to go.”
Curse those big blue puppy-dog eyes that grab my heart and pull.
This is exactly what Tobin and I don’t need. Tor will execute his familiar routine: parachute in, hug and kiss for a day or six, flit away with everything his light fingers can lift. Marijke’s high hopes will tumble and smash. Caught in the middle, Tobin will make promises to keep the peace, and I’ll get roped into fulfilling them.
But I can either break the rules or say yes to Tobin. And I’ve made such a big goddamn deal about saying yes. I have to give him this, even though I can’t count how many second chances his dad has doused in gasoline and lit on fire.
“Okay. We’ll go. I’ll eat cookies and play nice. But you have to promise not to give your dad money for whatever pyramid scheme ‘surprise’ he springs on you.”
“I promise. And it’ll be a good surprise.”
I’m imagining a lot of things Tor Renner would call a “good surprise,” and they’re less “I bought you a puppy!” and more “I forged your signature on my mortgage!” Whatever Tor’s brewing up in his good old Cauldron of Disappointment, money will only be the first way we’ll end up paying.
“Hey.” Tobin lifts my chin with one rough, strong finger. “It’ll be fine. And guess what, we finished a scenario! Just in time, too,” he says, as the prerecorded docking announcement instructs people to return to their vehicles.
“Yay, us. We did it,” I say, because I’ve said all the words I can about our anniversary, and his dad, and the patterns we can’t seem to break. Saying them again won’t make him hear me.
This stairwell feels like the bottom of a crevasse all of a sudden.
“Come on.” Tobin grabs my hand. “We’ll have the deck to ourselves. You can ask permission to kiss me.”
“What if I don’t?”
“You will,” he says.
And he’s right. When I remember this afternoon, I want memories of how we triumphed over the damn scenarios. I want golden images of us entwined in each other, not this donut-shaped sense of dread in my stomach.
So I ask him to kiss me. And then I pretend everything’s all better.
Chapter Twenty-one
The more of yourself you put into improv, the more you get out of it. Commit to the scenario. Nothing destroys unity faster than one person deliberately holding back.
—The Second Chances Handbook
“You didn’t have to wear a tie.” I fiddle with Tobin’s double Windsor knot as we hover on his mom’s walkway. “Seems like overkill for the backyard.”
“Mom wants it to be perfect.” He grimaces, visibly trying to control his fidgeting.
Tobin will wear a stifling lifejacket for hours. He refuses to complain when a client’s overstuffed backpack blisters the tender skin of his shoulders. But ties are where he draws the line for everybody but his mom. Under my fingers, his muscles tense with the confinement of silk around his collar.
Silk, at an afternoon cookout. I mean, it’s not agoodsign about his level of investment.
I ease the knot looser, wanting to spare him; his impatient hands come up and tighten it again.
