Mrs. Temple—“Don’t be silly, Carson. Call me Jane”—gave me a quick tour of the local attractions as we drove past them. The marina, boats, the bay—yes, we have those in San Francisco, too—downtown, the suburbs, the suburbs, the suburbs, the suburbs. And, hey look! Even more suburbs. Until we finally got to the neighborhood Lane had grown up in.

We passed the high school she’d gone to—“Go, Dolphins!”—the field where she’d played soccer until she was nine, when a broken leg ruined her lifelong dream of playing all the way till she turned ten, and the grocery store where they’d shopped for over twenty-five years.

Oh yeah, I got caught up on all the latest news—unfortunately, the customer service wasn’t as good as it used to be, so Jane was considering switching to the new chain store that had opened up nearby because their produce was nicer. But she wasn’t sure she could because of her loyalty to the local store. Plus, their meat was fresher.

I nodded. I made sounds of understanding and agreement. But honestly, I was scared shitless. Bill and Jane were perfectly lovely people, living in a perfectly lovely suburb of a perfectly lovely town. But holy fuck did I hope this wasn’t what Lane wanted our future to look like.

---

Their house was almost dead-on how I’d imagined it. Plus, back home, Lane had a dozen or so huge scrapbooks filled with pictures, ticket stubs, and random kid crap. Adorable Lane as a pigtailed little girl straddling a Barbie bike with training wheels on the sidewalk in front of the house. Studious Lane in her bedroom, looking up from a pre-teen romance novel with a smile that showed off her braces. Grumpy Lane standing in front of a Christmas tree that took up the entire living room, her awkward adolescent posture barely hinting at how beautiful she’d be a few years later. Embarrassed Lane, wearing the least flattering prom dress known to man, standing in a group of happy teens and next to the lucky idiot who was the first guy to ever put his lips on hers.

Now I was here, right where all that stuff had actually happened. An endless supply of things to tease her about.

“Make yourself at home, Carson,” Jane said.

Home. Sure. All I could think about was how different it was from where I’d grown up. It was warm and lived-in, as opposed to the Bennett’s sanitized house that was more showpiece than home, perpetually ready for the next magazine article or cocktail party.

“Get the Champagne glasses?” Jane asked her husband.

He took four flutes from an oak display case and set them down on the coffee table. When Jane returned from the kitchen, Bill sat on the worn blue recliner. I took the off-white couch across from him. Lane eased her ass down onto the pillow I’d put down next to me.

“Thank you.” Wishing they’d offered something stronger, I took the glass and watched the bubbles escape. “It was a long flight.”

“I’m sure. We promise not to keep you up too late.” Smiling, Jane held up her glass. “To family.”

“To family,” we all repeated.

I should’ve known something was off, since the liquid was darker than any Champagne I’d ever seen before, but it wasn’t until I took a sip that I realized how off it was.

“Sparkling cider,” Lane whispered to me as I tried to keep the disappointment off my face.

Damn. Should’ve known. It was going to be a long couple of days.

---

Grilling is great for meat and whatever hot dogs are made of. Delicious. Fun. Makes you feel like a man. But the grilling I went through was far less pleasant and way more emasculating. It took every ounce of concentration both Lane and I had to dodge all the questions I didn’t want to answer. They were normal things parents wanted to know about their daughter’s boyfriend, I’d guess. Where I grew up—San Francisco—if I had siblings—one and a half—what my career goals were—um… to never have a career goal?

I loved my life, was proud of it, even. I had Lane, the foundation, and no worries about where my next paycheck would come from. But until Lane came clean about who I was and how we’d actually gotten together, most of our reality was off limits. Thankfully they didn’t ask about our love life, so Lane’s virginity wasn’t in question. But she hadn’t even told them we were shacking up.

So we redirected the conversation to her art work about sixteen different times. She told them about her upcoming project and a little of what had inspired its theme. But even that story had holes in it.

Lane had designed the installation for the building’s lobby as a reflection of her life.

“Each table is shaped like a lily pad,” she explained anxiously. “Symbols of each step on the journey leading up to the infinity fountain at the far end of the lobby, which represents the future. Get it?”

They nodded either out of support or politeness, but it sure wasn’t understanding.

The big piece she’d left out was that each step on the journey was actually symbolic of every guy she’d dated, every man she’d thought she had a future with, every asshole who’d turned out to be a frog.

“Well, it’s getting late,” Bill said. “I’m sure you two are exhausted. We can talk more in the morning.”

It was eight-thirty. I hadn’t gone to sleep at eight-thirty since I was ten, if then. But I was tired, and I definitely needed a break from their well-intentioned interrogation, so I was perfectly happy with my new bedtime.

My new bedroom was less satisfactory. There was no tongue in my goodnight kiss. No sexy brunette waiting for me under the covers. No cute little ass rubbing up against my cock as I fell asleep.

Yep, it was going to be a long couple of days.