16. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
Emily
As Bash opened the door, I heard a familiar voice coming from the family room and sagged with relief. “Ava’s here.”
“Oh, thank God.” Bash’s shoulders relaxed and Mac glanced around.
“Ava’s your cousin, right?”
“Yes. She’s a sweetheart and a great buffer between her mom and the rest of the family.”
“Nina’s her mom?” Mac was sweating as he counted out the people on his hands. “Alicia is your mom—” He pointed to Bash. “And your dad is Jason?”
Bash shook his head. “My dad is Collin. Em’s dad is Jason.”
“And my mom is Rachel.”
“And then there’s Grandma Agnes,” Bash said, opening his arms for the orneriest old woman I’d ever met in my life as she came out of her room and joined us in the hallway.
“You talking about me, Sebastian?” She side-eyed him and he shook his head so fast his dark hair fluffed.
“If I was, it was only the best of things—”
“Huh?” She held her hand up to her ear, and I choked on a laugh.
“It’s good to see you, Grandma Agnes.” Bash’s voice was muffled, squished against her as she held him tight.
She refused to be called grandma all throughout my mom’s pregnancy with Rob. And then the second he was born, she fell head over heels in love with him and has worn the title of grandma with excessive pride ever since.
“My granddaughter,” she exclaimed, throwing her arms out toward me after she hugged Bash.
She eyeballed Mac and winked. “Good job, honey.”
“It’s not just me,” I said, putting my arm around Bash’s waist.
She scoffed and pushed past me. “I was talking to Sebastian. You’re a catch, honey. And so is your hockey player.”
My cheeks burned, and I stood there in silence with my two guys as she ambled to the kitchen.
“One family member down,” Mac said, breaking the stunned silence. “That wasn’t too bad.”
“Is she saying I’m not a catch?” Bash’s arms were hanging by his side as he stared down the hallway.
“You’re a catch.” I patted his chest. “Maybe you didn’t hear her right.”
Mac snorted, covering it quickly with a cough, when Bash glared at him.
I braced myself and grabbed their hands. “Let’s get this over with.”
The chatter in the family room stopped the second we walked in. Like not even a fade away to cover up their ridiculousness. Just full conversation to dead silence.
Bash took the lead and introduced Mac to our families. I held my breath the entire time, a woozy nausea passing over me when the room fell silent again. It was one of those pressurized silences that made me feel like I was going to explode.
Bash’s dad stepped forward first, shaking Mac’s hand. “Sorry about the loss—”
Mac shook his hand and laughed. “Me too. Thanks, man.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Mac.” Ava reached out her hand, her voice as soft as I remembered.
She was a nanny and completely unflappable. Exactly the person we needed in our corner.
They exchanged a few words, and I let go of the breath I’d been holding onto for dear life.
“Thank you,” I whispered, hugging her tightly.
“Of course,” she whispered. “I’m truly excited to meet him. And to see you and Bash again. Engaged?!”
She and I quietly screamed, but no one else moved closer to us. Slowly, the conversation around the room ramped back up. Not exactly a warm greeting for Mac, but nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be.
I had kind of hoped my parents would be warmer, but it was a pipe dream. They weren’t warm with me anymore, so why would they be with him? I needed to lower my expectations, but it was hard to not want more from them, no matter how many times I’d been disappointed.
I grabbed Mac’s arm—something my mom noticed. “Now that introductions are over, want to see the rest of the lake?”
“Absolutely.” And then, throwing on his press conference smile that the cameras ate up, Mac waved to everyone in the room. “It was nice meeting all of you.”
His cordiality was met with some grunts and head nods. Grandma Agnes was beaming at him and letting her eyes rake over him a little longer than appropriate. My cheeks burned, and I yanked him out of the house. Bash was right behind us, practically slamming into me as I shut the door.
“That was weird.”
Bash took my other hand and kissed my palm. “It was so much better than I thought it would be, but yeah. I kind of hated that.”
“Kind of?”
Mac shrugged and stared toward the lake. “Still better than my parents. Your parents just ignored your engagement texts—”
“Didn’t yours?” Bash asked.
Mac’s face fell and my stomach dropped. “Mac?”
He glanced at the house and paused. “Can we walk down by the lake where no one can hear?”
