Coming back next month!

I hope!

I just wanted to drop in and say that I haven't stopped this story! I've been doing the full-time student thing, finally finishing my degree. I have chapters written for this that I hope to add pictures to next month after finals are finished and I've had a chance to recover. Meanwhile, here's a goofy picture of Jesse taken by Ashley for that scrapbook Erin found. I think I like the hair he has now more than I do the style he sports in this pic, for him at least. :)

106: Scrapbook of Memories

Erin

     I open up one of the lower cabinets, wondering if Bryce has a mixer. I want to make a cake as an early celebration for the bar's grand re-opening tomorrow, and I don't feel like wearing myself out by mixing it with only a spoon.

     Maybe I need to go buy one. I don't even have one at my little house.

     My hands encounter what feels like a large book, tucked far back into the corner.

     "Wha?" I ask aloud. Then I awkwardly lift it. It's heavy and feels like it has too many pages for the binding with the way it bows out. Finally getting the thing out into the open where I can look at it, I see it's a scrapbook.

     "Huh," I say thoughtfully. I used to scrapbook. I had the cutest one for my engagement.

     The book has dust all over it, but I don't try to brush it off, not wanting it to get in the air and make me sneeze. Instead, I stand up and carry it to the dining room table.

     Opening it somewhere in the middle, I see pictures of Bryce, Jesse, and Pam. Whose scrapbook is this? Why was it hidden? I decide to turn back to the beginning, and my jaw drops further when I see a much younger Bryce holding a baby. His hair is past his shoulders, and he looks terrified behind his smile. Maybe I only see that because of what he's told me. He looks strange without the perpetual five o'clock shadow. At the bottom of the same page, I see a tired but happy girl holding Adele. Bryce stands crouched behind her where she sits on the bed at the hospital.

     Ashley. That's Ashley holding a newborn Adele. She looks like a train wreck. A happy train wreck, but still, with those circles under her eyes and her hair messed up. Well, she had just gone through a delivery.

     I take a deep breath and turn the page. More pictures of a baby Adele show up. She was a very pretty baby.

     A sharp breath of surprise comes into me when I see what must be Bryce and Pam's parents holding Adele. Pam looks like their mother. That the new grandparents love their granddaughter to pieces is clearly evident in the picture, and I feel my eyes tear up. I look all over the next few pages and never find a picture of Ashley's parents.

     Ashley is beautiful. She's really really pretty. Something coils up and whimpers inside me while I look at the beautiful woman with the light skin, dark hair, striking green eyes, and full lips. She's SO pretty.

     Several pictures of Bryce and Ashley together have him looking at her and her looking away. He loved her. Look at his eyes. He's tried to tell me he stopped really loving her when she said she wanted to abort Adele. I don't see that in these pictures.

    I've now reached Adele's toddler years. Bryce's hair is shorter but still longer than it is now. I see the picture that Bryce has on the dresser upstairs. Ashley must've taken it…or Pam. I come across another picture of the 'happy couple.' Bryce has his arms playfully and lovingly wrapped around Ashley's shoulders, and he looks like he's mumbling something naughty into her ear. She smiles while looking off into the distance. He looks so happy, and I can easily picture him kissing her cheek once he finishes saying whatever it was he said. At this point, the perpetual five o'clock shadow has shown up.

     I turn back some pages to get a closer look at another picture. He was so very much in love with her. It's all over the place in this book. No wonder it was forgotten about in an unused corner of the kitchen. He never got rid of it. Maybe he forgot about it. Maybe he tucked it back there on purpose because he didn't want to get rid of it but didn't want to see it.

     This whole thing is a testimony of how much he loved her. I wonder who put it together? Ashley? Pam? His mom?

     The book stops when Adele looks about four, and I decide that it must've been Ashley who put the book together.

     "Erin?" I hear and then hear the front door close.

     Bryce! I think in a panic and quickly close the book. By the time I stand up and turn around to head back towards the kitchen, Bryce rounds the corner. His eyes snap to the book on the table, and he blinks in surprise. They stay wide open as he walks up to the table.

     "I…found it," I stammer.

     "Where?" he asks in a raspy voice before he swallows.

     I tell him, and he closes his eyes. "Do you want me to put it back?" I ask, thinking about Adele.

     He doesn't answer me. Instead, he turns around and walks away. I hear him walking up the stairs. I pick up the book, still not sure if he wants Adele to see it and worried she might if I don't take it with me and follow him upstairs.

