by Alice Raine
The quiet room erupted into replies of ‘Yes please’, but before I’d even had a chance to get a drink in my hand I heard the front door ring.
Through the excitement I registered that the knock on the door would be Jack–I was still sleeping at his house so we’d arranged for him to pick me up from here once he’d finished work – and a sudden pang of panic shot through me. Jack was here–and so were my parents! I hadn’t even told them I was dating anyone, let alone a frigging film star who was over ten years older than me!
Given my strictly single years as spinster Cait, I suspected it was going to be quite a shock. It still surprised the hell out of me when I sat and thought about it.
Grabbing Allie’s arm, I gave her panicked look. ‘Does Jack know my parents are here?’
Allie frowned and shook her head. ‘Uhh, I don’t think so. Sean arranged the get together, I think he told Jack it was a surprise party.’
Great.
‘Bloody hell, do you think he’ll want to meet my parents?’
Allie chewed on her lip and gave a useless shrug. ‘He’s nut’s about you, I’m sure it’ll be fine.’
‘Fine’ wasn’t exactly the reassurance I’d been looking for, so my face contorted into a panicked grimace as Allie shrugged casually. ‘There’s only one way to find out, go and let him in!’
Seeing Sean head for the door, I quickly stepped across and attempted a smile. ‘I’ll get it, you keep serving the drinks,’ I stammered. Things had progressed between Jack and I pretty speedily, and our relationship was certainly intense and serious, but we’d hardly been together long. Normally the parents didn’t get involved until wedding bells were in the air.
Leaving the bustle of the lounge, I entered the long hallway and made my way towards the front door with butterflies in my stomach. At least the door didn’t open directly into the lounge, so I’d have a minute to prepare Jack, or wave him off as he ran away shrieking...
I was met by the most enormous bouquet of flowers I’d ever seen. Despite my nagging concern, I couldn’t help but grin as his head popped out from behind the flowers.
‘Hi, sweetheart. Happy birthday...again.’ He’d wished me happy birthday that morning with a scorching kiss, a beautiful pair of diamond earrings, and then a delicious quickie in the shower. ‘These are for you,’ he smiled as he handed the flowers to me.
‘Thank you, Jack. Wow, they’re stunning.’ I accepted the flowers, practically staggering under their weight as I wondered where the heck I was going to put them.
Jack went to step forwards, but I hesitated, blocking the doorway. ‘What's up?’ he asked.
‘Well, I know you’re here for the party, but I think I should warn you that we have a few unexpected guests...’
His eyebrows rose as he leant sideways on the doorframe and tucked one hand into the front pocket of his jeans like a frigging GQ model.
‘My parents.’ I gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. ‘Allie and Sean arranged it.’
‘Wow! What an amazing surprise!’ Jack looked thrilled for me.
‘Yeah, it is, but...’ I paused, not sure how to word it. I didn’t want him to feel forced into meeting them if he didn’t want to.
I watched as Jack’s face suddenly fell. ‘I get it, you don't want me to stay.’ His crestfallen expression went some way to soothing my fears.
‘Of course I want you to stay!’ I blurted, my cheeks flushing. ‘I just wasn’t sure that you would want to get involved in family stuff yet. I know meeting the parents can be a big step, so if you don’t want to then I totally understand.’
Jack’s face remained passive, but one eyebrow was quirked up. ‘How many ways can I tell you I’m here for the long haul?’ he murmured softly.
‘So, you...you would like to join us?’ I ventured tentatively.
To my relief, Jack smiled broadly and leant down to place a chaste kiss on my lips. ‘Very much so, if it’s OK with you?’
‘It’s more than OK!’ I grinned, delighted by his reaction, and jumped up to twine my arms around his neck and place a long hard kiss on his lips which was far from his chaste effort and caused Jack to growl against my mouth.
Before I could step away, I heard Sarah’s voice from down the corridor. ‘Cait, this is supposed to be your birthday party! Where are you?’
Grimacing in anticipation of Sarah’s reaction, I looked apologetically at Jack. ‘My friend Sarah flew in from the UK.’
