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“Nope. She’s my rock, and eventually, when I move in here, I need her blessing.”
“Women. You all are nuts. You know that, right?”
“Absolutely not. We stick together and support each other. She’s my only family.”
“Excuse me. What am I? I’m your lover and I want to be your husband. Isn’t that family?”
Chuckling at that, I said, “I suppose it is.” I leaned against him and slid my hand beneath his shirt. I loved the way his skin felt.
“You suppose? Well, I’ll be!” His hands covered his heart as he answered back in an exaggerated southern accent, which had me cracking up. Then he added, “Oh, by the way, we’re having New Year’s dinner with my family.”
I stiffened and almost choked on my wine. The cough that ensued had him slapping my back.
“You okay?”
I didn’t bother answering, but asked, “What did you say?”
“Yeah, I’m dying for them to meet you.”
My head swiveled back and forth. “No, no, no, Pearce. I can’t do that. They’ll hate me.” The air from my lungs made a whistling sound as it exploded through my teeth.
“No, they won’t. They could never hate you. Besides, you’re going to love them.”
“I don’t think so. I’m on a completely different level from you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I just stared at him.
He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes.
“Alexia, we’re both people. My family doesn’t judge people because of their financial status.”
“I have no financial status. I’m dirt poor. I have five hundred dollars in my checking account until my next paycheck and that’s my financial status. You have a home, and a yacht and an expensive car and God only knows what else. If I go to your family’s for dinner, they’ll ask me what I do for a living and I’ll tell them I have some menial job working for a software company. Next, they’ll ask me about my family. I’ll tell them that my family doesn’t give a rip about me and has all but disowned me. And then how much will they like your new girlfriend, Pearce?”
“Are you quite through?” His voice was edged with steel, which jerked me to attention.
“Yes.”
“Then may I speak?” he asked in that same steely voice.
“Yes.”
“You seem quick to judge my family. And please don’t deny it. You seem to think it’s fine for you to make comments like that, but you haven’t even met them. You don’t know the first thing about my family. Yes, they have money. A lot of it. Old family money. I was fortunate to be born into wealth, unlike you. But does that make me a bad person? My mother didn’t come from money. She met my father while working as a nurse’s aide at the hospital. He was an intern at the time. They fell in love and were married within three months. Her family were paper mill workers. She didn’t even have five hundred dollars to her name when they got married. Don’t tell me they wouldn’t accept you because of your lack of wealth or status. I wasn’t raised like that. And I hope to God if you and I ever have children, you don’t bring them up that way.”
He stood up and walked away, leaving me to feel like a speck of dirt. One thing was true. He was right about me and my double standard. Additionally, my emotions were in turmoil. Yes, I was head over heels in love with him, but I had this thing about us needing more time to get to know each other. He was cool about that, but I would love to be with him every night too.
God, I was such a head case. It was time for me to get a grip. This no-confidence thing was becoming absurd. It’s a wonder he wanted anything at all to do with me. I wouldn’t blame him if he told me to get out of his life tonight.
And, wow, his mom had been poor like me. He was right. Making assumptions about people was wrong, plain and simple. I never wanted to be judgey about people, so why was I being that way with his family? What a shit I was for doing that.
I got up and walked into the kitchen and he was putting the pizza on plates. I had totally forgotten about our dinner.
“God, I’m sorry.”
“Alexia, don’t say it unless you mean it.”
“I do mean it. It was wrong of me on every level to say those things.”
