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Once the early morning sun had begun to rise and illuminate the ceiling, Emily decided she'd spent enough time staring at it. If she wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep any time soon, she might as well just get out of bed and start getting ready for the dreaded day she had ahead of her. Gently sitting up, she looked over at her boyfriend for a moment, who was still sleeping beside her. Moving softly so she didn't stir him, she slid out from under the comforter and slipped into the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind her before turning on the shower. She loved Aiden, but she also appreciated having the chance to enjoy a few moments of solitude in the mornings. They lived together in a spacious apartment that Aiden paid for in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Someone introduced them at a mutual friend's wedding a few years back, and after a couple of weeks of casual dating, she decided to stick around for a while. Emily had moved in with him about halfway through their relationship of three and a half years and counting. Eventually, the time to renew the lease on her own apartment came up and since she spent most of her time at his place anyway, they decided: what the hell?
The bathroom was adjacent to the bedroom -- which was a loft that overlooked an open living room with floor-to-ceiling windows that gave a view of the city. Some small, frosted windows near the ceiling in the bathroom eliminated the need for Emily to turn the light on to see what she was doing. It didn't take long for the water to heat up, so after stripping out of the t-shirt of Aiden's that she'd slept in and tossing it into the hamper, she got in. Her eyes closed, heavy from sleep deprivation, as she let the warm water stream over her face, soaking into her long, golden hair. She ran her fingers through the damp strands, exhaling a deep breath as the heat washed over her skin. Staying in the shower all day sounded much better than everything else on her agenda, but she doubted the water would stay hot enough for that long. After taking a few moments to wake herself up, she began to actually wash her hair and body.
She took a little bit longer of a shower than she needed to, but she had more than enough time since she had gotten up so early. Or rather, hadn't been able to sleep. As she stepped out, she grabbed a towel off the hook near the shower and used it to dry off her body. She then used it to squeeze some of the water out of her hair, leaving it to dry into its natural waves. Throwing the towel into the laundry, she opted for another one of Aiden's t-shirts for now, grabbing it from the closet at the back of the bathroom. She was only about five feet tall, so Aiden's shirts swallowed her tiny frame.
After wringing the water out of her hair and running her fingers through it a bit to detangle it, Emily emerged from the bedroom to see Aiden rolled over onto his back, still sleeping soundly. Her eyes shifted to the clock. It was still only barely after 10:00. She'd only been out of bed for a little over an hour, and today already felt like it was going to be the longest day of her life. She was finally going to meet her boyfriend's parents for the first time. Not only his parents, but his whole entire rich ass family. Aiden had never really talked about them much, so she didn't have much of an idea of what to expect. The few times he did bring them up, she'd gotten a feeling that she shouldn't pry into it. Her own family wasn't much of a topic for discussion either, so she could relate to his preference to avoid the subject. Her mom passed away when she was fairly young, and other than that, it was just Emily and her dad, with whom she had a bit of a strained relationship. In short, she didn't really have much experience in family gatherings. She knew how to conduct herself in public, obviously, but being "The Girlfriend" had such an insane amount of extra pressure attached to it. She might have been putting a lot of that burden on herself, though, and it didn't help that Aiden's family was affluent and of high status. They were going to be going to fancy dinners and cocktail parties galore as they spent the summer with his parents in The Hamptons; and, of course... Fucking brunch.
A deep snore from Aiden caused her to roll her eyes and come back to earth. She went down the stairs and into the living room. There could have been a pretty nice view if they didn't live in the middle of the city, but instead, she was met with the familiar claustrophobia of the high rises surrounding them. She yawned as she made her way across the floor into the kitchen. In the middle of the space, separating the two rooms, were a few pillars. As Emily passed through them, she stretched her arms over her head and beelined for the coffee maker, groggily dumping some grounds into a filter. Then, she added water and flipped the switch to let it brew while she hopped up to sit on the counter and wait. As the machine heated up and the water began to drip, the aroma began to waft through the apartment. She leaned her head back against the cabinet behind her and let out a sigh.
