Page 205 of Falling for You
My head whips round to see Nate standing in the doorway. My face immediately burns. Oh God, how long has he been standing there for?
He’s holding the phone and looking at us apologetically. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘How do you work this? I think I’ve found somewhere.’
‘Found somewhere?’ Mum repeats. ‘What do you mean? You’re not leaving, are you?’
And then everything goes into slow motion, I can feel it about to happen, right in front of my eyes … but I just … can’t … quite …
‘You must stay for dinner!’
… stop it.
‘Sorry,’ I gabble to Nate about forty minutes later, the first moment I’ve got just the two of us after Mum and Dad barrelled him into the kitchen and refused to let him go. Where did you grow up? What do you do for a job? How are you finding London? What shoe size are you?
Okay, so they didn’t ask the last one, but I wouldn’t put it past them at this rate.
‘Sorry?’ He turns to me. ‘What for?’
We’re both sat up on the stools in the kitchen, looking over to where Mum has been chopping, simmering and adding the final touches to dinner. Dad has poured us both largeglasses of red wine and the fairy lights that Mum hangs every autumn are twinkling around us.
‘I didn’t mean to ambush you into spending the evening with my family,’ I say.
And me, I want to add, but I don’t.
‘If you want to go back to a hotel then that’s totally fine. I’ll make an excuse for you, say you have to get back to work or something.’
He smiles at me, and sitting this close to him in the light I notice for the first time that he has a dimple in his right cheek that creases when he smiles. I can smell his earthy, manly scent and for a moment I feel myself leaning closer towards him. But I catch myself.
He’s not interested, remember?
‘Not at all,’ he says, ‘I’m having a great time. Is this really where you grew up?’
I look around at the kitchen. Pots and pans hang from the ceiling, and behind us is our oak table, stained with years of dinners and parties, little hands clutching onto the wood and drinks spilling over after too much generous clinking. Artwork covers the walls, but also framed photos of the three of us: windswept at the beach, huddled around a Christmas tree, standing at the top of a cliff in Cornwall.
‘Yeah,’ I say proudly. ‘It is.’
‘It’s amazing.’
I sigh. ‘I know. I’m really lucky.’
‘It’s just like the houses in the films,’ he says, leaning back on his stool and looking around. ‘My mom would love it here.’
‘Has she been to England before?’
He shakes his head, his dark eyes still scanning the room, taking in every nook and cranny. Every wooden chicken, every framed photograph, every speckled plate.
I’m about to ask him more about his mum when, right on cue, my own mum bustles in. For God’s sake, has she put lipstick on?
‘Right,’ she says jovially as she marches over to the Aga, ‘I think we’re almost there. Where’s your father?’
I start to tell her I don’t know when she cranes her neck and bellows his name over her shoulder. Nate catches my eye and grins.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble again. ‘I hope your family is as mad as mine.’
‘I think they’re fantastic.’
‘Here we are!’ Dad bumbles into the kitchen. Although he hasn’t put lipstick on, I can tell that he’s brushed his hair. Probably the result of a panicked Mum, who I think would be secretly hoovering upstairs right now if she didn’t have a lasagne in the oven.
‘I think it’s ready.’ She smiles at me, her eyes flitting to Nate. She looks as if she’s about to burst with happiness. God, if she’s like this now, how the hell is she going to behave when I bring an actual boyfriend home?
