It’s November, which means Landon and I are going on two months when I decide it might be time to bring up the elephant in the room.
I’m sitting on Landon’s couch, my feet resting in his lap as I work on homework and he reads the newspaper when I drop my highlighter into the book and look up at him. “Landon?”
“Yes, dear?” He smiles, but his eyes don’t come off the page. He’d gotten a kick out of calling me dear in-between his intermittent Bambis— a dad joke if I ever heard one and I can’t ignore the way my heart swells at this particular term of endearment.
My eyes dart around the room nervously, as if how to pose this delicate question will be written on the walls. “Am I ever going to get to meet Griffin?”
He drops the newspaper and looks at me, his perfect features falling as he furrows his brows together. “Of course.”
I finger my glasses as I prepare my relentless line of questioning. “When?”
“I figured once you were ready to tell your parents.”
“When should we tell them? Tell people?”
“I figured you would let me know?”
“My internship will be over in December, maybe when I’m no longer a permanent fixture in your office.”
He leans against the back of the couch and begins to rub my feet, digging his thumbs into the soles and cocks his head at me. “And if we were planning to make you a permanent fixture?”
I fiddle with my glasses again and blink my eyes in rapid succession. “What?”
“We were thinking of having you continue your internship this summer. We know you’re going to law school next fall…” He raises an eyebrow at me as if to say, ‘and are you ever going to decide where that is?’ “We thought a summer at the firm would be perfect.”
“You think me working there this summer while…” I point back and forth between us, “this is going on, is a good idea?”
“What else are you going to do this summer?”
“I was thinking I could intern for another firm?”
He scoffs. “Try again.”
“What does that mean?” We are breaking about a hundred rules by being together and it’s getting stressful working for the firm where both my father and boyfriend work, not to mention exhausting. My hormones swing faster than a pregnant woman’s. If I’m in the room with both of them, I somehow manage to get turned on and annoyed at the same time. I somehow have to keep my eyes off his dick which is more difficult than one would think.
“It means I’ve taken a vested interest in more than just your pussy, Serena Mitchell. You’re not going to some far less superior firm for some jackass to derail my teachings. Think again.”
After the night my father showed up at Landon’s and apologized, the power struggle between them seemed to wane. My father was more willing to let me tag along with him, and Landon stole me away whenever he could to take me with him wherever he was going. In a professional manner, of course. We only made out in his car after. Nevertheless, I was learning quite a lot from Landon… besides the obvious.
“But Landon…” I can’t help the whiny tone my voice takes. This is a horrible idea. “I don’t want to work there while everyone knows we’re together. It’ll be so awkward.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll address your father, Frank, and whoever the fuck else thinks they’re entitled to an opinion.”
“I hope you approach my father nicer than that.” I roll my eyes. “Fine, we can circle back to that later. Griffin?”
“His mother is going to Lake Tahoe this weekend for some retreat, he’ll be here then…I was going to talk to you about whether or not you wanted to be here. I know you spend your weekends here…” I’d conveniently started staying with Zoey on the weekends the last several weekends because, “it was time I put myself out there,” much to my mother’s excitement. I swear my father is still side-eyeing me and is convinced I’m hiding something, but my mother is ready for bambinos, Bella!
As in plural.
“Do you think…do you think he’ll like me?” I ask, and I immediately regret it. Landon’s relationship with his son is in such a precarious position that Landon is convinced most days Griffin doesn’t even like him.
“He’ll love you, Serena. Any issues he may potentially have with you will be about me, not you, baby. He was raised to have impeccable manners, but I think he’s forgotten that as of late though.”
“I’m not much older than him though…” I trail off. “I don’t want him to call me like ma’am or something.”
He chuckles and rolls his eyes. “I’ll pass along the message.”
“Does he know you’re seeing someone?”