Page 1 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
1
CALLUM
The black graduation caps twirled up in the air above my graduating classmates’ heads, spinning end over end, the gold tassels whipping around before sticking up like a tail as the caps fell back to the reaching fingers of their owners.
I grabbed mine as David, my best buddy, pitched forward to reach for his. He overshot it, stumbled into the girl in front of us, and yelped in surprise when his knees hit the hardwood floor of the auditorium.
I laughed and bent to pick up his hat. He got to his feet and dusted off his black robe, and I tugged it over his messy blond hair and gave his cheek a firm but friendly slap. “We did it, bud!”
David grinned like a fool and missed the way the girl in front of him was glaring at him as she straightened her robes. “I know! Peace out, Westview High!”
We fist-bumped as the rows of students began filing off the stage in appropriate order. David walked ahead of me, and I followed hot on his heels and craned my neck to look for my girlfriend, Lina Nelson. She was only afew rows behind me, but I couldn’t find her over the identical capped heads of my peers.
The students all wandered outside. David patted my shoulder before he ducked through the crowd to meet up with his parents.
I found my father shortly after.
He was standing off to the right-hand side, away from all the mingling families and students. He’d never been much for big crowds, but he was enduring it today to celebrate my graduation.
My dad saw me coming and greeted me with a wide smile—a smile that was very much like my own. He had taken the time to trim and tame what had been a rather wild beard just yesterday afternoon. Even more impressive, he’d taken the time to go out and buy a button-up shirt and a pair of pants that weren’t jeans.
He pulled me into a tight hug when I showed him my diploma. “I’m proud of you, son,” he said in his deep baritone voice. He pulled away and patted my cheek. “And your mother would be too. She would have given anything to be here today.”
“I know,” I said.
He gave me a tight-lipped smile that revealed the infamous Gabriel men dimple in his left cheek. I had the same one. “This all happened so fast. My boy is a man.”
The back of my neck grew hot, and I shifted my shoulders to move the heavy black robe around. “Dad, stop.”
“What?” He chuckled, fanning his hands out innocently. “You don’t like being called a man? You’d rather I still call you my boy?”
“I imagine my high school diploma won’t change the fact that you still call me kiddo. ‘Man’ and ‘boy’ are temporary.”
My dad rolled his eyes at me. “Such a wise ass. Like your mom.”
I shrugged. “She had to have a good sense of humor to put up with you all those years.”
“I know that was a dig at me, Callum, but you’re right.”
“I know I am.” I smiled.
My dad tipped his chin at something behind me. “Have you told her yet?”
I glanced over my shoulder in the direction he had nodded.
Lina was standing there with her best friend, Kelli, and Kelli’s parents. She’d moved in with them when her single mother passed away six years ago. Her father had been out of the picture since she was a baby, and Lina was the sort of girl who didn’t need to know him to know herself. Still, she was lucky to have the Rollins family by her side through it all.
She looked beautiful, although she always did. She had her diploma grasped in both arms, and she hugged it to her body. The robe she wore hung from her slender shoulders down to the middle of her calves. Her thin ankles were wrapped in gold sparkly straps. She’d purchased those shoes solely for her walk across the stage to accept her diploma. When I told her it was unnecessary, she scowled at me and said the gold would match the tassel on our caps. She also made a point to tell me that there would be photographers there to take pictures, and there wasn’t anything wrong with putting your best foot forward.
She was right, of course.
Lina Nelson was always right.
Even though we had been together for the last two years, I watched, transfixed by her, as she flicked her long dark-brown hair over her shoulder. In the midafternoon sun, it shone with streaks of red—a deep tone that bordered on the verge of purple. She threw her arms around Kelli’s mother’s shoulders in a hug, and I sighed as my dad jabbed me in the ribs.
I rubbed my side. “No, I haven’t told her.”
My dad clicked his tongue. “That’s irresponsible. She deserved to know much sooner than this, Callum.”
