Capturing You

Chapter 19: Breaking Bread

     The first time I had introduced a boy to my family was also the last time. Dennis Milton had come up more than I ever wanted him to in this retelling of a fateful year between Joe and I. Perhaps it's time to really clear the air now.

     Dennis Milton was the first boy who'd ever paid me any attention — and real, romantic attention at that. It was no kindergarten crush, and he was not the sort of boy who bullied you if he liked you. He and I were in the same photography classes throughout high school and everyone had always just assumed we would end up together somehow by graduation. In a jungle of jocks and weirdos I thought he was a nice enough guy to speak with, and even for a while there thought he was cute, but his love and appreciation for photographer Ansel Adams really clouded my judgement.

     I went to prom with him at my own detriment, and we'd spent the whole night talking about him and his work and how he was going to go to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and take pretentious street photography. Well, he didn't use the word pretentious...

     It was only after the fact that I'd wasted a good four hours of my life — and $100 on that atrocious teal taffeta prom dress — that I realized he was not only not the one for me, but someone so different than who I'd conjured up in my head. I couldn't say no to his puppy-dog eyes when he'd first asked me to prom, but the more time we spent together — he was very picky about the shade of teal I wore — the more I realized he was more like a temperamental, prissy cat than anything else.

     I'd spent that prom hanging out with Micah and his date more than my own. The next day, he and Hunter and Claire and even my dad confessed that they questioned my decision to go with Dennis Milton.

     Since then, I had never really given myself much room — if any at all — to think about love. It was a luxury to me, along with many other things that came with being a young woman in her early 20s, and was among the last on my list of things to do in life. Even before Dennis Milton came along I seldom thought about other boys, save for being a fervent member of Team Jacob when Twilight was popular.

     So when I suddenly became the object of Joe's affection it knocked the wind out of me. I tried not to, but I inevitably agonized about every little thing, formulating all these thoughts inside my head only for it to go completely blank at Joe's mercy. It was a crush that turned me upside down and inside out.

    Maybe it was normal to meet each other's families before officially becoming a "thing." I'd only observed in Claire's sappy little romantic comedies that meeting each other's families was an occasion reserved for a relationship that was more serious. Families met each other all the time, though, didn't they? For all my family knew, Joe was a colleague of mine. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, I thought.

     My stomach an endless spiral of nerves, I led the way toward the kitchen, but stopped in my tracks right before we entered, thankful there was a bit of a gap before revealing the larger room. I cleared my throat and looked back at Joe, stiff. "You'd better stay here for a second."

He chuckled. "Okay, Ave." Bless him for going along with my antics; I likely looked as psychotic as my dad.

     As straight as a board, I walked into the kitchen, my family — my dad, my three cousins, and my aunt and uncle — eating their po boys like everything was hunky dory. They either would or wouldn't care about Joe as a pro football player so much as they would about the fact I was bringing him over like a love interest. I could only imagine Aunt Martha's shrill squeals now.

"There you are, Avery. Your shrimp's getting cold," Aunt Martha said.

     "Yeah, sorry, Aunt Martha. Something — somebody kinda came up," I said, chuckling nervously. I'd gotten everyone's attention with my peculiar behavior. I mustered up as casual a smile as I could as I beckoned Joe to emerge from the dark hallway and into the light of the kitchen.