I furrowed my brow and gazed out from the bathroom. “What do you mean? I don’t smell any food cooking. Are you heating something up?”
Dustin smirked. “That’s not what I was referring to.”
My heart palpitated and my eyes widened as he lifted me up onto the marble sink counter, and my dress rode up my thighs with a little help from his hands.
“Don’t worry,” he winked. “I won’t mess up your makeup.”
Dustin drove us over to Mr. Bells’s mansion, and on the way, he turned on the radio.
“Mind if I change the station?” I asked. “I’m not a big fan of The Beatles.”
“You don’t likeNorwegian Wood?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve got to stop with these dick jokes.”
“That’s not a dick joke,” he said. “It’s the name of the song that’s playing right now.Norwegian Wood. It’s a classic.”
“Oh,” I said, then shrugged, listening a little closer to the song. “Just not my cup of tea.”
He shot me a confused look. “How can you not like The Beatles? Their songs are simple but genius. They changed music forever.”
“Look, I just don’t like them, okay?”
“Well, what kind of music do you like?”
“My favorite is eighties music. Prince, David Bowie, Billy Joel to name a few. You? Besides, apparently, The Beatles.”
“The Beatles aren’t my favorite, I just think they are music meant to be appreciated. I’m more of a late nineties music child. I like stuff like Sublime, Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, The Dave Matthews Band.”
“Who is the Dave Matthews Band?”
He sighed. “Ha funny. No, seriously.”
“Seriously. I’ve never heard of them.”
“This marriage isn’t going to work out, is it?”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Just kidding,” he said. “I’ll grant you a pass on Dave Matthews since you grew up in Spain.”
After a half hour of musical wrangling and finally settling on an alternative station we could both mostly appreciate, we pulled up to Mr. Bells’s mansion, which had to be one of the biggest houses on the south side of Chicago.
The outer perimeter of the mansion was surrounded by a fence, and once we pulled up to the security station at the gates, we had to hand the security guard our identifications.
When we made it to the door, we were greeted by a butler, who directed us to walk toward the back of the building. The rooms inside were spacious, and I was fairly certain I saw an original Picasso on the wall on the way in.
As we made our way down the hallway, the buzz of voices could be heard, and we turned into a room full of people with a circular table.
The voices stopped when we entered the room, and I could feel all the eyes in the room land on us.
Dustin wrapped his arm around me. “Hi everyone. I’d like you all to meet my wife, Catarina.”
“Hi, everyone!” I said, feeling shy all of the sudden. “I’m Cat.”
I shook hands with Coach Slanch and his wife Hanna, and finally Mr. Bells and his granddaughter Jackie. She had dirty blond hair and was quite attractive. I felt like I was Cady fromMean Girlsmeeting Regina George for the first time, the way Jackie fake-smiled at me. Something about her had me on edge.
The butler gestured for us to take our seats, and Dustin and I sat down next to each other. It wasn’t lost on me that Jackie satdown on the other side of Dustin. Mr. Bells sat to her left, and Coach Slanch and his wife filled in the rest of the table of six.
