The Other Girlfriend

All in the Family

Liam’s POV

                “Well, we’re almost there.”  Sarah said with a tense voice.  We’ve been driving a long time now.  The sun is now completely done and the stars are the only thing shining on the interstate.  Sarah exits the interstate and I find myself in a surprisingly nice neighborhood.  It’s quite cozy.  We drive away from the neighborhood and we turn on a quiet road.  “I live on a really big property.  It’s been in family’s hands for a long time now.” She explained.

                After we drive another 20 minutes, we finally see a dirt road that Sarah turns on.  “No kidding,” I say after a long pause.  We drive a few minutes and we then come up to this modern looking cabin.  It has two floors and the house is made out of mostly new wood, but it probably has reinforcements somewhere because the ceiling has tile on it like a regular house.  We pull into the driveway and through the highlights, I see a man, who I assume is Sarah’s dad, seated sharpening a giant knife with a couple rifles to his right.  When Sarah turns off the car, we exit and grab our stuff.

                That’s when I hear the sound of the knife grating on the sharpening stone.  It almost reminded me of someone sadistically killing a snake or a pig or something like that.  If her dad is intentionally trying to make me nervous, it’s working.  “Just don’t act imitated.  He does this every time I bring a boy over.”  Sarah mumbled to me.  I turn over to look at him and he put up his knife sharpening to now loading a gun just centimeters away from me. 

                We slowly walk over to the porch with great trepidation like a mouse trying to hide from a cat.  Her dad has bullets in his head as he loads the gun methodically while not even looking at us.  “Welcome home, Sarah.  I see you brought your….boyfriend.”  He says “boyfriend” in the gruffest way possible.  Sarah has a smile on her face, but it can tell it’s faked.

                “Yes, Dad, this is Liam.  Liam, this is my dad.” Sarah said with great awkwardness since her dad is not even looking at me.  I walk onto the porch now and I reach out a hand to see if he notices and he doesn’t.

                “Hello, Mr. Carlton.” I say in the most polite voice I have.  I’m pretty sure my voice is shaky.  He finally looks up at me after the gun loading is done.  He’s wearing a camo hat with a grey t-shirt and camo pants.  Yep, he’s quite different from me.

                “Liam,” He says indifferently.  He shakes my hand. “I see you’re not from here.  Sarah told us you’re from the UK, right?”

                “Yeah, England.”  I clarified.  I figured telling the town wouldn’t do any good so I don’t bother.  He stands up and I realize he’s at least a couple inches taller than me.  Now, I’m getting really nervous.  I know he’s doing this on purpose, but most dads of girlfriends usually don’t go this far but then again this is also my first girlfriend who’s from a different country.

                “I see, you got a couple tattoos on ya,” He said with a disapproving tone.  “I will like this one, right?” He said looking at Sarah with a cold stare.  No wonder Sarah was nervous as heck about this meeting.

                “I think so.  Take him hunting with you.  Just hear him out.” Sarah said nervously.  His pale blue cold eyes stared me down and he relented and finally went inside the house.  Sarah released a breath about the size of all of Mother Nature and came up on the porch now.  “That went…well…”  Sarah said awkwardly, “I so thought he was going to threaten to kill you for fun there at the beginning.”