Before I could add any more, Sarah charged down the corridor before coming to a stuttering halt. ‘Oh, sorry, I didn't realise you had someone here.’ Sarah looked at the huge bunch of flowers in my hand, and then assessed my rather cuddly proximity to the man by my side before her eyes boggled.
‘Oh, bugger! I didn't realise you had him in the hall! Sorry! I'll give you a minute.’ With that, she spun and disappeared in the direction of the lounge.
‘Just give it five seconds,’ I murmured.
‘Give what five seconds?’ asked Jack, but no sooner had he spoken than there was a communal shrieking from the lounge followed by a desperate ‘Sssshhhhhh, they'll hear you!’
‘Five seconds for Sarah to tell everyone you’re here,’ I grimaced. ‘Apart from Allie and Sean, no one knows I’m seeing anyone.’ Jack slid an arm around my shoulders, clearly at ease with the impending meeting with my nearest and dearest.
‘Sarah’s a big fan of FireLab too, so there’s no way she wouldn’t have recognised you. She’s lovely, but quite...uh ... abrasive, and she swears like a trooper. Two of my friends from the studios are here too.’
Jack smiled. ‘I’m sure I can hold my own. Are you OK with them knowing?’
‘Yes! Definitely. I want my friends and family to know, it’s just the press I want to avoid.’
‘OK, sweetheart, whenever you’re ready.’ He gestured towards the lounge, but I could tell he was referring to making our relationship public, too.
Taking a deep breath, we made our way along the corridor. I paused by a side table to lay down the flowers and stepped into the open space with Jack just behind me. As I looked around, I saw Allie and Sean grinning, Mr and Mrs Shaw smiling, and five very expectant faces staring at Jack and I.
‘See? I bloody well said it was him!’ Sarah blurted before slapping a hand over her mouth.
My mum would usually have chided Sarah for swearing, but she obviously had more important things to concentrate on, like why I was standing next to a film star and looking pretty damn cosy with him.
‘Uh, this is my mum and dad, Alison and Jeff, and you know Mel and Lisa. And this is Sarah, who you met in the hall.’ I tried to relax and throw a look of disapproval Sarah’s way, but she was oblivious, practically jigging on the spot, and merely gave a jaunty wave.
‘Everyone, this is Jack,’ I said simply, his fame rendering any further introduction unnecessary.
The entire group remained silent. In fact, the only noise was a faint ‘splat’ as the mini-quiche my mum had been eating dropped from her fingers and hit the floor.
‘Well, hello, Jack...’ my mum stammered, wiping up her quiche and turning her beady eyes on me. ‘So, Cait, how do you know each other?’ she asked. I smiled, knowing full well that if you ran this sentence through a Mum translator, this is what you’d get:
Input: How do you know each other?
Translation: Are you dating him?
I was intensely aware of the eyes staring at me and completely lost track of my thoughts under their scrutiny. I knew exactly what I wanted to say: ‘He’s my boyfriend.’ Short, concise, and to the point, but what came out instead was a load of nonsense. ‘Ummm, we...well, we’ve...I mean we’re...ummm...’
I looked desperately at Jack, who was smiling broadly, obviously amused by my reaction. Bastard.
‘You seem to be struggling, Caitlin, do you want me to help?’ he asked quietly, and I immediately nodded and gulped down a nervous swallow of champagne that Allie had shoved into my hand.
I’d expected him to ad
dress the room, but instead Jack kept his eyes on me, his voice clear and calm and a million miles away from my cracked composure.
‘What was it you said, Caitlin? “We, we’ve, and we are”? “We” met when Caitlin first arrived in L.A. “We’ve” been spending quite a lot of time together.’ This caused my mum to shove my dad in the ribs so hard that beer almost shot out of his nose. I would have laughed, but I was still quite stressed. Jack’s voice brought my eyes immediately back to his.
‘And lastly, “we are”. Well, there are several ways to finish that, so I'll let you choose–we are seeing each other, we are dating, or we are a couple, although they all pretty much mean the same thing,’ he stated with a grin so sexy that I instantly flushed.
Since we’d recently extended our relationship in the bedroom too, there were a few more ways we could finish that last sentence–we are sharing a bed, we are sleeping together, or we are having some incredibly hot sessions between the sheets–but they were way too crude to announce in front of my parents.
