Too Good to Be True(91)
“Oh, right,” Callahan said, stepping back. “This is yours. The mailman put it in my box by mistake.” He pulled an envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to me.
The envelope was thick and creamy, my name done in stylish calligraphy, the ink a dark green. “This must be my sister’s wedding invitation,” I said, opening it. Sure enough, it was. Stylish and classic, just like Natalie. I smiled a little at the pretty design, the traditional words. Together with their parents, Natalie Rose Emerson and Andrew Chase Carson warmly request the honor of your attendance… I looked up at Callahan. “Want to be my wedding date?” I asked.
He smiled. “Sure,” he said.
Sure. Just like that. Such a contrast from the superhuman effort I’d put into finding a date for Kitty’s wedding. I paused. “Um, I don’t think I told you this, Cal, but remember I said I’d been engaged once?” Cal nodded. “Well, it was to Andrew. The guy who’s marrying my sister.”
Cal’s eyebrows bounced up in surprise. “Really?”
“Yup,” I said. “But once he and Natalie met, it seemed pretty clear that she was the one for him. Not me.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked at me, frowning slightly. “Are you okay with them being together?”
he asked finally. Angus shook the cuff of his jeans.
“Oh, sure,” I answered. I paused. “It was really tough at first, but I’m fine now.”
Cal studied me for another minute. Then he bent, picked up Angus, who replied with a growl before gnawing on Cal’s thumb. “I’d say she’s more than fine, wouldn’t you, Angus?” he asked. Then he leaned in and kissed my neck, and it dawned on me in a sweetly painful rush that I was crazy in love with Callahan O’ Shea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
BUT BEING CRAZY ABOUT HIM didn’t mean things were perfect.
“I think we should just wait a little bit,” I said to Cal a few days later as we drove to West Hartford.
“I think it’s a bad idea,” he said, not looking at me. We were on our way to that most distressing of family gatherings—Mom’s art show. Well, actually, most of my family gatherings were distressing, but Mom’s shows were special. However, it was the only night before Nat’s wedding that my family could get together. The official Meet the Family horror show.
“Callahan, trust me. It’s my family. They’re going to…well, you know. Flip a little. No one wants to hear that their baby girl is dating a guy with a record.”
“Well, I do have a record, and I think we should just get it out in the open.”
“Okay, listen. First of all, you’ve never been to one of my mother’s shows. They’re weird. My dad will be tense as it is, Mom will be fluttering all over the place…Secondly, my grandmother is deaf as a stone, so I’d have to yell, and it’s a public place and all that. It’s just not the time, Cal.”
I’d told my parents and Natalie that I was dating the boy next door. I hadn’t told them anything else.
My parents were concerned, thinking I had dumped a perfectly good workaholic doctor for a carpenter. That was bad enough…wait till they found out about his nineteen months behind bars. Not that there were bars at his prison, but such a distinction was going to be lost on the Emerson family, whose line could be traced back to the Mayflower.
“I’m actually surprised you haven’t told them yet,” Cal said.
I glanced over at him. His jaw was tight. “Listen, bub. Don’t worry. I’m not trying to hide anything. I just want them to know you and like you a little bit first. If I walk in and say, ‘Hi, this is my boyfriend who was recently released from prison,’ they’ll have kittens. If they see what a great guy you are first, it won’t be so bad.”
“When will you tell them?”
“Soon,” I bit out. “Cal. Please. I have a lot on my mind. School’s ending, I still haven’t heard about the chairmanship, one sister’s getting married, the other’s ready to jump out of her skin…Can we just let my folks meet you without dumping your prison record on them? Please? Let me have one major crisis at a time? I promise I’ll tell them soon. Just not tonight.”
“It feels dishonest,” he said.
“It’s not! It’s just…parceling out information, okay? We don’t have to go around introducing you as Callahan O’ Shea, ex-con. Do we?”
He didn’t answer for a minute. “Fine, Grace. Have it your way. But it doesn’t feel right.”
I took his hand. “Thanks.” After a minute, he squeezed back.
“YOU’RE DATING THE HELP? You threw over that nice doctor for the help?” Mémé’s expression was that of a woman who’d just bitten into a lizard. Actually, of a lizard biting into a lizard. She wheeled a little closer, hitting a pedestal and causing Into the Light (supposedly a birth canal, but actually more resembling the Holland Tunnel) to wobble precariously. I steadied it, then looked down at my disapproving grandmother.
“Mémé, please stop calling Callahan the help, okay? You’re not in Victorian England anymore,” I started. “And as I said—” here I took a breath, weary with the lie “—Wyatt, though a very nice man, just wasn’t a good fit. Okay?