Chapter 23

23

Connor

The noise coming from the backyard as they approached the gate in the fence was what made him realize that maybe he'd gotten in over his head.

"How many people did you say are going to be here today?" he asked Julie, not bothering to lower his voice because he doubted anyone on the other side of the fence would be able to hear them, anyway. The fence was solidly built with vertical slats that made it impossible to see through unless you were right up next to it, and tall enough that even he wouldn't be able to see over it until they were closer.

The little path of stones leading from the driveway around to the back suddenly seemed far too short.

As soon as they'd pulled up to the house, he'd been surprised by the number of cars parked in the driveway and along the street, but the house next door also had balloons on their mailbox. He'd figured at least some, if not most, of the cars were there for whoever was having a party. Now, he was wondering if he had been wildly incorrect.

"I didn't," she replied a little grimly. "I just said my family. I don't know how many of them will actually be there, but probably most of us."

The path was almost at its end, and Connor could see over the fence now. Not that he could see much because the gate was on the side of the house rather than right at the back, so he only had a partial view of the backyard. Enough to know it was full of people. Almost all of whom had black or grey hair, though he did spot a blond man and a woman with auburn hair.

"It'll be fine," Julie said, though from her tone, he wasn't sure if she was talking to him or to herself. It really could go either way. "We don't have to stay the whole time."

"No, I want to." He was determined to impress her family. Even though she hadn't said it, and she'd tried to downplay it, he could tell this was a big deal to her. She wanted this to go well. "Don't cut the visit short on my account. I'll be fine."

Glancing up at him, she smiled, though it looked a little forced.

"We'll see," was all she said before reaching out to open the gate.

No one turned as it swung open, and they were able to approach the crowd in the backyard without drawing too many eyes to them—at least, until they reached the edge of people, and several of them caught a glimpse of Connor. He towered above everyone in the yard, which was normal, making him impossible to miss. He did his best not to hunch his shoulders as a slow ripple of quiet spread through Julie's family, those who were facing him looking with either wide eyes, dropped jaws, or both, only for whoever they were talking with to turn around and see what they were looking at. Which meant more wide eyes and dropped jaws.

"Hey, everyone," Julie said loudly, her voice carrying. "This is my boyfriend?—"

Before she could say his name, she was cut off by a scream.

"Aaaaah!" Out of the crowd, Sandra—Sandra from his work, his work wife Sandra—suddenly jumped in front of both of them, pointing at Connor. Then her finger swung to point at Julie as she let out a second cry. "Aaaaah!"

Now it was Connor's turn for the jaw drop as he stared at his coworker.

"Sandra?"

Her finger swung back around to him.

"Aaaaaah!"

Julie stepped forward, batting Sandra's pointing finger away.

"Would you stop that?!"

Instead, Sandra swung around to glare at an older woman, pointing at her. She blinked in surprise.

"You said Jules' boyfriend's last name was Connor!" It was a clear accusation of misinformation.

"I thought it was!" The older woman turned to look at another couple, a man and a woman who looked an awful lot like Julie with just a few more wrinkles and grey hair. Her arm was in a sling. "You said his last name was Connor."

"Of course I did. What kind of first name is Connor?" The woman with her arm in a sling frowned at him. Julie slapped her forehead with her own palm.

"Oh my God, Mom. You set the aunties and cousins on him, and you couldn't even get the name right?" Julie groaned, shaking her head before lifting it. "And it's a pretty common first name."

Ah, shit. Those were Julie's parents. So much for a good first impression. But Sandra was Julie's cousin, apparently, so maybe she could put in a good word for him. If she wanted to. Right now, she had her hands on her hips and was glaring at him.

He looked down at her.

"Um. Hi?"

"You're dating my cousin, and you didn't tell me?!" She was five feet of total outrage, demanding his focus, which meant he couldn't pay attention to what Julie and her mom were arguing about. Not that he wanted to be part of an argument about his name. That seemed like something he could let her handle for him.

