A Story to Tell Your Friends

Thirty-Eight.

“Jack!” A female voice called from the kitchen doorway. Jack immediately jumped up, running over to the woman and embracing her. I felt my stomach drop back into my feet as I saw Jack’s parents in the doorway, chatting away with their son excitedly. If I had it my way, I’d be melting back into the walls so I wouldn’t be noticed, but apparently that wasn’t going to be possible. “So, where’s this girlfriend you’ve been hiding from us then?” I heard over the din, before Jack let out a loud laugh.
“I haven’t been hiding her mom, she’s been hiding herself,” he told the pair. He looked over at me, moving his head to indicate that I should join them. I gnawed at my lip, standing up and making my way over to them. May had left us to deal with some other form of Thanksgiving drama, so what had been a nice relaxing moment alone with Jack, had now turned into an anxiety ridden meet-the-parents moment. I hadn’t heard the car pulling up over the sound of the rest of the household chaos (it was like being a kid again when the entire family rounded together, I loved it), so their appearance in the kitchen had shocked me. I had had no time to actually prepare for their arrival. It was awful. “This is Clara,” Jack grinned, pulling me into him as soon as I got within his reach. “Clara, these are my parents.”
“It’s really nice to meet you,” I smiled weakly. I was sure everyone could see how nervous I was, but I just had to man up and get it over with. Surely I wasn’t going to mess up as badly as I’d thought I would.
“Well, it’s about time,” Mrs Barakat scolded, scowling at Jack briefly before turning to me with a welcoming smile. “It’s lovely to meet you, Clara. Jack has been telling us all about you.”
“I’ve been hearing that a lot,” I laughed, noting the slight redness in Jack’s cheeks. “Apparently, he has nothing better to discuss than me embarrassing myself repeatedly.”
“Oh, phooey! He doesn’t say anything embarrassing, he just tells us ‘oh, Clara did this today’ or ‘Clara said that’ and ‘oh! Did I tell you what happened with Clara the other day?’” I laughed loudly, seeing the redness in Jack’s cheeks increase in vibrancy.
“Mom,” he whined, covering his face with the hand that wasn’t currently around my waist.
“You had this coming, son,” his dad told him, an amused smile on his face. “But we are glad to finally be able to put a face to the name and all the stories.”
“I didn’t tell them anything bad!” He told me as I looked at him suspiciously. Frankly, I didn’t know what types of things Jack told his family, least of all what he told them about me, so I was going to work on the assumption he was telling them the most embarrassing things I’d ever done in my entire life.
“Don’t just stand around, let’s go sit down. Get to know each other,” Mrs Barakat smiled as I bit back a sarcastic response to Jack, shooing us both back to the stools we’d been sat on at the kitchen island before they’d come in. She made herself busy making hot drinks for us all as her husband sat down facing us on the other side of the island.
“So, we hear you work with Jack, is that right?” Mr Barakat asked, still smiling warmly.
“Kind of,” I replied. “I work for the label and occasionally do promotional work for All Time Low, but that’s about it. I generally don’t get given stuff to do with the guys, that’s the responsibility of another girl in the office.”
“Ah, so you do get a break from him occasionally.”
“Occasionally,” I laughed. “Not often, but sometimes.”
“You wouldn’t want a break from me,” Jack told me, overdramatically as always. “You’re positively distraught when I leave you alone for five minutes, so I don’t know how you make it through work without me.”
“I don’t make it through work without you. You’re always interrupting me.”
“I bring you coffee and you love it.” I shrugged, not daring to argue for fear that he may take it upon himself to prove me wrong by no longer coming in to see me mid-morning with my usual cup of coffee. Jack grinned, knowing he’d won that discussion. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, still intent on impressing Jack’s parents, which I was assuming wouldn’t work if they knew how much of an ass he and I were to each other on a daily basis.
The four of us spent the next hour just getting to know each other. Jack’s parents were beyond lovely (which I had expected, knowing how their son turned out and hearing him talk about them) and they seemed to warm to me well enough. It didn’t fully take my nerves away, but it going well definitely helped. May joined us after a little while, happily recounting tales of Jack as a small child that made me laugh and him whine with embarrassment.
“So, everyone seems to like you, are you calm now?” Jack asked when we finally made it to our hotel room late that night. Everyone had wanted us to stay, including Jack, but there simply wasn’t enough room in the house for us to sleep there too, so we’d gotten the closest hotel we could find to them that wasn’t dingy. I dropped my bag on the floor, lying down on the bed.
“No,” I told him. “I’m calmer but I’m not calm.” He snorted, flinging himself onto the bed next to me, his bag also laying haphazardly on the floor. I could only imagine how much of a mess the two of us would make between us if we lived together, which actually came to quite a disgusting mess. I was disorganised to hell and Tammy basically tidied up after me when I left my clutter everywhere, whereas Jack literally paid someone to come in and clean his apartment. Like I said, the pair of us left on our own together would result in some serious mess.
“You need to be calm. They love you. May is already planning what she’ll buy us for our wedding and my mom is telling me how cute our kids will be.” I felt a smile pulling at my mouth at his words. I still took them with a pinch of salt, but it was nice to hear that they didn’t hate me. I was sure spending all day tomorrow with them would help ease my nerves even further, so I was actually looking forward to it.
“Our kids would be fricking adorable,” I told him. “But only if they got my nose.”
“What’s wrong with my nose?” He asked, faking offence. I snorted, turning to face him instead of lying on my back.
“Nothing, Pinocchio.”
“Hey, you know what they said about dudes with big noses.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and I bit back a laugh at the insinuation. I knew he was childish, but come on.
“What? They don’t get girlfriends?”
“Ouch. And here I was hoping you’d turn around and say that I didn’t have a big nose.” He pouted at me, faking like I’d hurt his feelings. It was this I had been missing all day. Mocking each other somewhat ruthlessly and just genuinely enjoying being together. My nerves had, of course, stopped me from being my usual self around his family, but I was kind of glad that staying in a hotel meant that we had some time to ourselves, purely so I could allow myself to relax a little and just have some fun with my boyfriend. Not that I wasn’t having fun, it’s just that I needed downtime too. I was almost positive Jack would feel the same come Christmas.
“Hey, technically I did. I said guys with big noses don’t get girlfriends. You have a girlfriend. See.” He mulled over my words for a couple of seconds, feigning thoughtfulness. He knew I was worming my way out of what I’d said and that I hadn’t remotely meant it that way. But, either way, he knew it was a joke, so who cares?
“Okay, I’ll take it.”
♠ ♠ ♠
I suck, I know.
I'm trying, but I'm a Drama Llama so nice happy times don't inspire me overmuch.
Consistency is coming, I swear.