It would be a lie if she said she wasn't anxious. Aiden was the first long-term boyfriend that she'd ever had, so Emily had never really done the whole 'meet the parents' thing. She certainly didn't come from as much money as he did, either. All wee,k she'd been internally stressing about trivial things. How uptight were they? Was she supposed to know what forks to use? Were they going to make her play croquet? Why the fuck is brunch so important? The sounds of Aiden stirring up in the loft snapped her out of the bombardment of nervous thoughts. Just as she heard his feet starting to come down the steps, the coffee maker let out a beep signaling that it was done.
Emily hopped off the counter and opened the cupboard to reach up and grab two mugs, placing them on the counter. As she was pouring the coffee, she felt Aiden's large hands come to rest on her hips. "I figured you'd get out of bed for this." She grinned as he planted a kiss on top of her damp hair, chuckling in response. She grabbed the handles of the cups and spun around to offer him one. While she was nice enough to make him his coffee, he was a big boy and could add milk and sugar to his heart's content. Emily preferred to take hers black.
He smiled down at her as he took the coffee with one hand, the free one snaking around her waist. "What can I say?" Aiden paused, leaning down to kiss her. "It's hard to resist caffeine and a beautiful woman in the morning." He punctuated the sentence with another kiss before he pulled away from her completely, resting his mug on the counter as he went to the fridge to grab a carton of half-and-half. Clad only in boxers, Emily was able to shamelessly drink in all of his well-maintained physique. Aiden was far from unattractive, much to her delight. That wasn't the only reason she was with him, but it was certainly a plus. His chestnut brown hair was cut short, and usually gelled back into a more professional appearance, but having just woken up, he left it in a mess of light curls atop his head. His pale green eyes were piercing, an assertive intensity resting behind them. His gaze caught Emily's as he turned away from the fridge, and he gave her a playful wink as he caught her staring while bumping the fridge closed with his hip.
She let out a soft laugh and shook her head as she watched him continue to fix his coffee. "So, what time did you wanna leave?" She asked, blowing onto her drink to cool it off before taking a sip. The drive to his parents' house was a little over three hours, but they had to drive through the city to get there, so traffic was inevitable.
Aiden shrugged as he grabbed a spoon from a drawer to stir his coffee. "It doesn't matter when we leave, the traffic'll be a bitch regardless. As long as we get there before it gets dark, I don't really care." Emily gave a small yawn and nodded in response, running her fingers through her hair. "How are you feeling?" He raised an eyebrow at her as he returned the milk to the fridge.
She eyed him over the rim of her mug as she took another sip. "I'm fine." She said curtly as she lowered the glass. "Would you quit? If anything, you're making me more nervous by asking me that twenty god damn times a day." Emily shoved him lightly as she passed by him to take a seat at one of the barstools that lined the other end of the counter. Truth be told, she was lying. Her nerves were eating her alive and it had only gotten worse as they got closer to the trip. Emily was primarily concerned about making a good impression on his parents, but she was also hung up on the fact that she had never heard more than a few words about them over the last few years. Then, all of a sudden, he was inviting her to go stay with them for a few weeks.
Aiden stifled a laugh at her feisty response and crossed the kitchen to grab her hand over the counter. "Look, Em. Bringing you home to my parents is really important to me, and to them. So no matter what happens, just focus on being you. Don't overthink things, okay?" A tender, motivational speech was a bit out of character for Aiden, but he meant well so she forced a smile onto her face. Unfortunately, he only made her feel more freaked out about the whole thing. The only information she really knew about his family was that they were well-off. The rest of the details were pretty vague. After a couple years of never really mentioning them much and only visiting when he had to for holidays and things, he suddenly started flirting with the idea of spending the summer with them like he used to well before they had met. A month before he was planning to make the trip, he spontaneously asked Emily to go with him. Part of her was worried that he wanted to propose, but even he wasn't crazy enough to plan out something like that before he'd gotten his parents' approval of her. Or was he?
Regardless, Emily had already told him that she didn't want to get engaged until they moved out of Manhattan. Aiden was working for an advertising firm, and the guys he worked with were a bit rowdy. The fact that a lot of them went to college together didn't help one bit. Emily loved to party and get wild as much as the next twenty-something-year-old, but after one too many nights of Aiden picking a fight when he came home in the middle of the night after spending it with his buddies and an 8-ball, she decided it was time for them to distance themselves from the nightlife a bit if he really wanted to get serious.