     When I open the door, I find him sitting on the bed and staring off into space. His head snaps over to me, but then he focuses his gaze on the dusty book in my hands. "Did you have to bring that up here?" he asks with exasperation.

     I explain to him how I wasn't sure if he wanted Adele to accidentally happen across it. He doesn't say anything, turning his head to look at the floor in front of him. I walk over, put the book on the bed, and sit down next to him.

     "I thought I'd thrown that thing away, not that I was really looking for it, but I thought I'd gotten rid of it," he tells me.

     "But it has pictures of your parents with Adele," I point out.

     "I have other copies of those pictures," he replies. After a few moments of silence, he says, "I thought I'd thrown it away. I remember quite clearly chucking that thing in the garbage." He glances sideways at me. "That's Ashley's scrapbook."

     "I figured that out," I say quietly.

     He wipes his face. "I'm sorry I'm freaking out about seeing that thing again. It's like being haunted by a ghost. I threw it away and got shitfaced that night."

     "Maybe you went and took it back out of the trash," I offer.

     "That's the only logical explanation."

     "Um," I say, remembering something else I saw in the book that might lighten the mood, "did Lynne and Desmond date?"

     He chuckles. "Yes. So that's how he got started being with our group of friends. I'd forgotten. When they broke up, he just kept sticking around." He looks at me with a half-smile. "She also dated Jesse for a very short time. And Jesse dated Ginger when she first got here."

     My eyes widen. "Who hasn't dated?"

     "Belinda. It's weird in comparison. Nobody's dated her." He scratches the back of his neck. "Lynne and I dated once in high school."

     "Did you date anyone else in the group?" I ask, wondering.

     "Nah. After Ashley left, I didn't want to make any lasting attachment anywhere."

     We both get quiet again.

     "You loved her very much," I state.

     "What makes you say that?" he asks with his eyebrows scrunched up.

     "The pictures. So many different, candid moments." I reach back behind me and get the book before turning to the page with the picture of him talking in her ear. "Look."

     He cautiously glances at it before standing up and saying, "Get that thing away from me." He paces for a moment before saying earnestly, "I don't love her anymore, Erin! That's gone!"

     "But you told me you'd pretty much stopped loving her when she said she wanted to abort Adele."

     "I did!" he insists and puts his hands in his hair. I put the book back on the bed, and the motion turns another page. Glancing at it, I see Jesse, with much shorter hair, with two or three different girls.

     "That's not what these pictures show," I reply simply, not wanting to really upset Bryce so much as make him see it. I turn the book back to the page with him talking in Ashley's ear.

     "Why are you doing this? Are you trying to trap me into saying something that will only hurt your feelings and start a fight?!" His breathing picks up speed.

     I decide to tell him the absolute truth. "You haven't dealt with it. You keep trying to tell yourself you didn't love her because that's easier to bear than the fact that you did."

     "I definitely don't anymore," he says quickly, probably still thinking I'm trying to trap him.

     "I know that," I say reassuringly and stand up, closing the book. "But it doesn't do any good to lie to yourself and say you didn't."

     "I hate her," he restates adamantly.

     "Now you do, but you didn't before."

     He sighs and closes his eyes. "What do you want me to say, Erin? That I loved her? That I loved her with everything I had yet it wasn't enough so she left me? That I couldn't love her enough to make her want to stay? That I ruined my marriage by working too much? That I could never get her to understand how much she meant to me?!" His arms start shaking as he battles his old demons.
     "At least that would be the truth," I answer quietly.

     "The truth?!" he asks me, and his eyes open wildly. "Yes! Yes, I loved her! I adored her! It killed me when she broke up with me once she found out she was pregnant! When we got back together, I wanted to do anything to keep that from happening again, but it did anyway! Is this what you want to hear?!"

     He stays quiet, waiting for me to answer, so I say, "I don't want to hear it, no, but I want to help you. And you've been lying to yourself." Tears form in my eyes from the anguish on his face.

     "What's the point? What's the point in thinking about all this crap? It's easier and better to ignore it."

     "No," I quietly disagree.

     "Right. Because then I'm 'lying to myself.' Erin, it was only when I started making myself forget about it that I started getting better," he tells me in a calmer way.

     "You weren't getting 'better,' Bryce. You only locked your feelings away instead."

     "So, you're saying that my feelings are locked away therefore how can I possibly love you?" he asks me.