Judging by the heated look Jack was giving me, I suspected his mind was travelling along similar lines, but instead of saying anything he laughed and slipped an arm around my waist so we could face the barrage of questions together.
Sarah, Mel, and Lisa gave several whoops of excitement, while Allie, Sean, and her parents watched on with broad grins. My mum and dad were the funniest of the lot, because my dad just nodded his head while my mum gawked at us. Her mouth was actually hanging open like a flytrap. It was probably the most inelegant pose I’d ever seen her in.
Thankfully Sean saved the day by choosing to raise a toast to Jack and I, and to Allie’s speedy recovery, and the spotlight moved away from us as the room once again filled with easy conversation and laughter.
Over the course of the next few hours, both Sean and Jack presented themselves as the perfect boyfriends in front of our gathered friends and family. It was quite amusing just how keen they seemed to impress, and was certainly something I would be ribbing Jack about later.
Sean seemed a little tense, but Jack was the total opposite and looked completely at ease. He’d taken the time to chat to everyone, and patiently talked to my parents as Mum got herself more and more flustered with excitement.
Walking into the kitchen to get a refill of my drink, I topped my glass up and turned to find I’d been cornered by Allie and Sarah. ‘Hey, shouldn’t you be sitting down and resting those stiches?’
‘They’re fine,’ Allie dismissed with a wave of her hand. ‘I think perhaps you might have some juicy gossip for us?’
Sarah nodded her agreement and smirked. ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking! You know me, Cait, I can sniff out gossip from ten miles away, and I’m getting a big whiff right now.’ Sarah glanced over her shoulder into the lounge where Jack was talking to Sean, and then looked back to me with a gleam in her eye. ‘That’s one very handsome, not to mention very famous, boyfriend you have there,’ she added with a grin. ‘Come on, catch me up! How long have you been seeing him?’
Predictably, being the focus of their attention had caused me to blush bright red. Nonchalantly flicking my elastic bands, I shrugged. ‘A while. We were friends first, but it’s developed into more in the last few weeks.’
‘Wow. Well, I gotta say, you two look great together, and he’s obviously totally besotted with you,’ Sarah commented.
‘He is pretty special,’ I agreed with a further blush.
‘The question is, is he special enough for your very high bedroom standards? Because I have to say, you have a different look about you. I thought it at the hospital but Sean was with us so I didn’t want to ask.’ Allie raised her eyebrows and waggled them, making it crystal clear what she was referring to. Sex. God, this was so embarrassing, but they were my best mates so if they wanted the gossip, I might as well give it to them.
Giving them a knowing look, I nodded. ‘He is,’ I paused, smiling, drawing out their wait, ‘...and we have.’
‘You have?’ Sarah repeated in astonishment, gawking at me. ‘Does that mean what I think it does? That you’ve finally gone and done the deed?’
I was so red now that if I turned off the kitchen light I suspect I would illuminate the entire room, but I gave an embarrassed shrug and nodded. ‘Yeah. On Friday night.’ I could feel the heat of my blush spreading down my neck, as if so much blood was flowing to my face that it had nowhere else to go and was having to back track. ‘And Saturday, and well...everyday between then and now.’
‘Wow...You’ve gone from being a virgin to humping his brains out!’ Sarah blurted gleefully, thankfully managing to maintain a whispered tone as she congratulated me.
‘Oh my God, Cait! This is so great!’ Allie added, ‘And?’ she asked expectantly, barely containing her obvious need for the gossip.
‘And it’s great...he’s great,’ I said simply. ‘I may have waited a long time but it was worth it.’
‘I have sixteen stiches in my side, but there’s no way I’m not hugging you. Come here.’ Allie pulled me into a one-armed hug which Sarah joined and we shared a group cuddle before rejoining the party.
Fifty-two
Jack
Across the room, Caitlin giggled at something Sarah said, and the pair of them burst into raucous laughter until Caitlin was clutching at her stomach and wiping tears from her eyes.
Her happiness made my own lips curl into a smile as I watched her. She was happy and relaxed, and seemed to have put the stress of the last week behind her, even if just for tonight.
