“Is everything okay?” I couldn’t help the note of urgency in my voice as I returned my attention to my father, who was rounding the furniture toward me.
“What?” He spluttered, “Of course. Of course!” Reassurance thick in his tone as he placed a warm hand at the base of my neck. While I wasn’t entirely convinced, I felt some of the tension bleed from my body with those words.
“Oh, good. I just thought… With your call…” I said, trailing off as I noticed our mystery man coming over out of the corner of my eye. What was this guy’s deal? Couldn’t he see we were having a moment? Like, sir, read the literal room andget out.
“Yeeees!” My father boomed in his lazy southern drawl. He always seemed to talk at a decibel higher than necessary, his voice reverberating between the three of us. “I was just telling Derek here that he can stay with you till something comes available after peak swimming season ends.” He removed his hand and placed it on whiskey guy’s shoulder.
Cue the record scratch.
All sound around me seemed to come to a complete stop as my brain short-circuited. My father’s lips were clearly still moving, and I could pick out words like ‘new lawyer’ and ‘moving to town’, but nothing else was computing. I briefly wondered if I was having a stroke.
“Say what now?” I probably had the dumbest expression on my face right then, but I couldn’t help it. “S-Stay with… me?” I stammered, mentally putting my thick tongue as a checkmark in the stroke category. What was the acronym for stroke symptoms again? Was tongue one of them?
My father shrugged, pursing his lips in a way that suggested he didn’t understand why I would have a problem with putting up aliteralstranger. His mustache twitched in the familiar gesture of disapproval.
“What are you using that spare room for, anyway, bud?” He asked, eyeing me with the same green hues that stared back at me in the mirror every day.
Currently? Storage.
All the leftover products from when I’d splurged, thinking fun trinkets would sell in the cafe. Laundry that wasn’t necessarily worn enough to be hung up in the closet or put in the dresser in my room. Knick-knacks that I hadn’t quite found a place for in a house I’d owned for close to four years now.
Even calling it a ‘guest bedroom’ was a bit of a stretch if my guests couldn’t get to the bed without moving a few boxes here and there.
“I mean, nothing in particular, I suppose…” I conceded, cautiously glancing back at the man my father was expecting me to just… let move in.
He was probably an inch or two taller than my own five-eleven frame, annoyingly good-looking, with a golden complexion, and the kind of stubble that was too perfect to be accidental. He could pass for Barbie’s lawyer wearing a perfectly pressed off-white polo, navy shorts that were similarly pressed within an inch of their life, and boat shoes that screamed, ‘I own stock in yacht clubs’. The man looked like he’d taken a wrong turn on the way to the Hamptons only to land in small-town Texas.
From the way he kept glancing between my dad and I like we were secretly lizard-men, he seemed just as thrilled about crashing at my place as I was about hosting him. I was starting to get the distinct impression that this was sprung onto both of us.
“So what’s the problem then?” My father’s voice brought my focus back to the conversation and away from the walking Vineyard Vine’s advertisement.
“He’ll only stay with you till he can get a place of his own.” He assured me.
“You know I’d put him up, what with him being the new lawyer at the firm and all, but Ryan is already here for the summer.”
Ryan was the current law student interning at Shaffer Law Offices. Our family had a tradition of helping the budding lawyers with finances by having them stay in the house for the duration of their internship.
My dad had always insisted on it, saying he knew firsthand how hard it was to get through law school with nothing but caffeine and a prayer. “Broke and dumb, just trying to survive,” He’d say, shaking his head like he could still feel the weight of those years looming over him. Helping out students was his way of making sure someone else had it just a little easier than he did.
I opened my mouth in an attempt to call upon any God that could get me out of this situation when tall, dark, and inconvenient—Derek, was it?—spoke up.
“I really don’t want to impose, and besides, I’m sure I could find a place to rent outside of town and just commute. It really isn’t a problem.”
His voice was low and had a hint of a southern twang to it, like he wasn’t used to speaking that way, but thought he should. I could just picture him buying a cowboy hat, huge rodeo belt buckle, chaps, and spurs for a trip to Texas, then being disappointed when no one actually dressed that way.
I glanced toward my father in his casual day boots and wrangler jeans. Almost no one.
“Oh, nonsense. Nonsense!” My father protested, batting a hand through the air, “Colton has a free room. There is no sense in you spending your hard-earned money on something so far out of town.”
I would beg to differ, actually. There was plenty of sense. My dad had to realize how insane he sounded, right?
He looked at me squarely then, like he could hear my internal thoughts, saying more with his eyes than with his words.You will put this boy up, whether you like it or not.
I may be a lot of things, but I was not a man who defied his father after he gavethatlook. Mentally, I was still kicking and screaming like a toddler, but I was starting to accept that my fate had been sealed with one intimidatingly sharp glare. Preppy Mcpressed-Shorts was going to be my new roommate.
“Besides!” Pop continued, looking back to Mr. Boat Shoes—Derek, I needed to start using his name if I was going to be living with him—and plastered a big grin on his face. “This is only for a few months till tourism season comes to a close. Then you can look into finding a home of your own around here.” He reiterated as he squeezed Derek’s shoulder.
Derek gave a half smile to my dad. It screamed, ‘I can’t say no to you because you pay my soon-to-be-bills’. But, he couldsurprise me. My father was handing him the perfect opportunity to use some backbone and get us both out of this wildly fucked up situation.
