My Boyfriend's Dad Page 10

  His hands slid along my arms so he could lace our fingers together, our bodies coated in the illumination of the moon.

  I felt him shaking. I felt his heart beating rapidly against my back. My jaw quivered as tears rose to my eyes. I felt so close to him, so in love with him in that moment. He was everything I remembered him to be, and it brought me so much joy to know we hadn’t lost that just yet.

  That we hadn’t lost the joy and the passion that used to sizzle between us.

  He rolled off my back and fell beside me as juices dripped from my legs into the dirt. He pulled me into him, stroking my hair as he kissed the top of my head. I always felt beautiful when he did that, cherished in a way I’d never felt in my life. He was the only man who had ever done that to me, who had ever kissed my head in the way a proud person would. I rolled over and nestled into him, my eyes fluttering closed as our naked bodies lay there in the grass by the smoldering fire.

  And we fell asleep that first night underneath the stars that clapped with fervor at our performance.

  Adam

  “Thanks for coming fishing with me. I know you can’t stand it, but it means a lot having you sit with me out on the lake,” I said.

  “It’s no problem. It’s not the fishing. It’s more the patience. I have very little of it when I’m hungry.”

  “Which is why I brought a bag of pretzels,” I said with a grin.

  Kylie’s eyes bulged as I pulled out the bag from my backpack. She took it quickly and opened it up, probably scaring all the fish away. But it didn’t matter. Watching her eat and sit with me while I enjoyed doing something I never had enough time to do was something I greatly appreciated from her. Kylie enjoyed being outdoors, but she didn’t enjoy foraging for her own food. The second I had woken her up and told her I was going fishing for lunch, she had groaned and smacked her forehead. Hunting wasn’t her thing. She didn’t have the patience for it. In her mind, the meat she needed originated in the back of the butcher’s shop she frequented downtown.

  It was one of those quirks that contrasted with me, but it made her uniquely the woman I loved.

  “Mmm, thank you. These are so good. What’s on them? It’s a little spicy.”

  She shimmied while sticking a few more in her mouth, causing a smile to curl up onto my cheeks.

  “Honey mustard and wasabi,” I said.

  “Oh, I like these. We’re stocking these in the apartment.”

  I tried not to cringe at the comment. When I had told her I wanted to get away from everything, I had meant that topic too. That came along with Portland, and I wanted to leave all of it behind. I wanted to fish, soak in the hot tub, grill out over the fire, and make love to Kylie underneath the stars. Last night had been spectacular, the perfect first night to start our miniature vacation. I didn’t want to ruin it with talk of moving into that apartment.

  I just wanted to be in the moment.

  “You got one, Adam! Look!”

  My pole started to dance as Kylie clapped her hands. I grabbed the rod and slowly reeled it in, watching as the salmon danced along the water’s surface. I pulled it up into the boat and unhooked my line from his jowls, then tossed it into the water bucket.

  “That thing is huge,” Kylie said. “Look at it!”

  “If I can snag us another one, that’s lunch,” I said with a smile.

  “You mean that can’t feed both of us?”

  She batted her eyes at me and I shook my head.

  “Just one more. I promise,” I said.

  Then I baited the hook, cast my line back out, and sat in silence.

  After almost an hour of sitting, I caught us another fish. It wasn’t as big as the first one, but it was definitely enough to feed us. I rowed us back to shore as relief washed over Kylie’s face. When we landed, she took off running with the bag of pretzels in her hand. I hauled all the stuff back up to the yurt and tossed it onto the porch, then sat down and began cleaning the fish. Kylie watched me intently, and I taught her a few things. She wrinkled her nose as we scaled the fish. Then the two of us went through and deboned the fillets.

  But I should’ve known the peace wouldn’t last.

  Not with someone as plan-oriented as Kylie.

  “So, I was thinking we could coordinate our moves. Then we’d only have to rent one truck instead of two,” she said.

  I sighed as I threw a piece of cooked fish into my mouth.

  “I mean, it makes sense. We move in two weeks and the cost of one medium truck is substantially less than two smaller trucks. We could load up my place, then load up yours, then take everything over at once. Or I could set aside a chunk of my paycheck and hire us some movers to do it all for us. What do you think? Do it ourselves or movers?”

  “I think I don’t want to talk about this right now,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re on vacation, Kylie. We were supposed to be getting away from all this stress.”

  “It’s not stress, Adam. It’s just logistics. I mean, we hardly see each other anymore because of our busy schedules. This is the perfect time to figure this out.”

  “No, it’s not. Not when the point of coming out here was to get away from all that shitty nonsense.”

  “Shitty nonsense?” she asked.

  I shook my head at her tone of voice.

  “You know what I meant, Kylie.”

  “That seems to be your defense a lot lately, Adam.”

