Chapter NineteenMeet the ParentsRynIt was Friday.
The day of doom.
Boone was right then picking his parents up from the airport.
He was going to check them in to their hotel, then for a drink and some catching-up time, just mother, father and son.
And Mag was dropping me off for dinner with them in a couple of hours, after we stopped by Boone’s place so I could unload my stuff.
I was in my bedroom, packing my bag for the weekend, Pepper and Evie lazing on my bed with Juno.
Mag was in my living room, avoiding any further girlie time like the plague.
Even though Lottie and Mo offered to let me stay with them for the weekend so Boone could have some one-on-one (on-one) time with his folks (and I might get a break), Boone had decreed we weren’t changing how we did things because his parents were around.
I was sleeping in his bed.
And we were spending our weekend together (just for a lot of the time, with his parents).
I could have fought this. I knew Boone would have given in. I knew he didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable.
But after that convo about Jeb, even if I had to do it around his parents, it was important to me to stay close to my guy to keep my finger on his pulse.
Boone had come to terms with some things, but I knew with my realizations about how deeply my father had affected my life (and I didn’t know it), understanding it didn’t mean you were beyond it.
Especially not the “it” Boone was dealing with.
I was nervous because Boone really loved his folks, and so I needed them to love me.
I was also not in a good space because, in her daily check-in call, I’d also told Mom Boone’s folks were coming to town, and I was meeting them.
She didn’t say anything outright, but I could tell she was hurt that she lived in Denver, and she was sensing he was important to me in a way that he’d be important to her, and she hadn’t met him yet.
And they lived in Pennsylvania, and I was meeting them.
Honestly, we should have figured out how to let Mom meet Boone that would be safe for her.
But I was so in my happy, I-finally-found-the-best-guy-ever daze, okay, it didn’t say much about me as a daughter, but it didn’t occur to me.
So I was nervous, about to meet the parents and then there was all of that.
I already had a lot of stuff over at Boone’s.
But I was packing because I’d just hauled my girls’ asses (plus Mag’s, hence him in the living room, as far away from us as he could get) through Flatiron Crossing mall on a whirlwind shopping spree where I’d spent far too much money.
And now—even though I had a house I had to invest in, a mortgage on that house, rent I was paying on a pad where I hadn’t slept in weeks, and a job I was on hiatus from (though, with pay, but Smithie couldn’t do that forever, because I wouldn’t let him, and this Brett/Dirty Cop sitch seemed like it was going to take that long to sort out)—every outfit, including undies, shoes and handbags, was brand-new for my weekend Meet the Parents.
And I was a mess.
“You’re a mess,” Pepper declared.
Juno giggled.
Hattie, by the by, had declined to come with us.
Hattie, by the by, as reported by the girls, showed up at work just in time to get tarted up and go out onstage, pull on some clothes and took off right after, because, by the by, Hattie had suddenly become very busy.
Doing what, by the freaking by, none of us knew.
Even though we’d asked.
Repeatedly.
“What if they don’t like me?” I asked, folding a new pair of kinda-ripped skinny jeans (that would go with a new pair of fawn-colored, open-toed, high-heel booties, a close-fitting white ribbed tank, and a pale pink lightweight slouchy boyfriend cardie).
“They’re gonna love you,” Evie said.
“And who cares if they don’t like you?” Pepper added. “Boone likes you.”
Such was my buzzing freak-out, I suddenly homed in on Pepper and shrieked, “Who cares if they like me? I care!”
“Babe, relax.”
This came from the door where Mag was standing.
“For Evie and all of womankind, please take this in, a man telling a woman to relax almost always has the opposite effect on that woman,” I educated him.
His lips quirked, he ignored what I said, and stated, “I’ve met Boone’s folks a couple of times. They’re solid. They’re ridiculously adjusted. They really dig their son. And not to creep you out or anything, but you remind me a lot of his mom.”
“Gross,” Pepper muttered.
“Danny,” Evie whispered urgently.
“It’s not a bad thing and you’ll get me when you meet his mom,” Mag told me and smiled. “So obviously, his dad is gonna like you.”