“Everything okay?” Kelsier asks.
“Yeah, Inga just used my dad’s phone to ambush me.”
“Inga? Your older sister?” Gray asks, fishing the name from our conversation last night.
“She’s been trying to talk to me for weeks, and I’ve been avoiding her,” I say. “The news about us dating threw her over the edge, though.”
“Let me guess,” Kelsier says. “She’s not happy she found out about it secondhand.”
“She got my mother involved,” I say.
“Oof,” he says. “What’s your penance?”
“That’s the tricky part,” I say. “And I’ll need help with it.”
“What kind of help?” Gray asks.
I catch her gaze and smile apologetically. “How would you feel about driving up to Canada the week of Thanksgiving to meet my family?”
Chapter 20
Gray
My heart pounds in my ears as we pull up to Ash’s parents’ house for dinner a few weeks later. What the hell was I thinking to agree to this?
This isn’t just any dinner. This is a meet-the-family dinner we had to drive seven hours up to Canada on Thanksgiving Day to have. Luckily, Ash’s parents live just over the border in Niagra-on-the-Lake. His sisters live much closer, one in Buffalo, New York, the other in Hamilton, Ontario. We’ll spend the night so we don’t have to do fourteen hours of driving in a day.
“I can’t do this,” I blurt out as Ash turns off his Aston Martin in front of the sage-colored ranch-style house. There’s already two other cars in the driveway, which means his sisters likely beat us here.
Ash raises a brow. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“I’ll wait in the car,” I say.
“I’m not driving back to Connecticut tonight.”
“Just bring me out a blanket and pillow after dessert,” I insist.
Ash gives me an indulgent look and gets out of the car. He comes around to my door and tries to open it, but I lock it quickly. Ash gives me a look through the window that says ‘Really?’ and unlocks the door with his fob. He yanks it open before I can hit the button again.
“Let’s go,” he says. “My family doesn’t bite, and my mother is an amazing cook.”
I sigh and get out of the car. I’m wearing a knee-length teal dress and flats. Nice but not overly fancy.
Ash closes the door, then goes around to the trunk and slings bothmy overnight bag and his own over his shoulder. He comes back and offers me his arm. I take it, because what else am I going to do?
The front door flies open as we ascend the porch stairs and a woman in her fifties rushes out with a huge smile on her face. Ash drops the bags on the porch just in time to catch her as she flings herself into his arms.
“You made it. Right on time,” the woman says as she pulls back and cups his face in her hands. “Did you have a good trip? No problems at the border?”
“The guards hassled me about not playing for a Canadian team,” Ash tells her with a smile, “but otherwise everything was fine.”
The woman’s blue eyes swing to me, and I freeze like a rabbit spotted by coyote. Her smile widens as she surges toward me, and I force myself not to scurry back from her. She pulls me into a hug, and my eyes widen as I hug her back awkwardly.
“And you must be Gray,” the woman says. Her face goes serious for a moment as she pulls back. “Or do you prefer Dr. Mackey?”
I nearly choke. I’d never make my fake boyfriend’s family call me by my title. “Gray is more than fine,” I tell her.
“I’m Ash’s mother, Sigga,” the woman says as she steps back.
