Life After Treasure

Riley and I are sitting at the kitchen table, he is on the phone and I am flipping through some supermarket gossip magazine with a sleeping Rambo on my lap.

“Yeah, we’ll be there… See you soon… I love you too… Bye.” Riley says, although I can’t hear what the other person is saying.

Riley puts his phone on the table and I look up to see him smiling at me.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask raising a brow.

“How would you like to have Thanksgiving with my family? I know it’s not until tomorrow night but we can stay the night there and tomorrow night also.” He explains.

“I would love that.” I smile.

“Alright, let’s pack some clothes and head out.” He says getting up.

I grab my phone and text Ben if he can watch Rambo for the next few days and Ben agrees. I follow Riley into the bedroom and grab a bag from underneath the bed.

“Where do your parents live?” I ask while heading into the closet and grabbing a dress.

“Richmond.” He says.

I strip off my clothing aside from my panties and bra so I can put on the burgundy dress that is in my hand.

“Why are you changing? Your outfit looked fine.” He asks.

“Because I’m meeting your family for the first time; I want to look respectable.” I say fully pulling the dress on.

“You are respectable.” He smiles at me.

“Oh yeah, we need to stop at Ben and Abigail’s on the way so they can watch Rambo for us.” I say packing more clothing into the bag.

“Alright.” He says zipping up his bag.

After I get my toiletries out of the bathroom and put them in a Ziploc bag so nothing will leak, and then put that bag in my bag.

“You ready?” Riley asks holding his bag in one hand and Rambo in the other.

“Yeah.” I say grabbing my bag and following Riley out of the door and locking it behind us.

Riley and I get in his Ferrari and drive to Ben and Abigail’s house. Once there I give Rambo to Abigail and she assures me he will be fine. I get back in the car and we start driving to Riley’s parents’ house.

“Do you think they’ll like me?” I ask nervously and look at him.

He smirks at me and then takes my hand in his, “They’ll love you.” He says bringing my hand up to his mouth so he can place a soft kiss on it.

He keeps his eyes on the road and the radio fills the air, as well as on and off small talk. After a few back roads and turns Riley slows down in front of a colonial home with a number of other cars parked out front. Riley parks the car and grabs our bags and we walk up the then front door. I look up at Riley nervously as he knocks on the door and then puts his free hand on the small of my back. The door opens up to reveal the woman that is obviously his mother.

“Riley!” She smiles pulling him into a hug.

“Hi mom.” He chuckles.

“This must be Maddie, the woman you have told me so much about.” She says causing Riley to blush.

A man walks next to his mother that looks like an older Riley.

“Maddie, this is my mom and dad. Mom, dad, this is Maddie.” Riley introduces.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you.” His mother says pulling me into a hug.

“It’s nice to meet you both as well. Your home is lovely.” I smile as we pull away.

“Thank you. Riley you and Maddie will be staying in your old room. Why don’t you put your things away before we all sit down to have dinner?” She smiles.

Riley leads me up the staircase and to the third door on the right.

“This is my childhood bedroom.” He smiles.

It was nothing childish; it had green covers and plaid white and green wallpaper. It reminded me of something you would see off of Dawson’s Creek. His bed was a full size, our bed at home is a queen, but I don’t mind sleeping closer to Riley. We set our things down and head back down the stairs.

“There’s my little brother!” I hear and see a guy that looks somewhat like Riley, just taller and with darker hair.

“Hey Timmy.” He smiles hugging him.

I see that there is a woman next to ‘Timmy’, along with two little girls.

“Who’s this lovely young woman?” Timmy asks.

“Timmy this is my girlfriend Maddie. Maddie this is my brother Timmy, my sister-in-law Sarah and my two nieces Emma and Olivia.” Riley says.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you guys.” I say shyly.

I am only shy when it comes to meeting new people, especially when I know that what they think of me is important to not only myself but somebody I care about.

“Uncle Riley!” Olivia and Emma run over and hug his legs.

“They don’t see Riley that often and when they do they get excited.” Sarah explains.

“They seem to love him.” I smile at her.

“I’m so glad you’re here, now we girls will have something to talk about other than sports and well new technology from Riley.” She giggles and causes me to laugh.

“Dinner is ready.” Mrs. Poole says bringing the food over to the table and setting it down.

Riley pulls out a chair for me and then sits next to me. Sarah and Timmy sit across from us and Mr. and Mrs. Poole and the heads of the table. Olivia and Emma sit at a little table in the living room with their own food watching Scooby-Doo.

“Riley, why don’t you and Maddie tell us about how you guys found the Templar treasure. You haven’t told us about what happened.” Mr. Poole says.

Riley tells them about how Ben approached him and how he met me for the first time, how he thought I was the most beautiful person he had ever seen; earning a blush from me. He then goes on to tell them about our adventure in Home Depot, even telling them how I fell right on my butt. He tells them of how Ben actually stole the Declaration of Independence and his mom cuts him off.

“You know Riley. I’m not too thrilled knowing you took part in stealing such an important document in history.”

“I know mom.” He chuckles.

Riley continues to tell them about going to my dad’s house and figuring out the cipher, and how we tied up my dad and took his car. He goes on and gets up to the part where I kiss him and he was too shocked to kiss back and I walked away.

“Why didn’t you stand there to see what Riley had to say? Could have saved you a whole lot of trouble.” Riley’s dad laughs.

“I thought he didn’t want me to kiss him.” I admit.

“You honestly thought I wouldn’t want to kiss you?” Riley asks placing his hand on mine and I simply nod. “Maddie I love you. Of course I wanted to kiss you. I’ll never stop wanting to kiss you.” He says kissing my temple and everyone awe’s.

Riley finishes up the story just as everyone finishes eating.

“I think we are going to head up to bed. The ride here really wore us out.” Riley says noticing how tired I am.

Riley and I hug everyone goodnight and head upstairs to get some much needed sleep.