The couple finished their coffee together and Aiden went out to run a few errands before they left. When he came home, he went to take a shower while Emily went to finally finish packing. This was one of the most stressful parts of the whole trip. She might've been overthinking it a little bit, just like Aiden had told her not to do, but she knew his mom was an elegant, extravagant, and slightly eccentric woman. Emily was so worried about being underdressed, or not up to par with her standards, no matter how many times Aiden reassured her that her wardrobe was fine. What the hell did he know? Just to be on the safe side, she overpacked. Their plan was to stay for the whole summer as long as things were going smoothly, so it couldn't hurt. When Aiden came out of the shower, Emily was zipping up her bags after making sure she hadn't forgotten anything. The last step would be her makeup and toiletries, but she'd pack those after she'd gotten completely ready for the day. Aiden had changed into a powder blue button-down, which was tucked into a pair of white khakis. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up neatly around his elbows, and the top few buttons were undone, revealing some of the tanned, olive skin of his chest. He came and sat on the bed to pull a pair of socks and brown loafers onto his feet.
Now that he'd vacated the bathroom, she scurried in to finish herself up. The majority of the previous evening had been spent narrowing down a couple of outfit options to choose from in the morning. After a few minutes of careful deliberation, she ultimately decided on a white sundress. It hung off of her fair, freckled shoulders with two thin straps, and the top hugged her chest. The middle of the dress was fitted around her narrow waist before the fabric spilled loosely around her hips and legs, falling to the middle of her thighs. Sliding her feet into a pair of strappy, brown sandals, she came back out of the closet and stood in front of the mirror. Reaching for a small makeup bag on the counter, she opened it and applied a bit of mascara to her long lashes, and some clear lip gloss. Putting the cosmetics away, she leaned back and looked at herself in the mirror, letting out a deep sigh. She was never one to wear much makeup, except on special occasions. In her opinion, it was too much work to do a full face every day. Her golden hair was parted down the middle and fell in its natural, loose, layered waves around her, falling to just above her elbow. She ran her fingers through it, teasing the roots up a bit to add some texture, and then let her arms fall back down to her sides with another huff. "That's as good as it's gonna get," She mumbled to herself. Emily was the natural sort of pretty, with soft, angelic features and bright blue doe eyes; she and Aiden made quite the attractive couple together.
As she came back out into the room, Aiden let out a low whistle through his teeth. Emily gave a small smile and rolled her eyes as she walked over to the bed and slid her makeup bag into her suitcase. The couple spent a few more minutes double-checking that they had packed everything. After one last walkthrough, they loaded everything up into Aiden's jeep and set off on the road. Expectedly, they had to sit in a decent amount of traffic, but they were more than used to it by now. After getting over the initial annoyance of the stop-and-go, they passed the time talking and listening to music.
Emily, for the first time ever, had actually been thankful for the delay caused by the congestion of the city. It had been enough to keep her distracted from her own reeling mind. Once they cleared the jam and were really on their way, that's when she started to get antsy. This day had been looming over her head for a while now, and instead of being excited, she'd been spending her time imagining all of the worst possible scenarios that could unfold when they walked through the door. Her biggest fear was not being good enough for his parents. Not that she expected to miss the mark, but if they didn't like her, it was going to be a rather awkward summer.
Around the halfway point, the couple decided to stop for a late lunch. They were in no hurry to get there at any specific time, and once again Emily was grateful for the extra time being added to their trip. They pulled over at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant along their route and took their time with their meal. By the time they returned to the car, the sky was starting to come alive with the blaze of colors that came with the sun lowering. They continued back on their journey, and not much was said on the rest of the drive as Emily was consumed with her anxiety.
After a while, they were finally pulling up the street to the house. Aiden gave Emily a few reassuring words about how much everyone was going to love her, placing a hand on her nervously bouncing knee. She did her best to calm down, but now that they were turning into the long, winding driveway she'd reached a whole new level of anxiety. Aiden's parents' house was in a gated beachfront neighborhood and built at the end of the row of homes that lined the dunes separating them from the beach. All of the houses were relatively spaced out and between each of them was a boardwalk for each residence that led down to the private stretch of beach that they all shared. They were slowly approaching a beautiful, white house. It was lined with windows, and pillars on the front porch held up a spacious balcony that was accessible from the second floor of the home. It was a total of three stories, the towering height of the building almost making them feel like they were back in Manhattan.