"In my defense, I didn't know until just this moment that she's your cousin. I told you I was dating a Julie." If he'd given her a last name, she wouldn't have even needed to look it up on the internet. And she might have told her mom, who would have told Julie's parents before Julie had the chance to. So, he wasn't exactly sad at how things had worked out. "You didn't think to mention you had a cousin named Julie?"

Sandra threw her hands up in the air in obvious frustration.

"We call her Jules! And Julie is a super common name! And… well, Jules never dates anyone, so why would I think she was dating you? Argh!" She stomped her foot in frustration as her husband, Terry, who Connor had met a couple of times, came up behind her. Tall with dark blond hair, he must have been inside or tucked away in a corner when Connor first came into the backyard. If he'd seen Terry, he would have realized Sandra was around somewhere.

"Hey, man, welcome to the family," Terry said cheerfully, a mischievous glint in his eye as he reached out a hand for Connor to take. They clasped hands for just a moment while Sandra elbowed her husband in the side.

"Hey, now, don't scare him off. Jules finally brought someone around. We need to keep him." She brightened. "Plus, if they do get married, we'll be related!"

"Now, who's going to scare him off?" Terry laughed, and Sandra scowled at him.

She didn't get a chance to respond, though, before Julie turned back to them, her parents beside her. The tension in her body was clear; she held herself stiffly. To Sandra's credit, she immediately moved away, saying something to Terry that had him nodding as they went.

"Connor, these are my parents, Sun and Daniel." Her smile was a little strained, but she moved back to his side so she could face her parents while holding his hand. "Mom, Dad, this is Connor."

"Hello, it's so nice to meet you," Connor said, putting his hand out. He wasn't sure who to put his hand to first, so he kind of put it toward their general direction. Julie's father took it first. He was only a little taller than Julie, so he had to tilt his head back a fair amount to look up at Connor.

"Nice to meet you, Connor," Daniel said, taking Connor's hand in a firm grip. Connor shook it before they released, and he offered his hand to Julie's mom. At his side, Julie had a death grip on his other hand.

Her mom really did look an awful lot like Julie, and he'd seen this exact look on Julie's face before. Blank, not giving away anything… which meant that she was displeased but refusing to show it.

Great.

"Nice to meet you," she said in a short, clipped voice. It didn't sound like she actually thought it was nice, so he was glad that Julie had prepared him for her parents' lack of welcome. At least he knew it wasn't personal. They'd gotten to know and love her ex-husband, welcomed him to the family, and were still struggling with letting go.

Hopefully, they'd give him enough of a chance that he could get them warmed up to him.

"Okay, well, I'm going to take Connor around and introduce him to everyone… and also go grab us a drink."

"Drinks are in the kitchen," her mom said.

"I know," Julie muttered, tugging on Connor's hand to lead him away.

He went with her, smiling at her parents as best he could, not sure of what else to do. There were an awful lot of people to meet, but he'd really wanted to make a better impression on her parents. That was hard to do if he wasn't going to be given the opportunity to talk to them. On the other hand, he also needed to be here for Julie and what she wanted. So, he let her lead him away.

Rather than introducing him to anyone, she took him straight into the back of the house, quickly closing the door behind them.

"My parents have two cats," she explained as she did so. "They like to try to escape. But you probably won't see them unless they're streaking past you out the door. They really don't like people other than my parents."

"Gotcha." He'd known cats like that. His grandmother's cat had rarely let anyone near her. Connor had eventually gotten her to come sit with him, but whether he'd be allowed to pet her was always up in the air. Sometimes, yes; sometimes, he got his hand scratched for his efforts.

It seemed as though almost everyone was in the backyard. The house was quiet and empty. The door had opened right into the kitchen, and she headed over to the coolers that lined the wall next to the fridge.

"What do you want?" she asked. "There's water, beer, wine, sodas…"

"A soda would be good," he said. At his size, he could definitely handle his alcohol, but he wasn't sure how her parents would feel about him drinking the moment he showed up. He'd rather be firing on all cylinders, anyway. "Thank you."

"No problem." As she bent over to open one of the coolers, movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned to look into the room that was connected to the kitchen. It looked like a living room with a couch and a coffee table. He didn't have a full view, so he couldn't see what else was in the room, but what surprised him—after Julie's previous statement—was that the movement had been a cat. Not just any cat, either. It was the kind of cat he'd only ever seen in pictures—totally hairless.