     "Now who's baiting whom?" I ask with a touch of anger. "I know you love me; that's not the issue. What I'm talking about is everything I've heard and seen from you: little things and big like you trying to deny how much you loved her because you don't want to admit how hurt you were."

     "Little things…" he says and puts his hand over his eyes as he leans against the wall. "Little things like memories I don't want to come back up coming back up, set off by the strangest things."

     "They're coming back up because you're letting yourself feel again when before you'd shut everything off."

     "I don't want them!" he says loudly.

     "I know," I say and place a hand on his arm.

     He snatches me to him and holds me tightly, one arm wrapping around my waist and the other moving up into my hair, shaking. His breathing turns ragged as he wrestles with his past. I let him hold me, leaning into him, saying nothing.

     "Will I ever be healed, or will I carry this around with me my entire life?" he asks rhetorically.

     I answer anyway. "That's up to you, I think."

     "I don't want you to think that I don't love you. Like you once said about Sean, I love you more than I ever loved her, and because of that, I'm scared ten times more shitless."

     "Don't be," I say, but I feel a heavy burden on my shoulders. I take a deep breath and say, "But Bryce, don't do that to me. You have to be able to also stand on your own. Don't depend on me to get you out of this. I'm more than happy to help, but I'm not perfect and could let you down."

     "I'm not asking you to be perfect; I'm asking you to never leave me."

     "I have absolutely no intention of ever leaving you, Bryce, but we also don't know what the future holds."

     "Then I'll have to make sure I don't do something to make you want to," he says definitively.

     "No!" I snap, surprising both of us. "That's not the answer! That's nothing but a band-aid solution. Stand. On. Your. Own!" I tell him earnestly. I calm my voice down as I continue, "Just allow me to stand next to you while you do -- but not with you leaning on me."

     He pulls me back to him, and we stand here quietly, swaying back and forth occasionally. I listen as his heart rate calms down and his breathing becomes regular again.

     He breaks the silence. "Can I…stand with my arms wrapped around you just like this? With you having your arms wrapped around me like this?"

     I smile, adoring him for understanding my metaphor. "As long as you don't lean on me while you do it, yes. This is just fine."

     "I can't promise I can completely keep from doing that, but I'll at least put forth an effort. It's just…Erin, I love you so damn much. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. My life. All of it. And it would kill me to lose you. I can't help but say that, but I know it. It scares me."

     I take a deep breath. "What about it scares you most?"

     "The ripped-apart, empty feeling that would make my life a living hell. I never want to feel that because I've felt it to a smaller scale before, and it almost did me in."

     "Bryce…"

     "I know. I know," he interrupts me quickly. "Don't lean on you. I still want you with me." He pauses. "What do you want, Erin?"

     I close my eyes and take more deep breaths, trying to figure that out. "I'm not a hundred percent positive, but I do know that I see you in every picture. Right now, my favorite one is the two of us" Please don't overreact "married with one or two more children."

     He breathes in, pulls my head back, and passionately takes possession of my lips. I guessed he'd react like this, but what I told him is the truth. I've known that ever since I found out I wasn't pregnant. My worry is that my time scale and his don't match.

     "How far away is that?" he asks while kissing my face and neck.

     "Years?" I reply as a question, wondering what he thinks.

     "Years until children, or years until married?" he asks, and his hands start working their magic on my behind.

     "Bryce! Your hands!" I gasp.

     "Because I want you."

     I moan and say, "I can't think."

     "You told me you want us married, and I want to know how far away you're thinking," he reminds me, but his hands don't stop.

     My own breathing sounds loud in my ears as I fight for lucid thought.

     "Next year?" he prompts. He leans down to kiss my neck while my head throws itself back. "Mmm, Erin, I like that idea. I know you don't want to rush into anything, so that would give us time." I see him smile at me through little slits in my eyes. "But you're unable to answer me right now, so I guess I'll have to find out later."
     I'm dimly aware of him throwing the scrapbook across the room before he lays me down on the bed and peels off my clothing. I discover he's also naked when he turns me on my side and lifts one of my legs, bending it at the knee.

     We moan simultaneously when he enters me and starts slowly making love to me in this bizarre position.

     His hands are ever busy as they travel over me, working their spell. I've discovered Bryce is a fast learner, having embraced his ability, as he strokes me. I imagine myself seduced by a mythological creature and captured so it can satisfy its carnal desires upon my body.

