Paige DeSorbo takes her “Southern Charm” star boyfriend Craig Conover on a nice New York City picnic. They look like the epitome of a New England couple with Paige in a white two-piece set and him in a polo and white slacks.
If it were up to Craig, they’d be doing this in Charleston, South Carolina, but Paige doesn’t want to move from NYC.
“Sometimes I don’t feel that I appreciate you enough and that I love you because I feel like I also throw a lot of things at you. Like, last year, I was like, ‘Oh, like, I don’t want to get engaged yet and I don’t want to move.’ And, like, I feel like some guys would be like, ‘Okay well, then see you.’ And you kind of just, like, roll with everything I throw at you,” Paige tells Craig.
“Yeah well, I mean, you’re not easy,” he answers. “Well, nothing worth having is easy,” she shoots back. He tells her that he gets that they’re both busy with their careers but he doesn’t want to wait too long to get married and have kids because he’s 35 and wants to have a kid by the time he’s 40, which is not unreasonable.
“I would start to have some resentment … ” Craig starts saying. “That I wasted your time?” Paige answers. “Yeah,” he says. She clearly has no set timeline yet, which doesn’t bode well for the Sewing Down South owner.
Carl Radke kinda sorta tells Lindsay Hubbard about his convo with his mom and step-dad
“Babe,” AKA Lindsay Hubbard, and “babe,” AKA Carl Radke, sit down and have a talk in their $13,000/month apartment. She asks him how his visit with his mom and stepdad was.
“Uh, it was good,” he lies. He pretends to think about what they said and skirts around what they told him, which was that they were concerned about him marrying Lindsay. His stepdad Lou, who is a minister, flat-out told him that he wouldn’t marry them.
He tells the cameras that when he told his parents about his troubles, he and Lindsay weren’t in a good spot. However, they’re doing better now so he doesn’t know how to backtrack what he said. Carl’s in a real pickle.
“What are they saying?” Lindsay asks Carl because her Spidey senses are tingling. “They just want to make sure that we’re in a good place before we get married,” he reassures her. Carl stammers through his explanation and Lindsay is too smart to buy his bullsh*t.
“They just want to make sure that we’re ready to get married,” Carl tells Lindsay. She asks him to elaborate and he says, “That we’re just in a good place. And like, my parents hear that we’ve gotten into two fights to start the summer. That makes them think, ‘Oh, like, they’re having a tough time, so why are they rushing to get married.’ You know?”
“Well, that concerns me if they’re saying that they’re worried for you to get married to me,” Lindsay says. Carl tries to tell him that they’re worried about him and Lindsay being “in a good place,” but the damage has been done.
Lindsay Hubbard has her bridal shower
Everyone comes to Lindsay’s bridal shower, including her frenemy Danielle Olivera and Sam Feher, who made an appearance in “Winter House” Season 7. However, noticeably missing is Paige, who refused to come because she wasn’t invited to the wedding.
“I never thought that I would be here. It’s a really special moment with the strong women who have been in my life to celebrate this new chapter,” Lindsay tells the cameras. She reveals that her stepmother Carolyn has been a mother figure to her after her biological mother decided she wasn’t ready to be a mom at the age of 20.
“My stepmom, she means the world to me,” she says. “Maybe she’s not my blood, but she is my mom.”
Later in the evening, Lindsay mentions to Carl’s mom Sharon what he told her about their concerns. “It broke my heart a little bit,” Lindsay tells Sharon, who immediately feels bad.
Sharon mentions the fight Lindsay and Carl had at the beginning of the summer about her questioning his sobriety. “It’s all hard. I’m so looking forward to having you in the family,” Sharon says while hugging Lindsay.
West Wilson and Ciara Miller are on different pages
On the way to the Hamptons, Ciara Miller tells Paige that she hasn’t seen West Wilson all week and misses him “like, a lot.”
Meanwhile, West and Jesse Solomon are driving together. Jesse says he would settle down with the right person but West is afraid of settling down.
