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“Dinner with my family,” she said. A little voice in the back of her head said she should invite him, but that seemed like it was moving really fast. As far as they knew, her first date with him had been last Thursday. Maria never introduced guys to her family right away, at least not since high school.
Fortunately, Rick just smiled at her, taking away her anxiety and the pushy voice in the back of her head. “That sounds like fun. If you feel like stopping by afterwards, I’ll be around.”
“You’re not doing anything tonight?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she kind of felt like an idiot. Duh, of course he wasn’t, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked her what she was doing.
“Well, since you’re not around I’ll probably go to Liam’s dojo,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist. “But I’ll be home by eight.”
“Okay.”
One more kiss to her lips and then she was out the door and on her way up to her own apartment. Not quite a walk of shame since she was at least wearing his t-shirt and not her shirt from yesterday. It was a nice soft t-shirt too, long enough it covered her butt, and in a dark slate gray color that was somehow flattering to both of their skin tones. Maria grinned as she went into her apartment, picking it up by the collar to sniff at it.
Yeah, it smelled like him.
“I hope he doesn’t think he’s getting this back,” she mumbled to herself.
Dammit, she should have just invited Rick. Dinner with her family had somehow turned into a barbecue at her parents with her family plus about ten other people. Some of her parents’ neighbors had ended up being invited over, because they were ‘like’ family. Ava had brought her friends Wendy and Cara because... well Maria still wasn’t entirely sure she understood the full convoluted story, just something about men sucking and Wendy needing support. Then, worst of all, when Lara had arrived and seen that there were extra people, she’d texted Victor and told him to go ahead and bring his buddies he’d been having happy hour with. Maria definitely didn’t have a problem with Victor’s friend Sameer, who was friendly, articulate, and intelligent, but she would never understand why either of them were friends with Jeremy.
At least there were enough people that it was relatively easy for her to stay out of whatever group Jeremy was currently having a conversation with. She had absolutely no desire to say another word to him after the way their conversation had ended at Lara and Victor’s engagement party. Although, technically she supposed she’d taken his advice about getting laid, but it definitely didn’t make her want to be a nicer person to him.
“...I swear, it’s like a chainsaw ripping through my eardrums, but the second I touch his shoulder he’s awake and telling me he couldn’t possibly have been snoring because he hadn’t even fallen asleep yet.” Barbara, who lived next door to Maria’s parents, waved her hands in the air in frustration. Her husband Gerry just smiled indulgently and shook his head.
“She’s making this all up,” he told Lara, grinning at the look of outrage his wife gave him in response. They were giving Lara ‘marital’ advice, with the exact same stories—and arguments—that they’d given all of Maria’s sisters before their weddings. No one ever tried to stop their recitations, they obviously enjoyed it so much. The two of them had been married for over thirty years and were thoroughly enjoying their retirement together.
“I am not.”
“That’s okay,” Lara interrupted, laughing at the older couples’ bickering. “We don’t have that problem, Victor doesn’t snore.”
“Just wait till he gets older,” Barbara said, shaking her head sadly. “You think this one snored like that when we first got married? Ha! I would’ve left in the first year. Now I’ve got too much time invested with him. I finally got him trained to put the toilet seat down and he starts in on this.”
Maria giggled along with Lara, as much at the couples’ antics as at their words. For all their constant bickering and sniping, Barbara and Gerry always did it with a note of loving amusement in their voices. Kind of like her and Rick in a way maybe. Except he would also spank her ass if she took it too far.
Looking to her left she caught Jackie’s eye and immediately blushed, since Jackie was the only one of her sisters who knew anything about that side of Rick. So far none of her sisters had been able to grill her about her “date” with Rick last Thursday. Too many people around. But the speculation on Jackie’s face said that might not last for too long.
Sure enough, five minutes later, Jackie was calling her over, asking for help in the kitchen. Uh huh. Maria sighed inwardly. Interrogation time.
“Soooo... how are you?” Jackie asked as soon as they got to the kitchen, her dark eyes sparkling with eagerness as she started to load up slices of bread onto a tray. They’d run out of bruschetta outside.
“Doing okay, how are you?” Maria asked, mimicking her sister’s syrupy tones. More than okay, really. She was still sore down between her legs, but in a mostly good way, although she managed not to think about it too much while she was outside and surrounded by people. Mostly because it was really super awkward thinking about that when half of the people around her were family. She grabbed the bowl of bruschetta topping her mom had in the fridge and put it on the counter next to Jackie.
“Oh, I’m great. Just wondering how my sister’s hot date went,” Jackie winked at her. “Since you didn’t call or anything afterwards.”
“You didn’t call me either,” Maria pointed out, although she did feel a bit guilty. She’d always been close to her sisters, even though they’d drifted a bit after they’d all gotten married and she hadn’t. Any other guy and she probably would have been on the phone with each of them within the first forty-eight hours post-date. Then again, things with Rick had gotten pretty complicated quickly, and she’d known none of her sisters would be able to understand. Not that she was going to explain it to Jackie right now. It felt weird, but there were just some things she wasn’t going to be able to share with her sisters about her and Rick’s relationship. “I thought maybe you weren’t interested.”
Jackie rolled her eyes, spooning the tomatoes onto the bread. “I just thought you might be still thinking things over because of... you know.” Her voice went sly and she gave Maria a significant look. Complete with eyebrow waggling.
“Well it went great. Even um... that part.” Maria blushed as Jackie’s jaw dropped open.
“You—you didn’t... you already—?”
“Shhh,” Maria hushed her, automatically looking over her shoulder to make sure no one had snuck up on them. Her face felt like it was burning up. Even speaking so ambiguously felt dangerous. She lowered her voice, leaning in towards her sister. “I haven’t slept with him yet but yes, we tried out the you know, and it went fine. Better than fine.”
“Told you so,” Jackie said, gleeful.
“Yeah, just... don’t mention it to Lara and Ava. I’ll tell them the date went well. We spent some more time together over the weekend. Last night he made me dinner,” Maria said, feeling warmth swelling in her chest. This was the good stuff, the stuff she could share with her sisters. The stuff she wanted them to know. She was dating a man and he was freaking awesome. They’d just skip over talking about the freaky in the sack part. “Surprised me with it because I’d been having a bad day.”
Jackie’s eyes practically glowed, reflecting Maria’s own feelings back at her. She could tell how happy she must look, because of how happy Jackie looked right now.
“Now that’s the kind of thing I like to hear,” she said, leaning against the counter. The bruschetta lay next to her on the tray, basically forgotten, Maria was amused to see. “When are you seeing him next?”