     I let out a high-pitched feminine whine when he finally lets me come. He lets out a content sigh as he joins me, pressing as hard into me as his chosen position allows.

     Later, I sense him getting up, putting on some clothes, and going downstairs. I faintly hear Adele's voice. She must be home from school.

     Married by this time next year… ?

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Stock photo credits:
Pixabay:
open book: JJuni
brown/white/blue flowers background: geralt
paper dolls background: PublicDomainPictures
inside curl of wave background: Unsplash
double hearts background: Alexas_Fotos
baby footprint in the sand background: mintchipdesigns

Pictures that didn't make the cut, but I wanted to share them anyway:

105: What Are You Doing With My Daughter?

     "I want you to tell me what you're doing with my daughter," John Parren asks me as a direct order.
     "Uh..." Just what EXACTLY does he mean by that? Is he about to kill me because I sleep with her? Marie's a grown woman, but dads never see it like that. "What do you mean?" I ask.
     "I mean I want you to tell me what you're doing with my daughter," he repeats, hiding his irritation if he has any. He can perfectly mimic my accent, and that really freaks me out. I'm sure he's doing that on purpose to unnerve me.
      "Well, ... I'm dating her?" I reply in question, wondering if that's what he means. Going along that line of thought, I ask, "Do you mean what are my intentions?"

      He pretends like that hasn't occurred to him yet. "Now that you mention it, yes. What are your intentions?"
      Oh fuck. Here goes. This is NOT how I pictured this going. I wanted this conversation to be so much smoother than this carte blanche interrogation. Shit. I'll just be honest. "I love her. I'd love to marry her someday. In fact," my heart races, "I was wanting to ask for your blessing, wanting to do it right and all that." Please. Don't. Kill. Me. I pray he appreciates my honesty.
      Like he suspected I'd say all that, he asks, "How long have you known her?"
      You know the answer to that! "I met her days after she got here, a few months."
     "And from what you said at the trial, it took some convincing to get her to date you," he states in a leading way.
     "Well, I mean, she'd just gone through all that shit with what's-his-name." Crap. I hope he's not going to get pissed off I just cussed. Dammit. I let out a huff. "I've realized since then that I shouldn't have pushed so hard in the beginning..." No! Bad direction to take! I quickly add, "But I was just so sure that she's the one I've always wanted." I've just signed my death certificate.
     "What made you realize you shouldn't have pushed so hard in the beginning?" he asks exactly as I suspected he would.
      "We had a fight about it." When I foolishly tried to get her pregnant in order to make her mine. "I realized she wasn't in the same place I was, and I've backed off some since then."
      "And what 'place' are you in?"

      I huff again, wishing once more I could've somehow done this conversation in a less awkward way. "Mr. Parren, I'm ready to get married. Marie and I have even talked about this, not directly, but we've both talked about what we want out of life, and it's the same thing." Here goes. Time to stop dancing around me saying I'm going to ask and just ASK. "It may even be a year from now, but I wanted to ask you this in person if I could. Could I please have your blessing to marry your daughter if she says yes?"
      "No," he says immediately, crushing me.
      "What?" I breathe in shock.
      "In a year, that may change," he tells me, beginning his explanation, and I can't hide the way my shoulders slump. "But let me tell you what I see, Jesse. I see in front of me a man that is so eager to fall in love and get married that he doesn't take the time to really discover the woman he claims to love. Now, I know in some ways, Marie is very mature for her age, but she isn't in others. I know those are things she also wants, even if I don't think she's ready for them."
      I want to sink down into the ground at my feet. It's the age thing. Just kill me now.
      He continues, only this time in a more careful voice, "I also see a man that is so eager to fall in love and get married that when one woman doesn't work out that he'd quickly bounce to another, even if he's still attracted to that other woman."
      I think I know what he means, but I don't want to actually think it.
      "I have been trained to be very observant, Mr. Gillespie. You are a very loyal individual, perhaps even to a fault."

