Pre-Arranged

Chapter-14

Ted and Amelia stood in front of his parents' house, dressed up pretty for the occasion and still working on their nerves for the encounter they were about to embark into. They could hear the bustle and happy chatter inside. Ted, for his part, wondered whether he should offer his arm to his wife; after all, they were about to meet the parents. However, he recalled their pact and refrained. No Touching.

Instead, his raised his hand, wrapped the fingers around the knocker and tapped it loudly three times. The noise on the other side hushed into a lull and the door was pulled open seconds later. There was a string of welcome hugs and greetings, with Ted's mother berating her son for showing up empty-handed.

"Ah, but it is a party for us. We really don't need to bring gifts for ourselves now, do we?" Ted responded with a sweet smile. He glimpsed Amelia cover her mouth with her fingers elegantly before she straightened her expression within a tick and clasped his mother's arms.

"Good evening, Mother. Forgive your son, he's always forgetting things," Amelia said smoothly.

"Oh, he is! I'm sorry, dear, I shouldn't pester you with the formalities. You've come here for the first time since the wedding!"

Ted rolled his eyes at his mother's propensity to accentuate every sentence. He proceeded to greet the other three parents. Once they had settled down, Mrs. Sloane brought forth an array of hors d'oeuvres masterfully arranged on six separate plates with knives, spoons and forks neatly arranged on napkins at the table. If Ted had not lived in the house for twenty-three years, he too would have assumed they were at a formal meeting and not at a, as his mother so liberally called, "party".

Somehow, even though they had not talked it out or rehearsed it, Ted and Amelia managed to laugh at each other's funny anecdotes, none of which had any existence whatsoever in the married life they led. However, that fact need not be known to their parents; the two of them had yet to forgive any of the four for tricking them into the arrangement.

"So you have met the cousins too, right?" Mrs. Sloane asked Amelia, and Ted sucked in a short breath. They had never bothered to go over that bit of information.

Amelia, though, was unperturbed. "Not all of them, I'm afraid, Mother," she replied without missing a beat. "Just a couple, the ones close to him." She picked up her glass of water and took a sip.

"Oh, you must mean Wes and Katherine?"

Amelia nodded even while her mouth was full. "Yes, them. Lovely people, both of them. Couldn't have made me feel more welcomed."

Ted released his breath then and covered it up with a cough. He had only just begun to ease his posture when Mrs. Skyer addressed him, "What about you, dear? You've met with Sarah, right?" She turned to his parents as she explained, "Amy has always been shy so she only has that one friend."

Mrs. Sloane nodded her head in understanding, again with the excess emotion. Ted sighed within his mind and replied with a smile, "Yes, Mother. She made me promise I'd take care of her best friend."

Amelia raised an eyebrow suggestively and turned her gaze towards him. But he didn't acknowledge her.

"Oh! Such a sweet friend!" Mrs. Sloane exclaimed. "Ted here did not make any friends in his lifetime except those two cousins."

"I guess both our kids are particularly shy!"

"I sure hope not with each other!"

The two ladies laughed then, and their husbands joined in courtesy while their eyes spelled out boredom in bold letters. Ted sipped his own glass of water and muttered under his breath, "Shy, my ass."