Everybody has a secret. We keep them for different reasons. It might be to protect ourselves or to hide something we've done; to deceive others. When we keep secrets from people we love, things get complicated; there's a fine line between secrets and lies. That's why secrets should stay hidden. The minute you share a secret, someone has to tell a lie to protect it and that lie usually hurts someone, sometimes someone you love. Secrets are meant to be locked away in your mind in a place that only belongs to you.
My name is Andrea, and I have a complicated and messy secret; it involved sex with my boyfriend's dad when I was a sophomore at college.
It wasn't planned; neither of us set out for it to happen. I never thought about my boyfriend's dad that way; it wasn't like Derek was pursuing me or anything. I know it sounds like a cliche, but it just happened.
My boyfriend's parents have a summer house in Show Low, Arizona, a place where people with money go to escape the heat of the desert. They offered it to my friend Melisa and me to hang out over spring break. We had a long girl's weekend planned and were looking forward to relaxing and having fun, just the two of us. Jackson, my boyfriend, went to California with his mom to visit his aunt, who just had some kind of surgery. His dad, Derek, stayed behind. He owns a tech company, and I guess he wanted to use the weekend to catch up on some work stuff.
The plan was to drive to Show Low Thursday afternoon and open the house while Melissa drove over from Flagstaff. When I got to the house, there was no power, so I called Jackson's dad and told him what was going on. He had me flip some switches in an electrical box in the garage, but nothing worked. He told me to sit tight, and he would drive up and check it out. I'm sure he figured I was just being blonde, and it was something totally minor.
The house was on a large, secluded property at the edge of town, surrounded by woods, so there was no way I would have stayed there at night alone without power and lights. He was only a couple of hours away, and it was still daylight, so I didn't stress about it. Unfortunately, Melissa bailed when I called and told her about the drama; I was stuck in this place by myself. The girl's weekend was a bust, and now I had to wait for Jackson's dad to get there because he was already on his way.
I had a couple of drinks, put on my bikini, and jumped in the pool for a swim. When I got out, I put on a pair of volleyball shorts and a crop top and listened to some music on my phone while I waited for him to arrive. The only swimsuit I had was a tiny thong, and I didn't want to be lounging by the pool in that thing when he rolled in.
Derek laughed when he got out of the car; immediately teasing me about only being there a few minutes before I started breaking things. I'd spent a lot of time at their house, and he loved teasing me all the time.
The electrical thing was more than a quick fix, so he called an electrician, but they couldn't get there until morning; it was starting to get dark. However, Derek wasn't stressed about it at all; he said a generator in the garage would run a couple of lights and the fridge, and there were plenty of flashlights, lanterns, and candles that would work for tonight until the problem got fixed in the morning. So we headed into town, stopped to get dinner and a few drinks, picked up some groceries, and headed back to the house.
I was glad someone else was with me. I would have been freaking out in that big house alone at night. The good part about it being so dark up there, the sky was beautiful, like a giant movie screen. The stars were brighter than I had ever seen them. Derek lit a couple of Tiki torches, and we sat on the pool deck, drank wine, talked about work, school, life, and all kinds of stuff while we enjoyed a fantastic show from the shooting stars.
Derek had a huge wine cellar, and it was good wine, not like the cheap stuff I could afford; it went down like water. So even though the weekend plans had fallen through, I was enjoying myself and very relaxed.
The shooting stars came one after another that night, and he eventually asked me if I made a wish. I told him I didn't, and that led to a long discussion about the requirement of making a wish when you saw a shooting star.
Finally, I had just enough wine to take on the debate, and when we saw the next one, I told him I made a wish. He asked me what it was, which led to another discussion about not telling anyone your wish, kind of like when you break a wishbone or blow out birthday candles. We were having fun and being silly.
Derek came back out with more wine; I felt him staring at me as he poured more into our glasses.
"My wish still hasn't come true; you're not in the pool and you still have your clothes on."
I busted up laughing. I didn't think anything of it because we always teased each other and sometimes flirted a little; it was harmless fun.
"Have you ever wanted something you know you can't ever have?"
I smiled as another shooting star streaked across the sky above us.
"You mean like a Lamborghini?"
I was pretty sure he wasn't talking about cars.
Jackson's dad is a deep thinker, he is a man of few words but when he does say something it has meaning. Sometimes, how he says something has more meaning than what he says.
A few minutes later, he leaned forward and took off his T-shirt, and tossed it on the table. He pointed at me and smiled,
"Did your wish come true?"
"Nope," I said, laughing.
The conversation turned to boys, girls, and eventually tattoos. Turns out we both had one, so he described his, and I described mine.
I have a tiny ladybug on my right breast near my nipple, so no way was he going to see it anyway. His tattoo was apparently on his butt because I saw him a lot with only swim trunks or shorts and never saw a tattoo.
Derek got a big grin on his face,
"Must be on your boob because I have seen you in a tiny swimsuit and--no tattoo."
Our flirting was ramping up, and we were both laughing and giggling louder than ever. I didn't expect what came next.
Derek stood up, turned around, and pulled his shorts down to his knees. He wasn't lying; there was a big Arizona State Sun Devil on his pale white butt cheek. Unfortunately, there wasn't much light from the torches, so I grabbed the flashlight and shined it on the tattoo; being silly. He wasn't in any hurry to pull his shorts back up. It looked nice; so did the tattoo.
I giggled, "Very nice."
