Letting out a deep breath, my father ran his hand through his hair. “I do trust you, Grace. Why don’t you come home this weekend, I’m sure Grams would love to see you.”
I was standing at a crossroads, and I knew which road I wanted to take. I only hoped my father understood. “Daddy, I love that you came all the way here to surprise me, but I do have a life and Noah is going to be a part of it. I really want to go to Austin with him this weekend, meet his family. It means a lot to him and I want to be by his side. He’s going to lose his mom and I want him to know I’ll be there for him.”
The muscles in his jaw tightened. “Okay, well I guess this is a lesson for me to always call before I make a road trip.”
Giving him a smirk, I nodded my head and said, “Yes. Yes it is.”
“Will you be staying with Noah while you’re in Austin?”
This was awkward.
“Yes.”
Raising his eyebrow, my father asked, “Not in the same room though, right?”
“Daddy,” I said as I narrowed my left eye.
“Fine, I won’t ask any questions, but I swear to God if he gets you pregnant, I’ll kill him with my bare hands. Or if he hurts you in any way.”
Giving him a smile and a wink, I said, “Don’t worry, Dad. I’m on birth control.”
A look of horror moved across my father’s face. “Ugh . . . really? Did you have to say that, Grace?”
“You took the conversation there, Dad, I didn’t.”
Turning, he started back toward the house as I let out a giggle. As we drew closer, I pulled on his arm to stop him. Glancing at me, he asked, “Did you change your mind? You picking your father over that little dickhead?”
Dropping my mouth open, I slapped him on the arm. “Dad! Don’t call him that. I love him.”
Rolling his eyes, my father looked away.
“So tell me something, Dad. You’re very attractive and I’ve seen pictures of you when you and Mom started dating. Did you whore around on Mom?”
Choking on his own spit, my father asked, “Excuse me?”
“You know, did women throw themselves at you? Was the temptation too much to handle?”
“Grace Hope Johnson. I would never cheat on your mother. Ever. I’ve never even looked twice at another woman.”
Lifting my brows, I asked, “Never, Dad? Never a sideways glance?”
“No!”
Smiling from ear to ear, I patted his chest. “See! Goes to prove that just because a guy is good looking, it doesn’t mean he is going to be a man-whore.”
My father looked at me with a confused look as he shook his head. Walking around him, I headed back inside. For some reason, I felt the need to protect Noah. I just didn’t know what from.
Noah
I stood by Grace and watched her say goodbye to her father and her Uncle Matt. It didn’t take me long to figure out why Grace loved Matt so much. He was Grace’s mother’s brother and he had Fragile X. Grace had mentioned it before, but I had forgotten. I made a mental note to look it up and read about it. Matt was funny as hell, repeated things he probably shouldn’t be repeating and was probably the most talented painter I’d ever seen. Grace had showed me some pictures on her phone that she took of Matt’s paintings.
Matt walked up to me and smiled. “I like you, Noah. But you are still an assmole. Jeff says so.”
Peeking over to Jeff, I saw him look away. Will let out a laugh as Alex said, “Matt! It’s not nice to call people assmole.”
“Unless they are,” Jeff said with a smirk.
Shit. I could see it was going to take a lot to win Grace’s father over. I was willing to do whatever it took, though. It wasn’t starting off too well. It was obvious he was pissed Grace wasn’t going home this weekend. The fact that Grace told him she was coming back to Austin with me had me wanting to scream from the mountaintops how much I loved her. We’d only been back together for two days, but it felt like we had been together for the last year. We picked up pretty much where we left off, except this time our relationship was coming out to more people in our families.