We ambled down the dirt path along the water’s edge in silence, no one speaking until we were certain we were out of earshot.
“What happened?” Bash was at level-ten intensity, eyes bugged, staring at Mac as he waited impatiently for him to answer.
I rubbed his back, hoping to soothe some of that intensity out of him before Mac broke down. He already looked so exhausted just from bringing it up. We had messaged our parents all at the same time the day after our proposal. If they wrote back right away, he’d been hanging onto this for way too long.
“I sent them the same message,” Mac began, and I pulled him close to Bash and me. “They told me to never message them again.”
“No big loss,” Bash muttered.
I hadn’t had the privilege of meeting Mr. and Mrs. Connor, but from what Bash had told me, and now this, I wasn’t counting it as a loss either.
“Because the three of us are engaged?”
He nodded. “They care about appearances and now their son is a bisexual hockey loser—”
“You’re not a loser.”
He smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I might as well be. I’m at the center of some media scandal that’s not even a big enough deal to make national news.”
I snorted, and Bash chuckled.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“It’s true. Like we’re making waves and bringing disgrace to our families and it’s not even enough for clout chasers to glom onto.”
“Even so, they don’t want you to talk to them at all?” I asked.
“They’re pissed I cut them off. And they blame Bardot because they think he convinced me they were mooching off him.”
“I did. And they were.” Bash frowned and shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Michael.”
“It’s okay. If they can’t see how much I love you because they’re so caught up in their own victim mentality, I refuse to stoop to their level.”
“They’re the ones missing out.” I snuggled up to Mac and wrapped my arms around his middle. “Anyone would be lucky to know you.”
He kissed the top of my head and sighed. “Tell me more about your parents. Anything to take my mind off mine.”
I wiped my face and groaned. “Oh, God. Where to start?”
“They’re oddly close.” Bash smirked. “For a long time, we suspected our parents were swingers—”
“It would make sense,” Mac mused.
I shook my head. “Not after their reaction to the three of us.”
“Maybe that’s why they deny it.” Bash frowned and kicked a rock toward the water. “They probably are, but we’d never know.”
“My head cannon is that they are swingers, but they’re so ashamed of their midnight romps that they only do it at the lake house.”
I groaned and shoved Mac. “If you want to sleep with me ever again, don’t mention our parents doing it in any configuration.”
He smirked and pulled me into his arms. “Deal.”
“There you guys are,” Ava said, climbing the hardest path down to the lake. “We’re going to have game night if you want to join in.”
“Is your family competitive?” Mac asked, his eyes gleaming with mischief.
“The most competitive. None of them like to lose.”
“Excellent.”
An hour later, we were so deep into poker, I lost track of how many hands we’d played. Mac was kicking ass. My dad exchanged a look with Bash’s dad and he raised his bet.
I folded, knowing my pair of threes would not get me far.
Bash and Mac exchanged the same look with each other— were our parents secretly together? No. It wasn’t an intimate look. Just an insider look? But like they knew each other really well…I shook my head so hard Grandma Agnes eyeballed me. If they were together, I never ever wanted to know. It was a mystery I would be fine never solving.
Bash folded and Mac raised again.
He was up against our dads now. His future fathers-in-law. Bash and I exchanged worried looks, but Mac was confident as he watched them reveal their hands.
“Full house,” Collin said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back.
“Dammit, Col. Just a straight.” My dad tossed his sequential cards to the middle of the table. “I need a drink.”
Collin watched Mac, certain his win was guaranteed. Mac, as cocky as ever, flipped his cards over, revealing four tens.
My dad and Collin gawked at the four cards. Mac just kept his gorgeous, smug smile on his face and gathered all the chips in front of him.
“Let’s go down to the lake,” my dad said, grabbing his jacket.
I stood up, but he shook his head. “I need to spend some time getting to know my future son-in-law better.” He cleared his throat. “Both of them.”
Collin grabbed his hat and the four of them walked out of the door, smack talking each other about the poker game.
My heart swelled. It was everything I wanted. Maybe coming to the lake house wasn’t so bad after all.
I could have ridden that high for a long, long time. But I turned and saw my mother’s face and snapped right back to reality.