As soon as my butt hit the chair, my grandmother zeroed in on Jackson. She didn’t wait for an introduction. “So Jackson. You’re the first boy our Loren has ever brought home.”
I wouldn’t exactly call Jackson a boy, even if I were eighty years old like my grandmother.
Jackson seemed to be struggling not to laugh. But I knew him well enough by now that I was certain he wouldn’t do anything that would be disrespectful to my grandmother. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
“All these years we’ve been waiting, and she’s refused to even talk about a boy. Now, she brings home an Army Ranger. I have to say we’re all a little giddy. We thought she’d be single forever.”
And what would be wrong with that? Not a damn thing. But I’d made my case to them plenty of times. For now, I was going to revel in watching Jackson’s uncomfortable squirm while he tried to placate my grandmother.
“Yes, ma’am,” was all Jackson said, which seemed to satisfy my grandmother, who was far from done with this line of questioning.
“So tell us. How did she manage to snag you? You weren’t on one of those dating applications were you?” my grandmother asked.
Jackson wiped his mouth with the cream-colored napkin. I could tell he was stalling.
I tried to take over and put him out of his misery, but my grandfather shushed me. “We want to hear from your young man,” he said.
Oh Lord. Jackson was never going to forgive me for this dinner. And I didn’t blame him. I looked around to see almost everyone at the table was now listening to our conversation.
Jackson set his jaw, and I stifled a grin. It was obvious he’d prefer to chase a criminal than have this conversation with my family, but then he rallied, and a big smile broke over his handsome face. “No ma’am. I don’t have a dating app. The way we met was a little old fashioned, actually.”
Now my mother was actively listening and gestured with her hand for him to go on.
He cleared his throat. “So I was just home from a deployment, and I knew I wanted to come to Alaska for my leave time. My grandfather’s always had a cabin here. So I went straight to the Atlanta airport, and in the security line, a woman with a red ponytail was standing right in front of me.”
All of my family had stopped eating the braised lamb dish now, and were openly listening to Jackson.
“Those airports are full of germs. We tried to get her to fly up with us,” my aunt muttered.
My grandmother smacked her with a napkin. “Be quiet. We want to hear.”
“Well I don’t usually strike up conversations with strangers in airports, but Loren turned around and smiled at me, and we started talking.”
“Did you sit next to each other on the plane?” one of my cousins asked.
She’d have no idea how the seating worked, because like me, she’d always flown on a private jet.
“We did,” Jackson said. “All the way to Seattle, and then all the way to Anchorage.”
“It’s just like a romance story for a movie!” my cousin declared.
Of course Jackson ended the story at the appropriate place, insinuating that we’d come straight to the hotel to hang out. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer. It wouldn't be a family event if I didn’t take things too far. “And then we went camping.”
My grandfather frowned at me. “You went camping with a man you’d just met? Without your security. Loren, I hardly think that’s --”
“Grandfather, I saw his military ID. I knew Jackson was really a Ranger.”
My grandfather’s face smoothed over. Throw in a few titles, and everyone in my family was so impressed they forgot about everything else. “Thank you for your service young man,” he said to Jackson.
As Jackson was replying to him, my grandmother stood up with her wine glass in hand.
Oh God. I was tempted to get under the table. I knew what was coming.
“Hello everyone.” My grandmother actually tapped her glass with a knife to make a ringing sound. “We’re here to celebrate Marie and Douglas’s upcoming union, but I’d also like to celebrate our Loren, who has brought her boyfriend, Sergeant Jackson Williams, to meet us for the first time.”
Jackson gave a dignified nod, and I waved at everyone. If I was going to have a fake boyfriend, I might as well play it up for our audience, who were clearly happy to participate.
A quick glance at the head table showed my cousin with a mutinous look on her face while she watched. She wouldn’t appreciate the attention being pulled from her. Douglas didn’t seem to mind. He was looking down at his phone, which he’d attempted to hide in the burlap runner on the table, but it was obvious he was reading something on a screen, which wasn’t very good behavior at his own wedding rehearsal dinner.
Now my cousin turned her glare toward Douglas. I couldn’t really read lips, but her intent wasn’t hard to read when she stabbed her finger at his phone with her mouth set in a hard line. He looked up at her and smiled, but seemed to brush her off her request, going back to reading whatever was on his phone screen.
She leaned back and crossed her arms. Poor guy. He was a saint to put up with Marie. I’d been on the receiving end of Marie’s tantrums for twenty years, and tomorrow he was about to sign up for a lifetime of fits, pouts, and silent treatments from her.
My attention was pulled back to my grandmother, who’d finished her speech. Then my military uncles came over to introduce themselves, and Jackson stood and chatted with them for a few minutes.
Once he was seated again, I grabbed my chair and inched it closer to Jackson’s, and I laid my head on his shoulder for proper dramatic effect. At the sight of my head on his shoulder, the entire table made noises of delight, and a few relatives even took out their phones and snapped a picture.
“Glad I can be a sideshow attraction,” I muttered under my breath so only Jackson could hear me. “They’re all thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s Loren, who’s never had a boyfriend. So shocking we have to document it!’”
Jackson turned his head and talked out of the corner of his mouth. “This was your idea, not mine.”
Once my family’s interest in us had faded, I sat up and faced him. “Oh I know. And it’s going perfectly. It’s just annoying how absolutely predictable they are.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you again. This is the most fun I’ve ever had at a family dinner, mainly because I don’t have to dodge the ‘oh you poor thing, you're still single kind of conversations.’” I put my face close to his again. “Now I’m ready to get out of here and make good on my promise from earlier.”
The heated look he sent me, right there in the middle of a family dinner under the Alaskan sky, sent a rush of arousal straight to my core.
I could not wait to get him upstairs.
Jackson draped his tie over the armchair. “That was the longest four hours of my life,” he said.
I reached my arm behind my neck to try and unzip my dress. “Regretting this already?”
He grabbed my hand. “Let me do that.” He gathered my hair into a knot and kissed the back of my neck. “No, I do not regret this at all. When I found that perp in the woods, I was really fucking glad I came here, even if it’s awkward as hell being around your family.”