I pull Declan into the living room, and we’re met with my family’s wide-eyed, sheepish faces and silence because my mom made my dad pause Love Actually again. So all I can hear is the beating of my very confused heart and the train set that’s going around my aunt’s fake Christmas tree.
“Hi there,” Declan says, surveying the room. “I like that raccoon. I have a scarf just like his.”
Twenty-Eight
Declan
HAVE YOURSELF A STATEN ISLAND FERRY CHRISTMAS
It took Hannah three months to convince me to go home with her to meet her parents on Thanksgiving back when we were in college. At that point, we’d been dating for almost a year. Granted, I was nineteen and a total shit, but it felt like a really big deal, and it was. We had our first real relationship-y fights about it. She wanted to meet my family too. I also met that request with all of the resistance of a nineteen-year-old total shit. But we did finally do the family holiday thing. That made the relationship feel more real to me. I felt more like a grown-up. All it really was, was the first time Hannah had met Brady. I thought it was the beginning of something, and it was. Not for me but for them.
It took three days, six lonely hours at the office, four fingers of whiskey, and a text from a thirteen-year-old to convince me to come meet Maddie’s family. And while it may be significant for a thirty-two-year-old semi-shit to do this, I think that I would do anything for Maddie right now if she asked me to. And that would have been true even after only two fingers of whiskey.
I mean, I’m the king of gift-giving, and I got her parents a fucking New York City snow globe. As an inside joke between Maddie and me. I look like an ass. But I don’t care because Maddie gets the joke. I was not, however, expecting Maddie’s Aunt Mel to be so excited about the creepy Nutcracker doll that I got for half off. There must be a bare three-inch square space of surface somewhere in this house that she’s been saving for something just like it.
“Oh get out of here, mistah! Hello—did you read my mind?” she says, giving my shoulder a shove. “Mistah Readin’ My Mind over here gets me a Nutcrackah doll after I’m thinkin’ for a month—you know what this place needs? A Nutcrackah doll! This is goin’ somewhere special, but I’m puttin’ it here on the table for now, arright? You hungry, hon? I’m gonna fix you a plate. I’ll get you a plate of everythin’. It’ll be reheated, nothin’ fancy. Just whatevah.”
“Yeah whatever. That’d be great, thanks.”
“Okay, hon, make yourself comfortable, sit. Eh, Joe!” she yells out to Maddie’s father who is six feet away. “Joe, let our guest sit by you there, on the good sofa.” She waves at him to make room for me while pushing me toward him.
So I guess I’m sitting next to Mr. Cooper on the good sofa, instead of standing behind the armchair next to Maddie. She looks so wholesome in her big chunky sweater and those tight black things—leggings, I think my sister called them—and she seems so nervous. I want to stick my hands up that sweater, pull those leggings down, and help her relax a little. Or a lot. But maybe not in front of her family.
“Have a seat—Declan, is it?”
“Declan, yes.” It really is a good sofa, but because Maddie’s brother-in-law and sister are also sitting on it, I have to nestle into the corner, uncomfortably close to Joe Cooper. We’re basically rubbing up against each other on one side.
Colin Firth is paused on a massive screen, and it looks like he’s about to sneeze.
“You seen this movie before? Love Actually? It’s British. A classic British romantic comedy film.”
“I’ve seen parts of it, whenever it’s on TV.”
“Parts of it, huh? Interesting. Too busy working to watch entire movies?”
“To be honest, yeah. I was. But I’m trying to make some changes in my life now.”
I’m not even going to think about what it means that I’m saying this shit to get Maddie’s dad to like me within minutes of meeting him.
“Yeah? By pretending to be my daughter’s boyfriend?”
“Well…”
“I’m just fucking with you. That sounds like a perfectly normal thing to do.” He gives me a reassuring wink.
“Really?”
“No. It’s messed up. But you must have your reasons. And you didn’t come to Christmas dinner wearing cargo shorts and knee socks, so I guess I’d rather she pretended to be your girlfriend than have her actually date more of those losers with the bad socks.”
“Dad!” Maddie rubs her temples. “That was senior year of high school!”
“Nothing worse than bad socks.” I casually lift up the cuffs of my pants so he can see the Italian-made socks Nonna gave me this year.
He pats me on the shoulder. “Good socks.” Then he aims the remote at the TV and un-pauses the movie. “Watch the movie. This is my favorite part.”
So I watch the last half of Love Actually with Maddie’s family and eat a reheated mash-up of like nine different kinds of food that I never get to eat at Christmas, and it’s all good, and I love it. I love it so much that I barely even think about how hard it will suck when I inevitably screw this up.
* * *
It’s not until the cab drops Maddie and me off outside the Staten Island Ferry terminal that I finally say to her, “So when you said you told your family ‘everything’ about us, you meant…”
“The faking thing. Not the sex.”
“Got it.” I put my arm around her waist and bring her in closer to me because it’s freezing and because I’ve been in a room with her and her family for two hours, and I just need to touch her. Even if it’s over
