Trashed (32 page)

I turn to him and grin. “Tory, huh. You’d think this would have come up before now.”
 

He narrows his eyes at me, and the glare he gives me is a mirror to the one his sister just gave him. “Is that so,
Destiny
?”

I frown, because I don’t exactly have much to argue with on that score. I turn away from him and extend my hand to his father, who ignores the hand and moves toward me.
He’s
going to hug me too? What the fuck? Who hugs this much? It’s unnatural. My gut flips and my pulse hammers, because his mother is one thing, but Adam’s dad is almost as huge as his son, and I’m uncomfortable at best around anyone, men especially. But I don’t want to seem standoffish or anything, so I force myself to stay calm and let him get near me. It feels like it happens in slow-motion, and then his burly arms are around my shoulders, but he’s angled slightly rather than face-on, and there’s space between us, and somehow it’s strangely not as scary as I thought it would be. He smells like cologne and lets me go quickly.
 

“It’s nice to meet you, Des. Welcome.” He smiles, and I see where Adam got his eyes, the same pale, intelligent, piercing green.
 

“You too,” I say. “And thanks for having me here.”
 

That’s what you say in these situations, right? I don’t know. Whenever I was placed in a new home, I’d just say my name and everyone else would say theirs and then I’d find somewhere out of the way to hang out. No one hugged, no one told me welcome or that it was nice to meet me. Just “Hey, ’sup. How are ya?” And then back to the TV or the video game or the joint.
 

And then his sisters are in front of me, side by side, and they each hug me in turn, because clearly a hug is how this family greets new people, or maybe it’s just Adam’s girlfriends. I don’t know. But I make it through the hugs without panicking or freezing.

“Would you like a glass of wine, Des?” Lani asks, uncorking a bottle.

“Um. Sure?”
 

“Do you like shiraz?”
 

I shrug, mystified. “I…I’m not much of a wine drinker, so I honestly don’t know. Whatever you’re having is fine.”
 

I accept a huge goblet of ruby red wine, and when I taste it my mouth explodes. It’s thick, rich, and does something bizarre to my taste buds. I blink and force myself to swallow it.
 

Adam is watching my expression carefully, and laughs. “Yeah, shiraz’ll do that to you. I hate that shit, myself.”
 

Lani looks at me in concern. “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t realize…here, would you care for something else?” She reaches for the glass, her expression so worried that it’s almost funny.

I shake my head and take another sip, which assaults my mouth just as violently as the first time, but it’s not entirely unpleasant, just…very different. “No, it’s fine. I’ll try it.”

Lani frowns. “Well, don’t drink it just to be polite, not if you don’t like it.”

The girls have glasses of something pink and bubbly, and I’m not sure if it’s alcoholic or not. Adam and his dad have beer, and his mom has a glass of the same wine I’m drinking, and then we all move outside to a long rectangular glass table beneath a pergola. Thank god for HGTV, so I at least know what a pergola is. Lani brings a plate of white, pungent cheese and another plate of hexagonal crackers, and the cheese is arranged in an intricate starburst pattern on the plate and the crackers are stacked in rows, and it looks like something out of a TV show, where people do fancy shit like arrange cheese on the plate before eating it.

I settle into a chair and take another sip, and this time it’s actually almost pleasant, the way the wine seems to occupy my entire mouth, exploding and changing as I swallow. I have a hand draped down at the side of the chair, and I feel something wet nuzzle my palm.

I glance over, and then jump so hard my wine spills over the edge of the glass and then I shriek. They have a bear. An actual pet bear. Okay, maybe it’s just a big dog, but it’s the size of a small bear, with floppy ears and shaggy gray fur.
 

“What the
hell
is that?” I ask, scooting my chair backward and moving behind Adam, who is laughing.

“That’s Iggy,” Adam says, pulling the enormous beast to his side. “He’s an Irish wolfhound. He’s big, sweet, and stupid.”

“Iggy?” It seems an incongruous name for such a massive dog. I move out from behind Adam’s chair and sit down again.

“He is
not
stupid, Tory!” Lizzy protests. “He’s just misunderstood. And a little slow.”
 

“Will he try to eat me?” I can’t help asking.
 

