Where I Belong

Part 21

Lindsey pulled the covers down just a tiny bit so he could get a look at Stevie, who was hiding her face in her hands. He pulled the covers down lower more and moved to sit up. Laughter would be the absolute worse response to the situation, but he found it quite comical. They were almost 60-years-old and they just got caught by their daughter. 

"Hey." Lindsey gave an awkward wave, smiling sheepishly. 

"Hey? HEY?" Callie echoed, hands on her hips. "What is this? More importantly, how long has this been going on?" Voice raised, still in shock.

"On and off for about-"

"Lindsey, shut up!" Stevie punched him in the arm, she didn't feel bad, hearing an 'ouch' from him.

"She's not a little kid anymore. How do you think you're going to get out of this?" Lindsey asked Stevie, who wanted to just disappear somehow.

"You-" Callie pointed at Stevie. "You told me that you haven't seen each other in a while yesterday!"

"Well, that was obviously a lie." Stevie sighed, kicking the covers off to get out of bed. Fortunately, she put on her nightgown at some point during the night, when she got up to go to the bathroom. "I can explain." Stevie said, approaching Callie. "Let's go downstairs and we can talk." She put her arm around Callie's shoulders to walk her out of the room.

"Oh, no." Callie shook her head, shrugging her mother's arm off. "All of us, dad included, are talking about this."

A moment of silence followed, Callie wasn't going to move until Lindsey rolled out of bed to go with them. Embarrassed now too, Lindsey scratched the back of his head, thinking of how to say, what he had to say, more delicately.

"Could you- I need to-" Lindsey paused. "I'm-"

Realization hit her and Callie almost ran out of the room, Lindsey winced, hearing her yell out, Oh dear God!

Stevie avoided looking at Callie, while they waited for Lindsey. She sat with her hands clasped, staring at the floor, wondering how could they have been so careless. They knew Callie was coming in the morning, he promised he'd be out before then.

Fully dressed, Lindsey entered the room. He took a seat beside Stevie, somewhat carefully glancing at Callie, who sat in an armchair on his left. "So..."

"I can't believe you two!" That was all it took for Callie to start shouting again. "How did this even happen?"

"Uhm..." Lindsey opened his mouth. "When two people, who love each other-"

"Lindsey, shut the fuck up!" Stevie interrupted him again. "This-" She began, turning to Callie.

"Love?" Callie's eyebrows creased. "Love?" She repeated. "I just thought you were hooking up."

"When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut?" Stevie glared at Lindsey. It wasn't that what he said was incorrect, but Callie didn't need to know about it.

"Well, it's true!" Lindsey exclaimed, he was done being silenced. "This isn't something we planned on happening." He faced Callie. "Your mother was unhappy in her relationship, I've been unhappy in my marriage for a long time. We started talking, then we kissed at your party, one thing led to another and..." He shrugged. "Here we are. I don't know what else to call it, wanting to spend every moment of every single day with a person, getting excited to hear from them, to see them, other than love." The last sentence was directed at Stevie.

Silence, again. Callie would have had more questions if Stevie had argued, called, what Lindsey said bullshit. She looked at her parents for a moment, the rage now gone.

"So, you guys are in love?" Callie asked, putting them in a tough spot.

"We haven't, uh, exactly talked about it." Lindsey spoke up, shifting his gaze over to Stevie, who was uncharacteristically quiet. "This happened so unexpectedly, we're not really sure what's going on either yet."

"You are single." Callie said, focusing on Stevie for a second, her eyes then settled on Lindsey. "But you have a wife."

Lindsey nodded, chewing on the inside of his cheek as if trying to refrain himself from saying anything. He hadn't even told Stevie that he'd seen a divorce lawyer yet. 

"Out of all things..." Callie shook her head. "This-" She showed at her parents. "I didn't see this coming. I wish I could have a drink right now." She then added. "Or five."

No one said anything for a while again. Lindsey, unsure if she was going to push him away, took Stevie's hand, lacing their fingers together. She looked up at him briefly, a tiny glimpse of a smile on her lips. She didn't want Callie to find out this way or at all, at least not yet, but the fact that Lindsey didn't run, he didn't deny anything, he didn't try and make up a lie, it told her a lot more than he could have expressed with words.