Don't Catch Me!

Chapter 31 - Reunion

Chapter 31 - Reunion

Our uninvited guests waited in the hall while I threw some clothes on and flattened my hair.  Joel paced nervously. 

“Cissy, I there is so much I need to tell you.  I don’t want you hearing it like this.”

“Yeah, like the fact my Father is alive here!  Exactly when were you going to get around to telling me about that Joel?” 

“Please don’t.  There was so much to tell you.   I just didn’t want to hit you with it all at once.”  His feet shuffled as he stood there still shirtless in his jeans. 

Now dressed, I walked to the door and paused with my hand on the door knob, “Well it’s a little late for that now, isn’t it.”  I was angry.  What else was he keeping from me?

I opened the door and smiled shyly, still embarrassed by the first impression I had made on these people.  “I am sorry, please come in.”

They filed in all looking at me warily.  My Father and Mother looked like the wanted to hug me but were afraid to.  They just smiled nervously.   My father jaw clenched when he saw Joel still standing there with his chest bare.

I turned to find another couple pushing into the doorway, “Sorry we are late Joel.  Did we miss the surprise?”

“Oh yeah mum, you missed the surprise,” the sixteen year old boy who they referred to as Jasper smirked as he stared straight at me.  His parents turned and his mother shrieked and turned quite pale.  His Father just looked backwards and forth between Joel and I.

“Come in, we might as well get this all over and done with.” Joel huffed as he pulled on a t-shirt.

“Hello, do you remember us?”  His father looked at me uncertain.

“Dad, she has never met you,” Joel muttered while dropping backwards to lean against the wall looking at his feet.

I looked at his Father and Mother, they had the same eyes as Joel and he looked a lot like his father.

“Ohh, OK, well Fran, I am Jake and this is Joanna, we are Joel’s parents,” he was very uncomfortable.  I offered my hand to him and he looked at it for a long time before shaking it quickly. 

“These are our boys.  Jonty, Jasper, Jon and, yes well you know Joel,” his mother blushed.

“Yeah, she knows Joel very, very...” Jasper was interrupted with a clip to the back of the head from Joel.

Jonty smiled shyly at me but looked at me with wide disbelieving eyes, he was the youngest.  Jon was the only one who glared at me and he would have been a couple of years older than Joel. Of course I had heard of them through Joel’s stories but meeting them and finding them to all resemble Joel in good looks was a little unnerving.

I shut the door and leaned against it for a minute while I looked at the gathering.  Well this was going to be fun. The nine of us all crammed in Joel’s tiny studio apartment.  No one quite knew where to look.  The mothers quickly set about cleaning up the cake mess while, because there wasn’t enough chairs, the boys dived on the bed.  Joel and his father simultaneously growled as Jasper muttered something rude about the state of the sheets, as he bounced on the mattress.

I went and stood next to the sulking Joel who looked surprised when I offered him my hand.  He smiled at me and instead wrapped an arm around me and gently moved some hair from my face. 

“Cissy this is going to be difficult.  I wanted to do it slowly but it is not in my hands any more.  I am sorry,” he whispered softly to me while the rest of the family were settling.