Keep Me If You Can (If You Can #3)

Epilogue

“H mm. Well, I cannot say I am surprised, Eleanor—”

“Nellie,” I said immediately.

“It’s Nellie, Max, not Eleanor,” I heard Kimberlee say in the background.

I bit back a grin; my dad didn’t have me on speaker phone, so Kimberlee couldn’t have known I corrected him. It was kind of nice having her on my side.

My dad sighed. “My… apologies. I am not surprised, Nellie. I just want to ensure he is the sort of person you see yourself being with long-term.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“Clearly.”

I bristled at his cynical tone. If my dad was the horse, Kimberlee was leading him to the kind of water that would make him a better person, but he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of drinking it yet.

“You told me once I could do worse than JP. At the Diamond Gala,” I said.

“That was when he had a promising job at a prestigious law firm.”

“Money isn’t everything,” I said.

“Certainly not, but critical thinking and decision-making skills should be key attributes in a partner.”

I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t aware I was supposed to treat relationships like a job interview. Here I thought if he treated me nice and was good in bed, it was a win.”

That was probably a button too many to push, which I realized after I’d said it, but maybe my dad had taken a sip of the water after all. Instead of blowing up, he took a deep breath and let it out.

“I do not need to hear that about my daughter.” The words were stiff, as though they were being spoken through a clenched jaw. “I understand you’re an adult, but—”

“Right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He cleared his throat. “In any case, I urge you to think about this decision a bit before committing to anything in particular with Jean-Paul. I can’t imagine his parents will be particularly pleased with the situation, given what happened last month.”

“Probably not,” I said. “But we’re about to find out.”

“What?”

“Oh, that’s why I called. We’re on our way to the Marchands’ and I thought you might want to have coffee or something while we’re in Montreal,” I said. “JP’s driving. Also, I guess I should’ve mentioned you’re on speaker.”

“Hi, Mr. Belanger,” JP said cheerfully.

His anger practically dripped through the phone. “Eleanor, take me off speaker phone—”

“Max!” I heard Kimberlee say in the background.

He took another deep breath, then told her in rapid, clipped French what was going on. After a moment, she sighed.

“Let me talk to her,” she said, and the phone rustled. “Nellie?”

“Wow, you’re going to have to teach me how you whip guys into shape like that,” I said.

“Unless it involves actual whips, we’re not interested,” JP said loudly.

I waved a hand to shush him, though Kimberlee laughed. “I do not believe you’re purposely antagonizing Max—”

“I’m not,” I said. “I only blurted out one thing without thinking about it first, which is a huge improvement. And I didn’t have a chance to tell him we were on speaker before he started asking me questions.”

“I buy approximately half of that,” she said.

“If he would stop being so judgmental in the first place, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not my fault he said JP is terrible.”

“I did not hear him say anyone was terrible , but he is being protective. I wouldn’t say that is his fault, either.”

“Right. It’s actually JP’s fault, mostly because he’s terrible.”

“That’s true,” JP said.

Kimberlee chuckled. “You can certainly feel the love between the two of you.”

“Ugh. Don’t say that. I barely tolerate him,” I replied.

“And she’s a complete annoyance,” JP said.

There was a pause, then Kimberlee sighed. “I am going to assume I did not hear that since I am certain you took us off speaker phone when your father asked you to.”

“He never actually asked me to,” I said.

She stifled a laugh, then took a steadying breath before promising to help my dad see JP didn’t suck as much as he thought JP did. I promised to actually take them off speaker phone next time, then hung up.

“Well, that’s your parents taken care of,” JP said.

“I don’t know which was worse,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “You can’t decide if your dad who tried to convince you I’m not good enough for you because I have no critical thinking skills is worse than your mom telling me she’s been saving the engagement ring your dad gave her so your future husband could give it to you one day?”

“You’re right. Anyone assuming I’m going to marry you one day is the far worse option.”

He chuckled. “And here I thought the concept of it being your divorced parents’ ring was the problem.”

“I guess that’s a little weird, yeah.” I looked out the window, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

“Into what?”

“Telling people.” I folded my arms. “We could’ve not said anything and let people figure it out themselves.”

“I think when you’re officially boyfriend-and-girlfriend, you’re supposed to tell people about it,” he said.

“It’s been a week.”

“And what a week,” he murmured.

I bit back a smirk. It had been a pretty good week. I hadn’t left JP’s apartment until Monday morning. He’d driven me to campus so I could meet Sydney and get my laptop and books, then rushed to my first class wearing a pair of JP’s sweats and one of his hoodies.

That night, he came over under the guise of getting his clothes back. Unfortunately, that was after he’d gone home from work and changed, so I sent him home short a second hoodie the next morning.

I spent Tuesday night at his place. On Wednesday, he was late for work because I realized I’d forgotten my new ADHD medication at my apartment, so he sped over to grab it for me. We spent Wednesday at my place, but on Thursday, both of us must have thought the other was tired of all the great sex we were having or something, because he went back to his place after work.

So of course, that was the night Anne-Marie called.

“Why have you been avoiding me, chérie ?” she’d asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I’d replied, despite knowing exactly what she was talking about. I’d actively been avoiding her since JP and I decided we were a thing because I didn’t want to hear her “I told you sos.”

Except apparently, Anne-Marie didn’t know that JP and I were a thing.

“Of course I didn’t say anything,” Sydney had said when I asked if she’d told Anne-Marie about giving me JP’s address. “You think I’m risking my eardrums listening to her scream when she finds out she was right?”

“She didn’t demand you tell her the moment you gave up the note with the address?” I’d asked.

