Chapter 29
There was stress, and then there was meeting-your-boyfriend’s-parents-and-coming-out-at-the-same-time stress.
This decision hadn’t been made lightly, but in the end, the answer was rather easy.
Asher deserved it. He’d done so much for me.
He’d been understanding and accepting. He deserved the same and more.
Was I scared shitless? Indeed.
Had I rehashed every life choice that got me to this point as if I were dying? Undoubtedly.
The last few days had been utter bliss. I stayed awake most of Friday night—the decision all but set in my mind—playing out how things might go when introduced to his family.
It hadn’t helped. In fact, it made it worse.
Still, I’d agreed to come Saturday morning.
The excitement that stole through Asher was enough to ease my worries—for a while.
“What’s all this?” Asher asked when I dropped my suitcases near the front door. He glanced at me and grinned so hard dimples formed in his cheeks. “You’re so cute,” he chuckled.
“I wasn’t sure of the weather.”
“Mhmm. We’ll go with that.”
I rolled my eyes, something I’d indubitably adopted from him.
“Get your bag and let’s go.” Of course, he only had the one bag, which he’d repacked after doing laundry this morning.
Nineteen-year-olds didn’t take into consideration the possibilities that could happen on any given trip.
No, I hadn’t overpacked; he had underpacked. This was fine. I was fine.
We were about three hours from his hometown. Basically, not long enough, and too long since it only increased my anxiety with every second. He asked several times if I needed to pull over for a break, possibly reading my nerves, but stopping wouldn’t change what was coming.
Nothing would.
And nothing did.
He’d said small town, and I wasn’t completely ignorant of what that meant. Still, I was surprised at the blink-and-miss-it downtown with its cheerful holiday candles and angels still hanging off lampposts and the colorful strands of lights around shop windows and stretching high over the streets.
Asher pointed out the Dairy Queen, where he’d worked a few months one summer, then his high school. He even pointed out the trailer park where Jamie lived. He might have only been rambling to keep my mind off what I was about to do. It didn’t work.
With my heart rate at near emergency levels and head spinning as it was, I probably should’ve had him drive.
The GPS directed me through turn after turn, but Asher did as well. He was so adorable. I hated that his excitement kept getting tempered by my own fears, but I didn’t know how to change it. Once this first meeting with his parents was over, I hoped I’d be normal again.
“Here.” Asher pointed at a modest house with a porch spanning the front a second before the GPS said we had arrived. Every single window was lit from within, and wreaths of red, green, white, and gold hung from several on the main level with a huge version on the front door.
“Momma doesn’t take down Christmas until the end of the month. She says it’s too much trouble to leave it up for only a minute.”
I pulled onto the driveway and parked behind a newer-model truck. “Is here good?”
Asher had been focused on the front of the house but glanced out the windshield for a split second. “Yeah, as long as you’re not blocking Nathan’s Jetta.”
Along with a shit ton I didn’t remember, Asher had reminded me of his siblings during our three-hour trip. Nathan was his only full blood brother, both sharing the same parentage even if their father had never married their mother. His stepsister Stacia was sixteen, same as Nathan.
“Stacia doesn’t have a car?”
“Oh no. No one wants her on the road. But Nathan bought that himself. We all have to buy our own cars.”
“What? Really?”
“Shoot yeah. With six kids, you think my parents can afford to pay for college and buy us cars?” He laughed and shook his head. “No millionaires in this house.”
I glanced at my silk button-down and Tom Ford trousers. “I should’ve worn something else.”
“You’ll be fine.” Asher turned and reached for me. He smiled brightly, but there was a nervous twitch to it. “You ready? It’s gonna be crazy for, like, five minutes, and then it’s over.”
With a burst of energy, probably hysteria induced, I struck like lightning, grabbing a fistful of his hair and crashing my mouth on his. The kiss was savage and desperate. Asher moaned and slid his hand onto my leg for a squeeze.
When the intensity faded, I nudged his nose once, licked over the lips I’d abused one final time, and swallowed his taste.
“Okay, I’m ready,” I whispered.
