In Your Dreams (In Your Dreams #1)

Chapter 8

"You must be Zip. Carlie Lanier," she breathes, floating down the last few steps and gliding toward me with her arm outstretched. As I shake her hand, I give her the once-over and determine Kayla didn't get her runner's build from Jim Lanier because Carlie Lanier is Kayla-Kayla with about thirty years on her. The same jet-black hair curls around Carlie Lanier's shoulders and the same blue eyes pierce me as they do almost daily at school, only these eyes are trying to shoot me through with kindness instead of stabbing me with cruelty. Even in baggy gray sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt, "NYU" emblazoned across the front in purple block letters, I can tell Carlie's in shape as well. I think once again of Kieran's skinny build and the t-shirts and hoodies that always appear to be about to drown him, and I wonder how he must feel coming home every day to a family who looks like they just walked out of an aerobics video.

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lanier," I respond, giving her an embarrassed smile. "Sorry I brought Kieran home so late."

"Please call me Carlie. And thank you for bringing Kieran home. We're certainly not angry with you. He can be rather headstrong sometimes."

Jim and Carlie stare at me for a moment before glancing at each other. He tilts his head toward the living room, and her shoulders hunch up in response. I, meanwhile, stand and watch like an idiot, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as the realization takes hold that I'm witnessing one of those silent conversations between people who have been married for years and are still very much in love. My grandparents do their version of this in front of me sometimes, and I'm always kind of fascinated by how a few shifts of their eyes and rapid chin lifts indicate things like "I'm bored and we should go home" or, more often, "You tell April. I don't want to tell April."

"After talking to your mother, we gather you've had a rough night," Carlie says.

The game. Hearing Kieran's secret and now enduring this meeting with his parents almost made me forget about Regionals. Incredible. I reach up, pretending to scratch an itch on my forehead, and I feel the sliminess of dried sweat along with some acne bumps along my skin at the hairline. And I bet I probably smell, standing here in the warm ups I slid on after the game without taking a shower. Right now, I'm so wishing I'd dropped Kieran off in the driveway and left.

"We've been eager to meet you," Carlie continues. "Of course, we'd hoped it would be under better circumstances."

"Well, my grandmother's been talking about inviting you over for dinner. She wanted to give you some time to get settled in."

At this news, the silent conversation between the Laniers begins again, Jim pursing his lips and Carlie responding by nodding her head at him slowly. Obviously, I'm not as familiar with their body language as I am with my grandparents', so I'm essentially a foreigner in a strange land with no translator.

"We'd...I think we'd like that," Jim replies, his voice warm and slightly surprised.

"I'll tell her," I say, nodding my head. "Gram loves entertaining. She's a pretty good cook, too."

Jim and Carlie exchange glances as if deciding which one of them is going to speak next, and I'm kind of blown away by the tension of this whole scene. I mean, I get why I'm uncomfortable. I'm a teenager with these mixed up feelings for Kieran and here I am, meeting his parents for the first time. But Jim and Carlie are supposed to be the calm, cool adults taking some sort of twisted delight in making one of their kids' friends squirm.

Then it hits me-Kayla and Kieran are loners, which makes Jim and Carlie new to the whole "meet your kids' friends and make them uncomfortable" routine, and this knowledge alone is enough to help me relax. Some of the stiffness melts from my shoulders and I stop trying to angle my nose toward my armpit to figure out if I reek as badly as I think I do.