“Then I’m coming with you,” I said. “And I’ll dress for the part.”
The Greyhound bus to Rhode Island smelled like old coffee and exhaustion.
Will sat beside me with his knee bouncing nervously while Eddy sat across the aisle, excited but tense.
She kept glancing at me, probably wondering why her future father-in-law looked like he’d been dressed by a clearance rack.
“It’ll be fine,” I reassured her, though I wasn’t convinced myself.
“My parents can be… particular,” she said carefully. “But they’ll love you both.”
When the bus arrived, we grabbed our cheap duffel bags and took a cab to their house.
“Beach house,” Eddy called it.
I called it a monument to excess.
The three-story building of glass and white stone stood on the coast like a modern fortress, with the ocean crashing dramatically behind it.
Eddy knocked on the door.
Her parents—Marta and Farlow—opened it.
Marta was tall, blonde, and perfectly polished in a way that screamed wealth and control. Farlow looked like he’d stepped out of a golf-club catalog, wearing pressed slacks and a cashmere sweater.
“You must be Samuel,” Farlow said while looking me up and down.
