Page 75 of Ghosted By Texas

“Oh God!” She cried before she turned and ran from the room with Jordan hot on her heels.

I felt sick to my stomach knowing that I was at the center of this family’s pain. “I’m so sorry.” The apology came out as a whimper.

“Stop,” Austin ordered. “You don’t have a damn thing to apologize for.”

“I do, though. All of this is because of me,” I argued.

“Becs?” Mr. Mercer called out to me. Hesitantly, I shifted my focus to the family’s patriarch. “Seems to me you’re the innocent party who got dragged in the middle of the mess my son made. Do not take that blame on yourself, none of us are putting it there, because it doesn’t belong. I apologize that your first visit to our home was uncomfortable for you, and hopefully that won’t ever be the case again. We welcome you back any time. We’re a family with flaws like any other, so unlike my son, I’m not going to promise that everything will always run smoothly when you’re here, but we will try to make sure everyone is respectful.”

Mr. Mercer turned to Austin then. “Son, you make a promise to your woman, it better be one you can keep. Otherwise, you make the next best promise you know is in your power to honor. Don’t make a fool out of yourself, and worse out of the woman you love.”

“Understood,” Austin answered back.

“I don’t blame you for what happened here tonight,” I told him. “Obviously, this was beyond your control.”

“Well, tonight only happened because I didn’t get my life under control years ago, when I should have,” he admitted before he turned to look at everyone who was still gathered around the table. “I’m sorry for all the damn drama that everyone got dragged into because of me.”

“S’ok,” Dallas said with a mouthful of food. “Takes the heat off the rest of us for the stupid shit we do.”

“Dallas!” His name was a warning from Mrs. Mercer. “Why don’t we all take our seats and eat before everything gets cold?”

“No point wasting good food,” Mr. Mercer added as he went back to loading his plate up.

“Are you okay? We can leave if you want?” Austin asked me. I shook my head and sat back down. Eventually, these people would be my son’s family, and I needed to be able to work through the bumps in the road with them before he got here.

“Do you have a name picked out?” Katy asked excitedly.

I glanced at Austin and be both started to laugh. “We’ve ruled out a few, but haven’t come to any decisions yet,” he told his sister.

I wasn’t about to tell his family that we ruled out Randy, and why that one had come up. Though, thinking about it did make me giggle.

“Oh, there must have been some doozies in the discard pile,” Katy surmised.

“You could say that,” I agreed and decided to give them a little something to laugh about. “My last name is Robinson.” I hitched a thumb at Austin who grinned, knowing what I was about to divulge. “He threw out the suggestion of Christopher Robinson,” I told them much to Dallas and Houston’s amusement while Katy threw him a horrified look.

“You didn’t, Aus. That’s awful. Do you want your son to be bullied?”

“Did you not plan on using Mercer, then?” Mr. Mercer asked.

“It was my first joke of a suggestion,” Austin explained. “Becs agreed that our son should have the Mercer surname, since she said our family is more of a family than hers and she wants him to feel that connection.”

“Oh, honey!” Mrs. Mercer cried out before getting up from her seat and coming around to hug me yet again. The Mercer clan were a family of huggers that was for sure.

Clea made the ‘I love you sign’ to me from down at the other end of the table. I smiled back at her as Mrs. Mercer let go and allowed me to breathe again.

After the ice was officially broken on something other than mine and Austin’s relationship drama, dinner ran smoothly. Victoria never did come back from taking Jordan home. I assumed her embarrassment kept her away, not that I could blame her. She had been fed the wrong information, just as Austin had many times over the years.

I didn’t think Jordan would be randomly showing up, or invited, to family dinner anymore after this latest round of truth telling. Everyone seemed more than a little fed up with the way she had started to tear their family apart at the seams.

When we finally said our goodbyes, Austin yawned as he started the truck and pointed it in the opposite direction of my apartment.

“You’re tired. You should just take me home.”

“I am,” he insisted.

“Um, no.” I pointed in the opposite direction. “My place is that way, in case you forgot.”

“Yeah, but my place is this way and it’s closer. Besides, I wanted to show you something.”

---