Playing It Safe(75)

To the left what was once Alex’s living room is now a large white fabric tent that has a small opening at the bottom left corner. I nudge Josie forward with my hand and crouch down, lifting the corner of the tent up so she can look inside.

“It’s Professor Trelawney’s Divination class!” she yells back to her mom, who is trailing behind us with a huge smile on her face.

Inside the tent is an array of eclectic pillows surrounding a table with a big crystal ball on it. The actor I hired looks so much like the real Professor Trelawney that it even freaks me out, so I can only imagine how Josie is feeling.

We step back out, standing up, and I walk us toward the set of French doors that leads to Alex’s backyard. The pool has several ivory candles floating around it, mirroring the look of the floating candles in the Great Hall. Past the pool and taking up the large open space of the yard is a Quidditch field with hoops on each end.

“Oh my God!” Josie yells. “It’s a freaking Quidditch field!”

“Hey,” Vanessa warns with a laugh. “Watch your mouth, kid.”

Through a laugh of my own, I say, “I can’t say as I blame you, girlie. It’s pretty freaking awesome, if I do say so myself.”

“Alex?” a woman’s voice calls out from inside the house.

We all turn around to see what I assume must be Alex’s parents walking toward us in amazement. Jesus Christ, no wonder their children are so good-looking. These two look like they just stepped out of the pages of a Calvin Klein advertisement. No, not the Kate Moss, emaciated heroin-chic kind either. I’m talking the elegant and perfectly put together kind of models—if they were in their fifties—which they aren’t usually, but whatever, you get the picture.

His mother is dressed in a white blouse tucked into a pair of black checkered capri pants, and her blond hair is cut in a smart bob that falls around her jawline. From where I’m standing, I can see where Alex gets his bright blue eyes as hers sparkle in the sunlight when she gives her son a hug and kiss on his cheek. His dad, for lack of a better way of putting it, is one smooth and handsome-looking man, and I can tell that’s where Alex gets his suave and sexy swagger.

“Grandma, Grandpop, did you see everything Julia did to make Uncle Alex’s house look like Harry Potter’s world?” Josie says in a rush, running over to them.

“I did,” Alex’s mom answers and looks up at me.

I take it as a signal that I should introduce myself, so I bite the bullet and pray to the deodorant gods that my pits aren’t sweating and walk over to her with my hand extended.

Before I reach them, Alex wraps his arm around my waist and says, “Mom, Dad, this is Julia, my girlfriend and the person responsible for all of this.” He tops it off by kissing my temple as I look down at Josie, who has both her thumbs up and a joker-like grin on her face.

Okay, up until this point I’d been thinking that he was kind of sort of my boyfriend, but I never publicly said that to anyone or even addressed him as such during any of our conversations. To hear him say it out loud is surprising, but in a really good way.

“Hi, it’s very nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Holt,” I say, my voice sounding way more calm than I thought it would.

Alex’s mom takes my hand in hers. “Oh dear, please don’t call me that. It reminds me of my mother-in-law. Call me Allison. I insist.”


I nod as she lets go of my hand, and his dad steps up and takes it in his for a firm shake. “Don’t listen to her or whatever she has to say about my mother. She’s still upset that she didn’t approve of our wedding color choices over thirty years ago.” I laugh in spite of myself as he goes on. “But she’s right, please call me Alex.”

My head turns to my right to look up at my Alex. “You never said you were a junior.”

“Because I never tell people that,” he answers under his breath.

Josie steps in then and commands the attention of her grandparents, taking their hands in hers and dragging them along back toward the house.

Over her shoulder as we watch them walk away, his mom says, “It was very nice to meet you, and we’ll catch up more later.”

Vanessa smacks my butt as she brushes past me, making me jump in surprise. “See, you had nothing to be nervous about, Julia.”

She laughs as she walks away, trying to catch up to Josie and her parents, and leaving Alex and me outside.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“You told her I was nervous?” I ask him in disbelief.

“I did.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I thought it was cute.”

“Listen up, Junior.” His eyes squint in jest, and he smiles. “Don’t be telling people things I say to you in private.”

“Even if I think it’s adorable and cute as hell?”

He turns me around and wraps both arms around me while waiting for me to answer.

“If I answer you with a question, will you keep asking me questions again?”

“Too late, you just asked me a question, so I’ll take that to mean it’s okay for me to tell people when I think my girlfriend is being cute as hell.”

“Yeah about that,” I coyly say.

“Here we go.” His voice drops to a low murmur. “I was waiting for you to freak out about that.”