Filed to story: You’re Mine Read Online Free
He lifts his wine into his hand.
I’ve lost count how many glasses he’s had tonight.
But this time, when he sips, he swallows half the glass.
“Harper, my dear, let’s not have the marriage conversation.
You still live at home, you don’t even own a car.
Hell, you don’t even own the clothes you’re wearing.
Marriage is getting ahead of ourselves, dont you think?”
Now the marriage image is in his head.
Wonderful.
“Let her dream, honey,’ her mom says.
“We had dreams when we were her age, didn’t we?”
He eyes his wife.
“Sure did.
And now, we’re here, at this wonderful stage of our lives, where you walk into our house and see our daughter doing the unmentionable under the Christmas tree.”
This conversation went from bad to worse.
Fuck me.
I want this table to just swallow me whole.
“Dad …”
Ryan starts.
“Trust me, it’s better that it happened to Harper.
Had it been Sadie under there, there wouldn’t be an ornament left and every light would be shattered all over the rug.
My girl gets wi-I-d.*
“Ryan!”
Sadie gasps.
Ryan looks at Sadie and says,
“What?
It’s not like I’m lying.”
“L can’t believe what I’m hearing right now,’ Harper groans.
I don’t know what the fuck to think.
I’m just happy the conversation has shifted to someone else.
“Did Ryan behave this way with every girl he’s brought home for dinner?”
Sadie asks Harper’s parents.
Her mom sets down her fork.
“Honey, you’re the first girl Ryan has ever brought to dinner.”
“What?”
Sadie says, smiling at Ryan.
“Is that true?”
He shrugs.
“You’re special and loudtwo things I like.”
She slaps him.
“OMG, shut up!”
“And that’s what you love about me.”
I finally look at Harper while Ryan and Sadie are having their back and forth and she’s shaking her head.
She’s as fucking horrified as me.
“I don’t know who I want to kill more,”
she whispers to me.
“But this dinner can’t be over soon enough.”
“What’s that?”
Ryan says from across the table.
“Nothing,”
Harper replies.
“Keep talking aboutyour sex life, or whatever it was you were sharing with us.”
“I wasn’t, but if you really want me to go there”
“No!”
Harper says, nodding toward Sadie.
“You’re my brother, she’s my best friend.
I’m good.
Really.
If I need to filter myself, the same rules apply to you.”
“Actually,”
her dad says,
“the same rules don’t apply because Ryan hasn’t been walked in on, so the image isn’t burned into our minds.”
“I thought we were moving on from this,”
Harper pleads.
“Moving on?”
Her dad mocks.
“I’m afraid we’re just getting started.”
There really won’t ever be an end to this.
Every time I come to this house, I’m going to have to prepare myself for these relentless digs.
Fuck.
Harper looks at Sadie, and Sadie immediately says to their parents,
“Did Ryan tell you guys what we brought for dessert?”
“You really didn’t have to bring anything,”
her mom says.
“I picked up some ice cream, it’s more than enough for everyone.”
“No, no, I insist,’ Sadie says.
“We stopped by this super cute bakery downtown, right by your dad’s law firm”she smiles at me ”and they had the prettiest cupcakes I’ve ever seen.
We got a dozen.”
“A dozen?”
Harper says.
“Who’s going to eat all those?”
“We’ll work up an appetite and finish those off in no time, don’t you worry, Ryan answers.
“I know how you boys work up those appetites nowadays, so let’s keep Easton out of the living room,’ her dad says.
“Dad, enough!”
Harper barks.
“Honey, you’re too much,”
her mom laughs.
Ryan points at me and smiles.
He thinks this is a fucking riot.
When I glance at Harper, she’s setting her fork down on her plate.
The same place mine is resting.
Our appetites completely gone.
Harper
“That was fucking brutal,”
Easton says as we collapse onto the couch in the living room, the dinner finally behind us.
“Like a root canal with no Novocain, performed by a first year dental student, kind of pain.”
I feel every word of that, deep in my soul.
“Easton …”
I turn to him.
“My family is the worst.
If I knew it was going to be like that, I would have …”
My voice fades as I think of what the alternative would have been.
“I don’t know what I would have done, but I’m sorry.”
I lean toward him, needing to feel his arms around me, his lips on mine and the moment I get within a few inches, he puts his hand on my chest, keeping me from coming any closer.
“Not under this roof, remember?”
I roll my eyes.
“They’re in the kitchen, they can’t see anything that’s happening out here.”
“What if your dad has laser vision or cameras or, I don’t know, a sixth sense.
I’m not taking any fucking chances.”
“Dude, Sadie and I banged in their bed a few days ago and he didn’t notice.
You’re giving my dad far too much credit,”
Ryan says from the recliner where Sadie is sitting on his lap.
“Gross.”
I gag and look at Sadie.
“My parents’ bed?
Really?”
She shrugs.
“It’s spacious.”
“I’m not taking any chances,’ Easton says.
“From now on, we go to my house, yours is forever off limits.”