Rick and I avoided any kind of drama we feared our kids might put us through if they knew we were seeing each other. In fact, Kellie, by way of Brandon, provided him with all kinds of information about me in order to pull off some unexpected surprises. He bought gold circle tickets to see Diana Krall. He sent me a basketful of candles that I lit all over my room whenever he came over for marathon sex sessions. He surprised me with homemade gnocchi and Marinara sauce, my favorite, and the best I ever had. Brandon dropped a few hints about his favorite beer, his favorite cigars, and told me to never ever interrupt him when he watched football.
Brandon was wrong about football.
"That's what DVR's are for," Rick said when I showed up naked with a six-pack of his favorite IPA and a Macanundo.
However, the biggest hurdle to get over would be my parents.
Since Brandon was going be away the week between Christmas and New Year's at his dad's cottage up north with Kellie, I planned to spend a couple of days over Christmas with my parents in Sarasota. Rick insisted on joining me.
"Christmas? With my parents? Really?" I asked. "Are you really sure you want to do that? I'm only staying a few days."
"I know," he said. "You've already met my folks and I'd like to meet yours. And since it's on the way to Jamaica where I thought we could spend a few more days and ring in the new year ..."
I screamed. I jumped in his arms. He spun me around until we both almost fell on the floor. He booked a room at an all-inclusive resort that was just for couples. This was going to be fantastic as long as we could endure the time with my parents. They were great people except I was still their kid, and they were just as overinvolved, overprotective and meddlesome as they were when I was Brandon's age, and they insisted we stay with them ... in separate rooms. I would have the guest room and Rick would get the hide-away bed in the TV room.
"We'll only be there four days," Rick said.
"And how long have we gone without sex since the day after Thanksgiving?" I asked.
"Seventy-six and a half hours, only because I was gone for two days to see a client in Atlanta," he said.
And of course my parents insisted on picking us up from the airport. We couldn't escape to get away if we wanted to. Basically, we would be on lockdown under the watchful eyes of my parents.
"Why waste money on a car?" Dad said with a misplaced sense of dong a good deed when he picked us up at the airport. "We'll be happy to take you anywhere you want to go."
The first place I wanted to go after getting off the plane was to the liquor store. Of course Mom put up a fuss.
"Dear, there's no reason for you to get us anything," Mom said. "Remember, we stopped drinking after Dad retired. Too many of his friends started dropping dead after all the heavy drinking they did when they were young like you and Rick. And ever since we cut red meat and pork from our diets, we've never felt better."
Even Rick's eyes rolled over that that remark and gave my hand an extra tight knowing squeeze as we rode in the back seat of my parents' Buick. Luckily, Dad didn't heed Mom's directives and pulled into the liquor store just before turning into their "active mature adult" development.
Dad whisked Rick away for a round of golf and Mom and I stayed back to make Christmas cookies. Of course she had a hundred and twenty questions about Rick and a hundred and twenty reasons to be fearful of me "going steady" after such a short time. She was afraid he'd take me for my money. (He did well as a small business attorney.) She was afraid that if we got married that he'd cheat on me every chance he got just like my ex did. (It was Rick's ex who did all the sleeping around before they divorced.) She made me promise that he'd get checked out before we decided to have sex. (We already covered that topic back in July.)
By that point, I needed a vodka and lemonade -- a double. Mom made a point of telling me that it was only three in the afternoon.
Luckily, Mom and Dad turned in at nine o'clock. Rick and I headed for the TV room. Mom opened the door without knocking to wish us goodnight and left the door open when she left. Apparently, the "open door" rule from when Fred used to come over to hang out and watch TV when I was a teenager was still in effect.
