The Boy Who Has No Belief - Victoria Quinn Page 0,84
woman were like that, and it drove you up the wall.”
“Yeah, but it’s different with Emerson. I like that she wears her heart on her sleeve, that she doesn’t play games, that she shows me how much she loves me every single day and doesn’t take me for granted. We’ll be making love and she’ll tell me she loves me, we’ll be doing nothing at all and she’ll say that she wants to be with me forever, just stuff like that. I can see why other guys would be annoyed with it, but I like knowing how she feels. It doesn’t bother me. Besides, I already knew she felt that way before she even said it because she shows it.”
“That’s pretty romantic.”
I drank my beer.
“I’m happy for you. I’m glad you found her.”
“Yeah, that makes two of us,” I said with a light chuckle, finding the last ten years of my life to be a complete waste. My walls were so damn high, and I never let anyone in—not even my own family. Now, I somehow felt even safer…even though all my walls were gone.
“So, we’re all getting fitted for our wedding clothes on Saturday. Can you make it?”
How many more times would I have to see that fucking cunt before the wedding? “Of course. What are we wearing?”
“I think suits are too stuffy. Just some gray slacks, a collared shirt, and a vest.”
“Do you know what you’re doing for the wedding yet?”
“Her uncle has a house out in the Hamptons. It’s not super swanky like the Hamptons, but it’s got a pretty good amount of space in the back so we can do a ceremony there. I mean, it’s free, and free is good because I spent all my goddamn money on that ring.”
“She loves it, Ryan. The wedding will come and go, but that diamond will be on her hand forever.”
“True.”
“When is this happening?”
“We were thinking in the middle of December.”
“A winter wedding.”
“Yeah.”
“Why not wait until the spring or summer?”
He shrugged. “We don’t have a lot of money to do anything big, so it doesn’t make sense to wait just to do what we’re already doing. And she just wants to be married because we’ve been together so long. It’s not like we’re going on a honeymoon anyway.”
I kept my secret because bringing it up casually wasn’t the way I wanted to share my gift to him and Camille. “You knocked her up, didn’t you?”
He chuckled. “Nah. Not yet anyway.”
“Does she want to have kids soon?”
“Yeah. Says she’s getting old.”
“Yeah, we are getting old. But you guys will be great parents.”
“Yeah, and those kids will be supermodels if they look like us.” He drank from his beer.
“Maybe if they look like her…”
He narrowed his eyes at my taunt but didn’t argue. “Yeah, who am I kidding?”
“Mom said we’re going to have Thanksgiving with your family?” Lizzie stopped working on her problem and looked at me instead.
“The day after Thanksgiving. A second celebration.”
She didn’t look excited or disappointed by that information. “Thanksgiving has always just been us four.”
“And you’ll still have that.”
She turned back to her problem.
“It sounds like you aren’t too thrilled about it.” I spoke my mind candidly with her now, like she was Emerson or Ryan. I filtered out the cuss words and the inappropriate subjects, but it still felt like an adult conversation.
“It’s not that. I just…I don’t know. I don’t know these people.”
“You get nervous when you meet new people?”
“I guess.”
“Yeah, I know how that is.” I was an introvert by nature, even on my best day. I liked my friends and my family, but once I stepped out of that comfort zone, I wasn’t myself anymore. “My parents are really nice people, so you don’t have to worry about that. My dad is a lot like me.”
“He is?” she asked, hope in her voice.
“Yeah. So, you’ll definitely get along with him.”
“And your mom?”
“She’s a lot like your mother, actually.” I’d never really noticed it before.
“Will anyone else be there?”
“My brother and sister.”
“Oh, what are they like?”
“Dex is a few years younger than me. He’s a doctor in residency.”
“Whoa.”
“But he’s very friendly. He’s easier to talk to than I am,” I said. “And my sister is twenty-one, so she’s still pretty young. She’s warm and affectionate, but she’s got a big attitude. She’s a small person but takes up a lot of space…if that makes sense.”
“You think they’ll like me?”
“Definitely. My brother has already met your mother, and he really liked her.”