Page 42 of An Adventure For Aster

“Am I?” she asked. “I feel it.”

“Good for you,” Ivy said, clapping her hands silently. “We need that double date. Or a triple date with River. Maybe all of us.”

“Now you’re talking about a party,” Dahlia said. “Go a little easy there and slow your roll.”

“I get it,” Ivy said. “But I know Brooks and River want to meet him.”

“My parents do too,” Raine said. “We’ll figure it out soon.”

“Then I’ve got to say it’s been a successful weekend all around for everyone,” Ivy said. “Here is to finding our men!”

She raised her glass because it felt like the thing to do and hoped it was true in the future for her too.

14

HATED THE ATTENTION

At the end of the month, Aster was picking Raine up at her apartment to go to River’s for Thanksgiving dinner.

He knew that her family had been wanting to meet him, but between River’s and Brooks’s jobs, it didn’t work out where everyone could be together at once.

Just a holiday it seemed.

One he hadn’t spent at home in years. Or with anyone other than people in the service with him.

“I’m glad you could come today,” Raine said when she opened the door to him.

“It’s not like I had anywhere else to be.”

She laughed. “I know you’re joking.”

He wasn’t so sure he was but would let her believe that if she wanted.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to meet her family or that he even worried about what they thought of him.

No, that was wrong. He actuallydidworry what they’d think of him because, in the past month, he’d realized he’d never felt this way about another woman before and was scared shitless that he was now.

He’d said she was too good for him. Pure was the word he’d used.

He did believe it even if she didn’t.

It’s not like he felt he came from white trash or anything like that. Though his family wasn’t perfect, they weren’t anything like how she was raised.

Raine’s biggest issue that he could see was the fact that she didn’t have a lot monetarily as a child, but to him, she had all the right things. And she appreciated those things she had even if it was a burden to carry the bullying from the lack of material possessions.

“Sure,” he said. “Joking. What do you need me to help you carry?”

“I’ve got three pies,” she said. “Emma has the turkey and potatoes and stuffing. My mother has all the veggies and rolls; Ivy has all the snacks. Dessert was on me.”

He liked how her family split it up the way they had. “The men do nothing?” he asked.

“You could have helped me bake last night,” she said. “Or spent the night and helped this morning.”

She had asked him, but he was working and then got held up. The construction was moving along but not as fast as everyone would like. He was putting in just as much time doing that as he was in the plant to help Zane out. Now it was finishing work inside and every extra helping hand was needed. He was even going to work tomorrow when many were off.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“Don’t be. I was only joking and I shouldn’t have. I know you were working.”

---