“Mom!”
She ignored him, nodding at her phone.
“Sandy!”
“Hush, bae. I’m doing something.” Once the number was programmed, I found the camera app, snapped a selfie that caught the edge of Darren’s glower, and made it the contact photo under my phone number. I sent a text to myself from her phone. “There,” I said, handing it back to her. “Now I can tell you about everything Darren does. Step by step. Ooh baby.”
Darren looked very pale at that.
“Maybe not everything,” I amended.
He looked less pale.
“But most things.”
His level of paleness did not change that I could see. I felt better about that.
She excused herself, briefly, to the restroom, leaving Darren and I alone for the first time since we were in the Queen’s Lair.
And he wouldn’t even look at me, the coward. His neck was still red, and apparently, he’d found something interesting on the wall to stare at.
“So,” I said.
He sighed, as if resigned to his fate.
I decided to go easy on him, because honestly, I was reeling just as much as he was. I was sure he hadn’t wanted it known that he’d basically wanted all up in my junk for years. Granted, I was going to give him so much crap later on, but still. His wounds were still fresh. I didn’t need to rub salt on them. At least not until they’d healed more. “I wasn’t nervous,” I said instead.
He snorted but still didn’t look at me. “Whatever.”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “You can ask anyone. I was the epitome of calm.”
“I went into the wrong doorway,” Sherry called from down the hall. “Why does your bedroom look like a tornado hit it? Did you literally try on everything you owned before we got here? And I can see where all the bedazzling went. It’s like walking inside a disco ball. I feel better about this now.”
Now Darren looked at me, a bit of the cockiness returning. I refused to be intimidated by it. “Really,” he said. “You tried on everything you owned.”
“Of course not,” I said. “That would just be ridiculous. I didn’t wear anything of Helena’s.”
That smirk he wore so well softened slightly. He let his gaze crawl up and down, and I struggled to not let my breath hitch in my chest. “You chose good,” he said finally, eyes meeting mine again.
“Thanks,” I said. “You did too.”
“Yeah?”
I shrugged, trying not to show I was having dirty thoughts about his forearms. “Yeah.”
“You’re really going to text my mom?”
“Sure,” I said. “She’s great. She’ll fit right in, I think. I mean, unless you don’t want me to.”
He shook his head. “No you can—I mean, you can do what you want. You always do.”
“Which means….”
Darren sighed. “It’s just—I don’t know. I like it? Maybe.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, because I wasn’t sure we were talking about the same thing.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he couldn’t get the words to come out. Finally, he blurted, “I’m nervous too.”
I blinked. “What? Why?”
“It’s my mom, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
He looked embarrassed, like he wasn’t going to say any more. Then, in a rush, “And it’s your family too.”
“What?”
He flushed even more and looked down at his hands. “Your family. I’ve met them before, but not… like this. Okay? They think I’m your…. I know I’m not the best….” He huffed out an angry breath. “I’m just nervous too,” he finished quietly.
And instead of thinking about it too much, I reached out and took his hand in mine. His fingers entwined with my own like we did it every day. It was… nice. Good, even. Possibly great. Well, greater than it had any right to be. And I didn’t know what was happening and I—
“What are we doing?” I asked, because maybe I was tired of this weird little game.
I thought he might try and deflect with his stupid Rule Ten bullshit, but instead, he said, “I don’t know.”
I nodded, swallowing around the lump in my throat because it was something. Years, his mother had said. He’d been talking about me for years. I wondered if she knew how terrible he’d been. At the beginning. The things he’d said. The way he’d laughed at me.
And then Darren looked at me, and there was something in that look, some sort of resolve that hadn’t been there before. I shivered at the sight of it because—
He said, “But I know I want—”
“All ready to go?” Sherry asked, coming back into the room with what was possibly the worst timing ever. “Those pies won’t keep much longer in the car.”
Neither of us looked at her.
I screamed at Darren in my head to finish what he was saying.
Instead, Darren smiled tightly at me, squeezing my hand once before letting it drop. He turned toward his mother and led her toward the door.
“PAUL FORCES his gayness on me!” the parrot known as Johnny Depp screeched at Sherry as he watched her from his wooden perch.
“Oh my,” Sherry said. “That’s certainly illuminating.”
“It is,” Nana said, who’d said she was going to give Sherry a tour, but instead had led her directly to Johnny Depp. They’d spent the last ten minutes hearing all the phrases that Nana had taught him recently. “If only Paul wasn’t so mean to Johnny Depp.”
“I heard that!” Paul shouted from the kitchen, where he’d been suckered into making mashed potatoes. “I don’t do anything to that stupid asshole!”
“Language,” Larry scolded from his spot on the couch. There was a football game on the TV and Vince and Darren sat on either side of him, and I ignored the way my heart stuttered a little at the sight of them.
“You guys hate football,” I said. “Why are you watching it?”
Larry shrugged. “It’s what men do. We drink beer and watch football on Thanksgiving while the women cook in the kitchen.”
