However, that night, Celeste and Will were going to some party in the woods.
First, I had not had my conversation with her about Will, which was foolish procrastination on my part, but lest we forget, I was a relatively new entity in her life. So, although I was already madly in love and enjoyed spending time with her, feeling God had granted me this beautiful boon of being in the life of another young woman (though this one I didn’t have to push out and potty train) I was still, as noted, new to her life. And with a teenage girl, bonding was always tentative at best.
I had to be careful about rocking that boat.
And second, things happened in the woods. Case in point, Alice being carried off. And pretty much every TV show or movie that had any kids in any numbers—from a few, to a few hundred—depicted all the pitfalls of partying in the woods.
In fact, I was surprised Will wanted to go to this party.
Apparently, however, it was an MPHS tradition. Post-Halloween, pre-Thanksgiving, after-football-season, let it all hang out before fall semester finals and Christmas break, where many kids could scatter to the winds.
Celeste had gone to the party last year.
The boys had gone every year for four years running when they were still in school.
And I was assured it was high school only. Jace had told me he and Jess wouldn’t be caught dead there after they’d graduated.
“It’s taboo. Total loser move. I don’t know anyone who showed who wasn’t in high school. Even back in Dad’s days.”
And yes, I quizzed Bohannan on this. And yes, this party happened back in “his days.” And yes, if you showed and you weren’t in high school, not before, not after, you earned an immediate loser label.
So, at least there was that.
Taking everything about this into consideration:
The good news was, Celeste did share, what I felt was rather garrulously, about her burgeoning relationship with Will. And she was blooming under his attention—dreamy and happy, not moody and secretive. In her sharing, she hadn’t again mentioned Will talking trash about his stepmother or dumping his shit on Celeste.
The bad news was, Will did not ask her for a study date at his, or to come for a study date at hers. And at this juncture in a high school relationship—where most nights, she was driving back into town to have dinner with him or to study at Aromacobana after he was done with hockey practice, and they always did something at least one day on the weekends—this was like three months (at least) in Adult Relationship World.
In other words, in my view, it was past the time to meet the parents.
It seemed like he was avoiding that.
It could be he was protecting her from whatever was going on at his house. It was clear he avoided being there as much as he could (when he wasn’t with Celeste on the weekends, it was because he was out with his bros).
And this was a real possibility, for obvious reasons.
Though, I had deeper insight into this.
I’d called Megan and had coffee with her (my first book club meeting was Monday, and thankfully, we weren’t discussing a Priscilla Lange). During our coffee date (at Aromacobana, she either held no ill-will, or it was to her what it just was, the best place to get coffee in town), she’d filled me in on all the goss, which was that Dale wasn’t letting grass grow. The glue that held their marriage together had been murdered. He was now courting his first wife right under his grieving wife’s nose.
(Which begged the question of how Bohannan thought this guy was a “decent guy,” and being me, I asked it. His reply was, “He hadn’t pulled this shit when I said that. Now that he’s pulling it, I retract it.” Further evidence that my guy was a decent guy.)
On the other hand, it could be that we hadn’t yet met Will because he was a little pissant, he knew Bohannan would read it, and he was giving Celeste’s dad a wide birth.
I couldn’t know unless I met the guy, face-to-face.
And as you could see, I hadn’t.
However, between now and when Will came around to pick Celeste up that night at seven, I had to figure out how to talk her into not drinking at all, but if she did, not accepting a drink from anyone else. Not partaking of any other substances. Sticking with the crowds. And communicating no matter how cute and earnest Will might be, everything was always her choice. And if he ever made it seem like it wasn’t, got pushy, whiny or physical, and she got uncomfortable, she was to get away from him, get with a group of girls and call her father or me immediately.
We’d come get her, no questions asked (I’d have to alert Bohannan about that no-questions-asked part, but he’d saddled me with this, he had to give me something).
Therefore, I was sipping my coffee and wondering when my fucking orgasms were going to begin because it was hard enough to do this stuff with my two girls, I thought it was over, and there I was again.
This was what I was thinking when a beard found its way into my neck, a warm, long, hard body pressed to my back and an arm wrapped around my stomach.
I would like to say I had the strength to withstand this unscathed, but we must remember, it had been thirteen (or fourteen) years.
I was about to verbally remind someone else of this when that beard tickled my ear and a gruff, deep voice said, “Kids are all gone tonight.”
Oh my.
In all my mental meanderings, I hadn’t noticed that Jess and/or Jace often hung at their dad’s (I’d not been to their place yet, and Celeste never went there either, so my suspicions were that it was wall-to-wall Bro Town and likely smelled like a used sock, so, being boys, they didn’t clean it, they just escaped it) and Celeste’s curfew was ten, but she was usually home around eight thirty or nine.
But tonight, all the kids had dates.
Which meant tonight was the first night we’d be home alone.
I’d been so deep in my pout about not getting laid, I hadn’t noticed.
“First, in my bed.” Bohannan nipped my earlobe as I shivered. “After David gets done, we can start spending nights at yours.”
“I—”
I didn’t finish telling him I was all in with this plan.
Something bobbing in the water down by the pier caught my eye through the weak morning pre-dawn light and the ever-present mist.
“What’s that?” I asked.
His mouth left my ear, and I felt the whisper of his whiskers against my cheek as he looked out the window.
And I knew it was bad even before I knew it was bad, when the reaction exploding from him buffeted my back so hard, I felt my spine bow and my hips press into the counter.
“Stay in here. Do not leave this house. Do not let Celeste leave this house,” he growled.
“Bo—”
He was off, but he twisted to me at the door and jabbed his finger my way, “And do not watch.”
Do not watch?
Oh my God.
Him saying not to watch meant I couldn’t not watch.
So I did.
He had his phone to his ear as he jogged to the pier.
“Hey, Delly?” Celeste called from behind me.
I whirled and my coffee sloshed, but fortunately, I’d consumed more than half of it.
“You know that cream sweater you have?” she asked.
“Yes,” I pushed out.
“Can I wear it?”
“Yes,” I repeated.
She smiled. “Is it up in your room?”