  “I just find it a little annoying how you want to talk about nothing else but that damn apartment. We’re out here in nature enjoying each other and I still can’t get away from Portland. The apartment’s in Portland you know.”

  “All I want to discuss with you is getting the movers booked at the same time. Or at least the truck. I’m not even asking you to do anything, Adam. I’m the one coordinating all this. All I need is your opinion.”

  “Well, my opinion is I don’t want to talk about this,” I said.

  “Stop being such a child, Adam. It’s a simple question. Answer it and then we can move on.”

  “I’m not going to, because unlike you, I know when to leave things behind and enjoy myself for a little while.”

  “I am enjoying myself! Who said I wasn’t enjoying myself?”

  Of course this fight had to happen on our fucking vacation.

  “We move in two weeks.”

  “So you’ve reminded me already,” I said.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it now, then when do you want to talk about it? Do you want to take a day off your weekend schedule and sit down and have lunch?”

  “I can’t do that. I’ve got too much to film.”

  “Then do you want to take our lunch break together on Thursday and figure it out?” she asked.

  “I’ll be swamped that day because of this vacation.”

  “So you don’t want to talk when we have the time to talk, but you also don’t want to make the time in your schedule to talk.”

  “Guess that sounds about right,” I said with a sigh.

  “Do you even want to move in with me?”

  It was the hurt and desolation in her voice that gave me pause, that made me honestly debate on whether this was going to be an appropriate time to have this conversation. On the one hand, I did. But on the other hand, if this was how things were going to be between us whenever we were together, what was the point in constantly being around it?

  “I don’t like that pause, Adam.”

  “Of course I want to move in with you,” I said.

  “You paused. You paused substantially.”

  “I was just gathering my thoughts.”

  “It was a simple yes or no question. What in the world could you have been thinking about?”

  “Whether or not to shut this fight down.”

  “There’s no fight! You always think we’re fighting when all I’m trying to do is talk to you!”

  “I don’t know. You yelling sounds like fighting,” I said.

&
nbsp; “Ugh!”

  She slammed her fish down on the ground and got up from her seat. Fuck. I’d done it again. Or she’d done it again. We’d done it again. I rolled my eyes and set my lunch down, then went after her as she stomped into the yurt.

  “We can talk about it when we get back, Kylie.”

  “I’m good,” she said.

  “Don’t do that. You’re not good. Don’t shut me out.”

  “I’m not shutting you out, Adam. That’s the problem with you. You always think I’m out to get you or shut you out or bitch down your throat when all I’m trying to get you to do is communicate with me,” she said.

  “I’m communicating! Look, we’re communicating right now.”

  “Not about anything that matters.”

  “So now we have to talk about shit that matters for it to count. Who’s the judge of what matters?”

  “Our future matters, Adam. That’s what matters to me right now—fixing all of this and putting all of this fighting behind us. It all started when I took the job with your father—”

  “Then quit your job with my father and come work for me!”

  I knew the second it flew out of my mouth that I’d opened something I wouldn’t be able to close. Kylie slowly turned toward me, her eyes alight with fire. Her raw passion turned to boiling rage as she straightened her back and leveled her eyes with mine. I held her gaze, knowing I couldn’t back down after what had come flying out of my mouth.

  “That’s what this is about,” she said.

  “No, Kylie. It’s—”

  “You’re still pissed off I’m working for your father and not you,” she said. “After you’ve explicitly told me twice, to my face, that you’re happy about it…you’re really not.”

  “It…irks me a little bit, yes. You talk about communication, but you took that job without even talking with me about it first. You just said ‘yes’ right there in the middle of the restaurant.”

  “Because it’s my career, Adam! You don’t see me trying to control your career, do you?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t see me dictating who you should and should not be working for, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, Adam! I support you through everything.”

  Tears rushed to her eyes before she turned her back to me.

  “Fuck,” she said underneath her breath. “Damn it.”

  “Kylie, I’m sor—”

  “I’m tired of your apologies, Adam.”

  Her voice was hard, harder and heavier than I’d ever heard it. She was right there. We were standing in the most romantic place we’d been in over two years, and she still drifted away from me, turned her back to me and found something to fight about when all I wanted to do was spend time with her.

  Why couldn't she see that?

  Why wasn’t that enough?

  “I know you are,” I said.

  “No, you don’t know, Adam. You don’t know as much as you think you know. But instead of learning new things and morphing along with me, you stay stuck,” she said.

  There was that word again.

  Stuck.

  “You know what I think?” she asked as she turned around. “Do you even care to know what I think?”

  “I always do, Kylie. It’s why I cherish your opinion on set.”

  “I think you’re pissed off that you can’t control me. I think you enjoy being a film producer because you get to control every aspect: the set, the actors, the makeup, the costumes. But you can’t control me, and that pisses you off.”

  “That’s so far from the truth, it’s disgusting, Kylie.”

  “It’s the only logical explanation.”

  “Fuck you and your logical explanations!”