     I run my hand down my face, wondering why he'd say that. Sure, I'm a loyal person, but I wouldn't go that far. There have been times when I'd be willing to fight my own best friend for something we'd both want.
     He continues, watching me. "Perhaps not." He pauses. "During the trial, witnesses referred to Erin as 'the new girl.' How long before Marie arrived was she here?"
     "Well, I don't know how long she was here, but I'd met her a week before Marie came."
     "Was she already with Bryce when you met her?" he asks like he can read my mind.
     I bring my hand down and look back at him, trying to guess where he's going with this. If he's going to try and make like I'm still jealous of Bryce, I'm going to stop that right now. "Not officially, no, but sometime between the night I met her and the next day, they decided to be a couple." He watches me, and I glare back. "I know what you're getting at. Sure, I made a play for her. Guess I'm not so 'loyal' all the time. She turned me down. Well, she had a screaming fit, shoved me out of her house, and threw something at me. I was mad. I was mad at my best friend, but I got over it. So if you're implying I'm still hung up on her, you're wrong."
     He puts his hands in his pockets. "I'll go ahead and say it because I want you to know exactly why I said no. That IS what I'm implying."
     "Well, you're wrong. This has nothing to do with her. If you're saying I started going after Marie too fast after that, then you've gotta understand that's just how I go about it. Why should I stay hung up on one girl when there's another gorgeous one right there!"
     "This is just what I meant. You're in love with the idea of being in love. It has little to do with my daughter," he growls.

      He starts to walk away, and I snap, "So, you'd rather I mope around because I got turned down? For your information, I did. But I'd just met her! I got over it and was ready to move on. I'm not 'in love with being in love.' I'm IN LOVE with MARIE!" I pause and do something that's probably a bad idea. "And by the way, I don't have to get your blessing. This is the twenty-first century."
     SHIT! I mentally scream when I see John turn around with murder in his eyes. I just mouthed off not only to Marie's father, a man I wanted to like me, but someone who knows a billion ways to kill a man!
     I swallow and sound much more respectful as I say, "Sir, I'm telling you the truth when I tell you I love her. I realize she's not ready, but I still wanted your blessing."
     His voice sounds like boiling acid as he hisses, "You will not have my blessing unless I see a change, and if you so much as get engaged to her before you have it, they'll not be able to find any trace of you."
     And there it is. The threat. My heart pounds in fear, but my face shows no sign of it as I ask, "Have you noticed Marie is a grown woman? She's going to do what she wants."
     We hear Marie call out, "Jesse?" She's at the front porch. Glancing her way, I see she's seen us, and she makes her way in our direction.
      John very quietly replies, "Then I trust you'll not push her in that direction." He walks over and hugs Marie before kissing her on the forehead. Then, he proceeds to the house.
      Marie walks up to me and smiles. "I'm sorry if my father gave you a hard time."

     "Hey. He's a dad. It's in the job description." I wrap my arms around her and think about all the things he said. I'm not 'in love with being in love'! I'm in love with the woman in my arms. All he saw was me flipping out because I'd never seen Erin in a bikini; that's all. I'm not blind, but that doesn't mean I'd rather have her than Marie.
     Here's what needs to happen to make John happier: Marie needs to totally get over what's-his-name, like we'd said; then, we do need some time to really, really get to know each other; then, and it'll probably be a year, we can get engaged, married, and so on. John just needs some time to adjust to his little girl being grown up. Once he sees I really love and want to help Marie, he'll relax. Besides, I did tell him a year. He'll change his mind.
     She pulls back and asks, "Did he give you a hard time about your job?"
     I back my head up. "Huh? No. We didn't discuss it."
     She reddens, maybe guessing what we did talk about. "Oh. I just remember when I told him about your job that he said he really wanted to talk to you then."
     I give her an 'I don't know' expression and slowly shrug. Hm. What's wrong with my job? No, I'm no doctor or lawyer or what-have-you, but with what Gram left me, I don't need to be. I only work because I want to. "Well, he never mentioned it."
     "Okay," she says, and we decide to re-join the party.

104: More Cautious Than Before

Armand

     There she is…with that man again.

     I sit with a pair of binoculars on the deck of the house I’m renting. It overlooks a couple of houses that Marie frequents, and I can't believe my luck in that coincidence. I'd first seen her working, helping with the construction of a bar an informer had told me she worked at.

    I'd gotten delayed in Champs les Sims thanks to drug charges against my parents. The government wouldn't let me leave, claiming that my fortune was directly related to their past dealings. I don't know if the starting money I had came from that or clean money they gave me, but at any rate, my fortune is clearly my own. I distanced myself from my parents before any of that happened. Though still in the same town, I rarely saw them. It took a few weeks to prove my innocence. I had to take care of that and make sure my sister was okay. She's staying with friends, what she prefers. I'll take her under my wing when I return with Marie.

