“You’re not going to lose me.”
“Then please trust me when I say I’m not going anywhere either. I love you, Jacks. Period. Full stop.”
“I love you, too,” I mumbled, feeling a little better but still battling doubts born a lifetime ago.
We drove in comfortable silence for a few minutes, but I could feel Skyler watching me, reading the lingering worry in my expression.
“Okay, you need to stop looking like you’re going to a funeral,” he said, his voice lighter. “Dean’s going to take one look at your face and assume I’ve been emotionally devastating you for months.”
“Haven’t you?”
“Only in the best ways possible.” He wriggled his eyebrows and grinned. “Besides, you should be worried about more important things, like the fact that Dean’s going to challenge you to something ridiculous within five minutes of meeting you.”
“Challenge me? To what?”
“Oh, it could be anything: pool, darts, a debate about whether hot dogs are sandwiches, arm wrestling, seeing who can make my mom laugh harder with embarrassing stories about me.” Skylerchuckled. “He’s pathologically competitive, and challenging the new guy is his version of a rite of passage into our family.”
Through the windshield, I could see the Gainesville exit approaching.
“So,” I said as we took the off-ramp, “on a scale of one to ten, how nervous should I be?”
“Three,” Skyler said.
“Three? That’s it?”
“Yep. They’re going to love you. They’ll ask you a million questions and feed you until you can’t move, and then Dean’s going to show you embarrassing baby pictures while my parents nod along and add commentary that wouldn’t pass the sensors at any major network.”
“That actually sounds worse than a ten, not three.”
“Trust me,” Skyler said as we pulled into the driveway. “This is the easy part.”
“What’s the hard part?”
“Everything that comes after this.”
As we got out of the car, a voice called from the porch, “Skyler Bernard Shaw, get your ass up here and introduce us to your boyfriend before Mom has a heart attack!”
“That would be Dean,” Skyler said.
“I gathered.”
“Still ready?”
I looked at the house full of warmth and acceptance and took a deep breath.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think. Sure. Let’s do this.”
Chapter 38
Skyler
“So,” Benji said, leaning forward on his elbows with the kind of manic curiosity that meant he’d been waiting for this moment since we’d walked through the door, “how badly did you embarrass yourself?”
I looked around Barbacks on this particular Tuesday night. There were maybe a dozen customers scattered throughout the room, making it quiet enough that we could claim the entire bar area for ourselves without feeling guilty. Mark was behind the bar looking annoyed at the slow business, while Finn nursed a beer. Jacks sat beside me, close enough that our knees touched.
“On a scale of one to ten?” I said, taking a sip of the beer Mark had grudgingly provided. “Solid fifteen.”
“I need details,” Benji demanded from across the bar. “Specifics. I need to live vicariously throughyour family-induced trauma.”
