I laugh, knowing she wouldn’t listen to me. "Let’s get dressed and get this over with." I walk back upstairs with her.
"What are you going to wear?" she asks when she steps into her walk-in closet.
"My combat uniform." I laugh, grabbing my bag and tossing it on the bed. I don’t even know what I packed last night. I just threw things in my bag. "Why?"
"Because I want to walk in there as a united front," she says, sticking her head out of her closet.
"And going in there with matching outfits will show them that?" I grab my black pair of jeans.
"It can’t hurt." She shrugs. "Black jeans, got it." She turns back to the closet and comes back out with tight black jeans on with holes in both knees. "What about a shirt? What did you pack?" She looks into the bag. "Too bad you didn’t bring any shirts with your name on it." I laugh at her. "Wear a white shirt." She walks back into her closet and comes back out dressed like me.
"Is this good?" she asks, and I nod my head.
"You can wear a potato sack and make it look sexy." I kiss her neck, and half an hour later, we are walking out of her house. She puts the address in the GPS, and it shows us that it will take seven minutes. My stomach starts to move up to my throat as I pull up on their street. My heart speeds up so fast I hear it echoing in my ear, and the back of my neck gets hot. Parking on the street, I turn off the car and get out. She waits for me and grabs my hand as we walk up the driveway toward the front door.
I have never in my whole life been as nervous as I am right now. Not during my first NHL game, nor at the reading of my father’s will. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can prepare you for the minute you meet the parents of the girl you are seeing. Especially after they see you butt-ass naked banging their daughter.
"Maybe this isn’t a good idea," I say right before I hear the locks on the door click, and the door swings open. Her father stands there holding the door in one hand, and he just stares at me. We’ve met a couple of times, but it has been under completely different circumstances. His eyes go to me and then to Franny and then to our hands linked together.
"Hey." Franny moves into the house and pulls me with her. She stops in front of her father and kisses his cheek. "We’re early."
"Matthew." I hear a woman’s voice as she comes down the stairs, and I look up. "Can you let them in the door?" She smiles when she gets to the last step and comes over to us. "Come in." She stands in front of Matthew and pushes him back when she steps back. "Hi, honey," she says to Franny, who bends and kisses her mom. "You must be Wilson." She smiles at me, and her smile is genuine and without judgment. "I’m Karrie." She holds out her hand, and I have to drop Franny’s in order to shake her hand.
"Nice to meet you," I say. "You have a lovely home." The minute the words come out of me, I want to kick myself. Who the fuck talks like that?
"Why don’t we sit in the family room?" she says, waiting for Matthew to walk, and when he doesn’t, she takes his hand in hers and pulls him.
We sit on the couch facing them as they sit on the opposite couch. I’m so nervous my hands are sweaty. I rub them up and down on my legs to dry them. Matthew just stares at me without saying a word, and I don’t blame him one tiny bit. "Thank you for seeing me," I start, looking from Matthew to Karrie.
"So what did you want to see us for?" Matthew says, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees.
"I wanted to have an opportunity to tell you both that what happened last night will never ever happen again." I swallow. "I would never ever disrespect Frances like that." I shake my head. "I know what it looks like, but you have my word that it wasn’t me."
"Of course, it wasn’t you," Frances says to me and then looks at her parents. "You have to realize it wasn’t him. What motive would he have?"
"That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out the whole night," Matthew says, and I can tell that he hasn’t slept. His eyes are bloodshot.
"I am a lot of things," I start, "but a liar isn’t one of them. Besides, Frances is mine, and I don’t share what’s mine." Karrie looks over at Matthew, who just side-eyes her. "It was my ex-girlfriend," I start to say. "I mean, the label girlfriend is used liberally. We dated." I stop talking because they don’t need to know the details. "We found the camera that she hid last night in a frame." I look at them both. "And I’m going to be talking to a lawyer about what my options are."