Awed, he was drawn toward it. He'd never known anyone who had a hairless cat. It was pale with huge blue eyes that watched him unblinkingly as he slowly moved closer. Despite Julie's claims of unfriendliness, it didn't go running or even look like it was unhappy to see him coming into its space.

Sitting on the glass coffee table, it held completely still.

"Connor?" Julie asked from behind him.

"Shh, I'm almost to him," he whispered, not wanting the cat to run. He really wanted to touch it, just to see what it felt like.

"Oh, that's Avery," she said, a little closer to him now. Obviously close enough that she could see the cat. "He's the slightly friendlier one, though I'm surprised he's out right now. Normally, when the backyard is full, they don't leave the second floor."

"Hi, Avery," Connor crooned. He was close enough now to stoop down a little and rub his finger over the cat's head. Rather than running, Avery leaned into the touch, purring. His skin was soft, softer than Connor expected, and warm. Different from fur, definitely, but the reaction from Avery was the same.

"Well, shit." Julie sounded very surprised. "He likes you."

Turning his hand, Connor kept an eye on the cat as he moved his hand down Avery's head to scratch his neck. The cat kept purring, stretching out his neck and turning his head to let Connor scratch under his chin.

"Wow. He really likes you."

Fairly certain that the cat wasn't going to suddenly attack him, Connor kept giving him scritches while he looked down at the glass table the cat was sitting on. There were several odd circular marks on it, far too small to be from a glass or cup and definitely not something that looked like it was supposed to be on the surface.

"What is that?" he asked, reaching down with his other hand to rub one of them and see if it came off.

"Don't touch that!" Julie's sudden command made him jerk back from both the coffee table and the cat.

Avery yowled indignantly as Connor pulled away. Tipping his nose in the air, the cat stood up with a faint popping sound.

What the…

It wasn't until Avery hopped down from the table, leaving behind a little circular spot on the glass—just like the one Connor had been about to rub—right where he'd been sitting that Connor started to understand. He stared at the little circle.

"They have no hair, so they get kind of… suctioned to the glass when they sit on it. I keep telling my parents to get a different kind of table, but mom likes the glass one, so she usually just cleans it twice a day…" Julie's voice trailed off, caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement.

"Thank you so much for not letting me touch it," Connor said, straightening up. He hadn't thought about that aspect of a hairless cat. Butt marks on the furniture… good grief.

Granted, he knew cats put their butts on everything—that was a running joke of most cat owners he knew—but they didn't usually leave behind such clear evidence. Most people got to be ‘out of sight, out of mind' about it.

"You're welcome," Julie grinned at him as she handed him a soda. She'd gotten herself a glass of wine. "Okay, everyone should have had enough time to talk about us and get used to the idea that I really did show up with a new boyfriend, so we can go back out there, and hopefully, it will be a little less awkward."

Ah, so that was why she'd gotten them inside the house right away. That made sense and made him feel a little better about being introduced to her parents, then immediately dragged away. It was just to let her family take a minute. If he was really lucky, Sandra had taken that time to talk him up.

"I can't believe I didn't realize you worked with Sandra," she said, as though his own thoughts of Sandra had summoned hers. "But I have so many cousins, I never remember the names of the places where they work."

"And there are a lot of physical therapy places around here," he said reassuringly. "I doubt you would have expected us to be at the same one."

"Honestly, I'm not sure I even remembered that she's a physical therapist," Julie confessed as they walked through the kitchen. "I…"

Her voice trailed off as they faced the large back window and sliding glass door. The entire yard was visible through it, and it only took Connor a moment to realize there was a newcomer to the party. Mostly because he stood out, as he was tall, white, and standing in the middle of a small circle of people, throwing his head back in jovial laughter.

"Fuck." Julie cursed.

"What?" Connor felt a sneaking suspicion in his stomach, as if something really bad was about to happen. Surely her parents wouldn't have…

"That's my ex."

Apparently, her parents had.