Page 127 of Some Like It Hot

“Jerry!” his mom shouts again, louder this time. “Come on! Everyone’s waiting!”

“I’m coming!” I hear a man’s voice reply. “It’s Blake?”

“Yes!” his wife answers.

“Ask him why the hell my texts are filling up with my friends asking why I didn’t tell them my son got married!”

Blake’s mom and sister both gasp.

I can see the phone and notice that his grandmother doesn’t actually look surprised.

Blake chuckles. “You’re not getting texts?” he asks. I assume that’s directed to just…everyone.

They probably all have friends that follow the team. That would make sense.

“I haven’t checked,” his mother says.

“I just got out of the shower,” his sister tells them. “I haven’t looked either.”

Suddenly, a man’s face pops into the screen with Blake’s mom. “What is going on?” he demands.

“Everyone, I’d like you to meet someone.” Blake turns the phone so my face fills the screen. “Well, Gran’s met her. Everyone, this is Elise. My wife. Elise, this is my mom, my dad, and my sister. You know Gran.”

There is dead silence on the other end of the phone for about five seconds.

I swallow and smile. Then lift my hand in a little wave. “Hi.”

Then they all start talking at once.

Except for Gran.

She waits until the, “What?”, “How long have you not told me you have a girlfriend?”, “Oh my God!”, “But what about a wedding ceremony?”, “You have to bring her home, no we’ll come there, omg Jerry, we have to go to Chicago!” to die down.

I have no idea what to say or do, so I just sit, my hand squeezing Blake’s huge, hard thigh, and try not to feel guilty as hell.

Finally, Gran says, “So, this is a surprise. I figured you’d do it this summer after your retirement. At the cabin. Like. We. Discussed.”

Blake, smooth as top shelf whiskey, tightens his arm around me, smiles, and says, “It was all that talk about getting married at the cabin that got us talking.” He looks down at me, and damn, that look of adoration is pretty convincing. “We talked about plans and who we’d invite and what kind of flowers Elise likes best and all of that, and our minds just started spinning, and I was laying there in bed that night thinking, ‘why the hell are we waiting?’” He looks back at his family on the phone. “I’m in love. I want to be with her. She, thank God, feels the same way, so I said, ‘let’s do it now’ and she laughed and said, ‘you’re on’ and we went and got a license.”

That’s not at all how it went, but I find myself loving the story. It sounds like us. It’s sweet and fun and part of me wishes it was our story.

I squeeze his thigh, and he leans over and kisses my temple.

I’m melting like chocolate in the sun under his touch.

When I look at the phone again, they’re all looking at us with clearly convinced, happy expressions.

Even Gran.

“Well, this is…a surprise. But a lovely one,” Shelby says. “Elise, we can’t wait to get to know you better. But…welcome to the family.”

I’m able to give her a genuine smile now. They are sweet. I’m looking forward to meeting them too.

But then it hits me—it would really be better if I didn’t. I don’t want to get attached. I don’t want to really hit it off with them. When we call this off, I don’t want to imagine their disappointed, maybe even angry, faces.

“Me, too,” I say, weakly.

“Okay, we have to go,” Blake says. “I have to get ready for the game. But it’s going to be all over by then and I didn’t want you in the dark.”

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