  Her eyes widened as I rolled my shoulders back.

  “I’m so damn sick and tired of everyone telling me I have to follow some sort of logical path for my life! I’m supposed to take over my father’s company. I’m supposed to move in with you. I’m supposed to get engaged. We’re supposed to have children. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Because we’ve been together for four years and that’s apparently the magic fucking number for all this logical shit to fall into place! Nothing about my life is logical. I don’t want to live my life that way, Kylie. And it’s so damn frustrating that everyone, including you, thinks I operate that way!”

  Her jaw dropped to the floor as my brain took control of my mouth.

  “You talk about communication, but only if it suits you. You talk about control so long as you’re the one controlling it. You talk about how you’re sick of my apologies and sick of this and sick of that and frustrated with all of this shit, but you don’t stop to think for one second that the only thing I want is to lose myself in you, Kylie.”

  I panted, trying to catch my breath as my heart beat slammed in my ears.

  “You don’t stop to think for one second that I want to be with you, just you. Not with the shit or the apartment or the kids or the logical explanations or the stuck of it all. Just you. You and me against the rest of the damn world. Don’t you want that?”

  “I do,” she said softly.

  “Then why isn’t that enough?”

  The question hung in the air between us, like a tether connecting us with the truth. I knew what was coming the second the question fell from my lips. I knew what her answer would be. And I knew once she said it, no matter how hard we tried, we would never get this back.

  We would never get us back.

  “Because I want all of those other things, too, Adam” she said.

  She said it softly, disgustingly.

  Like the final straw about to break our backs.

  “You’re so frustrating,” I said through a chuckle.

  “And so are you,” she said softly.

  My eyes rose to hers as the two of us sagged, defeated in our argument and at an impasse. All the tension and all the pent-up pressure and all the unsaid words and unexplained emotions sat there, lifeless on the floor of the yurt we stood in.

  “I think I want to go home,” Kylie said.

  And at those words, we silently packed up our camp and headed back to Portland without another word spoken between us.

  Kylie

  I clutched my over-the-shoulder briefcase tightly as I shifted my purse up my shoulder. With my coffee in hand and my head held high, I walked off the elevator and down the hallway. I cursed Ryan’s office being right there, staring the elevator in the face so anyone getting off it could see straight into his office. His door was wide open and his head whipped up from his papers. The second he saw me, his face morphed.

  I sped up my walking.

  “Kylie?” he asked.

  I walked around the corner and fumbled with the keys to my office. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to explain. I simply wanted to throw myself into work and forget about the argument I’d had with Adam. I knew if Ryan came poking around, I’d talk to him. I knew if he came into my office and started asking questions, the emotions I’d kept under lock and key all throughout the car ride back to my apartment would come spilling over.

  “Kylie?” Ryan asked.

  The soft tap at my door pulled a sigh from my lips as I sank into my leather chair.

  “Come in,” I said.

  The door pushed open and slid across the soft carpet. I kicked off my shoes and dug my toes in, curling them around the soft tendrils that cradled my feet. I looked into Ryan’s eyes and kept my face as stoic as I could, but my toes screamed for mercy.

  All I had to do was stay rooted long enough to get him out of my office.

  “You are aware it’s only Wednesday, right?” he asked.

  “I’m aware, yes,” I said.

  “You aren’t due back into the office until tomorrow.”

  “I figured I’d come in early and get a head start on things.”

  “There’s nothing to get a head start on it you aren’t gone long enough for things to pile up.”

  “The
n I’ll simply resume my original workday as scheduled,” I said.

  He walked in and shut my door behind him—an action that caused my heels to dig into the carpet. He walked over to the seat in front of my desk and sat down, his fingers propping his head up. His long, languid leg slid over his knee and his gaze held mine intentionally.

  I got a firsthand glimpse at why people found him so intimidating in the boardroom.

  “How was vacation?” Ryan asked.

  I swallowed thickly as my feet began to shake from the tension they were under.

  “It was eye-opening,” I said.

  “Did the state park treat you kindly?”

  “More or less.”

  “How long do you want to play this game before you tell me what happened?”

  “As long as it takes to keep me from crying in front of my boss,” I said plainly.

  I watched something akin to hurt roll over his features before his face settled back into its stoic form.

  “What happened, Kylie?” he asked.

  His voice was darker than I’d expected it to be.

  “I really don’t think it’s—”

  “I don’t care what you think it is,” he said. “Tell me what my son did.”

  “It isn’t just him, Ryan. It’s both of us,” I said.

  “Talk to me.”

  “I really shouldn't.”

  “You can, and you will. I’ll sit here all day if that’s what it takes.”

  That sentiment brought tears to my eyes. Adam used to put that kind of effort into me. He used to do things like that all the time. Now all he did was apologize and dance around pathetic attempts at making me happy when I could see in his face how miserable he was.