The Arrival of You

by Cranford, B.

“Aaaaaand something is happening over there that’s making me a little nervous.” Drawing out the first word, Lucas shifted, his big, perfect, naked . . . mmm, perfectly naked . . . body distracting me from my spiraling thoughts.

  “We had sex.”

  “More than once.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “Good—no, great sex.”

  I nodded, blinking hard to try to fight that knot of anxiety that had moved on from family dinner nerves to “I fucked a stranger” nerves.

  “Bianca? Breathe.” Lucas reached out a hand toward me, then pulled it back as if he was worried about my reaction to him touching me. “Hey, you’re okay.”

  I nodded again, grabbing his hand before he settled back against his side and gripping it tightly. “I’ve just never—this isn’t—I was married.”

  His smile was small and understanding, and I felt encouraged to keep talking. Like maybe I could tell him why I was freaking out instead of playing it off.

  The fact that doing that was an option—and that it felt like the most natural thing in the world—both added to and eased my worry. “I’ve never done, I mean, had a one-night stand. I’m not like that. Not that there’s anything wrong with being like that. But it’s not me, you know?”

  “Yes. But who’s to say this is a one-night stand?”

  A good question. One I didn’t actually know the answer to. “Ugh, well.”

  “Right, so, let’s not panic.”

  “We’re not panicking. I am panicking.” The absurdity of those words hit me at the same time as Lucas, and we laughed. Together. Our bodies rolled a little closer, our joined hands rising up between us—because of me, or him?—to rest between our sheet-covered chests.

  “I didn’t want to tell you not to panic. Or calm down.” He cringed. “I’ve made that mistake more than once. Don’t need to relive it.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t. But this worked,” I added, feeling my laughter ebb away, leaving my chest feeling lighter and mostly knot-free. “Thank you.”

  “No worries. You have to know, though”—he lifted our hands and turned them just enough that he could press a kiss to the back of mine—“I don’t see this as a one-night stand.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “But I’m leaving. I’m not staying.”

  “I know what leaving means, pretty girl. But that’s no reason not to see what happens. To give this”—he gestured with our hands between us—“a chance. You’re not leaving today, are you?”

  Shaking my head, I thought about my loose plans. Plans that were, in fact, so loose they barely existed. I wasn’t leaving that day. I didn’t know when exactly I was leaving, only that I was.

  “So, we take each day as it comes.” He let go of my hand, lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “And when you do leave, there’s nothing stopping us from still talking, right? Especially if you get that fine arse out of my bed and ready to go to my parents’ place by way of the newsagency.”

  It seemed simple enough. Only time would tell if it was.

  “Just give it some thought, okay?”

  “Taking each day as it comes?” I asked, a little bewildered, a little uncertain.

  “Taking a chance.”

  Rolling away from him, I pulled the sheet intentionally, letting it slide over his body, and uncovered the goods below.

  And holy hell, the goods were GOOD. All caps. His ab muscles were defined, his thighs thick—but not too thick—and his cock? Umm, yeah, it was glorious.

  I’m talking “Praise Jesus and the Heavens Above” levels of wonder.

  “I sure hope that look on your face means you like what you’re seeing.”

  Just like that, I was back on the airplane, marveling at the man who’d sat beside me after knocking the wind and the words right out of me with his looks alone.

  “I sure hope you liked what you saw when you were checking me out just now.”

  He’d totally caught me checking him out and had been brazen in calling me out about it. And I’d liked it.

  The reminder of that moment—the ease with which we’d connected on the plane—cast the last of the lingering doubt out, replacing it with a hunger that should have been sated by the sexy times we’d already had together.

  Except it wasn’t.

  “I want you again.” My eyes widened as I realized just how completely forward I was being but as quickly as the shock of it hit me, it dropped away.

  Nothing wrong with saying what I wanted. Being honest and open and, like Lucas on that plane, brazen about it. Not when the way Lucas looked at me told me he felt the exact same way.