The car rolled to a stop and just as Emily was starting to notice the number of cars parked around them, Aiden muttered out, "Shit." Emily peeled her gaze away from the window and looked over to him with a slightly concerned glance. Sure his family was rich, but she highly doubted they had a need for a dozen cars to be sitting out in front of their house. Her boyfriend let out an exasperated sigh and ran a hand through his hair as he surveyed the scene in the driveway in front of them. "Fuck," He hissed under his breath, hitting the steering wheel and causing Emily to jump slightly. "I should've known she would do some shit like this," He grumbled, more to himself than to her, "I'm sorry, Em." He looked over to her finally with an annoyed expression. It didn't take many context clues for Emly to piece together that Aiden's mom had put together some sort of welcoming party for them. It was only safe to assume that along with his mom and dad, all of their closest friends and family members were inside.
Emily swallowed, doing her best to make a small smile appear on her face. Aiden suddenly appeared very on edge, and while his mood swings were nothing new to her, this one certainly didn't help ease her own nerves at all. Still, she'd learned over the years that it was best to try and keep herself level-headed because there was no calming him down anytime soon. She gave a soft shrug. "Hey, at least we're getting this part out of the way now," She offered optimistically. "Hopefully it won't be so bad, and after it's over we'll be able to enjoy the rest of the summer." Her tone wavered a bit, not sounding nearly as confident in her words as she would've liked to be.
There was a brief, lackluster smile from Aiden in response, and then he let out a heavy sigh, shutting the car off. "Let's just get this the fuck over with," He opened his door and swung his legs out, shutting it a little too hard as he sulked his way around to Emily's side of the car. He held the door open for her to get out and stuffed his hands in his pockets after slamming the passenger door as well and locking the vehicle behind them. Emily could hear the pounding of her own heart echoing in her chest as they approached the door. She had absolutely no clue what they were walking into at this point, but there was no turning back now.
Aiden led the way, Emily following closely behind him as he pushed the door open and crossed the threshold into whatever commotion was awaiting them. Somehow, the house looked even bigger on the inside despite the number of people crowding the space. As they entered, they caught the eye of a few people. Emily responded with a polite smile, but not all of them returned it. Some whispered to each other, others just stared on wide-eyed. She swallowed, moving a bit closer to Aiden as she already was starting to feel fairly uncomfortable in the situation. He was looking around the room, presumably for his parents, and almost right on cue, a tall, slender, blonde woman emerged from the crowd with her arms outstretched. She quickly pulled him into a constricting hug, her lithe arms wrapping tightly around him. "Oh, my boy!" She cooed. "My sweet boy." She pulled back and looked him up and down. "You look nice; Healthy. Good boy." She patted his cheeks, to which he jerked away from with a bit of an annoyed expression. Deborah was described as over the top to Emily, and she was confirming that pretty quickly. Her almost white hair was styled meticulously into a taut updo, and she wore a long, floral print dress that flowed around her as she walked, accessorized with a bunch of gaudy jewelry.
Aiden's mother turned to face her and Emily pulled a warm smile onto her face, taking a few steps in her direction now that she'd been acknowledged. Deborah met her halfway and took her face in her manicured hands, which took Emily by surprise. "And you must be Emily!" The woman grabbed her and kissed both of her cheeks before letting her go. There was a bit of a pause as the older woman pulled back, taking a second to intensely inspect the features of Emily's face, a bit of disbelief peeking through her jovial expression. "You're even more beautiful than the pictures, dear! Like a little angel." She gushed, and Aiden quickly came to her rescue, slipping an arm around her and pulling her away from his doting mother. "Yep, this is my girl." He smiled down triumphantly at her as if she were a trophy he was displaying, his hand resting loosely in the curve of her waist.
It wasn't too much longer before a large, dark-haired man made his way over to join the commotion, a welcoming smile on his face. The grin faltered as his eyes rested on Emily, replaced by a terse, stoic look that was directed towards Aiden. He quickly wiped away his worry, smile returning as he brought his attention back to Emily and approached her. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Emily," He said simply, extending his hand to her. She gently shook it in return, letting him know the sentiment was mutual. At first Emily thought she'd been letting her nerves get the better of her and had been imagining the odd behavior that had come from her boyfriend's mom, but seeing his father's similar reaction made her feel a bit uneasy.
