Page 54 of Embraced in Ink
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
They laughed again, the tension easing.
“I just don’t want to make a bad impression.”
“They know you. You’ve slept over at my parents’ house when I wasn’t even there.”
He could tell she’d narrowed her eyes at him even if he wasn’t looking. She always did with this particular story. “We were in middle school, and I was supposed to do my astronomy project with you and stay the night. Only you forgot and decided to have a slumber party at your friend’s house. You know, with the boys. Instead of inviting any of the girls.”
“Boy-girl slumber parties weren’t a good thing back then.”
“It was never a problem with us before. But I showed up, my sleeping bag under my arm, and my tiny little telescope ready to go. And your mom took one look at me and promptly cursed your name.”
“That sounds like my mother,” he said, rolling his eyes as he took the next turn.
“Well then, your mom had me come inside, and your parents, along with your sisters, played with me in the back yard and helped me with my astronomy lesson. My parents were all ready to come and pick me up and apologize for the confusion. Mostly because my dad had talked to your dad, but our moms hadn’t really talked to one another about the plan.”
Marcus snorted. “And that meant that the dads got in trouble, too. After all, they aren’t supposed to plan things without putting it all on the calendar.”
“You know it,” she said, smiling. “But it was one of the best times. Your dad knew all about astronomy, and we had this program on your old computer that helped us figure out the constellations that we couldn’t determine from the book. It was a blast. I wish you would’ve been there.”
“I was going over to the guy’s house to go talk about girls. You know, about how gross they were.”
“You were in middle school. Were girls really gross then?”
Marcus shrugged. “Maybe not. Butwewere pretty gross.”
“That is true.”
They pulled into his parents’ neighborhood, and he parked right in front of the house, turning off the engine but not getting out yet. He undid his seatbelt and turned a little so he could look directly at Bristol. “Everything’s going to be fine. You and me? We’re getting this done.”
“Getting this done?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
Marcus winced.
“I mean, they love you. We’re going to go in there, we’re going to have some dinner, and they’re most likely going to grill me. Not you.”
Bristol snorted. “You are the baby. The perfect one. They’re not going to grill you.”
“You act as if you’ve never met my family.”
“Didn’t we recently go over the fact that I do know them?” she asked him, leaning forward.
Because he couldn’t help himself, and he kind of liked this new part of their relationship, he leaned forward and laid the gentlest of kisses on her lips. “Let’s go inside. They’re not going to wait for long.”
The tap on this window scared the crap out of both of them, and Bristol yelped, while Marcus laughed.
“Apparently, we don’t have to wait long at all.”
“Here they are.”
He turned to see Vanessa standing outside the car, tapping the glass. She had a wide grin on her face, even as she shook her head.
He and Bristol got out, and Jennifer and Andie on the other side of their car hugged Bristol close.
But he didn’t have anything to worry about. Right? His family loved her. Just because he was a little nervous about what they would think about how quickly everything was happening, didn’t mean that they would treat Bristol wrong.