Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Matt seemed torn between helping me and his knowledge that he probably couldn’t. I hated that for him. So, I locked eyes with him and said, “You can watch me crawl.”
With a lopsided smile, he wagged a finger at me. “That’s my naughty princess.”
“And that,” I said, crawling along behind him, “was a very nice game. But I’m still afraid of your fucking stairs.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
(Matthew)
Charlotte and I had been living together for about a month before her parents’ visit was imminent.
“I need help,” I begged Scott over the phone the night before their arrival.
“I’ve been saying that for years, and you never listen,” he quipped.
I ran a hand through my hair and glanced toward the bathroom door. Charlotte had just gotten into the shower, so I only had about forty-five minutes to an hour for this conversation, and frankly, six months of intensive study wouldn’t calm my nerves. “This isn’t funny. I’ve never been this nervous to meet someone’s parents before.”
“You’ve met my parents,” he pointed out.
I hadn’t forgotten. “I know. But not in this context. Do you know how easy it is to impress someone when they’re showing up to their kid’s dream wedding that you paid for?”
“It wasn’t exactly my dream wedding,” Scott said. “My dream wedding was Jamaica—”
“But we couldn’t get the bear there. That’s right,” I recalled. “And then you suggested Hilton Head—”
“Because it stopped her from booking a plantation,” he finished.
How “plantation wedding, with bear,” hadn’t been a big enough red flag to get him to dump her right then, I had no idea. I wasn’t going to ask, either. There was no sense in digging up a past that I wouldn’t understand, anyway.
“You don’t think your apartment is going to impress them enough?” Scott asked.
That was a completely different branch of the problem. Despite my offer to put them up in the most luxurious hotel suite I owned in the city, they didn’t want to “put us out” and clung tenaciously to Charlotte’s initial offer. Not only would I meet her parents as the boyfriend for the first time, but there would also be no escape from the stress for the five days they planned to stay.
“Are your parents the types to be impressed by money?” I asked.
“Everyone is the type to be impressed by money. Especially in the quantity you have.” Scott made an impatient noise. “You know I’m going to be there, too, right? You’re not going into battle alone and unarmed.”
“You’re not staying at my apartment, though.”
“Yeah, no. Bill and Holly are my parents, and I love them. But I also love boundaries.” He said this like I was some kind of freakish, full-time extrovert.
And I was, but only sexually. Not in a capacity that would work when meeting the parents.
“I think you’re expecting my dad to roar in there and knock your head off because you fucked his daughter. That’s not gonna happen. My parents are more than aware of my sister’s enthusiasm for ‘meeting new people’.”
I somehow heard his air quotes.
“The only way you’re going to mess this up is if you treat her badly in front of them,” he went on. “And I know that’s not going to happen, because if you treat her badly at all, regardless of witnesses, I’ll throw you out of one of your fucking sky palace windows.”
“They don’t open.”
“I didn’t say I would open it.”
“What time are you getting here?” I asked, pacing nervously. Holly and Bill would arrive on Thursday afternoon, but Scott wasn’t coming until Friday. “I’m taking the train up after work.” Scott’s new firm was in Boston, which delighted Charlotte. She was used to being on opposite coasts from her brother.
“Are you going to get here in time for the show?” Charlotte had gotten tickets for the four of them to see a Broadway musical; I’d used epilepsy as an excuse not to go—“You never know when they’re gonna hit you with a strobe light,”—but I couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting in the same room with people singing and dancing at me.
Apparently, Scott was of the same mind. “Wouldn’t that be awful, if I missed it because I thought I’d gotten the fast train, but it was the regular commuter?”
“You’re a terrible son,” I said.
“I’ll come over as soon as I get in, and I’ll be there as a buffer Friday night, okay?” he promised.
“I’ll give you five thousand dollars to come on Thursday.”
“I can’t be bought. But I can tell you that you don’t have anything to worry about. My parents already know who you are. They’re thrilled that you and Charlotte are together. And even if they weren’t, what are they gonna do? Forbid her from seeing you?” This wasn’t the first time he’d given me this exact peptalk, but it also wasn’t as super effective as I would have liked it to be. What I had been looking for when I’d called him had been something more along the lines of, “I have seen into the future and know for certain that there is no way this visit will affect your relationship with Charlotte.”