Thankfully, Aiden didn't waste a beat and quickly decided to whisk her away from the slightly awkward first encounter. "We're gonna go get a drink, we had a long drive." He kept his arm firmly around Emily's waist as he towed her away, and for once she had no complaints about his controlling behavior. As he led her through the crowd, he seemed even more on edge than he had when they arrived, and it was only making Emily's anxiety climb. At this point, they could probably both use a drink or two to settle their nerves.
The bathroom was adjacent to the bedroom -- which was a loft that overlooked an open living room with floor-to-ceiling windows that gave a view of the city. Some small, frosted windows near the ceiling in the bathroom eliminated the need for Emily to turn the light on to see what she was doing. It didn't take long for the water to heat up, so after stripping out of the t-shirt of Aiden's that she'd slept in and tossing it into the hamper, she got in. Her eyes closed, heavy from sleep deprivation, as she let the warm water stream over her face, soaking into her long, golden hair. She ran her fingers through the damp strands, exhaling a deep breath as the heat washed over her skin. Staying in the shower all day sounded much better than everything else on her agenda, but she doubted the water would stay hot enough for that long. After taking a few moments to wake herself up, she began to actually wash her hair and body.
She took a little bit longer of a shower than she needed to, but she had more than enough time since she had gotten up so early. Or rather, hadn't been able to sleep. As she stepped out, she grabbed a towel off the hook near the shower and used it to dry off her body. She then used it to squeeze some of the water out of her hair, leaving it to dry into its natural waves. Throwing the towel into the laundry, she opted for another one of Aiden's t-shirts for now, grabbing it from the closet at the back of the bathroom. She was only about five feet tall, so Aiden's shirts swallowed her tiny frame.
After wringing the water out of her hair and running her fingers through it a bit to detangle it, Emily emerged from the bedroom to see Aiden rolled over onto his back, still sleeping soundly. Her eyes shifted to the clock. It was still only barely after 10:00. She'd only been out of bed for a little over an hour, and today already felt like it was going to be the longest day of her life. She was finally going to meet her boyfriend's parents for the first time. Not only his parents, but his whole entire rich ass family. Aiden had never really talked about them much, so she didn't have much of an idea of what to expect. The few times he did bring them up, she'd gotten a feeling that she shouldn't pry into it. Her own family wasn't much of a topic for discussion either, so she could relate to his preference to avoid the subject. Her mom passed away when she was fairly young, and other than that, it was just Emily and her dad, with whom she had a bit of a strained relationship. In short, she didn't really have much experience in family gatherings. She knew how to conduct herself in public, obviously, but being "The Girlfriend" had such an insane amount of extra pressure attached to it. She might have been putting a lot of that burden on herself, though, and it didn't help that Aiden's family was affluent and of high status. They were going to be going to fancy dinners and cocktail parties galore as they spent the summer with his parents in The Hamptons; and, of course... Fucking brunch.
A deep snore from Aiden caused her to roll her eyes and come back to earth. She went down the stairs and into the living room. There could have been a pretty nice view if they didn't live in the middle of the city, but instead, she was met with the familiar claustrophobia of the high rises surrounding them. She yawned as she made her way across the floor into the kitchen. In the middle of the space, separating the two rooms, were a few pillars. As Emily passed through them, she stretched her arms over her head and beelined for the coffee maker, groggily dumping some grounds into a filter. Then, she added water and flipped the switch to let it brew while she hopped up to sit on the counter and wait. As the machine heated up and the water began to drip, the aroma began to waft through the apartment. She leaned her head back against the cabinet behind her and let out a sigh.
It would be a lie if she said she wasn't anxious. Aiden was the first long-term boyfriend that she'd ever had, so Emily had never really done the whole 'meet the parents' thing. She certainly didn't come from as much money as he did, either. All wee,k she'd been internally stressing about trivial things. How uptight were they? Was she supposed to know what forks to use? Were they going to make her play croquet? Why the fuck is brunch so important? The sounds of Aiden stirring up in the loft snapped her out of the bombardment of nervous thoughts. Just as she heard his feet starting to come down the steps, the coffee maker let out a beep signaling that it was done.
