Ivan dipped his chin down before taking a step forward, closer to the door—and me—as I shoved it open. Instantly, I could hear quiet laughter coming from the direction of where the kitchen was.
I was going to regret this. I knew for sure I was going to regret letting him in. But if I told him I didn’t want him to come inside, it would just make me look weak or like there was something I was trying to hide from him. Plus, that was kinda mean.
I waved Ivan inside as I stood beside the door and closed it after him. “Let me show you the bathroom,” I offered.
He made a face, his attention going in the direction of the laughter. “Shouldn’t you go tell them hi first?”
Should I, maybe. Did I want to? No.
“I should tell your mom hello, shouldn’t I?”
Oh God.
There was a reason I had never brought a boyfriend over to my house to meet my family. And now... well, now I was going to bring one of the most important people I would ever meet and have a relationship with over to see these psychos, even if it was only for a moment to greet my mom.
Thinking about all the horrible things I had said in front of my brothers and sisters’ old boyfriends and girlfriends over the years was almost enough for me to regret the hell they were more than likely going to pay me back with now.
I wasn’t fool enough to think they were going to be on their best behavior because a gold medalist was coming in to say hi.
At least I sure as hell hoped that’s all he was doing. From a single sniff, I could tell dinner was well on its way to being done. It smelled so good.
With a shrug, I tipped my head to the side so he would follow me. I passed by the living room and found it almost empty except for Ben, who was standing at the liquor cabinet, filling three different glasses with what looked like gin and tonic. “Hey, Ben,” I called out, stopping behind the couch to greet him.
He didn’t look back as he closed the bottle in his hand. “Hey, Jas,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder before his eyes hit where I was standing and he stopped talking. His whiskey-colored eyes widened, and I knew he was fully aware of who was standing not even six inches away.
“Why are you whispering?” I asked.
He pointed upstairs. “The kids are napping in our room.”
Oh. Deciding to go peek into my mom’s room later, I focused on the person beside me. “Ben, this is my partner, Ivan. Ivan, this is my mom’s husband, Ben,” I introduced them both, not sure what to do with the way Ivan blinked slowly before finally taking a step forward and saying, “Nice to meet you” like a normal, polite human being.
Huh.
I noticed Ben slide his eyes in my direction, giving me a “what the fuck, Jasmine?” look before taking Ivan’s outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you, too.” He paused. “Want a drink?”
“I’m driving, but thanks,” he replied easily.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” Ben replied, giving me another bug-eyed look.
Ivan nodded at the same time I waved to him so he’d follow me into the kitchen. I recognized my sister’s laugh, followed by Jojo saying, “Shut up.”
Stepping into the wide doorway of the kitchen, I took in my siblings and their significant others sitting around the island and focused way too hard on something in the middle of it. My mom on the other hand was peeking into one of the double wall ovens and poking something inside. Glancing back at Ivan, I raised my eyebrows at him and then went into the kitchen, expecting him to follow behind me at the same exact time. Jonathan threw his hands in the air a split second before the sound of a few things falling on the granite filled the room.
“No!” my brother hissed at the same time my sister Tali went, “How did you screw that up?”
“You know he sucks at Jenga,” I threw in, coming up behind the body I knew belonged to my sister. She turned around just as I touched the top of her head.
“Jasmine,” Ruby, my slightly older sister, squealed, her hands moving toward me before stopping halfway between our bodies, like she was hesitating. She always did.
I didn’t even sigh; I just wrapped my arms around her and noticed it took her all of a second before she hugged me back.
“I come over all the time, and you never hug me like that,” Jojo piped up from his spot across the island.
I was still hugging Ruby when I glanced over at him and said, “Because she’s never come into the bathroom while I was showering and dumped a pitcher of ice water on me.”
“You’re still mad about that?” my brother asked, planting his elbows on the island and smirking so wide his gap-tooth grin came out.
“You did it last week,” I reminded him. “And two weeks before that.”
“I was only trying to help you—” he started to say before James, who was sitting beside him, elbowed him in the arm, hard enough to get his attention as he rubbed his arm. “What was that for?”
James’s eyes were on the spot behind me as he elbowed his significant other again.
Now or never, right? “Ivan gave me a ride home because my car wouldn’t start,” I explained, watching as all of them, even my mom who was at the oven, all turned to try and look behind me. “Everyone, Ivan. Ivan, this is everyone.”
My brother squeaked. James elbowed my brother again. My sister, Tali, blinked. The hand that Ruby had on my lower back jerked. My mom did nothing, and neither did my sister’s beautiful blond husband who was sitting in the seat directly to my right.
“Hello,” Ivan, who was apparently wearing his polite pants, called out.
It was my mom that replied, “Hello, Ivan,” as she came around the island, wiping her hands on the apron she had on over her clothes. “It’s nice to see you again.”
He replied something I couldn’t hear when Ruby’s hand on my back moved, and she leaned in to whisper into my ear, “He’s so tall and handsome in person.”
I glanced at the man beside her, who had turned back around to face the island and begun collecting the wooden blocks that were spread all over the counter. “I’m going to tell Pretty Boy you’re eyeing another guy.”
She scowled and pulled away. “You’re a pain, Jasmine.”
I smiled at her and touched the top of her head again. She had been the last of my brothers and sisters to move out, and even though it had been six years since it had happened, I still missed her like it was just yesterday. Even though I was pretty close to Jonathan in our own screwed-up way, it was Ruby that I had always been the closest to. My mom said it was because we were polar opposites and balanced each other out. Like Karina. I always thought it was just because she had the most patience with me, and I had always been really over protective of her despite the fact she was five years older than me.
With the back of my hand, I reached to the right and tapped her husband’s shoulder, taking in the baby monitor sitting in front of him on the table. It was one of those fancy video ones.
He peeked over at me in the middle of collecting Jenga pieces and grinned. “Jasmine.”
I gave him his own little smile. It was hard not to. “Aaron.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you how happy I was when Rubes said you got another partner,” the man replied in his honey-sweet Louisiana accent. “I knew it would only be a matter of time.”
My smile grew a little wider, and I nodded at him, tapping his shoulder one more time to tell him thank you. In return, the man my brother had joked around that he’d sworn he’d seen on the cover of a book before, smiled at me, like it was enough. It had only taken Aaron about five minutes to convince me that he deserved to be my sister’s first boyfriend. I’d been prepared to hate his guts. But in those first five minutes after she’d brought him to the house to introduce him to us all—six months before they eloped, and six and a half months before we found out about it—he had asked her to show him all of the cosplay outfits she had made over the years, and I knew she had found a kind, decent man.
If he hadn’t been, my mom and I had been ready to whoop his ass one dark, rainy night when he couldn’t identify us.