Page 46 of Bigfoot Boss
Bailey graces them with a toned-down version of trying to learn to fish like a Bigfoot and falling on her ass in the water, leaving out the inappropriate parts. My parents eat up every moment of the story.
“Thanks for putting up with them. Sorry for the imposition.” I lean in close to talk to her while my parents bicker about how long the elk is going to take to cook. The answer is, of course, far too long for any reasonable dinner time.
“Please. This isn’t an imposition.” She presses her hip against me. “Your parents are really sweet.”
“I know this isn’t what you expected your weekend to be like.”
“Not really, no,” she grins.
“I wanted to spend the whole weekend convincing you to keep dating me,” I whisper, so my bickering parents won’t hear. “I didn’t want your last memories of me to be about the time Iaccidentally sat on a wasp and cried when it stung me on the ass.”
She laughs. “Youdon’twant me thinking about your ass?”
“I was six.” I scrunch my nose. She laughs again. “I wanted you to have more lurid thoughts of my ass. I was hoping I’d get the whole day to get a few very different nude experiences burned into your brain.”
“You think that’s all it would take to convince me to stay with you? A whole day of sex?”
“I think it would be a great start,” I admit, wrapping an arm around her and tucking her into my side. “I think you liked those sections of the weekend a whole lot.”
Bay smiles, watching my parents bicker. “Actually, the whole weekend has been pretty good. Your parents are…”
“Embarrassing?” I suggest. “Overbearing? Loud?”
“They are really wonderful. You know that, right? They love each other, and they love you.”
“Yeah. I know.” I watch the faint, sad smile on Bailey’s face. “What’s your family like?”
She shakes her head and goes quiet as my parents rejoin us. My mom triumphantly declares that she is going inside to actually cook us dinner since the elk won’t be edible for another several hours.
“I can help.” Bailey leaps to her feet, leaving a cold wake in her absence.
She likes them, my parents, and my home. My chest feels tight watching her here. Every moment longer with her makes me more hopeful that my mate and I can make this work, together.
26
RELEGATED TO THE FLOOR
Bailey
Dinner promises to be delicious, if a bit of an experience. Yvette makes the entire meal from items she foraged from the forest. Moss, mushrooms, seeds, pine needles that she arranges into dishes, while instructing me which things to chop, mash, or combine. Finally, she declares that it is dinner time, piles several things onto a plate, and places it in front of me, which Sacha promptly removes from the table.
“Some of this isn’t exactly edible to humans,” he whispers into my ear, swapping my plate for one he fixed for me.
“Is your mom trying to poison me?” I tease in a whisper. “I thought she liked me?”
“You wouldn’t die,” he winks, “just be in gastrointestinal pain for the evening. She doesn’t entirely understand the human digestive system.” He hands me a knife and fork, just as his parents begin eating with their hands, scraping their fingers across their plates and directly into their mouths.
I glance at Sacha, he seems chagrined by their behavior. In a split-second decision I decide to set down the silverware and copy his parents’ behavior. Sacha watches me quietly for a longmoment, before his hand finds my knee under the table and he gives it a firm squeeze.
“It’s good,” I tell Yvette.
“Would have been better if there was elk on the table,” Abe grumbles.
“Then our lovely human wouldn’t have been able to eat until midnight,” Yvette scolds, but Abe grins and leans over to kiss her on the lips. Yvette breaks into a smile.
They may bicker, but they are still clearly madly in love. It’s nice to see the family that Sacha grew up with. It’s nothing like my own origin story, but I feel like I know him better after meeting his parents.
After dinner, Sacha begins arranging pillows and blankets on the couch.
