CHAPTER EIGHT #2
“Your parents.”
“And Scott.” I squeezed my eyes shut and anticipated a spank.
“When?” he asked, and I couldn’t gauge his tone. Was he as mad as I anticipated he would be, or was I ascribing inflection where there was none?
He slipped an arm beneath my legs and sat me up, still on his lap but at least without the blood rushing to my head. But that meant I had to look him in the eyes.
“I’m sorry. I should have asked you first. I wasn’t thinking, it came out because, I don’t know, they called me at work, and I got homesick and panicked and—”
“I’m not mad,” he said quickly. “I just want to know what arrangements we need to make. And I need time to...you know. Get brave.”
“Get brave? You’ve met my parents before,” I pointed out.
“I know, but not as the guy who’s living with their daughter. Their daughter who is a lot younger than me,” he added grimly.
It was weird, but our age difference didn’t come up between us, almost ever. There was the occasional reference I didn’t get, but when Matt and I were alone, it wasn’t something at the front of our minds.
“Do you think my dad is going to threaten your life or something? Drag Chris Hansen along?” I teased.
“Wow, I haven’t heard that reference in a while,” Matt said.
I pivoted back to the real conversation.
“We didn’t set anything in stone. Honestly, I thought they would tell me that they couldn’t come for this or that reason, but my dad is ready to see all the museums, probably the Statue of Liberty.
Corny stuff. I can take them around to all of that. And we can get them a hotel—”
“If they want to stay in a hotel. Otherwise, we have the guest suites downstairs,” he reminded me.
It seemed so weird to have houseguests, people visiting full time, round the clock, who never left. Then, I remembered the party at his mom’s house. That scenario wasn’t that odd for his culture, I guessed.
But it wasn’t normal for my kind of people. “The thing is, if they stay here, they’re going to expect to socialize with us the whole time.”
“Of course, we’ll socialize with them. That’s why they’re visiting.”
“No, I meant it’s not going to be like when people come stay as house guests at your mom’s place. It’s not like they’ll get up, have their breakfast in a different room, spend time wandering the lush grounds, and show up only at set times,” I warned him.
He frowned. “We don’t have lush grounds here.”
“Well, obviously.” I threw up my hands. “What I’m saying is, if they stay here, you’re going to get up in the morning and find my dad making himself at home in the kitchen, talking to everyone on staff.
My mom will rearrange your bathroom cabinets.
She can’t stay out of bathroom cabinets.
They’ll come knock on our bedroom door at night and ask if we want the popcorn they didn’t finish after their movie. ”
Matt laughed. “You make them sound super codependent.”
“No, it’s how people visit. They would think it was rude to hide away from us.
And they would think we were rude if we hid away from them.
” And frankly, I wasn’t sure how comfortable I was with the idea of my parents sleeping under the same roof as me and my first serious boyfriend.
They weren’t going to overhear anything naughty, because my vagina would seal shut from horror by the time they arrived, but it seemed so weird. Welcome to our home. We fuck here.
I thought back to something my therapist had mentioned. “It’s possible that I’m having difficulty navigating post-adolescence with my parents.”
Matt indicated I should continue with a bob of his head.
“Since I lived at home and had zero responsibility, I’m trapped in a teenage phase with them,” I explained.
“It’s exacerbated by their guilt at how I found out about the stem cell situation.
They try to protect me by infantilizing me, I try to assert my independence with immature behavior.
If they’re here, it’s going to feel like I’m not a grown up with a grown-up boyfriend and a grown-up apartment and a grown-up job. ”
“Those things sound a lot more mature and grown up if you don’t preface them with the phrase, ‘grown-up’,” he advised wryly.
“I don’t want to feel like this is all pretend, when I’m doing so well.
” Yes, I wanted to see them. Missing them was what prompted the invitation in the first place.
But a visit from my parents was like a visit from my old life, if my old life was a blimp that could be crashed directly into my new one. “I don’t want a blimp crash.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I know you don’t.” I sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. I should have checked with you. Just checking with you about it would have made me realize it was a bad idea.”
“I don’t think it’s a bad idea.” Matt stroked the bare skin of my back, raising goosebumps.
“What’s wrong with spending some time with your family?
Things have been tense with you and Scott.
Things have been tense between me and Scott.
Maybe you and me showing them around the city will acclimate them to us. Introduce a new dynamic.”
“And what if it reminds me that I’m a big phony, faking this life?” I hadn’t realized it was a fear until it popped out of my mouth.
He let the sentence hang between us for a thoughtful pause. “On the off chance that your raging imposter syndrome is right, what do you think would happen?”
“Well—” But I couldn’t think of anything.
Matt supplied me with options. “Do you think that I wouldn’t want to be with you anymore? That I would send you back to California?”
“Well, no...”
“That would be a weird thing to be worried about, considering how much I wanted you to be here in the first place,” he went on.
“Do you think they’ll see you living in a luxury apartment, wearing designer clothes, riding around in expensive cars and working out of a fucking huge office and be disappointed in you? ”
“I’m not sure my parents could ever be disappointed in me,” I admitted. Except in one specific case that’s colored my entire life.
“Maybe you’re embarrassed of your ancient, forty-year-old boyfriend with the messed-up leg?” he asked.
“I see your point, but remember that when your leg got messed up, the first thing you did was shout about how you’d had sex with me.”
“That’s true. However, I was trying to die with a clean conscience. And I think it made me look way worse than you.” He paused. “Although, I can perhaps be forgiven for bad judgement during an episode of massive blood loss.”
“They’re not mad at you about any of that. They’re kind of thrilled that I’m with you.” I quickly added, “Not because you’re rich! I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone for as long as I’ve been in a relationship with you. I think it’s giving them hope.”
“Even though it was technically a non-relationship for a long time?” he clarified.
I nodded. “Exactly. They don’t need to know it was a lot of phone sex. As far as they’re aware, we were dating long-distance.”
“Then I’m not worried at all.” He leaned up to nuzzle his chin in the crook of my neck.
At the end of the day, his stubble was sharp and sandpapery, and he seemed to love tickling me with it.
I squealed and his arm locked around my waist. “You don’t have to ask me for permission to have your family or friends come visit.
I’m your dragon, but I don’t have you literally locked in my tower, you know. ”
“I know.” It still felt more like his home than mine. “Maybe after I’ve been here a while, I could do something to make the place seem a little more...”
“Like it’s your apartment, too?” he finished for me, then answered the question he’d completed.
“I think that’s a great idea. Whatever it takes to make you happy.
Except, maybe run colors past me. I love you, but I’m not sure how I would feel to walk into a Lisa Frank folder one day without warning. ”
I blinked at him. “What’s a Lisa Frank folder?”
He looked so defeated. I had to giggle.
“You think my old age is funny, do you?” He launched another stubble attack while I squirmed and laughed. Slowly, he lowered me to the cushions and held himself over me with a hand on the arm of the sofa. “You know why I say I would give you anything you asked for, right?”
“Because you want to keep me?”
His gaze darkened. “Because I want to keep you happy. If you left tomorrow, I would still want to give you anything you asked me for. The moon, even, if you wanted it.”
I slid my hands up his chest, popped a few more buttons on his shirt. “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere, unless the anywhere has you in it.”
He covered my mouth with his, kissed me until we were both dizzy, until it changed from something playful to something that ended with my panties in shreds on the floor and my bra used as makeshift handcuffs. Until everything melted away, and I didn’t feel like I was a guest in his apartment.
We fucked like I was home.