Draft version - Russian Roulette - Family secrets

Ch. 116: You're an accountant?

"Don't be nervous, they'll love you. I'm not so sure about me, but you they'll love." Cracker put his hand on Alyssa's thigh to comfort her. He could feel her nerves and hear that annoying sound of her gnawing on her lip, something she did when she got nervous or stressed.

The sound was annoying to him, not because she did it, it was because he had put her in a situation where she felt she had to do it. He did not like being that person to her.

His touch practically made Alyssa jump out of her skin. She had been far away in her own thoughts; she had not registered Cracker looking for her attention.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?"

Cracker simply smiled. He understood how nervous Alyssa was, she had no reason to be. His parents would paint her in gold and put her on a pedestal for having sunk her hooks into him. Not that he minded at all, he wanted her hooks to be right where they were, he just knew his parents would be thrilled. How they would feel about him coming home, that would probably be on the cold side of things.

As in somewhere between arctic and inside a glacier cold.

"Relax, ok? If they say or do anything you don't like, we leave. I've left them before, I can leave them again."
"They're your parents, Fallon."
"And you're my future. You win at every count."

At those words Alyssa cocked her head and looked at him. The way he spoke about them as a couple was fulfilling to her. He did not go over the top to reassure her at all times, he was not desperate in any way, he acted as if everything about them was normal and meant to be.

He was with her without question.

And she was with him.

"It's just up ahead, behind those trees is the driveway leading to the house." Cracker pointed a bit further up the road and to the left.

Waiting in anticipation Alyssa stared at the road keeping track of how close they came to the trees. Cracker turned the car into a small sort of driveway in front of a set of enormous iron gates. They had everything in dramatic effect, even the Winchester 'W' in gold.

She sat there in awe and tried to get a glimpse of the house which supposedly was at the end of the long driveway with large perfectly groomed trees on each side.

There was nothing to see.

Cracker clicked in a code on the control panel at the gates and slowly the gates swung open for them. He sighed with relief. His parents had not changed his personal passcode, maybe that meant they would forgive him.

Slowly to give himself time he drove up the driveway to the house, lost in thought trying to form an explanation to his parents.

Gasping in shock, Alyssa grabbed his leg and held on to it when she saw the house. It was huge! And magnificent. Her Cracker had grown up there? It was the size of the city she came from.

It was a grey stone building, three stories from the looks of it, white framed windows and a grand entrance with stairs and huge wooden doors. The sad winter leftovers of English Ivy clung to the lower walls.

Alyssa could not imagine how that place would look in the summer bathed in sun with everything in bloom. She was well blown away as it were. She had not noticed Cracker had parked the car and had come around to open the door for her until the cold winter air hit her through her thin dress.

"Stick with me, everything will be fine." Cracker smiled at her and kissed her. He knew Alyssa could handle herself. "If you want to leave, you tell me, and we're out, ok?"
"Ok, Cracker."