  “See,” he said, flexing his stomach muscles as he sat up, a movement that drew my attention because wow. That’s all. Just wow. “I told you it wasn’t just a one-night stand.”

  * * *

  Lucas’s parents’ house looked much the same as his own—similar brickwork on the front, same line of plants along the drive, same overwhelming feeling of home about it. He pulled up in front of it, parking the car out on the street and switching it off before turning to face me. “You ready?”

  “If I say no?” I asked, half-serious.

  “Too bad, Mum’s already at the door.” He shrugged, then popped open his door, leaving me to take a couple of deep breaths before I, too, climbed out.

  You’ll be fine, I told myself. It wasn’t like this was a “meet the parents because we’re in a relationship” dinner. It was an “I gave your son a blow job on the flight over here even though we’d just met” dinner and that was a much more relaxed kind of environment.

  Right?!

  I held a bottle of red wine, something we’d grabbed from the “bottle-o” beside the newsagency. Turns out, Australians don’t really sell alcohol in grocery stores, and they don’t have ABC stores either. My grip on the neck of the bottle tightened as I followed Lucas up the front path and toward the short, smiling woman waiting for us.

  “Baby boy.” Her smile—amazingly—got even wider and she opened her arms for a hug that ended with her feet dangling off the ground. Lucas had actually picked his mother up, their height discrepancy so big.

  “Hi, Mum.” He lowered her gently to the ground and released her, stepping back so he was beside me. “This is Bianca. We met on the plane.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Riley,” I said, grateful I remembered that Lucas and his mom had different last names. I held out the wine and smiled, trying to shove my nerves down so that she wouldn’t see them.

  “Bianca, it’s great to meet you, darling.” She opened her arms instead of taking the wine and I darted a quick look over at Lucas only to see him give me a small nod. I accepted his mother’s hug but felt awkward, like a pretender. Also, a little bit like she’d know I’d been corrupting her son—or that he’d been corrupting me—since we’d first met. Not even twenty-four hours earlier.

  “Thank you for letting me crash Lucas’ homecoming,” I said, wondering not for the first time if maybe she and her husband were annoyed to have an interloper in what was apparently their first family dinner in years.

  I knew that because Lucas had not only told me on the plane that Rose had been away for two years, working for a non-profit in North Carolina, but also because he’d mentioned it when we were perusing the wine selection.

  “I can’t believe it’s been more than two years since we were all in one place.”

  Setting the bottle of Shiraz back on the shelf, I turned toward Lucas. “Huh?”

  “It just occurred to me that this’ll be the first time me, Rose, and Mum and Dad will have been together for more than two years.”

  Oh, God. My anxiety knot returned full force when it occurred to me what that meant—I was going to be the stranger intruding on their family moment. His parents would probably hate me. Cast me out. Feed me only leftovers that weren’t even good enough for the dog.

  Do they have a dog? I hoped they did, because if they did, ole Rover and I could hang out in the backyard while they did their f
amily thing, and then I could join Lucas back at his place only long enough to grab my suitcases and beg the hostel to reinstate my booking.

  Panic rising—again, I really needed to get myself under control—I drew in a deep breath to tell Lucas me coming with him was a big mistake when he smiled at me. “I can’t wait for you to meet them.”

  I settled with his smile, his unhidden happiness at being home and being close to family giving me something to hold on to. He’d invited me. Hell, even Rose had mentioned it so it wasn’t like I wasn’t wanted. “I’m excited too.”

  Though I returned his smile and the sentiment, it was obvious he recognized my doubt. “You’re not, but I promise, they’ll love you. And be happy you’re there.”

  “I don’t want to be in the way,” I confessed.

  “You won’t be.”

  “I’m not always . . . welcome.” It was a hard truth, and one that a lot of people didn’t know touched my day-to-day life. The first time I’d met Mason’s family, one of his brothers had asked him where he’d “found a black girl at his college,” and honestly, that wasn’t even close to the worst thing I’d encountered.

