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29
Tatum
Max textedme during the day and mentioned that his parents want to meet the elusive Tatum and right now my nerves are getting the best of me. I’m not sure if they will accept me, or how I’m supposed to act. Do I show affection towards Max, will he show affection to me? Will I be compared to his dead ex? Will they talk about his dead ex? Oh my God, what if they like her better than me?
I’m in the bedroom, sitting on the bed cross legged staring off into space in my tank top and underwear, when Max enters the bedroom. He starts to loosen his tie and remove his dress shirt.
“Are you okay?” He asks.
I snap out of my daze. “What? Oh, yeah sure.” I nod.
“Uh huh. Nervous?”
“Me? Nah, I’ve got this in the bag.” I lie.
“Uh huh. Listen, my parents are easy going, they’re excited. They have been asking to meet you since I told them about you.” He shrugs off his pants.
“So they obviously know we have sex.” I confirm.
“Well, I’m not a teenager and we live together, so yes. I’m sure they are aware. Also, you’re pregnant!” He jokes.
“Let’s hope that they don’t think I’m slutty.” I frown.
“Babe, that won’t be a possibility. They’ll love you.” He smiles, brushing my hair away from my shoulder and placing a kiss.
“Did they love Betsy?” I shouldn’t have asked that. There’s no real change in Max’s demeanor, but he does seem cautious about answering as he sits at the edge of the bed.
“Yes, they loved Betsy. But that’s not to say they won’t love you. And before you even say it, don’t measure any bit of the amount of love they may had or still have for Betsy’s memories. They are well aware of who you are to me, and how much you mean to me.” He says sternly.
“I’m just nervous. When I get nervous, I get insecure.” I try to explain.
“No, I get it. Listen, I don’t talk about Betsy much. And it’s not because I’m harboring some love for her. I’m not pretending she’s a secret or anything. My parents and anyone else who knew her – they may bring her up. But I don’t need to. You have all of me. Well, so does the peanut, but you get the majority. How much someone else cared about Betsy will not affect you and me.”
“Okay.” I say in defeat, he makes sense. “Maybe we should talk about Betsy more. After all, you guys were together for a bit.” I suggest meekly.
“What would you like to know?” He asks.
“Anything, I only know the circumstances of her death, and what happened to you after. I know that she and Sterling were best friends, but other than that, I know nothing. I don’t even know if I should know anything, usually exes are taboo subjects.”
“Well, let’s see, where do I start… she worked as a paralegal downtown and most of the time she couldn’t talk about work because they were open cases with some huge companies going corrupt. So we pretended she was a superhero and during the daytime she lead another life.” He smiles fondly, it’s a different smile that I’ve seen on him since we’ve been together, almost a sad smile.
“She and I met in college, we were friends, because I was, well a little bit like I was when we first met, but not extreme. We started dating about 3 years or so out of college, she had a crush on Dane first though.”
“Does Dane know?” I gasp.
“Yeah, Sterling told him when they first started dating.” Max shrugs.
“Wait, Dane and Sterling aren’t childhood sweethearts?” All this is news to me. I sit up and Max gets off the bed and goes to his dresser and pulls out jeans and a shirt. As he changes he starts to talk.
“No, they’ve known each other since they were pre-teens. They had crushes on another in high school and college, but they didn’t get together until a few years ago. Sterling was dating a douche bag and when they broke up, Betsy started a game of truth or dare one night and I dared them to kiss. We both kind of played against the two of them. Then a few weeks later, we both came to find out that they were secretly dating after that game. Betsy instigated their relationship, but it was always something in the cooker.”
“Wow. So how come it took you two so long after college to get together?” I ask.
“In college, I was focused on having fun and school. I didn’t have girlfriends, and I didn’t apologize for it. After college, Dane and I were starting up the company and since we were so fresh and new in the business, we worked a lot. I had always thought Betsy was cute, but never really thought about her that way until she asked me to go to a holiday party with her at work. She was new in the law business so she didn’t have time for dating either as she was busy trying to impress the DA. So I got the invite, and then yeah, the rest is history.”
“What was she like?” Now that he’s opening up about her, I can’t help but to continue asking questions.
“She was adorable, out-going, invasive and sometimes quick to judge. She grew on a person, I guess. She had a prickly outside and a mushy inside.”
