Spring Fling (Dating Season Book 1) by Laurelin Paige (novel24 .TXT) 📗

found a roommate yet and please say Finn or a total hot babe hasn’t signed up, but that’s not really something one blurts out.

“I’m still looking for someone else to rent the place,” Austin adds.

Charlotte makes it so much worse with, “Isn’t Lucy thinking of moving in?”

Somehow, I manage not to spin my head to Austin and continue with my mountain of ice cream as if his answer is meaningless to me. However, he doesn’t respond. I move my gaze from whipped cream to him.

“Did you complete your menu yet?” he asks Charlotte. “You know I judge every wedding by the food.”

She doesn’t seem to notice he didn’t answer her question and launches into a discussion about food options with Austin. But I notice. I notice everything. If he isn’t answering, he must be thinking about it. If Lucy is moving in, that means things are serious. But I guess that’s the goal of relationships? It shouldn’t be shocking they’ve moved to that stage, but it is.

A shadow darkens the table, and I look up to see a stern-faced Finn.

“Oh, hi,” I say, much too bubbly. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Thought you were trying out a new clay today.”

“I did.” Not really. “And rewarded myself.”

His horrified eyes flit from the most likely fat-free sugar-free frozen yogurt in his hand to the mounds precariously balanced atop my full-fat, all-the-sugar ice cream.

“This”—he shows his sparse little cup with a frown—“is my reward for hitting a new personal record today. My reward for a solid workout. Which you were supposed to be joining me on.”

“Oh, was that today?” I say, as weakly as my willpower. “I decided to get dessert at the last minute.” Which is true, but if I’d been honest about my aversion to excessive fitness, maybe I wouldn’t be in this awkward position?

“No dessert for deserters,” Finn teases. At least, I think he’s teasing. “Oh, hey, Austin,” he says as if he just noticed who was at the table with me. “I’ve been meaning to ask if you want to shoot some hoops with me and a few friends?”

“I’ll let you know.”

They chitchat idly for a few minutes about basketball, and then I walk outside with Finn.

“Sorry about missing the gym.” I should confess why I didn’t show. “I just—”

He cuts me off, “You can make it up to me by coming to dinner with me.”

A bit relieved I don’t have to have this conversation in the parking lot, I agree, “Okay.”

“I’ll pick you up at six.” He kisses my forehead. “We’ll talk later.”

Yes, we’ll have a serious talk. At dinner, I’ll tell him all the things I want to say and everything will work out.

Eleven

Internet experts recommend waiting, at minimum, three months to introduce family. Of all the rules, I’d say this is most critical to heed.

I knew I should have made Finn turn the car around when he released the news that dinner would be at his parents’ home. How do you fail to mention something that important? After being blindsided, I was too nervous to discuss the excess exercise. While he blasted Beethoven, I spent the twenty-minute drive researching appropriate time frames and one month-ish is not within the recommendation.

Breaking this commandment has resulted in dire consequences, preventing me from being accepted into the family fold. Seems like Finn’s parents are a fifty-fifty split on me, and I’m at a loss on what to do to salvage this connection. It’s important to love your boyfriend’s family. And they should love you. Or at least tolerate you.

At this moment, I can only hope the spider indeed bestowed superpowers on me and I’ll shoot webs from my hands and swing out of here.

“Why don’t you lift Chloe over your head,” his dad, Phineas, says. “Show us how strong you are.”

Finn chuckles beside me on the linen-clad sofa, and I swear he’s contemplating it. “She’s wearing a dress, Dad.”

“That she is,” Phineas murmurs.

As his cornflower blue eyes do a lazy track over me, I…I am appalled.

Since we arrived for dinner, Phineas has not stopped flirting with me. It’s overt and unsettling. A lingering hand on my shoulder after pulling out my chair at dinner. Placing my napkin in my lap. Making a “That’s what she said,” comment when I remarked, “I’ve never seen one that big” regarding their chandelier.

None of my ex-boyfriend’s fathers made me feel uncomfortable, and I’m doing my best to pretend it isn’t happening. I’d rather endure the daggers being thrown my way from Finn’s new-ish stepmother.

“So, you’re an artist?” Jacqueline, hurling another subliminal knife at me with her narrowed hazel eyes, asks.

I fend off her dagger with a timid smile, hoping I’ll wear down her hostility with my sunny demeanor. “Yes. A potter, specifically.”

“I have no idea what that is,” she says from a throne-like chair in their museum of a living room.

Finn failed to mention his family’s obvious wealth. My mouth literally dropped open when he pulled into the circular drive of the Tudor-style mansion. The opulent house is filled with pricey artwork and plush furnishings. Which begs the question—why is he trying to move in with Austin?

“I make pottery,” I tell her.

She scoffs over her scotch tumbler as if I’m a peasant on the verge of being tossed out. “And you earn money doing that?”

“Well, not yet. But I have a full-time job at It’s Clay Time. I teach pottery classes to kids.”

Beneath the chandelier’s sparkling lights, this fancy form of interrogation is not going well. Why doesn’t she like me? I’m likeable. I work with children, dammit! This is all so bizarre. There’s a chance she doesn’t like me because I can’t stop staring at her. It’s impossible not to, though. First, in a chic white pantsuit against the regal scarlet upholstery, she looks like a badass queen. Second, and most important, Jacqueline and Phineas look like older replicas of me and Finn. If I were to keep up with the exercise and somehow acquire gobs of