I’m not a dog person. Cats, maybe. Fish, lizards, very small birds…fine. Dogs the size of a grizzly bear? Not fine.
 

Adam laughs. “No. He might try to sit on your lap and crush you, though. Sit, Iggy.” He pats the dog’s backside, and he sits, huffing, tongue lolling, a mouth full of huge fangs dripping with saliva. “Iggy. Say hi.”
 

The dog barks, a loud
woof
of sound that has me startled all over again. “Hi, Iggy.” I reach my hand out tentatively, and the dog barks again and moves toward me.
 

I hastily withdraw my hand, but now the dog is in front of me. He’s so tall that, when I’m sitting, he can basically lick me in the face without having to lift up. Which he does. Vigorously. I stand up and back away, but Iggy just leaps up and puts his paws on my shoulders. His paws reach my shoulders, and his head is higher than mine. And now his breath is in my face and his tongue is lapping at me.

“Get him off!” I’d like to say that came out as a shriek, but it was actually more of a squeal.
 

“Ignatius, get
down
,” Erik snaps, and the bear-dog or wolfhound or whatever it is lowers his paws to the ground and stares up at me, tongue lolling, eyes happy and innocent, his head even with my navel.
 

I wipe my face, and then wipe the slobber from my hands on my pant-legs, trying to contain my disgust. When I finally look up, everyone is trying not to laugh.
 

I glare, but it’s good-natured. “Why on earth would you have a pet bear? That’s crazy.”

“Wolfhound, babe. Not a bear.” Adam is grinning.

“Bear, wolfhound, the size of that thing makes it moot point, if you ask me.” I watch nervously as Iggy ambles away, turns in a circle three times, and then lies on the ground behind Adam’s chair.
 

“So did you have any pets growing up, Des?” Lani asks.

I shake my head. “No. I…moved around a lot, so pets weren’t really a possibility.”

“Oh, was your father in the military or something?” Lani’s questions are innocent, but so hard to answer.

“Mom.” Adam gives his mother a meaningful glance and a slight shake of his head.
 

And now it’s awkward. I take a fortifying sip of the wine. “I didn’t have a…traditional childhood,” I say. Everyone at the table is rapt. “I grew up in the foster system in Detroit.”

“Oh.” Lani’s gaze goes soft and understanding. “I see.”

That’s the look I hate. That right there, even though I know she means well, is the reason I don’t talk about it.

I shrug. “There was this one family I stayed with for a few months, and they had a parrot.” I can’t help smiling. “He was kind of an asshole. I think he was actually a cockatoo, now that I think about it. He was really bizarre. He would climb up your arm and sit on your shoulder when he first met you, and he would just stare at you. It was creepy. You couldn’t get him off or try to pet him, or even talk to him until he got down on his own, or he would bite you.”
 

“What was his name?” one of the twins asks. Lia? The one wearing jeans.

“Cartmann.”

“Like…the
South Park
character?” she clarifies.

I nod. “Yep.”

“That’s kind of funny,” Lia says, grinning.

“Yeah, until he takes a chunk out of your ear,” I say, touching the small divot in the outer edge of my ear where Cartmann had bitten me when I first met him.
 

“Yeesh.” Lia makes a face.

“So, Tory, how long are you in town for?” Erik asks.

“Till September or October,” Adam answers.
 

“Oh, for awhile, then.”
 

Adam nods. “Yeah. All I’ve got is the premier next month, but I’m off for the summer except for that.”
 

Erik peels the label off his beer bottle, glancing at his son. “So what are you going to do with yourselves?”
 

Adam shrugs. “Dunno. Show Des the city. Hang out and not memorize lines. Not spend twenty or thirty hours a week in the gym.” He glances at me, and there’s a glint of humor in his eyes, or maybe it’s a promise.
 

Something tells me those twenty to thirty hours a week in the gym will be transferred to the bedroom, and it’ll probably involve me on my back. Or my knees. Or standing up, bent over. He’s very imaginative. My core tightens and goes damp at my train of thought, and I force my mind out of the gutter and back to the conversation, which has moved on to Lia and Lizzy’s coming transition to college in the fall.
 