Matty walked by the back of the couch and smacked him on top of his head. “You’re drinking a white zinfandel and I will give you a million dollars if you can tell me the name of one of the teams you’re watching.”
“The Yakima Yaks,” he said promptly. Then he sighed. “I really could have used that million dollars. Darn my lack of caring for organized sports. Also, Charlie is making us.”
“Darn indeed,” Matty said.
“Oh come on, ref,” Charlie growled from his spot on the recliner, feet propped up, beer in hand. “Are you blind?”
“So much testosterone,” Larry breathed. “I should be in the kitchen with the women.”
“Maybe if you asked politely,” Matty said, “I’d consider it.”
“You think you could take me, Mrs. Auster?” he teased, pushing himself up from the couch.
“I could take you anytime, anyplace, Mr. Auster.” She winked before turning back toward the kitchen.
“So gross,” Paul moaned from the kitchen. “Why do they always have to do that?”
“Paul ruins all good feelings!” Johnny Depp screamed.
“Not all of them.” Vince stood and followed Larry into the kitchen.
“Pretty,” Johnny Depp called after Vince. “Pretty, pretty!”
“My parrot is in love with Vince,” Nana told Sherry. “It’s a romance for the ages. I’m trying to convince Paul to share Vince, but so far, it’s a no-go, so now the plan is to get rid of Paul. Do you want to see my leather paddle? Charlie got it for my birthday. I haven’t had a chance to use it on anybody yet, but I hope to someday soon.”
Charlie snorted without looking away from the TV. “We’re still working up to that part. First, you need to stop apologizing before you even use it.”
“It’s only the polite thing to do,” Nana insisted. She turned back to Sherry. “I’m probably not cut out for the BDSM lifestyle, though.” Her disappointment was
tangible. “I’d feel bad anytime I had to whip someone or put their penis in cage. And don’t even get me started on sounding.” She took Sherry by the arm and led her down the hallway toward her bedroom. “Do you know what sounding is? It’s when they insert a metal rod into a urethra and—”
“Sandy!” Paul called from the kitchen. “Can you get Wheels out of here? I swear to god he’s going to start presenting himself for a piece of turkey. I don’t need my dog to be a whore for meat. I raised him to be much classier than that.”
“Language,” Larry said. “And on the Lord’s day, of all days.”
“Dad, Thanksgiving is not the Lord’s day.”
“Oh. Then what is it?”
“Pilgrims and Indians.”
“Right. Because nothing says giving thanks than how we’ve taken their land and corralled them into reservations that don’t always have the proper health and educational facilities to—”
I didn’t even want to be involved in that conversation, because knowing Larry, it’d go on for at least the next hour. I swooped in and found Wheels giving anyone who would look puppy eyes. I picked him up, blew a kiss at Corey, who was doing something with asparagus, and fled the kitchen before I felt even more guilty about Native Americans and/or got put to work cooking.
Darren hadn’t moved from the couch, and I didn’t really think when I sat down next to him, closer than was probably necessary. I took Wheels’s cart off his butt and laid him on his back in my lap, then reached down and scratched his belly. He instantly went limp, head back against Darren’s thigh, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he grunted in contentment.
“Please tell me my mom isn’t learning about kinky sex from an elderly lady,” Darren said.
“Yeah,” I said. “See? I can’t do that. Because I think that’s what’s happening.”
“Gays are taking over the world!” Johnny Depp proclaimed. “We’re doomed! Dooomed.”
“It’s scary how easily she fell into Nana’s clutches,” Darren said. He reached down and scratched along the dog’s chin. If he were able, I’m sure Wheels would have popped a boner because it apparently felt that good. Thank god he didn’t have balls anymore.
“She fits,” I said. “I don’t know if I should be offended that you were so worried about introducing her to the rest of us.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“Kind of worried.”
“Not worried at all.”
“There was a little bit of worry.”
“Oh look,” Charlie said. “The football game is on. Let’s watch that instead of doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
Properly chastened, we were quiet.
For a few minutes.
“But seriously,” I said. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“No, don’t touch that!” Nana shouted from her room. “You’re not ready for how much it vibrates.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe just a little bit of worry. I hope your mom is not easily offended. But then, she did raise you, so I’m sure that’s not the case.”
Darren narrowed his eyes at me. “Was that a compliment or an insult?”
“Huh,” I said. “I guess it could be either or. Take it how you will.”
“That was nice of you.”
“I meant it the other way.”
“Fuck you.”
“Seriously,” Charlie said. “Still trying to watch football here. If you’re going to flirt, go do it outside where it belongs. Because honestly, it’s sweet, but it’s also rather disgusting to hear.”
We both flushed and avoided looking at each other. Which, you know, was hard, given that I was all but plastered to his side while we both rubbed a dog.
That sounded weird.
But I supposed the truth often did.
We lasted four more minutes.
“What if your mom and Nana fall in love?” I asked, because they still hadn’t come out of her room.
Darren snorted. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that.”
“You don’t know,” I said. “We might. Then there will be yet another wedding I have to plan. I just don’t know if I have time for it, given my jet-set lifestyle.”
