The Tourist Trap

Chapter 13

The next night my parents and I gathered at the kitchen table for dinner -pasta with sauce from a jar. I knew my mom had a long day on the ranch when she served up sauce from a jar.

Normally she took a lot of pride in the fact that she cooked pretty much everything from scratch. But this was normal for this time of year.

At the beginning of every summer, my mom threw herself into chores on the ranch that she neglected all school year and ended up working herself to the bone for about a week -until she remembered that she had all summer to get everything done.

"Sorry about this," she said, dropping a plate of formerly frozen garlic toast on the table. "I know it doesn't look too appetizing.

My father spread his napkin over his lap and smiled. "It looks amazing, Sweets."

My mom blushed and I gagged, but smiled.

It both grossed me out and made me happy when my dad called my mom by his nickname for her.

Grossed out because, well, who wants to know why their dad calls their mom "Sweets"?

Happy because it was nice to have parents who genuinely liked each other. 

Not all my friends were so lucky.

"Well, dig in," my mother told us, setting a salad in the center of the table. 

A breeze blew the curtains in from outside and at the same moment, we all heard a car pulling up in the driveway.

My father crunched into some garlic bread. My mom glanced at me quizzically, then turned to look out the front kitchen window.

"Cassie, I think you have a visitor," she said, coyly.

Dad stopped chewing. My heart flip-flopped.

We both knew that if it was Donna or Derek, she just would have just said so and set another plate out.

A car door slammed. Footsteps crunched up the front walk. 

Still, for some reason when the door bell rang, I was startled.

"I guess I'll get it," I said, pushing my chair away from the table.

At the door, I inched the plaid curtain aside and caught a glimpse of Jared's side profile. 

Model perfect.

Suddenly dry in the mouth, I let the curtain fall back and took a deep breath.

My nerves jangled like Christmas bells. What the heck was he doing here? And didn't her know it was dinner time?

"Cassie? Who is it?" my father called.

With all the windows open, Jared had definitely heard that. Snagged. I held my breath and opened the door.

"Hi!" I said casually. He was holding a bunch of wildflowers wrapped in a white paper towel. "What's that?"

"A lame apology?" Jared said, holding them out. "You guys don't have a florist around here, huh?"

"Yeah. But it's just a couple towns over." I said, taking the flowers. "But thanks, these are beautiful." 

It actually looked like he put some thought into the arrangement -yellows in the center and purples all around.

Of course, I had never gotten flowers from a guy in my entire life. He could have handed me a fistful of dandelions and I would have been touched. 

So much for writing him off. Who knew I was such a pushover?