Page 34 of Hardcore Vanilla
Maybe he could think of the next couple weeks as a trial run. Patrick and Lexie's engagement party was next weekend; Sharon would be there. He could see what his parents made of her without introducing her as his girlfriend, since she wasn't. And then he'd meet her family the week after that, as her date but not her boyfriend.
Patrick was right, she wasn't his usual... Maybe that was why he found her so addictive. Maybe in a couple of weeks, after doing the more mundane relationship type things and no longer hiding it from their friends, it wouldn't be as much fun for either of them. The newness would wear off and so would the thrill of sneaking around.
Pounding at the door had both of them looking up, Jake turning half around and frowning. He looked back at Patrick. "Did you invite someone along with you?"
Patrick shook his head, looking as perplexed as Jake.
"Open up, Jake, I know you're in there." The voice was muffled by the door, but completely recognizable.
"Andrew," he and Patrick said at the same time, Jake with resignation, Patrick with amusement.
******
Sadly, she was not allowed to make herself pass out. The cushion was too porous for that anyway, she didn’t have any real trouble breathing through it. Which meant she ended up telling her friends everything that had happened since New Year's Eve –thanks, Olivia. At least Kate had gotten her another hard root beer so she had something yummy to sip on while she spilled her guts.
Well, since Jake's little sister was there she didn't go into detail about everything... But she probably told them all more than he would be comfortable with. Oh well. It was his own damn fault for blowing their cover in front of everyone.
"Okay, but do you like him?" Angel asked when Sharon finally finished her recital of events. Melody was finally finished feeding and had fallen asleep in Angel's arms, completely oblivious to the conversation happening over her head. That was one good baby.
"I mean... Now that he's not a stick in the mud all the time... I mostly do," Sharon admitted. Which was true. She felt like she could relax around him, something she couldn't always say about the men she dated, but Jake already knew what she was like at her most obnoxious. There was no reason to hold back with him.
And it was kind of fun to see what he found annoying and what he found funny about her. Sometimes he even surprised her.
But she didn't know if there could really be anything between them, because he was still exhaustingly obstinate a lot of the time. While he found some of her antics amusing, he disapproved of others. Sharon did try to put her best foot forward when she was dating someone, but she wasn't going to change who she was for them in the long run. Jake didn't seem like the kind of guy who would be okay with her outspoken ways for the long-haul.
Heck, they hadn't even been out in public together except in group settings, where he'd often seemed embarrassed by her.
"Don't get your hopes up," she said warningly, pointing her finger at all of her friends in turn. "This is not going to be some kind of cutesy,we're the last two single people so we get togethertype thing. I'm not going to settle for a guy just because he's the only other single person in my group of friends."
Lexie bristled defensively. "Why would my brother be someone you have to 'settle' for?"
"Because I'm pretty sure he'd see himself as settling for me," Sharon explained, not at all bothered by Lexie's automatic reaction. It was to be expected. "Any guy that sees himself as settling because he's with me is a guy that I just settled for."
More than one person blinked as they worked their way through her logic.
"Yeah, okay, I can see that," Lexie conceded after a minute. She gave Sharon a rueful smile. "Just for the record, I think you'd be really good for him. I hardly ever make friends with his girlfriends. They're all nice and whatever, but they're really hard to get to know. Not unfriendly, exactly but... Not friendly either."
"Well I'm friendly," Sharon teased, winking.
"Are you going to warn him what he's getting into with your family?" Kate wanted to know.
"What's he getting into with her family?" Jessica asked, leaning forward to reach around Lexie and grab a handful of crackers. She wasn't the only one who was curious, going by the expressions. Sharon sighed. She rarely talked about her family if she could help it. Why focus on things that brought her down when she'd much rather focus on the positive parts of life?
"They're kind of big jerks," Kate said, breaking the ice on the subject. "Her parents are huge snobs, super self-involved, and they care way more about their image than anything else."
"As you can imagine, I'm definitely not their idea of a perfect daughter," Sharon chimed in with a thin smile, now that Kate had gotten the hard part over with. “I’m basically the epitome of a poor little rich girl. Lots of nannies, lots of my parents trying to mold me into the shape they wanted, and lots of rebellion on my part.”
She hated the sympathy she saw on everyone’s faces. The ‘poor little rich girl’ moniker was not her favorite, but it was apt. Everyone else here had families who loved them the way they were. She’d heard Jessica’s family had had some trouble accepting the fact that she had two men in her life, but theyhadaccepted it. Sharon was pretty sure she would have been disowned. Hilary’s family was pretty well off, but her parents were involved in her life in a way Sharon’s had never been. Sharon didn’t like being an object of pity. She didn’t like facing what she didn’t have.
She really did have a lot, and she was grateful for it.
So her parents kind of sucked. They weren’t the worst parents in the world; they were just normal, absentee, wealthy, image-obsessed parents with expectations for her that she never met. Now she went out of her way to show them there was no point in trying to manipulate her, but they weren’t bad enough that she felt justified in cutting them out of her life entirely. Sometimes she did think about it though.
“Are they going to be mean to Jake?” Maria asked after a minute when it was obvious everyone was struggling to try and figure out what to say. Because what should a person say about it? This was why Sharon hated talking about her parents. It was always awkward for everyone.
“Probably at least a little,” Sharon admitted. A little smile turned up the corners of her lips. “Especially once they find out that he’s working in a blue-collar job.”
“That’s going to matter to them?” Hilary asked, wrinkling her nose a little.
