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“More than most respectable men that women bring home to their families, I’m sure,” he smirks.
I need this to go well, but I want it to go well too. I like Matt more than I should but I’m past caring about that at this point. I’m already in a car with him, driving the handful of hours up to the cabins. If he was going to harm me in some way, he’d had plenty of chances.
“I think you’re fine the way you are,” I tell him, feeling myself blush as he glances at me with a raised brow.
The prim and proper wallflower they all made fun of for being dowdy and shy is bringing home a big, handsome man with tattoos and a job that involves physical labor. The relationship might be pretend, but they don’t know that.
I can’t wait to see the look on my aunts’ and cousins’ faces when they see me walk in with him.
***
I wake up with a start, my eyes shooting open. It takes me a second to place where I am. The car smells familiar, though, and there’s a callused hand on my cheek. When I look over, I see Matt smiling down at me, the scar on his face doing nothing to make him look less attractive.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he says. “Sleep well?”
Goosebumps rise on my skin under my clothes. I know he’s called me “sweetheart” before, but it makes me feel warm and gooey every time. It’s just more about him that I like too much.
When I nod at him, he pulls his hand away reluctantly and nods out the windshield. “We’re here. I don’t know which cabin we’re in though.”
“Probably the main one, with my parents,” I tell him.
He leans forward and turns off his car. “Fancy,” he jokes.
“They rented out the whole place for the family, so it’s a fair question,” I tell him.
I watch as his eyes widen slightly. He looks out the window. “The whole place?”
“Big family,” I say. “They decided to do something different this year instead of putting people up in hotels. And my mother’s always loved snow in the mountains.”
Matt takes in a deep breath and then lets himself out of the car before coming around to the passenger side. He opens the door and slips his hands around my waist. Like it’s nothing, he lifts me off the seat and sets me down on the ground gently. Even though it’s super cold outside, I can feel heat flooding my insides as he takes my hand and shuts the door behind me.
“We can bring things inside once we find out where we’re sleeping,” he grunts as he locks his car. His eyes linger for a moment on his crooked license plate and the rust spots popping up on his wheel wells.
I squeeze his hand with mine. “Are you nervous now?”
He blinks and looks down at me, his blue eyes intense and dark. “I think that’s normal when I’m meeting my girlfriend’s family.”
I can’t help smiling to myself at that as we make our way to the front door of the main cabin. When he knocks, though, my smile falls. Nerves hit me like a train going at full speed. I feel him squeeze my hand, and suddenly, he leans over and presses a kiss to my temple.
“Do you trust me?” he whispers in my ear.
I nod without hesitation. I shouldn’t, I remind myself, and then I ignore the reminder. I can do this. We can do this.
“Anytime you feel cornered, just find me,” he says firmly as we wait for someone to come to the door. “I’m here for you, Lucia. No one else.”
His words make me breathless.
Before I can say anything back, the door bursts open and I hear ecstatic greetings and cheers. Before I know it, I’m being pulled into a hug. I smell my mom’s perfume.
“I can’t believe you actually came,cara,” Mom whispers, pecking my cheek before moving aside to let my father hug me. I melt into their embraces. For a moment, I manage to forget the anxiety that plagued me on my entire journey here.
And then I hear my dad ask, “And who is this? Your boyfriend?”
I watch as Matt extends a hand and introduces himself to them asMatthew. My dad takes it to shake it before pulling him into a weirdly aggressive hug. Matt’s eyebrows shoot up as he looks at me over my dad’s shoulder.
“Tell me, son,” my father asks when he pulls away and pats the younger man’s shoulders. He has to reach up to do it because he’s so much taller. “Do you love my girl?”
“More than anything in the world, Mr. Giovanni,” Matt says without missing a beat. My stomach swoops and my heart clenches. He says it so earnestly that even I almost believe him. My parents certainly seem to because my mom surges forward and pulls his face down with her hand and plants a big, wet kiss on his cheek.