Emily hopped off the counter and opened the cupboard to reach up and grab two mugs, placing them on the counter. As she was pouring the coffee, she felt Aiden's large hands come to rest on her hips. "I figured you'd get out of bed for this." She grinned as he planted a kiss on top of her damp hair, chuckling in response. She grabbed the handles of the cups and spun around to offer him one. While she was nice enough to make him his coffee, he was a big boy and could add milk and sugar to his heart's content. Emily preferred to take hers black.
He smiled down at her as he took the coffee with one hand, the free one snaking around her waist. "What can I say?" Aiden paused, leaning down to kiss her. "It's hard to resist caffeine and a beautiful woman in the morning." He punctuated the sentence with another kiss before he pulled away from her completely, resting his mug on the counter as he went to the fridge to grab a carton of half-and-half. Clad only in boxers, Emily was able to shamelessly drink in all of his well-maintained physique. Aiden was far from unattractive, much to her delight. That wasn't the only reason she was with him, but it was certainly a plus. His chestnut brown hair was cut short, and usually gelled back into a more professional appearance, but having just woken up, he left it in a mess of light curls atop his head. His pale green eyes were piercing, an assertive intensity resting behind them. His gaze caught Emily's as he turned away from the fridge, and he gave her a playful wink as he caught her staring while bumping the fridge closed with his hip.
She let out a soft laugh and shook her head as she watched him continue to fix his coffee. "So, what time did you wanna leave?" She asked, blowing onto her drink to cool it off before taking a sip. The drive to his parents' house was a little over three hours, but they had to drive through the city to get there, so traffic was inevitable.
Aiden shrugged as he grabbed a spoon from a drawer to stir his coffee. "It doesn't matter when we leave, the traffic'll be a bitch regardless. As long as we get there before it gets dark, I don't really care." Emily gave a small yawn and nodded in response, running her fingers through her hair. "How are you feeling?" He raised an eyebrow at her as he returned the milk to the fridge.
She eyed him over the rim of her mug as she took another sip. "I'm fine." She said curtly as she lowered the glass. "Would you quit? If anything, you're making me more nervous by asking me that twenty god damn times a day." Emily shoved him lightly as she passed by him to take a seat at one of the barstools that lined the other end of the counter. Truth be told, she was lying. Her nerves were eating her alive and it had only gotten worse as they got closer to the trip. Emily was primarily concerned about making a good impression on his parents, but she was also hung up on the fact that she had never heard more than a few words about them over the last few years. Then, all of a sudden, he was inviting her to go stay with them for a few weeks.
Aiden stifled a laugh at her feisty response and crossed the kitchen to grab her hand over the counter. "Look, Em. Bringing you home to my parents is really important to me, and to them. So no matter what happens, just focus on being you. Don't overthink things, okay?" A tender, motivational speech was a bit out of character for Aiden, but he meant well so she forced a smile onto her face. Unfortunately, he only made her feel more freaked out about the whole thing. The only information she really knew about his family was that they were well-off. The rest of the details were pretty vague. After a couple years of never really mentioning them much and only visiting when he had to for holidays and things, he suddenly started flirting with the idea of spending the summer with them like he used to well before they had met. A month before he was planning to make the trip, he spontaneously asked Emily to go with him. Part of her was worried that he wanted to propose, but even he wasn't crazy enough to plan out something like that before he'd gotten his parents' approval of her. Or was he?
Regardless, Emily had already told him that she didn't want to get engaged until they moved out of Manhattan. Aiden was working for an advertising firm, and the guys he worked with were a bit rowdy. The fact that a lot of them went to college together didn't help one bit. Emily loved to party and get wild as much as the next twenty-something-year-old, but after one too many nights of Aiden picking a fight when he came home in the middle of the night after spending it with his buddies and an 8-ball, she decided it was time for them to distance themselves from the nightlife a bit if he really wanted to get serious.
The couple finished their coffee together and Aiden went out to run a few errands before they left. When he came home, he went to take a shower while Emily went to finally finish packing. This was one of the most stressful parts of the whole trip. She might've been overthinking it a little bit, just like Aiden had told her not to do, but she knew his mom was an elegant, extravagant, and slightly eccentric woman. Emily was so worried about being underdressed, or not up to par with her standards, no matter how many times Aiden reassured her that her wardrobe was fine. What the hell did he know? Just to be on the safe side, she overpacked. Their plan was to stay for the whole summer as long as things were going smoothly, so it couldn't hurt. When Aiden came out of the shower, Emily was zipping up her bags after making sure she hadn't forgotten anything. The last step would be her makeup and toiletries, but she'd pack those after she'd gotten completely ready for the day. Aiden had changed into a powder blue button-down, which was tucked into a pair of white khakis. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up neatly around his elbows, and the top few buttons were undone, revealing some of the tanned, olive skin of his chest. He came and sat on the bed to pull a pair of socks and brown loafers onto his feet.
