My Future Husband

Chapter 17

“Holy fuck! This is a house!”

Always fun to see peoples’ reactions to The Manor for the first time.

“Yep, wait until you see the pool.” Kage is too intimidated to even drive in through the gates, stopped dead at the entrance way with his mouth wide open.

“This is where you grew up? Fuck, I can’t even picture it.” It’s funny, I lived at The Manor for the longest amount of time in my childhood, but when I think back on my home, this isn’t the first one that comes to mind. “Didn’t you ever get lost in there?”

Actually, yes, a lot.

“I swear, despite how it looks, it wasn’t that different. Mama T shouting at us for not putting our clothes in the laundry, Dad making a mess every Sunday doing dinner. It was just like everybody else’s home.”

“Just on steroids?” I burst out laughing as he finally gets the guts to drive through, Teal smiling in the back when he realises where we are. “Okay, who’s the one trying to push her way through the window to get a better look at me?”

Head of blonde hair, bag of chips in hand, already drooling when she sees Kage flexing arms. It can only be one person.

“That’s Leah, or Al, or Aleah, she’ll pretty much answer to anything. But only call her Lee if you want Jay to rip your tongue out.” I may be scaring him, but you only get one opportunity to make a good first impression on Jayce Thompson.

“So Aleah is your sister?”

“No, she’s Milo’s sister. She’s Brie’s sister as well, just in a different way.” Here we go.

“But she's not yours?”

“Right.”

“But she’s married to Milo’s brother?” This is where it gets complicated.

“Yep.”

“So... she's not his sister...” I mean, technically... “And Josh, Steve and Liam are the brothers that have all married their way in?”

“Liam hasn’t yet, but give him time.” Kage falls back against the seat massaging his temples. Bless. “Don’t overthink it babe, it’ll give you a headache. Just embrace the crazy.” I’ve gone over this family tree with him all morning, but it’s not hard to get confused considering there’s more crosslines than in the Targaryen dynasty.

I can still sense the nerves coming off him as we walk up the steps, the large white pillars aren’t exactly made to not intimidate, but then we open the front doors and it gets so much worse.

For fucks sake!

Dad, Jay, Steve, and they’ve even roped fucking Han in to stand in a perfect row, arms crossed over their chests and eyes barrelling into the boy next to me. I’m going to kill them all.

“Oh, I’m fucked.” Kage whispers under his breath, realising that in the real world he might be a giant, but in this house, he’s just the top end of average.

“There's my girl.” Dad smiles at me, but he knows exactly what he’s doing, extending his arms so I’ll go in for a hug but keeping his shoulders squared not to lose an inch of fucking height. “My youngest daughter, the apple of my eye, the one that I would kill for without a second thought.”

For the love of God.

“Hey dad.” I try really hard not to roll my eyes when they make a little protective circle around me, Dad’s arms around my shoulders, Jay stroking my hair, Steve resting his hand on my back, screaming that I’m the pup protected by Alpha’s without saying a fucking word. “Will you lot cut it out!” I whisper. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”