The Sweetest Summer

Chapter Thirty - One - Past Life

"This is so great, Avery!" She beamed and my father's head snapped so hard toward her I worried it would snap clean off.

"What do you mean great, Samantha?!" My father so rarely used her full name that it caught us both off guard. "She's nineteen and they want her to abandon her studies and fly all the way to Paris, to be part of a job field that is notorious for body shaming, and drugs, and chewing up girls and spitting them out. You can't seriously tell me you're on board with all of that!"

"Of course I'm not on board with that." My mother guided his face to hers and I looked away at the intimacy their eyes held. "What I am on board with is our daughter following her dreams. She's a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders. She won't get sucked into the darker side."

My lips pressed into a timid smile at my mother's confidence in me. She wasn't entirely wrong, I only drank occasionally with Marissa, never when I was driving, and had never touched drugs which was saying a lot growing up in Malibu. If the contact was in Collins' hand, I'm sure the conversation would have gone differently.

"Plus, you'll be in Paris in what, three months? Why don't you make an extra day of your stop and check up on her...spend some time with her." My mother was now rubbing my father's stubbly cheek and his resolve began to crumple. "Come on, Ash." She laid it on thick, using his nickname that I knew he loved.

"Fuck. Fine." He huffed and I resisted the overwhelming urge to jump up and down. "But if you start going off the deep end, I'm coming there and yanking your ass back home." He threatened, but I was too busy throwing my arms around him to care.

"Thank you so much, Daddy! I promise I will be good and do good."

"And nothing naked for the love of God. At least until you turn twenty-one. I'm serious, I want that written into this fucking contract!" I laughed even though I knew he wasn't joking.

"Yeah, totally!" I agreed emphatically. "I don't want to pose naked for any creepy photographers."

"When do you need this back by? We can have the family lawyer give it a once over and add the terms about the nudity." My father continued to flip through the pages of both contracts.

"By Friday."

"Which Friday?" My mother raised an eyebrow.

"This Friday..."

My father pulled his phone from the front pocket of his tight black jeans.

"Avery, it's Tuesday."

"I know..."

"So you need this contract finalized in three days?!"

"Sooner would actually be better. I need to overnight it back to Franc before my flight to Paris Friday..."

"Holy shit!" My father cursed and my mom found his arm again. "No. Too soon. They need to give you more time!"

"There is no more time Daddy....it's now or never." I insisted quietly and he studied me for several minutes, warring with himself over handing over his first born child.

"Ash." My mom soothed again. "It's time. Let her go." She rubbed his arms and tears actually accumulated in his eyes. He was tearing the fuck up. Never in my entire life had I seen this man cry, and now here he was, one step away from full blown hysterics.

"Daddy, it'll be okay. It's not like I'm dying..." I insisted, and the first tear fell, followed by the second, but I was crushed too close to his chest to watch the others fall.

*****************

Twenty-four hours later, the contact was finalized with all the necessary nudity addendums, signed, and driven to the mail store to overnight it. I had never shipped anything overnight to another country and I was shocked to find out it wasn't all that cheap.