She looked gorgeous too, in a pale pink skirt that went to mid-thigh and a white blouse with short sleeves. I’d noticed she’d started to expose more skin than she used to, but when I’d questioned her she’d just shrugged and said she didn’t feel the need to hide away any more. I’d cornered Allie and asked her, and she’d said she thought it was my influence making Caitlin braver, but whatever the reason, it was amazing to see her coming out of her shell more and more.
Just as I was thinking that perhaps I should stop staring at her like a lovesick puppy, I felt someone come up beside me, and looked down to find Caitlin’s mum also gazing across the room at her daughter.
‘I can never thank you enough. You’ve brought my daughter back to me,’ she murmured, her eyes glistening. ‘When Caitlin was younger, she was so full of life. Then she met ... him. She changed, withdrew from me and her dad, and then after...’ This time her pause came with a small sob that indicated the deep pain she felt, a pain I imagine only a mother could feel. ‘Well, after things with Greg finished she was a totally different person.’
Alison sniffed, and as she wiped a stray tear away from the corner of her eye I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
‘Seeing her tonight, with you, she’s like the daughter I had before. She’s so happy, so confident again.’ Alison turned her face towards me and smiled, a full to the brim kind of smile that almost made me feel a bit teary myself. ‘Thank you, Jack. Thank you so much.’
Wow. The praise was totally undeserved. After all, all I’d done was fall in love with her daughter. The rest Caitlin had done herself.
‘Caitlin means the absolute world to me, Mrs Byrne. I’m in this for the long term. Please know I will never, ever hurt her, or allow anyone else to.’ I watched her chin wobble as more tears threatened, but then she gathered her control and nodded with a huge smile.
‘I can see that.’ She stared me directly in the eyes and the trust I saw there was quite overwhelming. ‘She told me how you saved her from ... him ...’ She spat it out with the same level of hatred I held.
‘I’m just glad I got there in time.’ In truth, I wish I’d got there sooner. A shudder wracked through my body as I clenched my teeth. I wished with all my heart that I could have been ten minutes earlier and prevented Caitlin from having to experience that horrific nightmare for the second time.
My body was thrumming with energy, but surprisingly I felt the hatred I had for Greg completely surpass
ed by my love for Caitlin.
Alison clicked her tongue in the dismissive way that only a mother can, and shook her head. ‘You downplay your part, Jack. You’re a good man, and you saved her that day, and Allie too.’
Alison excused herself, saying she needed to sort out her make-up, and I decided it was time to get some contact with my girl. It had been far too long since I’d felt her skin against mine.
Fifty-three
Sean
Gradually our happy group of visitors moved around the table in preparation for the Mexican meal I’d ordered from a caterer. It looked delicious: chilli con carne, nachos topped with melted cheese and jalapeños, black beans, and a stack of spicy chicken tacos, but I was too nervous to think about eating.
I was hungry, but there was no way I could focus on food yet, not when we still had our big announcement to make.
Out of our gathered group, two people now knew of our engagement: Allie, and her dad Simon. We hadn’t even told Cait, because I’d wanted to be a bit traditional and speak to Allie’s parents first. I’d pulled Simon to one side earlier and asked his permission to wed his daughter, and I’m not kidding when I say it was the most shit-scared I’d ever been in my entire life. Admittedly it was a bit belated seeing as I’d already asked Allie, but thankfully he seemed to appreciate the sentiment, and after giving me a brief ‘she’s my little girl and you better take care of her speech’ he had said yes.
Thank fuck for that.
Once everyone was seated, I stood up and picked up my bottle of beer. I’d already discussed with Allie what to say , and we’d decided that the Greg incident shouldn’t be mentioned any more–it had been horrific for all involved and would need to be raised again in the future, but for tonight, mentioning it would only put a dampener on everyone’s mood.
‘It’s time for a toast. Firstly, Cait, happy birthday. Let’s all raise a glass.’
After a pretty tuneless rendition of happy birthday, we all toasted Cait, who was now blushing as red as a tomato, and when everyone took their seats again I remained standing. ‘Actually, I have one more announcement to make.’ Looking down at Allie sitting next to me, I found her grinning at me expectantly, her eyes glowing with happiness.