I pay attention and keep quiet, watching Adam interact with his family. It’s so incredible to watch. They all know each other so well, they’re each so invested in the others, and they each have their own unique way of talking to each other. The girls obviously adore and idolize their older brother, and Adam is fiercely protective, interrogating them each in turn on the kinds of guys they’ve dated, who they hang out with, and spends several minutes lecturing them on keeping out of trouble when they start college. It’s adorable, and a lot sexy. He’s tender and respectful with his mom, macho and manly with his dad. And with me, he’s a little of all of that. He goes out of his way to include me in the conversations, guides the topics away from anything that might make me uncomfortable.
 

At some point in the afternoon, Lani quietly leaves the table and moves into the kitchen and begins pulling things from the fridge. I get up and join her in the kitchen.

“Can I help?” I ask.

She smiles at me. “Sure. Would you like to mince a few cloves of garlic for me?”
 

I smash the cloves with the flat of the knife blade, peel them, and then start slicing. “Adam is really incredible,” I say. “You and Erik should be proud.”
 

She beams. “Oh, we are. Very proud. He’s accomplished a lot in a very short time.” Lani opens two packages of ground beef and dumps them into a huge pan and stirs. When the meat is sizzling, she turns back to me and glances past me, at Adam. “I was worried about him when he signed with the Chargers. I was proud of him then, too, of course, because making it to the NFL is an enormous accomplishment for a football player. But even in the four years he played for Stanford, he got injured several times. Very badly, once, and actually missed half a season. His Achilles tendon, that was. The NFL is so competitive, and I worried for him.”
 

“How do you feel about him acting? Some of the stunts he does are pretty dangerous.”

She shrugs. “Well, he’s a very tough and athletic man. He always has been. He wouldn’t be content doing something that wasn’t physically demanding. So yes, I suppose the stunts are dangerous, but the overall risk is less, I think, than the NFL.” She glances at me. “Did you know he got a full ride to Stanford?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t. I knew he went there and played ball, but…”

Lani’s pride is evident. “Well, yes, he played football, too, but his full ride was an academic scholarship, not athletic. He wouldn’t mention this, because it’s not his nature to brag, but he was Valedictorian when he graduated. He has a degree in psychology. That’s on top of starting all four years he played football as well.”
 

My head spins. “Wow, I didn’t know. I mean, I know he’s smart, but…” I shrug. “When it comes to Adam, though, not much surprises me.”

“What about you?” Lani asks, putting water on to boil for pasta. “What do you do?”

“I’m working towards a master’s degree in social work.”

“What will you do with it?”

“Work with foster kids like me. They need an advocate. Someone who cares, because there’s just…there’s not enough people in the world who care for the kids who get lost in the system.” I slide the cutting board with the minced garlic to Lani, who dumps it into the pan with the now-browned ground beef and tomato sauce. “I want to be someone that I wish I’d had myself, growing up.”

“I understand this,” Lani says, her voice quiet, her eyes far away. “Growing up in Fiji, I was just one of many children whose parents simply couldn’t afford to care for them. But for us, there was no system.”
 

My heart hitches. Something in her carriage, her bearing, her voice, tells me she understands me on a personal level. “But you made it out?”

She nods. “Eventually, yes. I had an aunt; my father’s much, much older sister. She had no children of her own. She’d moved here to Los Angeles many years before I was born. I’m not even sure how she made it here, honestly. She visited us in Fiji when I was eleven. And she…brought me back with her. Why me, I’ll never know. But she did. Put me in school, gave me an opportunity I would never have gotten otherwise.”

“That’s awesome,” I say.

“Yes, I was very fortunate.”

“So, what do you do?” I ask.

“I am a surgeon,” she answers. “And Erik is an entrepreneur. He owns several apartment complexes, a shopping center, a chain of gyms, and he also runs a medical supply company, primarily for outpatient home care.”
 

“You must be busy, then.”
 

She shrugs. “Who isn’t? He’s thinking of selling off some of his holdings now, though, since the girls are both heading off to college in the fall.” Her gaze goes to me, and while her expression isn’t exactly hard, it’s piercing, unwavering. “Tory is kind and loyal to a fault, you know. And he may be a big macho tough guy, but his emotions run deep. He was hurt by a woman recently, very badly. That was…difficult for me to watch.”