14. Keith
KEITH
FACE THE HORDE
“Nice and steady,” I told myself as I secured a bead-and-cove strip with a clamp after applying the appropriate amount of wood glue. Mounting strips to a hull wasn’t the easiest thing to do, and I was only doing it now to soothe my nerves while Olivia finished getting ready in my bathroom.
Not all that long ago, she would have had to go home to get herself dolled up, but she’d moved some of her makeup and clothes to my place so she could always dress for whatever mood she was in.
I liked that Olivia didn’t mind being casual and relaxed around me but also liked to dress up.
I got to enjoy the best of both worlds. And as a bonus, I always had a stunningly beautiful woman on my arm.
I focused on the hull, trying to ignore the tension in the air. I wasn’t sure if it was coming from her or me, but if I were a betting man, I’d say it was emanating from both of us.
Because I was meeting her parents today.
It had been crazy to propose in a chicken shop. I’d known that from the moment I’d gone down on one knee. Thankfully, Olivia’s insanity matched mine, and she’d said yes.
With a caveat.
Normally, that would have been a mood killer, but her finally deciding she was ready to let me meet her family proved to me that not only had I been right to purchase a ring, but I had chosen the right time to pop the question.
Granted, I supposed that her parents could end up hating me and things could fall apart, but I really didn’t see that happening.
Unless they were abjectly abusive and I needed to get Olivia away from them for her to see that, there was nothing that wasn’t worth working through to keep my partner happy.
Because I’d meant every word I said in my proposal.
I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, no matter how long or short that was.
I wanted to build furniture for the life that we made together, to grow old and wrinkled together, and maybe have kids together, whether biological or adopted.
The world was our oyster as long as we were together.
“Almost done!” she called from the bathroom.
I took that as my sign to start putting away my supplies, then donned the dress shirt I’d hung by the door so I wouldn’t get it dirty with my last-minute fidgeting.
“Take your time. I don’t mind taking the fall if we’re a couple minutes late.”
I swore I heard the equivalent of a four-car pileup before Olivia appeared in the doorway of my garage, nearly completely dressed but missing eyelashes on one of her eyes and some of her hair escaping from the bejeweled claw clip I had gotten her for her birthday.
“Absolutely not! There will be no self-sacrificing from you today, good sir. As far as I’m concerned, you’re absolutely perfect, and I’m going to make sure my parents know that.”
I chuckled, touched and amused at how protective and passionate she was.
For a while, I’d worried that she was ashamed of me in some way and didn’t want to introduce me to her tight-knit family, but it was very obvious to me now that wasn’t the case.
My baby had some good old anxiety like I did, which was probably the biggest issue.
“Are you sure? Because I can always bring a sword along to fall on in case I say anything particularly egregious.”
“You think you’re funny, but my father would like it if you showed up with a sword. He’s got a thing for antiques, especially European ones.”
Good to know. It never hurt to have a good bribe idea in your back pocket for your in-laws.
The people I was about to have lunch with would indeed be my in-laws if things went well at this meeting. It was kind of hard to wrap my head around that, and suddenly the calm I had been trying to maintain vanished entirely.
Drat.
“I promise, I’ll be on my best behavior. I won’t lean into self-deprecation too much,” I said, pulling Olivia into a hug. Now I knew how she’d felt when she met my mother, except I’d had a full year to build up this meeting in my head.
No pressure.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, why don’t you finish getting ready, and I’ll go make sure the car is cool before you get into it.”
“You’re the best,” Olivia assured, pressing a kiss to my cheek before hurrying off. And yeah, she made me feel like I actually could be.
I washed my hands, then headed out to the car. Olivia hated getting into a hot car, so I always rolled down the windows and ran the AC for a while so she’d be comfortable when she got in.
“Oh my god, you’re a lifesaver,” she practically moaned when she opened the door a few minutes later, looking absolutely stunning in her modest sundress. Maybe some would consider it boring, but I always thought she looked particularly ravishing in them. That and something she called muumuus.
Or no outfit at all, but that wasn’t really appropriate for meeting her parents.
Maybe later, though?
