Baewatch - Xavier Neal Page 0,69
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Instead of hopping at another chance to surf the high heavens, I suggest, “How about you come home with me for Thanksgiving?”
Watching her expression transpose from one of amusement to shock is what pushes me to continue to speak.
“I want you to meet my family.”
“You mean the rest of your family,” she sweetly corrects.
Harrison and April have come to visit together more than once since their first unwelcomed appearance. We’ve met them for dinner, drinks, and dancing as a couple, and Brooklyn even went out of her way to spend some one-on-one time bonding with April by joining her for a seaweed wrap experience. While my girlfriend did not enjoy the spa treatment, she won my sister-in-law over, something that’s quite hard to do. Harrison, on the other hand, adores Brooklyn yet hates the “judgmental glare” he feels she gives whenever he comes to town unescorted by his wife to enjoy some “peace and quiet”. She knows he’s lying, despite the fact she hasn’t actually witnessed him getting handsy with a waitress or barely eighteen piece of beach candy. She doesn’t ask me for details, or the truth of his whereabouts, yet won’t lie on his behalf when April inquires about things in her presence. I gently remind her it’s not our marriage to police, which typically spirals us into a morals compass argument I don’t enjoy having.
Particularly, because I feel like shit at the end of it despite the fact I’m not the one who can’t keep his dick in his pants.
“I do mean the remainder of my family,” I echo with a smile. “Particularly my niece and nephew who I haven’t seen in way too long. Only doing these video chats with them is killing me.” My hands fold together at the small of her back. “But, between the cases I’ve been handling and the increase of attention for the shop – thanks to that Tucker Frost artwork you discovered – leaving town hasn’t been a real possibility lately.”
She tilts her head in sympathy.
“They miss me.”
“Hard to blame them on that.”
“I miss them.”
“I know. I can tell by the cloudy look in your eyes every time you’ve had a call with them just how much it hurts to be away.”
“It does. I also want them to meet you in person and not just across the screen. I want you to bond with them and them with you. I want us all to spend time on the same physical shore instead of just these stupid virtual ones.”
She offers me another sweet smile.
“Plus, I’d like you to meet my parents.”
“The woman who drinks wine while playing tennis and the man who offered you a yacht on your thirty-fifth birthday if you accepted the offer to be a partner at the firm?”
Her incredible recollection over the stories she’s been told is what leads me to nodding. “Those would be them.”
“You want me to meet them in…real life?”
“More like I want them to meet you.”
“Why?”
“You mean aside from the fact you have this way of naturally making whoever you cross paths with a bit better of a human being? Case in point, my brother – who now spends more time actually visiting me rather than just pretending – and his wife – who now treats waiters like waiters instead of servants when we’re all out together.”
She loses the battle against her smirk.
“I want them to meet the other half of my heart.”
Brooklyn instantly melts at the phrasing.
“See that I can and do love more than just surfing in this life.”
Her hands nervously begin to fiddle with the rim of my white Obsessive-Compulsive Surf Disorder t-shirt. “I don’t know, Ax…Aside from the normal reasons to be apprehensive – you know the whole lack of status, lack of matching bank accounts – it’s the holiday. I’ve always been with my family. Even when I’m scheduled to work, like I was last year, they bring by a plate for lunch or pie for dessert if I can’t break for any other meal. I’ve never…not spent time with my family on it.”
“Which is why you should go,” Kourtney unexpectedly chimes in, yanking our attention her direction.
Brooklyn’s eyebrows lift to the sky.
“You’ve always been with us, and in a relationship, Brooky, it’s important to strike up a balance. To understand that both sides deserve attention and acknowledgement if it’s what each person wants, which is what Ax is requesting.” Kourtney gives her daughter a scolding stare before continuing, “The only reason you girls spend more time with