Page 34 of Holiday Home 3
“I’m setting my hopes low,” Anna admitted. “But poorly is about what I would expect, so it won’t be any surprise when it ends up being that way.”
“Anything we can do to try and make it go a little less poorly?”
She nodded. “I had a few thoughts I wanted to bring before you, yes.”
“I’m all ears.”
Anna breathed in, finding stability in the act. “Firstly, I’d like it if we could change the story of how we met. If it’s acceptable, I’d like for Avril to have been the one who introduced us—and well before winter break.”
“Avril?”
He could get why they might want to alter their origin story somewhat. For a twenty-one-year-old woman who’d never dated before, barring a single secret relationship back in high school that her parents likely didn’t know about, the story of how they’d met and rather quickly begun dating might raise a few suspicions. But having Avril be the one who’d introduced them, not the respected Bellmore professor he lived beside? Unless her father had a sweet spot for her, he wasn’t sure that was the best idea.
“Yes,” Anna confirmed. “I would like us to have known each other since the summer. Avril met you in your neighborhood while jogging with Tess and Victoria. She thought… you might be my type, so she introduced us. We started talking back and forth in the summer and fall, and when you returned home at the start of winter break, we went ice skating, and, um, you asked if I would be your girlfriend. And… I said yes.”
There was no menu to hide her blush this time. Nor her anxiety, which dominated her gorgeous features in a wretched manner. After hearing her idea, he couldn’t poke any significant holes in it. It likely would be more palatable to her family if they’d been getting to know each other for six months before he’d asked her out.
“Okay, that works for me,” he said. “But they’re not going to hate me even more, knowing how Avril played such a big role in it all?
“It could go either way,” Anna said. “For my mother, I mean. She knows how Avril is, but she also knows that Avril wouldn’t ever try and match me with someone only interested in me for… impure reasons.”
“Like the family money?”
“That’s one of the options,” Anna said, eyes flitting toward the condensation on her drink.
“Okay, then that’s what we’ll go with. Anything else you think we should change up?”
“Yes, one other thing.” Her confirmation was far swifter than the explanation that followed. He could see her battling with her unease, and after surmounting it, he could see her struggling to put what she wanted to say into words.
They really were far too alike.
“With the changes we’re making to how long we’ve known each other, Avril… feels like we won’t be able to act as stifflyaround each other as we did around her and Tess. And I think I agree.”
So, Avril is still a confidant, at least,Liam noted, relieved that whatever was going on between them hadn’t hurt their relationship.
“Yeah, I have to agree,” he said. “I don’t think we need to act like we’re contestants on Love Island, especially not the first time I’m meeting your parents, but it could help if we acted a little more relaxed. Or it might not. It could work if we’re both kind of nervous, I guess. I’m only your second ‘boyfriend,’ aren’t I? And the first, as far as your parents are aware?”
Anna blushed but nodded. “Yes, that’s true. Still, I would personally prefer it if we could be more comfortable around one another. I would rather not simply hope they’ll interpret our anxiousness as we want them to.”
“That works for me.” He felt bad for doing it, but he was hesitant to be the first to make any suggestions about how they might achieve this goal of comfort. He didn’t want to leap in and reveal that he was pretty much okay with whatever she might suggest, at least until she’d weighed in on the matter. So, slightly cowardly or not, he dropped the onus on her. “Did you have any specific ideas in mind for that?”
He just barely heard her whisper, “Yes.”
And that was the last he heard about it for a couple of minutes because their food arrived moments later. Their server looked relieved to see that they’d eaten most of their appetizer, and she returned quickly with refills for their drinks. Without needing to confer, they both decided to spend a few minutes diminishing their plates before the next time she passed by. Anna, of course, began by spreading her napkin neatly over her thighs.
As he chewed his salmon, he again admired Anna’s neatness and poise. Even with it being an unwieldy salad, she couldsomehow select just the right amount to skewer with her fork before she lifted it away from her bowl and brought her next bite to her alluringly full lips. Compared to her, he felt like a caveman with a rusty stone as a knife while he spread butter within the steaming-hot insides of his baked potato. If this was how her whole family dined, he suspected any dinner with them would result in him looking like Shrek had when he’d dined with Fiona’s parents.
Around the time they’d ensured their server wouldn’t end up worrying if they liked their main courses, he felt Anna’s furtive looks growing in number. He snagged a long drink before meeting her gaze during one of them.
“So, about these suggestions you had,” he said. “Mind sharing one or two?”
He commiserated with her anxiety, especially with how it delayed her reply. He knew how tight its grip could be, how stifling it was. But he also now knew how wonderful it could feel just to take the plunge, regardless of how embarrassing or disastrous things could end up.
The worst he could say was no. Which he wasn’t going to do, no matter what she suggested.
That was, of course, assuming he’d read her intentions properly. Based on all the blushes and nervous looks she’d struck him with over the past half an hour, he would have put down a sizeable wager on having done so. Once more, he wondered if this was howhe’dlooked to Tess and Avril earlier in the break.
When you said I could live it up for the rest of my break, did you think it might be Anna who got to me before Avril, Tess?he mused humorously, even though he highly doubted—he’d put money on that wager, too—Anna was about to suggest something a tenth as debaucherous as Avril would have if the seductive redhead had been the one sitting across the table.