Even after a year, I was still relentlessly attracted to her. That would never change.
“Ready?” I asked once I was sure she was buckled up, quickly noting that her purse was at her feet and her phone in the arm rest on her door.
Although Olivia was usually pretty good at remembering things on her own, she occasionally left things behind, and considering how nervous she was, I wouldn’t have blamed her if something slipped her mind.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said before letting out a feather-light chuckle.
“Care to let me in on the joke?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing too hilarious. That’s the exact same thing my brother said before meeting you.”
“Did he?” I asked as I put the car into reverse to pull out onto the street. “That’s funny, he seemed so chill.”
“Nah, he was nervous as all get-out. You distracted him from those nerves with all the super shiny sparkles at the disco.”
That startled a laugh out of me. “I’m pretty sure that’s a sentence that’s never been uttered in English before.
” Still, I was grateful Rolando would be at the lunch as a buffer.
I was determined not to need that, but it was nice knowing the option was there.
A sort of ace in the pocket, so to speak.
“Maybe, but it’s probably been said a couple of times in Latin. Or maybe Ancient Sumerian.”
“I’ll make sure to ask the next bilingual immortal I meet.”
“Or perhaps an Assyriologist?”
“What did you call me?” I shot back.
Olivia cackled before retorting again.
Back and forth we went, and much like every other time we were troubled, it became a lot easier to forget our mutual anxiety. Surely even the biggest tribulations in the world couldn’t be so bad as long as we were facing them together.
However, the closer we got to the end of my GPS’s route, the faster and faster Olivia started to talk, until she was rattling things off at a mile a minute. I let her talk, chiming in when I could and squeezing her palm with my free hand to let her know I was right there with her.
“I know you’ve probably seen it on television, but please don’t do the hand thing when talking to my parents. It’s not funny.”
“The hand thing?”
She made the stereotypical Italian gesture, and while I was pretty sure that was what she’d always meant, I was glad to have confirmation.
“Ah, okay. I’ll make sure I don’t.”
“And my mother’s accent is much thicker than my father’s because she came over here way after him, but both of them speak a mix of Italian and English kind of mish-mashed together.”
“I’m sure I’ll be able to understand.”
“Okay, but if you don’t, don’t assume they’re saying anything bad.”
“Why would I?”
“You know how people get sometimes.”
“By people do you mean dirty monolinguals like myself?” I teased. Truly, I didn’t mind that Olivia was so wound up. It showed that this was important to her, because I was important to her.
How could I not take that as a compliment?
“You say that like I haven’t noticed multiple times you doing Duolingo on your phone when you think I’m not looking.”
Damn! She’d seen that? And here I’d thought I had been quite sneaky about it.
“You leave me and my sixty-four-day streak alone.”
“Ooh, five more days and you might actually have something there!”
Laughing, I rolled my eyes. “As much as I enjoy being a cunning linguist in both senses, perhaps that’s a subject we shouldn’t talk about while on the way to your parents.
” I actually didn’t mind; I always loved the way we slipped in and out of flirting with each other so easily, but it was still fun to tease her about it.
“My parents had seven children. Do you think there’s anything we could possibly say to them that would be a surprise?”
“Maybe so, but I’m not really interested in thinking about how your parents got those kids either.”
She grimaced. “You may have a point.”
“I try to, at least from time to time. And if I can’t find one of my own, usually my chisel will do.”
“Oh right, I forgot to mention, please do not use a chisel on my parents either. They would not appreciate that.”
“You know, some people would call all these rules controlling.”
“Yep, that’s me. Being an unreasonable, psycho girlfriend by asking you not to use your woodworking tools on my flesh and blood.”
We reached a red light, and I looked at her. We shared a laugh, and for the last seven minutes of our drive, the mood was much lighter.
After all, I was just meeting her parents.
The people who raised her. Considering what a great job they’d done with their daughter, I was sure they were reasonable people with a great sense of humor.
I let that assuredness carry me right up until we pulled onto her street.
There were only three houses. Two quite large ones on either side of the entrance and a truly massive villa at the very end.
What the hell?