“Me too. Let’s fuck.”
I chuckled and let go of him.
“You laugh, but I’m gonna need more of that.” Asher pushed on his erection and tugged his hoodie lower.
The distraction had been just the thing I needed to get out of the Range Rover, but no sooner had I opened the back to get our bags than the front door sprang open, spilling light, high-pitched screams and a yelling woman onto the lawn.
“May, no hands! No hands!”
A young girl with cotton-white hair darted toward us, her hands high and reaching.
“Whoa there.” Asher grabbed the girl’s wrists right before she latched onto me with whatever was caked all over them.
“Excellent save,” a very pretty woman, who could only be Asher’s mother, said breathlessly as she jogged to us. “Hey, sweetie.” She kissed Asher’s cheek and took control of his younger sister.
“We were right in the middle of making cookies.”
Ahh, so it was dough all over the girl’s hands.
“Momma, this is Luke.”
“Mrs. Brandt, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Oh, call me Patty, hon.” She scanned me head to toe, her smile never faltering. “My, my. I hope you brought more than that to wear. We’re not quite so formal.”
“Momma,” Asher drawled, his accent thickening.
“I’m just messin’.” She glanced at Asher and smiled even wider. “I’ll be honest, this is a first. I’m not sure I know how to meet my eldest’s boyfriend.”
I huffed and released a truckload of tension. “For me as well.”
Asher moved to stand at my side. “Is everyone here?”
“Of course. They’ve been spying out the windows for an hour. I only saw you because of this one.” Patty shook the giggling girl by the hold she still had on her wrists. “I made them wait inside.”
“Let’s do it, then.” Asher grabbed his bag and one of mine. I’d packed enough clothes to spend this little adventure in five different ways. Surely, I had something casual with me.
With our arms full, us carrying bags, and Patty carrying May, we headed for the house. Just as she’d said, noses were pressed to the window panes, and five pairs of eyes followed our progress.
“You’re staying through Tuesday, right?” Patty asked as she passed the threshold. Without giving either of us a chance to answer, she yelled, “They’re here now, so wipe the snot off my windows.”
Asher grimaced, then laughed. “Sorry,” he whispered to me.
I shook my head, ready to tell him there was nothing to apologize for, but was surrounded by kids in matching pajamas, a broody young man wearing almost identical clothes to Asher, and an older man I assumed was Ben, Asher’s stepdad.
“Luke, so glad to meet you,” the man said. Tall and blond, he had a friendly enough smile for me, but he glanced at Asher several times.
My anxiety spiked. Was he worried I was all wrong for his son? Was I too old? Too something or not enough of something else? Fuck. This was nerve-racking. How had Asher handled meeting my family with such grace and aplomb?
Asher hugged another little girl who had wrapped her thin arms around him. “May is the cookie monster, and this little angel is Lila,” he said.
“Hello.” I nodded at the girl with brown eyes like her father.
“That’s Elias.” Asher pointed at a young boy, who cocked his head as he stared. “Stacia.” He pointed to his oldest sister with red hair. “And—” He cut himself off, then growled, “That’s mine.”
The remaining kid—who had to be Nathan, not because he was the last sibling to be introduced, but because he was a slightly younger version of Asher—smirked. “Finders keepers.”
Asher slapped hands to his hips, even with Lila still wrapped around him. “You found that in my closet, thief.”
“Children,” Ben drawled.
“Take it off.” Asher stepped toward his very unconcerned brother.
“Nooo, bubba,” Lila said and hugged him tighter.
Nathan laughed and stepped back. “Nope.”
“It’s my hoodie.”
“You shouldn’t have left it.”
“Children,” Ben snapped.
“Buuuubbaaaa.” Asher’s other siblings, even May with grubby fingers, converged on him, piling on while he snarled and growled, making them laugh louder and hold on tighter.
“Traitors. All of you,” he shouted.
“You don’t live here anymore.” Nathan, who had seemed the epitome of an emo teen, turned into a smiling goof like his older brother as he dodged out of Asher’s grasping hands.