Now that he'd vacated the bathroom, she scurried in to finish herself up. The majority of the previous evening had been spent narrowing down a couple of outfit options to choose from in the morning. After a few minutes of careful deliberation, she ultimately decided on a white sundress. It hung off of her fair, freckled shoulders with two thin straps, and the top hugged her chest. The middle of the dress was fitted around her narrow waist before the fabric spilled loosely around her hips and legs, falling to the middle of her thighs. Sliding her feet into a pair of strappy, brown sandals, she came back out of the closet and stood in front of the mirror. Reaching for a small makeup bag on the counter, she opened it and applied a bit of mascara to her long lashes, and some clear lip gloss. Putting the cosmetics away, she leaned back and looked at herself in the mirror, letting out a deep sigh. She was never one to wear much makeup, except on special occasions. In her opinion, it was too much work to do a full face every day. Her golden hair was parted down the middle and fell in its natural, loose, layered waves around her, falling to just above her elbow. She ran her fingers through it, teasing the roots up a bit to add some texture, and then let her arms fall back down to her sides with another huff. "That's as good as it's gonna get," She mumbled to herself. Emily was the natural sort of pretty, with soft, angelic features and bright blue doe eyes; she and Aiden made quite the attractive couple together.
As she came back out into the room, Aiden let out a low whistle through his teeth. Emily gave a small smile and rolled her eyes as she walked over to the bed and slid her makeup bag into her suitcase. The couple spent a few more minutes double-checking that they had packed everything. After one last walkthrough, they loaded everything up into Aiden's jeep and set off on the road. Expectedly, they had to sit in a decent amount of traffic, but they were more than used to it by now. After getting over the initial annoyance of the stop-and-go, they passed the time talking and listening to music.
Emily, for the first time ever, had actually been thankful for the delay caused by the congestion of the city. It had been enough to keep her distracted from her own reeling mind. Once they cleared the jam and were really on their way, that's when she started to get antsy. This day had been looming over her head for a while now, and instead of being excited, she'd been spending her time imagining all of the worst possible scenarios that could unfold when they walked through the door. Her biggest fear was not being good enough for his parents. Not that she expected to miss the mark, but if they didn't like her, it was going to be a rather awkward summer.
Around the halfway point, the couple decided to stop for a late lunch. They were in no hurry to get there at any specific time, and once again Emily was grateful for the extra time being added to their trip. They pulled over at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant along their route and took their time with their meal. By the time they returned to the car, the sky was starting to come alive with the blaze of colors that came with the sun lowering. They continued back on their journey, and not much was said on the rest of the drive as Emily was consumed with her anxiety.
After a while, they were finally pulling up the street to the house. Aiden gave Emily a few reassuring words about how much everyone was going to love her, placing a hand on her nervously bouncing knee. She did her best to calm down, but now that they were turning into the long, winding driveway she'd reached a whole new level of anxiety. Aiden's parents' house was in a gated beachfront neighborhood and built at the end of the row of homes that lined the dunes separating them from the beach. All of the houses were relatively spaced out and between each of them was a boardwalk for each residence that led down to the private stretch of beach that they all shared. They were slowly approaching a beautiful, white house. It was lined with windows, and pillars on the front porch held up a spacious balcony that was accessible from the second floor of the home. It was a total of three stories, the towering height of the building almost making them feel like they were back in Manhattan.
The car rolled to a stop and just as Emily was starting to notice the number of cars parked around them, Aiden muttered out, "Shit." Emily peeled her gaze away from the window and looked over to him with a slightly concerned glance. Sure his family was rich, but she highly doubted they had a need for a dozen cars to be sitting out in front of their house. Her boyfriend let out an exasperated sigh and ran a hand through his hair as he surveyed the scene in the driveway in front of them. "Fuck," He hissed under his breath, hitting the steering wheel and causing Emily to jump slightly. "I should've known she would do some shit like this," He grumbled, more to himself than to her, "I'm sorry, Em." He looked over to her finally with an annoyed expression. It didn't take many context clues for Emly to piece together that Aiden's mom had put together some sort of welcoming party for them. It was only safe to assume that along with his mom and dad, all of their closest friends and family members were inside.
