Under My Skin (Skin Deep #2)

“Wow, Nanny!” I exclaimed loudly, cutting her off. “Cool story! Did you see the weather report for this week?” She nodded and she was off on a tirade about the ‘damn Ohio weather’ and I breathed a sigh of relief. That is something I didn’t need to know about, or to ever have a mental image of. Yeesh.

They stayed for a few minutes longer, leaving only when a couple more customers came into the store to browse. Before she walked out the door my mom made sure to let me know that dinner was Wednesday at seven, and it was non-negotiable. Be there with the guys or I was in a shit-load of trouble.

I acknowledged her in exasperation, waving and shaking my head at them fondly as they walked out with my Nanny grumping at my mom that she always takes too long.

The rest of the day went fairly quickly and just before I left the store, I heard a voice yelling at me from across the parking lot. I looked up and around, trying to determine where it was coming from when I saw Calland, Emma’s brother, running toward me.

He stopped in front of me, panting like he’d just run a marathon and I couldn’t help but pick at him like he always does everyone else.

“Getting a little out of shape there, buddy?” I asked with a smirk, reaching out to poke him in his stomach.

He glared at me, saying, “You’re a pain in the ass,” and then got down to the reason he had sought me out. “So do you know if Jackson or Brandon are planning on doing Luke’s bachelor party?”

I grinned at him and shook my head. “No, no one has mentioned anything. Why?”

“Cause I have got to get in on that shit!” he exclaimed.

I laughed and told him, “Well, come on over to the house and talk to them, then.”

He said he would and then jogged back to his car, hollering back over his shoulder that he’d stop by after he got something to eat.

Chapter 10

Wednesday snuck up on me so quickly that I didn’t have time to worry about it, let alone to prepare the guys for it. I did remember to call my mom and let her know that Jackson’s sister would be there, too. No way in hell was I gonna leave her sitting alone at my house while we all went for dinner.

We pulled up at my parent’s house a little early and I led everyone into the house. Something I regretted almost immediately.

“MOM! DAD! OH, GOD!” I yelled as I stopped so quickly that Jackson and Brandon both rammed into me from behind, and then poor Chloe let out an ‘oomf’ as she hit Brandon’s back . I threw my hands up, waving them around like a crazy woman as I tried to back up and get the guys back out the door to protect them from the shudder-inducing sight that is now seared into my eyeballs.

It didn’t do me any good because they were like a solid brick wall behind me, stunned into complete silence, their bodies frozen and unmovable. Chloe was trying to peek around them but couldn’t see anything, which I was grateful for. I gave up shoving at them and turned, resigned to dealing with what we’d walked in on. Thank fuck my parents had actually stopped the semi-horizontal mambo they were doing on the couch and were casually grabbing up their clothing and stepping into it like they had all the time in the world and I wasn’t standing there with guests waiting to be introduced.

“Allie! Honey, we didn’t expect you until later!” my mom said brightly. Clearly being caught in flagrante delicto posed no embarrassment for them.

“Mom, you said seven, it’s seven and we’re here! What…why…ugh!” I shook my head and threw my hands up, completely at a loss as to what to do or say at this point.

I felt movement behind me and noticed that the guys had finally unfrozen enough to have turned their heads and were now nervously looking everywhere but in front of them, and Chloe had pushed her way to the front, her eyes wide as she took in my parents dressing in front of us.

“Well, I guess we let time get away from us!” my mom said, laughing. My dad looked at her with a doting expression before turning to us, grinning.

“So these are your guys?” he asked in his booming voice. He moved to walked toward us with his hand outstretched, clearly intending to shake hands with them.

He stopped and inclined his head, acknowledging the small shake of my head I gave. I really didn’t want the guys and Chloe to have to shake the hand that was just…where it was on my mother. He smiled again, this time sheepishly and grabbed my mother’s hand, pulling her down the hallway.

When they left the room, I turned back to the three who were standing there behind me, all with expressions of confusion, shock, amusement, and a hint of disgust on their faces. “I’m sorry…” I trailed off, pretty much at a loss as to what to say. There was really nothing I could say to make them unsee the things that they’d seen. I, myself, wish I could rinse my eyeballs with bleach to rid myself of the image. Seriously, though, I should have been used to it by now. This wasn’t the first time I’d walked in on things like this. “Well, I told you my family was unconventional…worse than me! I warned you! So now you know!”

They all laughed and I felt the shock of the moment dissipate some. My parents came back into the room and Mom led us out to the back patio where she had a cooler full of beer on ice before she ran back inside and came back out with a veggie and dip tray for us to munch on while dinner was finishing up in the oven. She’d made lasagna and garlic bread and we ate and drank beer and generally had a pretty good time.

Brandon and Jackson took everything in stride, answering my parents’ off the wall and probing questions with ease and laughing at the stories they told about me growing up.

“So,” Jackson said a little later, “You’re okay with Allie being with both of us?”

I’d been waiting on that subject to come up all night and, frankly, I figured it would have been Brandon that would have asked it.

My parents both shrugged and Mom said, “As long as she’s happy, that’s all that matters. Now, what happened to you, missy?” She turned and pinned Chloe with a motherly look.

Chloe just waved her hand and offered a short, terse answer. “Bad decision that I rectified as soon as I could and won’t be revisiting again.”

My mom shot a worried look my way and shook my head slightly, pleading silently with her to let it drop. Chloe hadn’t really offered any information to us about what happened, and Jackson hadn’t said much about it either.

“Oh!” my mom shouted out of the blue, thankfully changing the subject. “I have pictures!”

I groaned as the guys both grinned at me, their eyes sparkling in the waning evening light. My mom jumped up and went inside, flipping on the porch lights as she lugged out four huge photo albums spilling over with pictures.

She took great pride in going through all of them, and we all laughed our asses off at the various crazy poses and outfits I’d sported throughout my life. Brandon found a picture of me and Emma standing together, me in a sport coat of my father’s and an old top hat, Emma wearing an old white lace dress of my mother’s and her oversized heels. Emma was holding a bouquet of wildflowers and we were arm in arm in front of my old teddy bear that had a big book propped up in it’s arms. We were grinning into the camera, both of us missing front teeth and looking so cute and innocent.

“Holy shit!” Brandon crowed, laughing. “Does Luke know that Emma’s a bigamist?”