Across a narrow foyer, the room Westley’s father used as a study and office beckoned me to enter. I stood then at the wide doorway and looked in, taking in the antique rolltop desk, counting the nooks and crannies and tiny drawers filled with who knows what. A tall stack of books sat willy-nilly to the right while papers and files and pens and pencils scattered across the top blocked every inch of the oak grain beneath.
Against the back wall, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase rose and yawned, its shelves nearly buckling from the weight of volumes of tomes. I wondered if Dr. Houser had read them all. Or any at all.
I stepped across the hardwood floor to the front window to peer out, to see if Westley was anywhere around, then caught sight of him ambling from the mailbox at the end of the lane leading to the white clapboard house, correspondence held tightly in one hand. He was a handsome man—an odd sort of cross between Barry and Robin Gibb minus the beard, which I still find hard to explain really. It was as if he had been cut from the same mold but had somehow been lost in the transfer from heaven to earth and, instead of landing in England, found himself in a crib along the coastline of Georgia. Now nearly twenty-eight years of age—almost nine older than me—he was tall and well-built, with soft brown curls he meticulously styled, and a thick moustache that tickled my nose when he kissed me, which was often and well.
The voice of Gene Rayburn called me back to the family room, so I scurried in, more than anything not wanting to be caught prying. I had barely gotten back to the sofa and crossed my arms and legs in an “I wasn’t doing anything” fashion when Westley stepped in from the door leading to the kitchen.
“Hey there,” he said, smiling. “I should have changed to jeans and a tee.”
He wore a pair of tan corduroy bell-bottomed pants that fit him scrumptiously. He had unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt—polyester and quite stylish for the time—and was already at work on the mother-of-pearl snaps going down the front. I averted my eyes, allowing myself only to look at Charles Nelson Riley, who quipped a line toward Gene Rayburn. Safer there by a mile.
I’d seen Westley bare-chested, of course. We’d spent hours upon hours soaking up sun on Tybee Island that summer. But the oddness of his coming out of his shirt in the privacy and sanctity of his parents’ home—while altogether acceptable at the beach—struck me. After all, we were innocent in our relationship. Innocent and alone …
“Hey yourself,” I said. The contestant with the Farrah Fawcett hairstyle kissed Richard Dawson for his role in her win of $500 in prize money as Westley flicked off his shirt.
I glanced over, noting as quickly as possible the tan of his skin, the flat of his belly, the pink of his nipples, and a small tuft of hair between them that formed a V. “It’s hotter out there than I thought it would be,” he said. “I’m going to take a quick shower and change into something a little cooler.”
A new contestant came on the show and Gene Rayburn announced that they’d return after a word from their sponsor. I cast my eyes toward Westley’s, careful to stay focused on the green of them. “Yeah. Okay,” I said. My leg—the one crossed on top—began a furious pump of its own accord.
He chuckled, then plopped beside me. “Excuse the sweat,” he said before reaching over to kiss my ear. Down my throat. Back up again.
“Westley,” I breathed. “Your parents …”
He ignored me. Instead of going for the shower—awkward as that would have been with him down the hall splashing around naked as the day he was born—he slid his arm around my shoulder, cupped my chin and kissed me so soundly I felt as though I had been dropped into a tunnel. Although common sense shouted otherwise, I allowed myself to sink into the rough fibers of the sofa, keeping my palms flat on my thighs, all the while allowing him to press harder while kaleidoscope colors exploded behind my eyes.
Westley had that effect on me.
And then …
“Westley Houser!”
I jumped, wiping my swollen lips with the back of my hand, blinking furiously to clear my vision and to assess the situation. I was in the Houser family room … Match Game ’77 … the show had gone to commercial. Westley had taken off his shirt … tuft of hair … kiss from heaven … and now … his father stood in the doorway holding a brown paper bag full of groceries, his face aghast while mine blushed furiously.
But not Westley. He only grinned and said, “Allison Houser,” combining our names so seamlessly as to suggest I’d always been known as such.
I sucked in as much air as the room held, my chest exploding from the pressure.
And that’s when it happened. Westley looked from his father. To me. Said, “Well, that sounds good” and beamed back up at his father. “What do you think, Dad? Should I make an honest woman out of her?”
An honest woman? “I-I—never—” I stammered. “Dr. Houser, we’ve not—I’ve never—”
“Better get used to calling him Dad,” Westley said, standing. He displayed his shirt to his father. “I was about to shower. Pulled those weeds like I told Mom I would and got a little warm …” He winked in my direction. “Then