At the house, Lindsay asks West if he and Ciara are exclusive. He very emphatically says, “No.”
“I just think it is like, a weird pigeonhole to be like, we’re not having sex but we’re exclusive,” he explains. Nosy Aunt Lindsay then asks if he’s talking to other women. “I wouldn’t say the door is open to other girls but I still haven’t like fully f*cking shot down, like every chick,” he tells her.
Ciara, who is inside, tells the group, “I gotta go hug my boo thang.” She walks over to West and tells him to pick her up. Lindsay looks concerned for Ciara.
It’s almost time to get ready for dinner but West has some good news. He hands his phone to Paige and she reads his job offer from Complex. He strips down to his underwear and jumps in the pool. Strangely, he leaves his socks on.
Paige and Amanda Batula are gossiping in the bathroom about Ciara liking West when Lindsay walks in. She tells them that West is still texting other girls. “He mentioned keeping the door open.”
“I mean let’s be honest. What guy is going all summer without having sex, you know?” Paige says. Amanda brings up that Ciara is probably taking it slow because of her “past vacation flings” ending horribly. Ahem, Muppet Mouth Austen Kroll from “Southern Charm.”
Carl Radke confides in Kyle Cooke and Amanda Batula
Lindsay tells Paige and Amanda that Carl’s mom Sharon and stepdad Lou were concerned about them getting married. She reveals that she was hurt because she felt rejected by Sharon, especially because she has abandonment issues over her biological mom.
In Kyle’s room, Carl tells him that he’s confided to his mom about fights with Lindsay. Amanda comes in looking for her shoes but decides to just plop down on the bed and join their conversation.
She tells Carl what Lindsay said about feeling rejected by Sharon. He says, “Not at all. Just more like, ‘Carl, we wanted to just make sure you know this is what we’re seeing.’ But also, there’s certain things I’m not going to share with Lindsay.”
“When you don’t tell Lindsay everything, it it kind of like, to protect her feelings?” Amanda asks Carl. “Yeah, of course,” he says.
Carl tells them that Lou’s the one who has more concerns. “He’s an ordained minister. He’s married people for 35 years and he’s officiated and handled weddings for lots of couples, he’s done premarital counseling. And as it stands, if he was doing our counseling, he wouldn’t marry us,” he says.
He admits that he didn’t tell Lindsay what Lou said, and Amanda is like, hello, you’re saying this on national television. She’s eventually going to find out.
Dinner gets real
The group is talking about Jesse Solomon’s dating life and he tells them that he wants to find somebody he can spend the rest of his life with. During the week, it’s about that, and on the weekends, it’s just banging.
“You’re kind of a trash bag. I would never introduce you to any of my girlfriends,” Ciara tells him. Oh, snap. “I think that’s rude,” he mutters.
Carl finally comes down to dinner and Lindsay asks him what he was talking about for so long. He tells her that he wants to talk about his conversation with Sharon and Lou. “We talked about it this week,” she says, confused.
“I know, but I think we should just revisit it if you don’t mind,” Carl answers. Lindsay wants to go talk now so they leave the table.
Inside, Carl just gets right to it and tells Lindsay that when he spoke to Sharon and Lou in New Jersey, they were worried about the fighting. “[Lou] says, ‘As it stands where you guys are right now if you were our couple that I was working with, I would not marry you.'” He assures Lindsay that his mom and stepdad love her, despite their concerns.
“I understand, but that initial conversation … wasn’t very in-depth, you know,” Lindsay says. “I should have just told you from the beginning,” Carl replies.
“If your parents are saying like, ‘I wouldn’t like, marry you guys,’ like, that’s kind of a significant thing to say, is it not?” Lindsay asks.
Carl hems and haws and tries to explain that he wants to make sure Lindsay knows all the facts before she watches it back on TV. He tells her that he’s overwhelmed with all the wedding planning, deciding on his career, telling Lindsay important details, etc. “I get nervous and struggle with it,” he admits.
Lindsay tries to be understanding but her face says that she knows she’s going to have to coddle Carl for the rest of their lives.
