Page 48 of Hardcore Vanilla
Unfortunately, the fun was over and now it was time to faceherfamily. It was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive, maybe more depending on traffic, but as far as Sharon was concerned that wasn't nearly long enough. She sighed as she got into the car, already feeling the dread that accompanied every trip home building in her chest.
"Hey, chin up," Jake said cheerfully as he slid into the driver's seat and started the car. "It's going to be fine."
"I would love tonotbe able to say 'I told you so' at the end of this weekend, but I know better than that.”
Jake shot her a sidelong look, pulling out of the parking lot and heading toward the highway. His lips quirked. "Hasn't anyone ever told you about the power of positive thinking?"
She scowled at him. She was supposed to be the annoying one, not the other way around. Then again, her family did tend to mess with her equilibrium like nothing else in her life. A moment later, her sense of humor returned, if only a little.
"Later, I'm going to remind you that you said that," she retorted.
He snorted and shook his head.
"They're yourfamily," he said insistently, and Sharon rolled her eyes, knowing that the statement meant something entirely different to her than it did to him. This was why she’d stopped trying to explain to him. He clearly thought she was exaggerating every time she tried to tell him what they were like. "It's a wedding. We'll have fun."
Shaking her head, Sharon reached over to turn up the music. She didn’t want to get into it again.
They'd had a good week together and it felt more like he was her boyfriend than her fuck buddy. They hadn't explicitly talked about it, but he just didn't get her family issues. To him, family loved each other unconditionally and, no matter how they got along, would come together if they needed to in order to support each other. He had no idea what it was like to live with parents whose love was conditional, he couldn't even imagine it.
Not that she'd tried too hard, if she was honest. Getting herself worked up before she had to face her family wouldn't help anything and she figured he probably wouldn't believe it till he saw it himself.
If then.
She still remembered one of her exes insisting that her parents' manipulations and criticisms were just their expression of love and that she needed to learn to accept that.
Yeah, fuck that. If constant criticism and wearing down her self-esteem was an expression of love, it was one she could do without. She shouldn't have to accept people being terrible to her just because they'd given birth to her.
Did she love her parents and wish they were different? Sure. But they weren't and so she did what she had to do for her own mental health. If Jake didn't come around to understanding that by the end of this weekend... Well, whatever was growing between them as well as their fuck buddy time would be over.
******
Sharon's parents' house was behind a gate, at the end of a very long driveway surrounded by very manicured lawns and bushes, and it was very, very large. In fact, it was close to being a freaking mansion, glowing a pristine white with green shutters against the immaculate landscaping. The fact that the house's lawn and garden were so meticulous in winter made it even more impressive. Just beyond the house he could see a hint of the Chesapeake Bay, which meant the view of the bay was probably stunning.
"Holy crap," Jake muttered under his breath as he felt his palms start to sweat.
Somehow, up until this point, he'd convinced himself that meeting Sharon's parents wasn't that big a deal. Surely not a bigger deal than her meeting his last weekend, which had turned out to be not that big of a deal at all. He'd show up as her friend and date, charm her parents, and then show her a good time over the weekend. Her nerves hadn't infected him at all.
Now, though...
Just like with Sharon's apartment, it was one thing to know she was well-off, another to see it. 'Well off' didn't begin to describe it. He'd gotten used to her apartment because he was over there often enough, and she made it homey. It didn't hurt that she was a little messy too.
This was an entirely different ball game.
"Wow... You could play a seriously epic game of hide-and-seek in this house," he joked, trying to lighten the mood. Sharon had begun the ride singing and dancing along in her seat when certain songs came on the radio, but as soon as they'd crossed the Bay Bridge she'd become more and more subdued.
"Sure." She didn't look at him as she made the terse response, just stared up at the house like it was impending doom closing in on her.
"You never did with your cousins?" he asked curiously. From the little she had divulged about her family, she had a pretty good relationship with the cousin that was getting married this weekend. Hide and seek in a mansion seemed exactly the kind of thing she would do.
Sharon snorted. "Only if we wanted to be in a hell of a lot of trouble."
"Why would you be in trouble for playing hide and seek?"
"Because that's not what we were supposed to be doing. We were supposed to be learning how to be little ladies and gentlemen and how to ‘network’ with each other."
"As kids?" He could hear the skepticism in his voice, but, to his surprise, Sharon didn't jump all over him for it.
"Mmm." She leaned forward as he came to a halt in front of the house. The door opened to reveal a man dressed in a suit. He was tall and rail-thin with blond hair and didn't look a thing like Sharon.
