Drinks 'n Dares

Meeting The Parents...Dear God Help Me (Part 1)

Chapter Sixteen – Meeting The Parents...Dear God Help Me (Part 1)

Claire's POV

There's a moment you get, when you first wake up when you can't remember where you are. The bed feels strange, the light is different. Things aren't where they're supposed to be and you feel confused, out of place. Then that moment passes and you wonder how you didn't recognise your surroundings at once. Waking in my old bedroom was like that. Instead of the small lumpy bed my flat was equipped with I awoke to find myself sleeping in my small but cosy bed, in my small but cosy room. The walls were a faded yellow and covered with photos, posters and certificates stuck on with blue tack. The light filtered in through thin curtains and made me wonder what time it was. Certainly time to be getting up. I wasn't on city time anymore, I was on farm time. And on farm time it meant you got up early to do what needed getting done. So with a sigh I dragged myself out of bed and set about getting ready.

I had stayed in my old room off and on over the last, almost ten, years whenever I came to stay and I always experienced the same sense of the familiar, yet strange. After all, I was eighteen no longer. I wasn't the girl who stayed up late reading romances and had to get up early to help feed out. I wasn't fighting for the bathroom with my brothers and trying to skimp out on my chores. No longer was I the girl who had to don a uniform and chase the school bus. I was always late back then. I thought for a moment. Yeah, the last part hadn't really changed. But otherwise I was now for all intents and purposes an independent twenty-seven year old with a cat, a flat and a crappy job. Oh. And I was engaged now too.

Shaking my head, I gathered my toiletries and bathrobe and escaped to the bathroom. There I had a nice long shower, thankfully much better than the bath/shower at my flat. Then I peeked my head around the door. No one about. I poked my nose into Aden and Brett's room. Back when we were kids Brett and I, being the youngest had shared a room and Collin and Aden had shared another. Then mum and dad had a clean out and the spare room full of junk became another bedroom. As the youngest of four Brett and I shared a special bond (though I was close to all of my siblings) but even that didn't make us want to share a room together. Especially when we were getting towards being teenagers. But despite our protests Aden got the room for the last six months before he went off to Uni. I guess our parents wanted to give him a brief experience of having his own space before he left home. But once he was gone it became Brett's property. And every time the two of them were home at the same time world war three began over whose room it really was. Most of the time Aden won because he had more mature arguments and Brett stayed in the spare bed in Collin's room. Brett did get his share of course, because mum wouldn't abide Aden getting it all the time. At the present moment however, there seemed to be no one in. The king size bed was unmade (it had been my parents old bed). I wondered how Aden and Brett had dealt with sharing it. Not well I was guessing.

Like a sneaking Goldilocks I moved onto Collin's room. After a brief tap I peeked inside. Collin's bed was neatly made but unoccupied. Jon's however was full of, well, Jon. He was sprawled on his front, one arm dangling off the bed and a foot peeping out of the duvet. He had a slight furrow to his frown even when he was asleep, I noticed. Poor Jon. Even though I wasn't quite sure if I was still mad at him I couldn't help admitting he was cute. Especially seeing as he was shirtless. But he really did work too hard, I decided. Sure I was a still a bit of an early riser; I was born on a farm. But Jon just looked pooped. Hopefully this weekend away would be physically refreshing even if it was emotionally draining.

I leaned against the doorway heavily. I really did need a moment to sort out my feelings for him. On the one hand he was a pain in the ass; he had already proved himself to be a bit of a snob and of having a habit of saying horrid things when he was mad. But I also knew him to be a regular gentleman eighty-seven percent of the time. He was charming and he was funny and – and – he looked so cute lying sprawled in his bed. He'd been polite to my mother as well, despite the late hour and that he hadn't been all that pleased with me at the time. We'd been civil on the drive as well. It was mostly just our argument from the other day that was hanging over us. That and the fact that we were 'engaged.' But was that really all it was? If Jon and I had met under normal circumstances would we have had a great start to an okay friendship? Or would we be fighting just as much as we were now, just for different reasons? We probably wouldn't have bothered to get to know each other, I though sourly. Without anything to bind us together we probably wouldn't have spared each other a second glance. But now one thing was for certain.