He’s right about both things. Taking a breath, I quickly give myself a silent pep talk. Anyone who would do something like that wouldn’t be someone I’d want to date, and money doesn’t make a person who they are at their core.
“You swear they’re not all swanky?” I ask.
He grins. “I seem like the kind of guy that was raised by swanky people?”
I shake my head. “No, but you also don’t seem like the kind of guy that was raised by millionaires.”
His smile grows. “That’s because they’re not swanky,” he laughs, knowing he’s made a good point.
Behind us, Boo starts howl-talking. “Time to let pup out of the car,” Tyler says. “Let me get you out first, and then I’ll put her leash on so we can go inside.”
After coming around and opening my door, he quickly sets me on my feet. Keeping his hands on my waist, he brings me in close so that I have to tilt my head and look up at him.
“Don’t let the money throw you off. My family is excited to meet you, and I know you’re going to get along like a house on fire.”
Taking a deep breath, I nod. “Okay, honey.”
Reaching into the truck, he picks up the cake carrier and then closes the door.
“I can hold that,” I tell him.
He lets out a bark of laughter as he opens the rear door. “Babe, we’ve been over this. I got it. Not for nothing, my dad would lay me the fuck out if I let you carry that. It’s my job to take care of you.”
For some reason that soothes my nerves more than anything else he’s said so far.
_______________
TYLER’S FAMILY IS so awesome that I feel silly for spending even one minute worrying about meeting them. His sister Eve was a doll while she was here, but halfway through dinner, she got a call about an abandoned dog coming to the shelter, so she took off.
As for his parents—his dad, Trent, is an older version of him, and his mom, Jane, is the sweetest. She’s spent the last half hour talking to me about visualization books and guided meditations she likes on YouTube.
“I highly recommend Jason Stephenson,” she tells me between bites of the chocolate cheesecake I made, which I’m happy to say is a big hit. “You put the meditation on when you lay down and the next thing you know you’re out like a light. He’s got some that are an hour or so and others that are about three hours. I saw results within the first four weeks of listening.”
“I’m going to check those out,” I tell her.
“Not trying to listen to some guy talk about manifesting dreams every night, babe.”
“You learn to tune it out,” his dad assures him.
“Or you think you do, but in reality, the suggestions are working on you, too. I’m positive that all the things I listen to have rubbed off on you,” Jane boasts.
Trent gives her an exasperated look. “Babe, we both know I’m out the second I close my eyes. Other than dreaming about you, I don’t think anything penetrates my wall of sleep.”
Oh wow. Now I see where Tyler gets it from. His dad’s in his late fifties and no BS, he’s still got it. Going by the little smile on Jane’s face, she thinks the same.
“Agree to disagree, baby,” she teases.
About an hour later, after we’ve said our goodbyes and promised to come back for Sunday dinner next weekend, Tyler and I walk hand in hand to his truck. Boo trails alongside us, tired from playing fetch in the Jamesons’s giant yard.
Thinking about it now, I can’t believe how nervous I was about tonight. After Tyler lifts me into his truck, secures Boo in the backseat and puts the empty cake carrier on the floor behind his seat, he climbs into the truck. After pressing start, he turns and smiles at me.
“I told you there was nothing to worry about.”
“You did,” I admit. “I feel like a dork now for panicking when I saw the house but when we pulled up I had this horrible vision of a formal dining room, servants, me sitting in my forty dollar Target dress not knowing what fork to use and then bam there’d be escargot and I’d biff that the way Julia did in Pretty Woman and if that happened your parents would be appalled and then you’d wonder what the hell was wrong with me and your parents’ manservant would suggest that perhaps in the future you should choose someone with proper breeding,” I babble.
Tyler bursts out laughing, holding onto his stomach as he does. “Jesus fuck, babe. Wow. That was very specific. Was there anything else?”
“Um. Only that I was trying to prepare myself for your dad to offer snifters of brandy after dinner. I hate brandy.”