REJOIN | ✔️

Chapter Ten

If my parents had heard the altercation upstairs, neither of them let on. Instead, they'd forced me to get Remy to come inside to meet them. Humiliatingly, for the first time in my life I was stood in between my mother and father, across from my date.

I knew this would happen. I'd tried to get him to meet us at the bowling alley but he'd insisted on driving us there. I blamed him for this whole thing — I didn't see Clara having to introduce Chris to the circus.

When Remy caught sight of me, I could have sworn his eyes bulged a little. With a subtle clearing of his throat, he gave me his usual crooked smile, the slight dimple in his cheek popping out. I looked over his ensemble and smiled my approval — if I hadn't been treated as a live action Barbie, I'd have probably donned a similar outfit too. Black jeans, white t-shirt and a denim jacket. Despite the simplicity of the clothes, he looked incredible and my breath caught in my throat a little. Perhaps my eyes had bulged too. I coughed to cover a laugh at the thought.

As I'd descended the stairs a few moments earlier, I'd been thinking I should change and take off the makeup Clara had spent hours perfecting, purely out of spite. I was glad I didn't when I saw the way Remy watched me then — I'd never been looked at like that before, with such weight. His eyes flicked to my parents stood either side of me and I knew he'd have said more if they weren't there.

I looked an apology at him and he smirked. He seemed to be enjoying himself a little too much. If I were the suspicious type (I am) then I'd have thought he'd orchestrated it all (he did), knowing I would never want him to meet my embarrassing parents under normal circumstances (I wouldn't).

My mother made no attempt to make the first move, her stare — which was almost a glare, actually — pointedly aimed towards Remy. Her lips had thinned dangerously and I knew that was not a good sign. Her reaction surprised me but I made sure to hide it well, not wanting him to be spooked and potentially run for his life. I kind of thought she'd have been happy that I had some interest in me for once.

Ignorant to my mother's death glare, my dad stepped forward, his ginormous hand swallowing Remy's whole and heartily pumping his arm. "Simon Wilson, nice to meet you, kiddo."

"Remy Martin, sir," Remy replied. "It's lovely to meet you, I've heard great things."

My father eyed me suspiciously for a second before turning back to the other man. "Yes, me too, me too."

That was a total lie — I hadn't said a word about Remy to either of my parents. At least not until I'd been hounded for information about tonight's outing and why Clara had been so adamant we were going out together. Of course there had been cause for concern when they'd heard that — they were too used to the ordinary. The ordinary being Clara and I either vehemently ignoring each other or having screaming matches across the landing from our respective bedroom doors. There really was no in between with us.

I'd told them that we'd both been seeing people and everyone was going out together, without mentioning the whole soulmate thing. I'll happily save that argument for another lifetime. Apparently what I said had matched up with my sister's version of events and my mother had become a lot less volcanic. If truth be told though, she seemed a little disappointed she'd failed to catch us in some elaborate scheming lie.

Whether my father was genuinely happy to meet Remy or trying to stay in my good books was entirely unclear. After the threat of forced rehab from my mum and the breakdown I'd had in front of them all the other night, he'd certainly seemed more good natured towards me than usual.

The source of my mother's qualms soon became clear. In her usual unable-to-be-anything-but-rude-and-nosy manner, she caught Remy's attention with a snarky, "And just how old are you, Mr Martin?"