“I don’t think you understand what that means.”
“Bullshit I don’t. I’m worldly. I just haven’t traveled the world yet.”
“Then how can you be—”
“I read, okay? You can—”
“Cosmo doesn’t count,” he said, and I didn’t even mind when he stretched his arm back on the couch, his fingers pressing lightly on my shoulder. And if I lay against his shoulder a little bit, well. It was just because my head was heavy and I needed to rest my neck.
“It does. Did you know that there are fifty-seven places you can touch a man to make him have toe-curling orgasms?”
He rolled his eyes. “Really. Name three that don’t involve my dick.”
“Uhh,” I said, mouth suddenly dry because Darren’s dick.
“Jesus. Christ,” Charlie said.
We both looked over at him, startled.
He was glaring. And not the normal, old-man get off my lawn glare. No, this was the old leather Dom someone’s about to get fisted glare.
“Eep,” I squeaked.
“Sorry, sir,” Darren said nervously.
“Please don’t fist us,” I begged.
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Darren said.
I gaped at him. “You want to get fisted?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t rule it out, per se—”
“Quiet,” Charlie snapped.
I don’t think we’d ever shut up so quickly in our lives.
Charlie glanced behind us toward the kitchen. Apparently satisfied, he returned the glare to us. “Now you listen here,” he growled quietly. “I don’t care if you’re still faking this… whatever this is. I don’t care if you haven’t pulled your heads out of your asses. I don’t care if you finally realized that you two are perfect for each other if only you’d stop being such ridiculous bitches. I am trying to watch a football game and drink a beer. Maybe two beers, if I can get away with it. Tomorrow, I will go back to caring because, Sandy, I love you dearly, and Darren, you’re growing on me for the most part. But right now, if you’re staying here, you will shut up and let me have this moment.”
“I am so weirdly turned on right now,” I said.
“You should be,” Charlie retorted. “Anybody else I’ve ever used that voice on usually ended up on their knees licking my boots while I shoved a plug up their ass.”
Darren grimaced. “Please don’t do that to me.”
“Are you weirdly turned on right now?”
Darren looked over at me, then at the dog in his lap, then back at Charlie. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Then shut up and think about it. I expect an answer by halftime.” Charlie turned back to the TV.
“Is he serious?” Darren whispered.
I stared at him in horror. “Stop talking or you’re going to get us both in trouble, not just you!” I whispered furiously.
Darren scowled at me. But he didn’t move his hand away from my shoulder.
And maybe I laid my head back against his arm.
And maybe we stayed like that for a while, neither of us saying anything.
Just maybe.
And maybe, at halftime, Charlie glared at Darren until Darren sputtered and said yes, maybe he was just a little turned on.
DINNER WAS as loud as I thought it’d be. Thankfully, Nana had covered Johnny Depp’s cage with a blanket, quieting him down so he would stop screaming homophobic slurs at Paul, all the while begging Vince to come back into the room to be his pretty. Thankfully, Johnny Depp was slightly stupid and automatically assumed it was dark out and went to sleep.
Last year, it’d just been Paul, his parents, Vince, Nana, and myself. A good group, but nowhere near as loud as we were now. It wasn’t necessarily that the new additions were any louder than th
e rest of us (especially since Charlie kept shooting frowns at Darren and me, causing us to barely speak above a whisper for fear of being fisted or something), but it was just more. More people, more food, more conversations rising and rolling over each other.
It was something I thought on often, the idea of family being what you make it to be, not necessarily what you were born into. Granted, there was a chance that I’d be in the same place I was now if my parents hadn’t died, but what if I wasn’t? I was of the firm belief that everything happened for a reason, and while some reasons could be extraordinarily shitty, they’d still led me to the place I was right now.
Surrounded by people that I cared about.
Including my fake boyfriend.
Who I had real feelings for.
And who might feel the same way about me.
Even though we were technically lying to everyone in the room.
Except for Charlie.
And it was made slightly worse by Charlie, the bastard. Especially when he said (in a rather innocent tone of voice), “Did you see on the news about the mayor?”
Conversation pretty much came to a halt then.
I vowed to find the nearest nursing home with the poorest rating as soon as I could get my hands on a computer.
Larry and Matty gave slightly nervous glances toward Sherry, but she waved them away. “It’s fine,” she said with a wine-tinged grin. “I haven’t talked to him in years. It doesn’t bother me to hear about him. I’ve moved on. Repeatedly.”
“Mom,” Darren said, sounding horrified.
“Well maybe it bothers other people,” I said, eyes never leaving Charlie.
“Vince?” Charlie asked. “Does it bother you?”
“Nah,” Vince said. “I have stuffing and Paul, so I’m good.”
“Aww, babe,” Paul said. “Next time, don’t list me after stuffing.”
“But I can eat the stuffing now,” Vince said. “I can’t eat you until later.”
Pretty much everyone at the table made gagging sounds, even Sherry. Because that was gross. She was fitting right in.