Misunderstandings (Woodfalls Girls 2)

“Swell. That helps so much,” I grumbled.

“Hey, Uncle Fred,” Justin warmly greeted a good-looking distinguished gentleman. He appeared to be roughly the age of my mom.

“Justin, how’s the art?” his uncle replied, pulling Justin in for a massive bear hug.

“Not bad. How’s the insurance business?” Justin countered.

“Not bad,” his uncle Fred returned, laughing. “And who is this lovely lady?” he added, turning to smile at me.

“This is my girlfriend, Brittni,” Justin said proudly. He pulled me closely against him like I was a coveted possession. I fought the urge to elbow him for his possessiveness.

“Girlfriend? That’s terrific. We’d all pretty much given up hope that my nephew here would find a nice young lady,” Fred said, shaking my hand with both of his.

“Oh, I’m not nice,” I answered.

He threw his head back and roared with laughter. “You are my kind of lady,” he said, putting an arm around me and leading me toward the house. Maybe it was the warm way he smiled or the twinkle in his eyes, but my natural instincts to stiffen up from a stranger’s touch never manifested. “So, how long have you been making my nephew a better man?” he asked, guiding me up the porch steps to the front door.

“Only a few weeks,” I answered, laughing uncomfortably. This was what I had been afraid of. By coming to dinner, I was giving the impression that we had a history.

“A beneficial few weeks, if the grin on my nephew’s face is any indication,” he professed, opening the front door for me.

The noise inside the house was overwhelming as we stepped into the entryway. Everywhere I looked there were people. An elderly couple sat on the sofa while adults stood around the room chatting. Children of various ages darted through the living room, dining room, and kitchen like they were on a racetrack. Every few seconds one of the adults would tell them to stop running.

“Everyone, this is Justin’s girl, Brittni,” Fred announced, nudging me into the middle of the chaos. I looked back at the door longingly, feeling like I had been thrown into a shark tank. Just when I thought Fred was a good guy. Suddenly everyone’s conversations became less important as a dozen eyes pivoted to look at me. With a gentle push from Fred, I was introduced to another uncle, whose name escaped me; Fred’s wife, Adriane; and his aunt Holly, who turned out to be Justin’s sister’s namesake, just with a different spelling. The three teenage boys playing the Xbox in the family room with Travis belonged to Fred and Adriane. The four younger kids running around with Hollie belonged to Justin’s aunt Holly and the uncle whose name I couldn’t remember. The adults all seemed nice enough, and the teenage boys were typical teenagers. They eyed me appraisingly before returning to their game. Hollie greeted me by giving my waist a crushing hug before racing back down the hall after her cousins.

After a few initial questions about my major and where I was from, the other adults quickly returned to their respective conversations. All the comments I had expected about how long we had known each other or how serious we were never surfaced. It wasn’t like they shunned me. They just accepted that I was there without question.

Justin and I stood around chatting with his grandpa and mother, who both had questions about the job he was doing for the hospital. I was distracted from the conversation by Justin’s uncle, the one whose name I couldn’t remember. He looked like he was watching the football game on TV, but every time my eyes drifted his direction, he was staring at me instead. If his wife hadn’t been sitting two feet from him, I would have said he was checking me out. It was completely creep-fest and grossed me out. His stares didn’t get better during dinner, and I made an effort to try to ignore him as he downed several beers. If the others noticed his behavior, they ignored it.

“What’s with your creeper uncle?” I asked Justin when we headed down to his apartment with our desserts in hand.

“Uncle George?” he asked.

“Yeah. He was looking at me all through dinner,” I answered, seeing no reason to beat around the bush.

“He’s a dick,” Justin answered, placing our drinks on the coffee table. “He lost his job last year and pretty much decided that was his ticket to become a complete deadbeat.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize that. Losing a job has to be tough.”

“He was an ass before that. I think Aunt Holly was on the verge of divorcing him, but then felt bad once he lost his job. Maybe she thought that would be like kicking a man while he’s down or some shit. He drives my mom nuts, and almost everyone else for that matter. I guess every family has to have one. The oddball who annoys everyone.”

I nodded. I knew where he was coming from. Of course, I refrained from mentioning that the oddball in my family was my mother. In her defense, though, she wasn’t nearly as bad as his uncle George. And definitely not creepy. She just made everyone’s business her own. My only other relatives were a distant aunt and uncle who lived in Arizona. They were a lot older than Mom. Mom had been a surprise baby when she came along. Her sister was planning for college and already had one foot out the door when my mom showed up. Over the years, I’d seen them less than a handful of times, mostly due to a death in the family. Although I didn’t see them much, they did make a point of sending me cash every holiday, including Thanksgiving, which always seemed odd, but who was I to argue with free cash.

“If he makes you uncomfortable, let me know,” Justin added as he took a bite of the pumpkin pie on his plate.

“It’s all good. I just thought I was imagining it.”

“Nah, everyone knows he’s a total douche. He’s a lot of fun when he has a couple more beers in him,” he answered sarcastically.

“At least he’s up there and we’re down here,” I pointed out, not realizing until the words left my mouth how suggestive they sounded.

“Good point,” Justin answered with a wide smile as he placed his plate on the table and leaned toward me. His intentions were halted by the sound of multiple feet trotting down the stairs with Hollie’s voice calling us.

“I need to learn to lock that door,” Justin groaned before placing a quick kiss on my lips.

“One of these days . . .” I trailed off, running my hand over his chest as four preteens invaded our quiet place.

As the day progressed, those few minutes of quiet were the only ones we had. Hollie and her cousins convinced Justin and me to play a game of Monopoly. The game turned out to be one of those marathon games that stretched on for several hours. Hollie took the game seriously and analyzed each move before she made it. Two of the cousins went bankrupt fairly early and made it their mission to create the perfect playlist for our game on Justin’s stereo. We took a break after a few hours to head back upstairs for seconds. Turkey sandwiches, stuffing, and leftover mashed potatoes were loaded up on heavy-duty paper plates that Trish had left out on the counter. Eventually, Monopoly came to a draw when Hollie and Justin owned the majority of the cash and properties. The game was stowed away and blankets and pillows were dragged downstairs and laid out on the floor, while Justin loaded one of the DVDs he had picked up the day before. Shooting me an apologetic look, he maneuvered around the bodies on the floor and crawled onto the couch beside me.