Emily swallowed, doing her best to make a small smile appear on her face. Aiden suddenly appeared very on edge, and while his mood swings were nothing new to her, this one certainly didn't help ease her own nerves at all. Still, she'd learned over the years that it was best to try and keep herself level-headed because there was no calming him down anytime soon. She gave a soft shrug. "Hey, at least we're getting this part out of the way now," She offered optimistically. "Hopefully it won't be so bad, and after it's over we'll be able to enjoy the rest of the summer." Her tone wavered a bit, not sounding nearly as confident in her words as she would've liked to be.
There was a brief, lackluster smile from Aiden in response, and then he let out a heavy sigh, shutting the car off. "Let's just get this the fuck over with," He opened his door and swung his legs out, shutting it a little too hard as he sulked his way around to Emily's side of the car. He held the door open for her to get out and stuffed his hands in his pockets after slamming the passenger door as well and locking the vehicle behind them. Emily could hear the pounding of her own heart echoing in her chest as they approached the door. She had absolutely no clue what they were walking into at this point, but there was no turning back now.
Aiden led the way, Emily following closely behind him as he pushed the door open and crossed the threshold into whatever commotion was awaiting them. Somehow, the house looked even bigger on the inside despite the number of people crowding the space. As they entered, they caught the eye of a few people. Emily responded with a polite smile, but not all of them returned it. Some whispered to each other, others just stared on wide-eyed. She swallowed, moving a bit closer to Aiden as she already was starting to feel fairly uncomfortable in the situation. He was looking around the room, presumably for his parents, and almost right on cue, a tall, slender, blonde woman emerged from the crowd with her arms outstretched. She quickly pulled him into a constricting hug, her lithe arms wrapping tightly around him. "Oh, my boy!" She cooed. "My sweet boy." She pulled back and looked him up and down. "You look nice; Healthy. Good boy." She patted his cheeks, to which he jerked away from with a bit of an annoyed expression. Deborah was described as over the top to Emily, and she was confirming that pretty quickly. Her almost white hair was styled meticulously into a taut updo, and she wore a long, floral print dress that flowed around her as she walked, accessorized with a bunch of gaudy jewelry.
Aiden's mother turned to face her and Emily pulled a warm smile onto her face, taking a few steps in her direction now that she'd been acknowledged. Deborah met her halfway and took her face in her manicured hands, which took Emily by surprise. "And you must be Emily!" The woman grabbed her and kissed both of her cheeks before letting her go. There was a bit of a pause as the older woman pulled back, taking a second to intensely inspect the features of Emily's face, a bit of disbelief peeking through her jovial expression. "You're even more beautiful than the pictures, dear! Like a little angel." She gushed, and Aiden quickly came to her rescue, slipping an arm around her and pulling her away from his doting mother. "Yep, this is my girl." He smiled down triumphantly at her as if she were a trophy he was displaying, his hand resting loosely in the curve of her waist.
It wasn't too much longer before a large, dark-haired man made his way over to join the commotion, a welcoming smile on his face. The grin faltered as his eyes rested on Emily, replaced by a terse, stoic look that was directed towards Aiden. He quickly wiped away his worry, smile returning as he brought his attention back to Emily and approached her. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Emily," He said simply, extending his hand to her. She gently shook it in return, letting him know the sentiment was mutual. At first Emily thought she'd been letting her nerves get the better of her and had been imagining the odd behavior that had come from her boyfriend's mom, but seeing his father's similar reaction made her feel a bit uneasy.
Thankfully, Aiden didn't waste a beat and quickly decided to whisk her away from the slightly awkward first encounter. "We're gonna go get a drink, we had a long drive." He kept his arm firmly around Emily's waist as he towed her away, and for once she had no complaints about his controlling behavior. As he led her through the crowd, he seemed even more on edge than he had when they arrived, and it was only making Emily's anxiety climb. At this point, they could probably both use a drink or two to settle their nerves.
