Irresistible ► Xavier Woods

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jessie and Austin sat in his car, which was parked in the driveway of her parents' house. It was the same one she'd grown up in, but she hadn't lived there in so many years that it no longer felt like hers.

She was nervous. She was about to bring her boyfriend inside to meet her parents and her brother. She knew her parents didn't know who he was -- they had mentioned in passing that they might check out an episode of Monday Night Raw so they could see who Austin was, but she doubted that they actually had. 

Her brother, though...

Her dad might have been the reason she started watching wrestling, but Patrick was the reason she still did. Jessie and her dad watched it together up until the height of the Attitude Era, when he decided it was no longer something he was interested in. Patrick, though, loved it, so he and Jessie watched it together every week and would watch all the pay-per-views together, up until he left for college.

Even now, many of their text conversations were over the latest wrestling news.

So he definitely knew who Austin was. He was Xavier Woods, but more importantly, he was his sister's boyfriend. And he was a lawyer, so he definitely knew how to question people.

She was nervous for Austin.

But she was also nervous for herself, for a whole different reason.

She took a deep breath, looked away from the house and over at Austin, who had his eyes on her.

He gave her a small smile. "You ready?"

"Yeah." She nodded.

The two of them got out of the car.

"I feel like you're more nervous than I am," he pointed out, "and I'm the one meeting all these new people for the first time."

"I know." She sighed. "It's just -- "

The front door opened, and a voice said, "Oh, you're here!"

The two of them looked ahead to see Jessie's mom, Cindy, standing in the doorway. She had a big grin on her face. Her short, curly black hair looked perfect on this special day. Jessie was just slightly taller than her, but she didn't really have to look down to see her.

Jessie smiled back, her nerves temporarily forgotten. "Hi, Mom!"

She walked toward them now, and she wrapped Jessie in a hug. "Hi, sweetie." When she straightened up, she looked over at Austin. "And you must be this boy she's been telling us about."

"Mom, he's not a boy."

"What am I, then?" Austin asked, chuckling.

"A man," she answered, almost bringing up how a boy wouldn't have biceps like his, but she kept that to herself.

She could tell he was trying not to roll his eyes at her, but he smiled and looked at her mom. "I'm Austin, it's nice to meet you."

"Hi Austin, I'm Cindy," she said. "You guys come on inside, I know the guys are dying to meet you."

"Let us grab our presents, then we'll meet you inside," Jessie told her mom.

As her mom walked back inside, Jessie looked up at Austin and said, "One person down, two more to go."

"Your mom is sweet, I like her," he said.

"She's not the one I'm worried about." She shut the trunk.

The two of them each held a box of Christmas presents, each wrapped in an assortment of metallic red, green, or gold wrapping paper, as well as one that was in a red bag. They walked inside, and were immediately greeted by the scent of so many things cooking -- ham, sweet potatoes, apple pie. It definitely smelled like Christmas in the Collins house.