  “You will be here.” He cupped my cheek with a warm palm and leaned down to give me a kiss. For once, it didn’t turn electric—not because the feeling wasn’t there, but because he meant it to calm my already-ragged nerves.

  It worked. Sort of. “Still nervous.”

  “That’s okay. You’ll see.” He said it with such confidence, that I couldn’t help but believe him.

  “Crashing? Please, if you weren’t here, we’d probably have nothing to talk about.”

  I laughed, recognizing the joke for what it was and grateful that she’d made me feel at ease. I held the wine out again, since she’d forgone taking it and went for a hug instead. “Here, we got you wine. Lucas got you wine. I picked up about eight or nine bottles and set them back down because I know nothing about wine.”

  Mrs. Riley gave a gentle, musical laugh and took the bottle. “That’s how I shop for wine with James. My husband,” she added.

  Lucas nudged me with his side. “This one kept turning the bottles around and staring at the labels. It was pretty cute actually.”

  My cheeks flooded with heat, though I knew I didn’t actually have anything to be embarrassed about. “I’d never seen them before,” I defended. “It was confusing.”

  “So, you’re a wine expert back home? A sommelier?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Then sorry, pretty girl, you don’t get to claim the foreigner card here.”

  I gaped at him, holding my arms up to be like, dude, how dare you?! But Lucas didn’t apologize or look shamed. In fact, he looked downright pleased with himself. It was stupidly sexy. Which just seemed really unfair, considering if I looked smug like he did, I’d probably look like a total bitch.

  “Lucas.” His mother interrupted our little aside with a small frown that I could tell wasn’t genuine. “She can play whatever bloody card she likes, got it?”

  His nod was that of a little boy. “Yes, Mum.”

  “Apologize.”

  “Sorry, Bianca.” He looked down at his feet as he said it, his small voice clearly ripe with playfulness. When he lifted his head and looked at me, his green eyes danced, confirming what I already knew.

  They were messing with me.

  Mother and son.

  With eyes of the same green as Lucas’, Mrs. Riley winked at me, took a step back, then turned to head in the house. “Come on inside, you two. Oh, and if you want to deflect from the fact you’re ‘crashing’ a family dinner, Bianca, I suggest asking Rose about Liam.”

  “Who’s Liam?” I asked, following after her when Lucas gestured me forward with a tip of his head.

  “Her boyfriend.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry, she mentioned him in the car earlier.”

  “It’s okay, you’re not expected to remember everything about us right away. We’ll give you a couple more hours before we quiz you and see what you remember.”

  My mouth formed a little “O” even though I knew she was joking.

  Surely, she had to be joking . . .

  “Poor ole Rose. She’s trying to pretend she’s fine and doesn’t miss him, and we let her because we don’t want to crush her dreams.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see what Lucas made of his mum’s comment about crushing Rose’s dreams, but before he or I could say anything, she kept talking. “I mean, the girl will never be an actor, but let’s not give her any more to stress about.”

  “Does she want to be an actor?”

  “No,” Lucas answered from behind me. “Mum’s just talking nonsense. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Hey, I’m right here,” his mom retorted, coming to a stop at the end of a hallway. I’d not really paid much attention to my surroundings as we walked into the house, mostly because I was trying to follow Mrs. Riley’s conversation. “And I am not talking nonsense. I’m referring to the fact that Rose is still trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life, and if she suddenly decides she wants to act, we should encourage her.”

  “Never going to happen.” Lucas sounded so assured, I found myself nodding in agreement.

  “It could.”

  “It won’t.”

  “It might.”

  “It won’t.”

  “What are you two crapping on about?” A tall man—James, I assumed, Lucas’ stepdad—walked over and grabbed his wife’s hand and dragged her into a bright, sunny kitchen, spinning her a little before wrapping his arms around her.

