It took a moment for my head to catch up. Malcolm was on his last warning, Nico and Saint didn’t blame me, and Nico’s mom wanted to have me over to eat with them. “Wait. What?”
Nico chuckled, and his cheeks pinked. Then he averted his gaze and cleared his throat. “I might’ve admitted to seeing someone and, ah, she wants to meet you.”
I opened my mouth to reply but my thoughts screeched to a stop. “Is that what we’re doing?”
He lifted an eyebrow, and his eyes widened for a moment. “Only… Only if you want to.”
“No.” Heat rushed to my face and prickled my skin. “I mean not no… yes… yes to dinner… But is that what we’re doing? Seeing each other?”
He barked out a sudden laugh and clasped the back of my head, pulling me against him again. His heart beat fast against my ear. “I sure as fuck hope so.”
On Friday night I changed my outfit no less than five times, and my overnight bag mocked me from the corner of my room as I sent yet another series of pictures to Adrian and waited for his response.
I didn’t have to wait long. My phone vibrated in my hand.
Use the pants from picture one, the shirt from picture three, and the sweater you got the other day.
I groaned. That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say at all. I had no idea how to even dress myself—how could I expect to impress Nico’s mom? I grabbed the clothes and dressed in them then leveled a critical gaze at myself in the mirror. I didn’t look any different than I had in the last set of clothes or as I had three changes before. But Adrian rarely got it wrong, so I shrugged.
I was just fussing over my choice of shoes—with color choices being black, black, or black—when the doorbell rang. I ran downstairs and yelled it was for me so neither Mom nor Dad would answer it first. I didn’t need an impromptu parental meeting along with the one Nico had already planned with his own family.
I opened the door and slipped out through the narrowest of gaps.
“Are you not going to invite me in?” Nico grinned, although his gaze was curious.
“Mom and Dad are home.”
“Okay. I have met them before, you know,” he reassured me, as he pressed a kiss to my cheek.
I breathed in his woodsmoke cologne and relaxed immediately.
“Yeah, but they’d delay us. I want to be on time to meet your mother.”
He checked his watch. “Good plan.”
He drove smoothly, and his competence was strangely sexy. I watched his hand on the gearshift, and a shiver of lust raced through me as I imagined those fingers on my skin.
“How are you feeling?” He glanced toward me.
“Kinda nervous,” I admitted. It felt like a big deal. I’d met mothers before, but never anything so prearranged.
Nothing I’d ever changed my outfit so many times for, anyway, and I’d certainly never had to involve Adrian. He’d never let me live this down, probably.
Nico drew the car to a stop. “Well, here we are. You don’t have any more time to fit worry into.”
I looked out of the window at a tidy two-story home. A path bordered with wildflowers on each side led to the front door, and fairy lights hung along a small porch.
I took a deep, shaky breath. “Let’s do this thing.”
Nico laughed. “You’re meeting my mom, not launching an airstrike.”
He knocked on the door, and it opened in a swirl of color and smell. A petite, brunette lady with smiling eyes pulled Nico into a hug and grinned at me over his shoulder.
“Hello, Jamie,” she said.
When she drew away from Nico, I offered my hand, but she grabbed me into a hug, too.
“I’m Marisol. Thank you for coming,” she murmured.
“My pleasure,” I answered, and I took an appreciative breath of the garlic and herb aromas floating through the house.
“I hope you like Italian food.” She took my coat and hung it over a hook near the door then led the way to her kitchen.
Nico peeled off as soon as he spotted his stepsister, leaving me stranded in the kitchen as his mother walked to the stove. She stirred a bubbling pot of sauce then glanced at me.
“Want to give me a hand?” She opened a drawer and tugged out an apron. “I need someone to stir the sauce so it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan.” She lowered the