Iris’s mother looked at me and I noticed that her eyes were a pale gray that were captivating.
“I don’t believe I asked you,” she said stiffly.
I shrugged, uncaring. “Just tellin’ you why she didn’t want to sit with you when you treated her as if she didn’t matter.”
Her mother opened her mouth to say something more, but Anderson came up then, placing his hand on Iris’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you were coming. Mom and Abby said that you were busy. I assumed it was with him, so I didn’t say anything.”
Anderson jerked his head toward me as he said that, his lips turning up into a small smile.
A young Asian woman walked up to him and fit herself underneath his arm, staring at me curiously.
I could tell she had plenty to say, or ask, but she didn’t want to voice those things in front of the parental units now staring at me with varying degrees of curiosity.
“You’re her new friend?” the dad asked.
“Yep,” I confirmed. “The new man.”
Iris snorted at my correction. “Mom, Dad. This is Callum, or Shine if you want to call him by his road name. Shine, these are my parents.”
I stood up and held my hand out for her father to take.
He did, but only after a slight hesitation.
After he dropped it, I offered it to her mom, who took it and shook it in a better grip than I’d gotten from her dad.
“Nice to meet you both,” I lied.
Anderson snorted, catching the lie.
“But it would be nice if you’d check out so we can eat,” I said, unsubtly hinting at them to get the fuck away from us. “Iris has a bit of a drive to get to her hotel room for the night.”
“Hotel room?” Abby asked. “You’re not staying at home? Why would you waste money on a hotel room?”
Iris looked at her sister, and with dead eyes and a snarl on her tongue, said, “I don’t think that our parents would appreciate me bringing Callum home for the night when we can get pretty loud.”
Anderson’s wife choked as Anderson sighed.
Neither of Iris’s parents’ faces cracked.
It was her father who said, “You know that we’re not those kinds of parents, Iris. You can bring your man home. Our rooms are soundproof anyway.”
I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Her parents didn’t care that I would fuck her under their roof?
“That’s just disgusting. How long have you known him anyway? You and Teller broke up, what, two weeks ago?” Abby asked.
There was a long moment of silence and then Iris said, very carefully, “How would you know that? I haven’t even told anyone we broke up until right now.”
Abby opened her mouth and then closed it.
She repeated that for a long few seconds before saying, “Umm…”
Iris narrowed her eyes, and it was then that I realized something. “You did him, didn’t you?”
There was an awkward moment of silence and then, “They were broken up. Mostly.”
“Son of a bitch,” Anderson said as he latched onto Abby’s arm and started to pull her out of the restaurant.
The parents went just as fast, and then we were left with Anderson’s wife.
“We didn’t know,” she promised.
Iris was looking at her plate, her face a mask of indifference.
“I don’t quite think it matters right now,” I told her bluntly. “Think you should probably take a hike.”
The waiter brought our food over then, causing Iris to perk up slightly.
God, her love for food made me fucking happy.
Even the news of her sister fucking her ex-boyfriend couldn’t put a damper on her enjoyment.
“I’ll call you.”
Then the sister-in-law was gone, leaving only Iris and me.
“You should try some of this,” Iris said, holding a chip dipped in queso for me to eat.
I bent forward at the waist and brought the chip into my mouth.
She started to pull her hand back but I caught it before she could, swallowing the chip, and then pulling her finger into my mouth to suck off the cheese.
Iris’s eyes dilated slightly before I dropped her finger and her hand completely, before going to grab my own chip.
“Teller’s looking worse and worse by the second,” I told her. “If I had a better living situation, you’d already be moved into my place, your clothes would be in my closet, and Teller just a bad memory miles away from you.”
Iris’s face softened. “We need to convince Lindy to move into my place.”
I tilted my head to the side as I said, “How would I do that?”
Iris’s eyes crinkled at the sides as she said, “Let me brainstorm about it.”
And she did.
By the end of dinner, she had some pretty solid ideas, ending with an almost foolproof plan to get Lindy out of my house and into hers.
Good thing was, it worked.
Bad news was, Iris had so many clothes I had to completely move all of my shit out of the closet.