I grinned and hopped out of the car. Viktor followed me as André pulled away. I had no idea what Viktor had told him, but at this point, it didn’t matter. We walked up the steps to the house and I dug out the key Quinn had given me a couple of days ago. He’d made me promise not to leave the house but he thought since this was now my home, I should have a key. I’d jumped on him and planted kisses all over his face which I think surprised him, but then again, I seemed to keep Quinn on his toes a lot.
I let us in the house and took my coat off, hanging it up in the hall cupboard along with Viktor’s. I wasn’t sure where the boys would be so I walked towards the living room first. Upon entering I was met with quite the scene. Quinn was squished between Eric and Xav with Rory sitting on one of the armchairs watching them with amusement in his eyes. They all turned their heads to look at me as Viktor walked in behind.
Quinn, Xav and Eric sprung apart abruptly, with Quinn scowling at the two of them.
“Are we interrupting something?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow up.
I couldn’t imagine Quinn ever instigating a hug from Xav or Eric so they’d probably been winding him up.
“No,” Quinn ground out. “You’re back. I thought I was picking you up.”
So he didn’t want to address the elephant in the room. I couldn’t blame him considering I’d arrived unannounced with my dad on my heels. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to invite him in.
“A change of plans… and I, um, invited Viktor to stay for dinner.”
The four of them looked stunned for all of five seconds before Quinn stepped forward. I thought he might actually tear me from the room and discipline me for daring to invite Viktor into our house without informing him.
“That’s… fine.”
I could tell by the way his jaw ticked it wasn’t. No, he was pissed as hell. I almost shrunk back but it wouldn’t do to show Viktor the kind of relationship we had behind closed doors. So, I decided to ignore the growing tension in the room.
“So, this is Viktor… and this is Rory, Xavier, who goes by Xav, and Eric… of course, you’ve met Quinn.”
I indicated each of them in turn. Eric was the first to come around the sofa and shake Viktor’s hand followed by Xav, murmuring it was nice to meet him. Quinn hung back and Rory stayed where he was. I leant towards Viktor when Xav and Eric stepped away and lowered my voice, “Rory has issues with human contact so please don’t think he’s being rude.”
“I understand, kotik,” he murmured back.
I fidgeted because introducing him to my boyfriends was a weird experience, to say the least, especially since I hadn’t explicitly told him the truth.
“I’ll just go put dinner on,” Eric said with a glance between the two of us.
“I’ll help,” Xav piped up and the two of them disappeared together, both giving me raised eyebrows as they left. Okay, yes, I should’ve texted Quinn. I realised that now. Maybe I wouldn’t have caught them at an awkward moment if I had.
I gave Quinn a significant look. Regardless of whether he was pissed off with me or not, Viktor was here now and he needed to deal with it.
“Would you like to take a seat? And can I offer you something to drink?” Quinn said, putting his hand out to the sofa and armchairs.
“A vodka straight if you have it,” Viktor replied as he walked further into the room.
I followed him over to the sofa, but not before I passed by Rory and laid a hand on his where it was resting on the arm of his chair for the briefest of moments. He gave me a smile which set my heart on fire.
Quinn disappeared to fetch Viktor a drink and I sat down next to him on the sofa. This was going to be one hell of an awkward evening at this rate, but no part of me regretted inviting my dad in. No matter the consequences I’d surely face from Quinn, I wanted to use this opportunity to get to know Viktor better. And to deal with the Isabella and Frank situation head on. Whether they liked it or not, Viktor was involved in my life and by extension theirs. So Quinn would have to suck it up. One way or another, we needed Viktor’s help if we were ever going to destroy Frank. I was pretty sure if we kept him out of the loop now I knew Frank was banding together the other families, it would be a grave error on our part.
So tonight would be about forging ahead with my relationship with my dad and creating a new alliance between the boys and him. I hoped it wouldn’t all fall apart before it’d even begun.
Chapter 12
I had absolutely no idea what the hell to serve the father of my girlfriend. Honestly, I hadn’t really done the whole ‘meet the parents’ thing with any other relationship I’d had. With Ash, I’d now met all three, even if we wanted to destroy one of them. That was beside the point.
“Well, this is entirely awkward as fuck,” Xav said as he leant up against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest.
“No shit.”
I thought Quinn was going to kill us when we’d hugged him and it was even worse when Ash and Viktor had turned up. I was surprised he hadn’t completely lost it and stormed out. Then again, Quinn was pretty good under pressure. I couldn’t help wondering what Ash was thinking, inviting him home with her without telling any of us. And no one had a chance to ask her how her meeting with Isabella had gone yet.
Quinn stomped