     At least, that was my plan before seeing her with that huge lummox only minutes after first spotting her. That they're in love is obvious. Once I saw her with him, I changed my original plan.

     I don't want to announce my presence. That would be stupid and too easily place me in a position where I could be attacked, verbally and physically.

     So I sit, biding my time and debating how to go forward. I need to get Marie's attention without alerting her new friends.

     But first, I need to get rid of the huge lummox.

     Another car pulls into the driveway, and the sight of the man that gets out of it nearly causes me to drop my binoculars. John Parren! I move my binoculars aside and see the rest of the Parrens get out of the vehicle.
     Marie's father is here!

     Now, I will have to be even more cautious than before.

Jesse

     I watch Mr. Parren get out of their rental car with a stern expression on his face. I have as of yet to see the man smile. Oh, sure, he hugged Marie tightly like any loving father would do, but he didn't look happy as he did it. I'd say more concerned than anything.
     The man scares the living shit outta me. When Marie had gasped in surprise during the trial, I could hardly focus on anything but my own shock. I missed half of what my girlfriend said on the stand, unintentionally of course, because of my own racing heartbeat in my ears. I don't really know the guy, but little comments Marie has made make me believe he did just a little more than regular police work. Marie said he saved her mom from a crazy, powerful man that had kidnapped her. He killed the guy.
     He looks at me, still not smiling. I can't tell what he's thinking. Then, he pauses suddenly like something unexpected occurred to him. Holding the door open for his wife, he looks around at the surrounding hills with a thoughtful scowl on his face.
     Marie's mom gets out of the car with a simple smile on her pretty face framed by jet-black hair. Next, I see a teenage boy get out of the backseat before offering help to a teenage girl. The boy has the same jet-black hair, but his eyes look more like Mr. Parren's. Talking in rapid French, a redheaded boy bounds full of energy out of the other side of the backseat.
     "Is everything okay, John?" Marie's mom asks her dad, noticing his strange behavior.

     FINALLY, the man smiles. "Yes," he tells her.
     Satisfied that her husband is okay, the woman dashes up the stairs to throw her arms around Marie.

     "Marie! Oh, Marie, my brave Marie! It hasn't been the same since you left! Are you okay? Are you getting enough to eat? Do you need more money? Clothes? What an ordeal you had to go through this morning! Let me look at you!" She steps back and holds Marie's arms, smiling. I notice she has incredible violet eyes, set off even more by her dark hair.
     Marie acts surprised at her mom's behavior, like she isn't used to getting this. "I..I'm fine, Mom."
     Mrs. Parren's eyes switch to me, and I decide to jump right into an introduction. "Hi, Mrs. Parren. My name's Jesse." I hold out my hand, and she puts her little one in mine.
     As I gently shake it, she looks abashed at me, albeit in a nice way. "Oh, don't call me that. Elena is fine. Mrs. Parren makes me sound old."
     Ah, she's one of those belle-of-the-ball types, vain and thinks every man she meets is dying of love for her. Well, I guess she got used to it with those eyes.

     "Je m'appelle Benjamin!" the little redheaded tyke says as he bounces over to me. Before I can respond, he starts spouting off question after question. I catch the word 'pool' in his rapid speech before Mr. Parren reminds him to speak in English. Benjamin's eyes tilt down in an angry look back to his step-father, his face remaining forward.
     I almost replied to him in French, but after listening to Mr. Parren get onto him for not speaking English, I decide not to. "Hi, Ben. Marie has told me a lot about you." Ben is the literal redheaded step-child of the family, the son of Marie's mom's second marriage, the son of the man that got shot by the man that Mr. Parren eventually killed.

    Marie stutters out the words like she's a bit embarrassed as she tells me, "He wants to know if you're going to grill ... hotdogs, and he wants to swim in the pool."
     "Sure, buddy, if it's okay with your parents," I reply.
     He spins around to his mom and asks her, in French, if he can swim in the pool right now.
     Elena sighs like she's tired of his energy, and I imagine she is after being cooped up in a plane for a long time. "Yes. Go ahead," she relents.
     Ben cheers and dashes down the porch stairs. As he runs around the house, he sheds most of his clothing, leaving it on the lawn. The kid must plan ahead because he wears swim trunks under his shorts. After a few moments, we hear a splash.

