Page 83 of If You Were Mine (After We Fall 3)
“Good.” He turned the key in the ignition. “I like your friends. I can tell they’re protective of you.”
I smiled, patting him on the shoulder. “They are, so watch your step. Margot throws a mean scone.” We’d laughed over that story at the table, and Jaime and had I exchanged a wink.
The following weekend was Margot’s surprise shower, and it went off without a hitch. She cried (no one cries more elegantly than Margot Thurber Lewiston, with her delicate sniffles and monogrammed handkerchiefs to dab at tears), she laughed, she opened an endless number of china settings, and we all got a little tipsy on champagne.
Theo took me over to his brother’s house and introduced me to his family—his brother Aaron, an older, stockier version of Theo with a warm handshake and quiet demeanor. Theo’s sister-in-law Josie was a petite brunette with a lovely, welcoming smile and obvious devotion to her family. And three adorable little girls, who attacked Theo as soon as he walked in the door, hanging on him like little monkeys. Honestly, it had kind of surprised me. I hadn’t imagined he was so good with kids.
“Your nieces are adorable,” I told him on the ride home.
He smiled. “Thanks.”
“They’re crazy about you.”
“Isn’t everybody?”
I punched him on the arm. “You’re so good with them. How did that happen?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re immature. I’m immature. It works.”
“It’s more than that, silly. You’re genuinely good with them. Do you like kids?”
“I like those kids.”
“Do you want your own someday?”
He gave me a frightened glance. “You’re not trying to tell me something, are you?”
“No, no. I’m not pregnant.”
He exhaled a huge sigh of relief. “Thank God. I don’t think I’d make a very good father.”
“I think you’re wrong,” I said, “but I promise the question was purely out of curiosity and not necessity.”
“What about you? Let me guess—you want a whole dozen of them.”
“Maybe not a dozen, but yes. I do.” I sighed. “You’ll probably think this is stupid and boring, but I love the idea of a house full of kids, a swing on the front porch, bikes in the yard, finger paintings on the refrigerator, lemonade stand on the sidewalk…”
“Wow, that’s really specific.”
“I know. It’s just how my brain works—I picture all the details in the background.”
“But it’s not stupid or boring, Claire. And I happen to love lemonade.” He reached over and took my hand, giving it a quick squeeze. “Hey, Peyton’s birthday is coming up. Want to help me shop for a gift?”
I wasn’t sure if he’d intentionally changed the subject or not, but I let it go. It didn’t really matter. We’d only been seeing each other for a month, after all, and I was enjoying myself. For once, my present was as enticing as my dream about the future.
But I warned my mother not to ask Theo a bunch of questions about the future when we met my parents for dinner. She seemed offended that I’d even make such a request, and I will admit that she behaved herself very well at the restaurant. Only once did I have to kick her under the table, when she sighed dramatically and lamented her lack of grandchildren: “It’s like my daughters want to punish me or something.”
Theo had been a good sport, although unlike when we were at dinner with my friends, he was visibly
anxious—at least to me. My parents might not have noticed the jittering leg or the sheen on his forehead, but I did. Several times during the evening, I took his hand and held it beneath the table. Each time, he sent me a grateful smile.
The night went well. Although my dad was slightly disappointed Theo hadn’t gone to Yale or Ohio State, they were able to talk a lot about football. And my mother was charmed by his manners, his smile, and his conversation skills. “You can just tell he was raised right,” she said to me in the ladies room. “Even if he didn’t go to Yale.”
We spent most of our time at my house, but I did get to see his apartment one Saturday, a sparsely furnished one-bedroom with nothing on the walls, only the barest essentials in the kitchen, and a view of the parking lot from all the windows.
“Think you’ll stay here?” I asked him, opening a kitchen drawer. “My God, Theo. You have plastic utensils. And they’re not even in trays, they’re still in the bags.”
“Yeah, I meant to get some silverware; I just never got around to it.” He went into the bedroom to grab clean clothes for work the next day.