  “Dad, she’s been gone for less than five minutes, you don’t need to—Oh, Jesus.” Lucas lifted a hand to cover my eyes, but not before I caught a glimpse of a very heated kiss between his parents.

  Giggling, I let him keep cover on my eyes while I waited for them to stop making out, only for my laughter to increase exponentially when I heard Rose say, “Oh, can we not make out near the food?”

  It took a little bit more effort than I might have expected—he actually did put up some resistance, which was weird—but I finally managed to shove Lucas’ hand out of the way and take in the scene in front of me. Lucas’ mom, with her green eyes just like her son’s, was covering her mouth with a soft hand that hid a small grin, while his dad was smiling big and wide. Though I knew they weren’t biologically related, Lucas’ father having died when he was just a toddler, it was hard not to see the similarities in them.

  The open way they smiled, their emotions, their general happiness clear on their face. Their height, both of them dwarfing Mrs. Riley. The way they held themselves, both of them having a strong presence but without the implied threat that sometimes came with big guys.

  “Aren’t you glad you decided to join us for dinner, Bianca?” Rose asked, walking across the kitchen and giving me a quick hug of hello.

  I didn’t get a chance to do more than smile, ready to say that, yes, actually, I was glad despite my earlier nerves and misgivings, when Mr. Riley came to stand in front of me. “Bianca, I’m James.” He held out a hand, which when I shook it seemed to engulf mine entirely.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Riley. Thank you for having me.”

  “Bloody hell, she called me Mr. Riley.” He looked over at his wife. “You didn’t tell her to do that, did you?”

  She shook her head and I looked at them, bemused. Surely these two weren’t for real? I felt like I was in a skit show or something, their funny, loud and odd responses a lesson in improvisation. “Oh. No, ah, my parents just always said that’s how I should greet people.”

  “You call everyone Mr. Riley? What are the chances you’d finally meet one?” He laughed, a boisterous sound that bounced about the kitchen.

  “No, use their last name unless they tell you otherwise?” Though I didn’t mean for it to sound like a question, it did, and I tacked an uncertain grin on my face, hoping this wasn’t some weird Australian thing where it was actually insulting to refer to someone by
their last name.

  “Pfft. Bugger that. Call me James.” He shook my hand, making it wobble a little like jelly, and making me, in turn, realize we’d just been standing there. In the kitchen. Holding hands. While he teased me.

  I think I love this family.

  7

  Lucas

  I felt a little bit bad that I didn’t warn Bianca what she was about to walk into, but also, not bad in the slightest. It was fun to see her take in my dad’s giant personality, the way he teased and had fun.

  The way he loved my mum without any shame over his feelings.

  He was the man I wanted most to be like, and now the woman who I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about was staring at him with shocked wonder. I grinned as she turned her face toward me, widened her eyes and pursed her lips like maybe she thought my parents were the cutest-slash-funniest thing ever. “I love them,” she whispered before facing Dad again. “James, thank you for having me.”

  “You already thanked me,” he replied, shaking his head at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve run out of small talk already.”

  “Lucas has something small he can talk about,” Rose muttered, which made me snicker and Mum glare.

  “Rose Riley.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t what me. You know what.”

  Rose shrugged. “He’s not denying it.”

  “Jesus Christ, talking about his dick in front of his new girlfriend isn’t exactly the best way to make a first impression,” Dad interjected, earning a look from Mum that would’ve made me flinch for sure. Dad just took it in stride and turned to me. “Besides, my boy doesn’t have any trouble in that area, right?”

  “Oh my god, please don’t answer that.” Rose held her hands up in front of her, as if doing so would stop this conversation in its tracks.

  “You started it,” I told her and gestured down toward my—

  “I actually have met another Mr. Riley,” Bianca suddenly shouted, her voice just this side of shrill, her face a mask of amused horror.

  Dad turned to her and said, “Lucas doesn’t count, since he’s Mr. Hawke,” just as Mum said, “And that’s about enough penis talk for one night.”