     Next, Marie's other younger brother Xavier comes up and introduces himself and his girlfriend Lee. He acts about as nervous meeting me as I did meeting his father. Lee hardly says a word, and I notice dark circles under her eyes.
     I invite everyone inside and happily discover that I do have hotdogs in the fridge. I'm going to cook for Marie's family, and I'm cooking -- hotdogs. Oh well. It's at the request of an eight-year-old.
     I let the Parrens relax at my house, knowing how they're all just happy to be done with their flight. I, however, cannot relax around Marie's dad. And this is the man I wanted to speak with about asking for his blessing!

     My phone chirps at me while I stand at the grill. Last night, I'd switched my service online to an old phone I still had. I remember why I stopped using this thing. The battery life on it is awful.

Do you need help?

     Erin. I look over at Bryce's house and see her standing on the porch outside his bedroom. She waves. Then, I see her typing up another text.

Bryce and I were wondering if you'd like some backup.

     I smile and start up a reply before a text from Bryce interrupts me.

You throw a party and don't invite me?

     I'm sure he means it in jest, especially taking into account Erin's earlier texts. Still, I can't help but sass back.

Then get your ass over here, but go get me some Buds first.

     I hear him laughing and assume he's standing at his bar. Then, I text Erin.

Yes, and bring some hotdogs if y'all have any. 

     Glancing up, I see her walk back into the house.

     Good. More people to throw all the attention off me. Besides, I'll bet Bryce wants to celebrate his mostly-victory over Simon. I breathe a sigh of relief.

     Not too much later, Erin walks around the side of my house wearing a bikini. Holy. Shit! I have to look elsewhere as I say, "Hey." Fuck! I didn't even think Erin would be the type to OWN a bikini, much less wear one. I take a deep breath and turn over the hotdogs.

     "Here ya go. Bryce said you wanted him to go get beer, so that's where he is," she explains, laying the hotdog package on the counter next to the grill.

     "Yeah," I agree, completely focused on the hotdogs.

     "Hello!" Ben calls out from the swimming pool, obviously speaking to Erin. She goes over to talk to him, and I breathe another sigh of relief.

     The rest of Marie's family decides to come outside, and Marie introduces everyone to Erin. I watch her brother Xavier's expression as he stares slack-jawed at her face.

     "She's Cristina's cousin," Marie tells her brother.

     Oh. He looked at her like that because she must really look like Cristina, not because she wore that. I'd thought he looked at her like that because he thought she was so hot he didn't know what to do.
     Erin jumps into the pool to play with Ben. I'm jealous. It's fucking hot out here, and I'd love to cool off. But I have too much to do right now.

    Bryce finally shows up, and I guess he's going to roast alive since he didn't change. The heat doesn't appear to bother Mr. Parren, either.
     Another round of introductions gets made with Bryce before we all try not to choke on my hotdogs. I drink three of the beers my best friend brought.

     "I would like to speak with you alone, if you don't mind," I hear Marie's father say in his deep voice, and dread fills my veins.

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Ugh! Why why why why WHY did I do this to myself? Maybe it's just me that's bothered by little things that wouldn't match up in a more real-to-life tale, like Marie calling Elena 'mom,' for instance, which is so American. I apologize. That's the way it is in Queen of Denial, where I use the Champs les Sims baseworld as their homeworld. In that tale, I made like it existed in its own little spot in space with no affiliation to anywhere. So, Marie called Elena 'mom' and I gave my characters whatever style name I wanted and it didn't matter. I've blown that out of the water now, but I'm going to stay with what I've always done. Sorry if this bugs anyone else. I wanted to put in this bit to let y'all know that it's not just you.

On another note...
Elena! Oh, I've missed Elena! But I couldn't continue with my Queen of Denial story thanks to SWNT having a MUCH slower speed. Once the Parrens all get back to Champs les Sims, I'll be able to do another chapter there for the first time in... ?3? years. Plus, that bugger needs an overhaul.

Oh, and Elena is supposed to be pregnant here, but that save melted along with my hard drive last summer. Thank goodness I had a backup, where I've pulled all my QoD people from...from where I've pulled all my QoD people. Anyway, I'm making like she is preggers but not really showing, especially in that dress, which she likes because it makes her look thinner.

Still, this is nostalgic for me to bring back my first Sims 3 story's main character. She's wonderfully selfish, vain, a huge coward, and oblivious by personal choice. Yes, I definitely missed her.

And my brain has started concocting stuff for Ben...