Page 31 of Wish Me Home

“Boyfriend?” Louisa’s upper lip lifted as if she was sneering.

“Yes, boyfriend.” Cody wrapped an arm around my waist, he pulled me into his side and kissed my cheek.

Matthew set down his glass and extended his hand at that point. “Well, if that’s the case, welcome to our home, Emmett. We weren’t aware our son was bringing anyone with him and we assumed you were the driver.”

“The driver?” I felt stupid, but it made sense. I could’ve been someone Cody had hired at the airport to drive him here.

Louisa relaxed as well, losing some of the distaste from her face, but not entirely. Maybe I wasn’t what she had envisioned for her son. I was considerably younger but was age really all that important when two people cared about each other?

“Come on, Emmett. Let’s go get unpacked, please.” I didn’t miss the pleading tone in Cody’s voice. He wasn’t ready to tackle this with his parents yet.

Alightsnowdriftedfrom the sky as we parked the car outside of the restaurant. Growing up in Southern California, I’d never really seen much of it outside of television and movies. Chicago had been a huge wake-up call. It was another reason I was debating my decision to stay there.

“We don’t have to do this. We can just go back to the house and hide in the room.” Cody’s words snapped me from my thoughts.

“No, it’s fine. I just…” I took a deep breath, gathering what I wanted to say. I was mostly over the fact that he hadn’t told them I was coming. It would have been nicer to get a better greeting, yet I still felt unwelcome in their home. I had a feeling Cody knew we wouldn’t be welcome to stay there had they known I was coming. “I want you to work things out with them.”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes like it normally does. He pulled his jacket around him more tightly before killing the engine on the car. He sat back in the seat and looked at me, reaching over to take my hand.

“Honestly, I’m not sure there’s much to work out with them. I’m here and I brought home a boyfriend and they still seem unhappy.”

I nodded, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. We sat in silence for a few moments, watching the flakes of snow gather on the windshield of the car. Finally, figuring out what I wanted to say, I let my head roll against the headrest so that I was looking at him again.

“Sometimes, there isn’t a way to fix what’s broken. I’m proud of you for even trying. At least you can say you did that.”

His smile was a little brighter this time as he leaned in to give me a quick kiss. We climbed from the car and entered the brightly lit restaurant. It was crowded and noisy, filled with people ready to bring in the new year. If I was trying to catch up with my child, this wouldn’t be the place I would go.

Cody informed the hostess that we were meeting someone and she motioned into the dining area. I hadn’t thought we’d sat that long in the car, but they had already been seated while we had talked. We weaved our way through the crowd of people until we spotted Cody’s parents sitting at a table. Louisa sat sipping at a martini glass while Matthew had another glass of amber liquid.

Chapter Twenty

Cody

Ihatedthisplace.I would rather have spent the evening at home much like we’d spent Christmas at home with Emmett’s aunt. It was part of the reason my parents and I always had problems. They wanted to be the life of the party, always in the middle of it all. They often left me behind so they could accomplish that.

I pulled a chair out for Emmett before sitting at the table. It wasn’t lost on me that once again they didn’t greet us. For people that made a big deal that I never visited, they didn’t seem to want to visit now that I was here. It was drastically different from the phone call I’d had with my mother days before Christmas when she’d been understanding of my reluctance to come home.

Finally, she set her martini down and faced Emmett. “So tell me, what do you do?”

Emmett rested his arms on the table and leaned in to talk. It was so loud he had to raise his voice to be heard. “I work for a tech company back in Chicago.”

“Chicago?” Dad joined in the conversation, clearly surprised by the location of his job.

“Uh, yeah. I just started there this last summer. They recruited me right out of school.” Emmett looked over at me as if he was panicked about having said that. It was going to be obvious that we hadn’t known each other for long.

“School? Emmett, how old are you?” Mother’s question had him whipping his head in her direction again. My palms started to sweat, and I was nervous for him. I had to put an end to this or they would rip him apart and I couldn’t allow that.

“He’s twenty-two,” I answered for him. Mom and Dad both looked at me. “And yes, I know that’s probably a lot younger than what you thought, but I didn’t see him for his age when I first saw him. I saw someone I wanted to make happy.”

Emmett’s tense shoulder dropped, and a soft smile graced his face.

“Twenty-two? Cody? He’s basically a child,” Mom scolded me. I rolled my eyes before grabbing his chair and pulling it closer to me, and draped an arm across the back of it.

“And I’m only twenty-nine. It’s not like there’s that much of an age difference. I’d expect you to be more upset if I was older. Even then, who I love is my business.” I realized what I’d said the second Emmett turned his wide eyes on me. We’d briefly talked about love and it being too soon, but I could really see myself loving him.

“What about Chicago? How did you two meet? How long have you known each other?” Mom looked agitated as her questions became more rapidfire.

Emmett swallowed. “Uh…” He looked between my parents and I as if he was trying to formulate the perfect answer. I didn’t know if he didn’t want this to look like we’d had this crazy whirlwind romance like we had.

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