“I do live here. College is not home! Get back here.”
“Welcome to the Brandt house,” Ben said, startling me out of being thoroughly distracted from my anxiety and laughing at their antics. “Before you ask, yes, it’s always like this. They miss him.” Ben turned to smile at his family. “Do you have a big family?”
“Not really. I have two younger siblings, but there’s eight and ten years between us.” And my parents would’ve fainted at the sight of us causing such a ruckus in front of someone—or at all, for that matter.
Asher slowly made his way across a huge living room with oversized sofas and pictures on every available flat surface.
“How about I show you to your room?” Ben waved at the pile of kids trying to stop Asher from chasing Nathan. “This might take a few minutes.”
I blinked and nodded. Was this the moment? Ben’s move to get me alone for the parental warning I’d prepared for?
He led me down a short hall to a staircase that turned halfway up as mine did. The second floor had an open loft with hallways left and right.
“The boys are on the left and the girls on the right.”
I said nothing, carrying my three bags and Asher’s one to a room at the end with the door open.
Black and shades of gray covered everything from the walls to the bedding and curtains.
Asher had told me about his gothic era in school, but I was still a little surprised.
He was too expressive, too inherently colorful for this.
Ben nodded at a picture stuck inside the framed mirror. “I don’t have to tell you how special Asher is. Not only to this family, but everyone.”
I sat the bags beside the dresser and pulled the picture free. Asher, dressed in black with dark liner around his eyes, had his arm around the shoulders of a smaller guy dressed the same with a black and green mottled bruise around one of his startling blue eyes.
“Jamie,” I said.
Ben nodded several times. “He’ll be here at some point, I’m sure, but I imagine you’ve heard a lot about him.
” Ben glanced around the room. “Asher takes care of everyone around here. The way he was downstairs, he’s that way with anyone.
Always giving of himself, making everyone feel seen, feel important. ”
I placed the picture back in its position on the mirror and turned to face Asher’s stepfather, bracing for the warning.
“Asher needs someone who’s gonna take care of him. I don’t mean with money, but take care of him emotionally and mentally the way he does those he loves. Patty and I had our concerns when he told us about you. You get what I mean, don’t you? With the age difference, the economic difference …”
“You have my word; those will never be an issue.”
Ben smiled and nodded. “I’ll believe you because Asher does. I’m sure you’ve figured out he’s more mature than anyone his age has a right to be. He’s determined and driven and puts his all into everything he does. He’s thought this through, we know it, but as parents, we worry.”
“Understandably so and expected.”
“Right, okay.” He clapped once, his expression brightening as if the topic was done and over as easy as that. “We’re not a filthy bunch, but May is very … tactile. She’ll try to touch everything.” Ben wagged a finger at me. “Hopefully, you’ve brought something else.”
“Yes, I think I might.” He turned to leave, but I stopped him. “Thank you for allowing me to join your family for a few days, Mr. Brandt.”
“Ben, call me Ben, son. And it’s our pleasure.” He huffed. “We were bound to get to know you at some point. No time like the present.”
“How’s your father? Asher told me he’s been unwell.”
Ben smiled, but there was no missing the pain in his eyes. Would I feel the same when it was my father’s time? Would I ever have a child who would dread the day I left this earth?
“We’re taking it a day at a time. He’s comfortable, and that’s all we can do for him now.” He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Thank you for asking.”
I nodded, but before I could say more, Asher burst into the room, running at full speed, and slammed the door behind him.
“Got it.” He held up his prize. The hoodie. Multiple fists pounded on the other side of the door. Asher shoved a shoulder against it and held the handle.
“Help,” he shouted at Ben.
Without hesitation, Ben yanked the door open, yelling Rawr, and sent them screaming, with Ben chasing after them.
Asher chuckled, slammed the door again, and leaned against it. “We should be good for about five minutes of alone time.” He lifted away from the door and prowled closer. “Not near enough time for anything more than getting you naked.”
Asher snickered as I dropped my jaw.
“You know, so you can change clothes.”
I narrowed my eyes but grinned. “Always my playboy.”