“She asked me to tell her if I gave it to you,” she’d said. “It’s not my fault she didn’t specify when I had to tell her.”

“Of course I didn’t tell her,” JP had said when I called him after hanging up with Sydney. “It’ll be way funnier to see her face in person.”

“Great,” I’d said. “So now I’m stuck going to Montreal and having to tell her.”

“Why would you have to go to Montreal?” he’d asked.

“Because she made me feel guilty for not talking to her all week and I agreed to go out with her to the clubs for my birthday,” I’d said.

“When’s your birthday?”

“Saturday. Thanks for the great gift, bastard.”

He’d laughed. “Well, I didn’t know that.”

“You could make it up to me by figuring out how we tell Anne-Marie about this,” I’d said.

“Tell you what,” he’d said. “Take off your panties and touch yourself for me a little, and we’ll call it a deal.”

“You could come over here and touch me yourself.”

“I plan to. But I want to listen to you do it first. For old time’s sake.”

We’d never actually had phone sex before, but it was pretty hot, so I didn’t bother correcting him.

After he listened to me come, he came over and made it happen again. Then he’d suggested his birthday gift to me include getting a hotel in Montreal for the weekend so I could go out with Anne-Marie, plus do the two-birds-one-stone thing and have dinner with his family so they could all find out about our relationship at once.

“We might as well get this shit out of the way now,” he’d said. “We can tell your parents. And selfishly, it’d probably be easiest if my parents talk to us, rather than get half the story from some gossip.”

“Like Anne-Marie?” I’d mumbled.

“Exactly.”

“You figured out how to tell her?”

“I have absolutely planned how she’s gonna find out,” he said, nodding. “And it’s not like I’m going to surprise my parents with an unexpected dinner guest.”

So that was how I ended up spending my Friday night in JP’s car on the way to Montreal for the second time in as many weeks. I’d procrastinated calling my parents until we were on the road and once we had, all that was left was to stress about telling JP’s family.

“It’s going to be okay,” JP said, and I realized I’d been lost in thought for long enough that we were nearly in Montreal. “I mean, I’d say something like ‘My parents love you’ or ‘You’ll impress them,’ but we both know I’m full of shit.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You sure know how to make a girl feel better.”

“The day my girl worries about impressing my parents instead of being herself is the day I question if you’ve been replaced by a pod person,” he said.

I pretended hearing him call me his girl didn’t make my stomach feel all fluttery. “Shut up.”

He chuckled. “Look, your dad took it better than you’d thought.”

“Hardly,” I scoffed. “That was Kimberlee’s doing, and he’s probably starting to wonder if giving into her every whim is worth it. Chances are he’s going to realize his balls are firmly stored in her purse and lose his mind.”

“Well, maybe. Or, maybe he loves her and he’s just learning.”

“Yeah, and maybe I’m going to join a convent.”

He snorted. “Well, your mom was fine with it.”

“She’s as much of a hopeless romantic as she is a hypocrite.” I raised the pitch of my voice in an imitation of my mom’s. “’Oh, how sweet . The boy next door . As if I didn’t just refer to him as a brown-noser version of his dad. Because now it’s impressive that he’s a lawyer .’”

JP smirked. “They all say that until they find out how much of my work is pro bono right now.”

“No one outside of lawyers has any concept of what that means.”

“You do,” he said.

“Yeah, well, sometimes I’ve got a lawyer inside me.”

He burst out laughing, shaking his head. “You would’ve made a good lawyer. Seriously.”

“Stop saying that. I have some self-respect, you know.”

“Big words from someone who’s fucking me.”

The jibes continued until he turned down his parents’ street, and I fell quiet, staring out the window. He reached over to cover my hand with his.

“Honestly, babe, they’ll be happy that I’m happy,” he said. “My dad’s starting to get over me leaving the firm, and I think they’ll mostly be impressed that I’m serious enough about someone to bring them home. I haven’t done that since I was in high school.”

“Way back in the day?”

I smirked as he flicked my palm before returning his hand to the steering wheel. We drove past my dad’s house and JP turned into the driveway next door. He turned the car off as I hesitantly regarded the large house in front of me.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, then opened my car door. “Let’s get this over with.”

He took my arm as we walked up to the front door. Whether it was a sign of support or to keep me from running was anyone’s guess, though I’d have put money on keeping me from running.

JP knocked on the door but didn’t wait for an answer before swinging it open. The Marchands’ house was so large that no one would likely have heard it, anyway. Still, as the door swung closed behind him, he called out.

“Anyone home? I’m here!”

“They’re in the living room,” said a voice from the stairs.

I jumped at the unfamiliar voice and looked up to see Marc-Andre, JP’s younger brother, bounding down the steps. He froze when he saw me.

“Oh. It’s Nellie,” he said.

“Hi,” I replied awkwardly.

Marc-Andre glanced at JP, then shrugged and made his way down the hallway.

“What was that about?” I asked as we followed him.

“That?” He held my arm tighter, lowering his voice as we rounded the corner to the living room. “Well, you know how I said I was going to tell my parents I was bringing a guest for dinner?”

I instinctively tried to dig my feet into the tile floor, which went about as well as one would expect. “Wait, you didn’t—”

“I told them! I just might not have mentioned you were the person I was bringing,” he said.

I looked up at him. “But you said you figured out how you were telling Anne-Marie.”

JP smirked, his eyes sparkling. “I said I’d planned how she was finding out.”

Oh, fuck. “You fucking bastard. I swear to God I—”

“Hey, Mom!” he said loudly as he tugged me into the kitchen and living room area. “Hey Dad. You remember my girlfriend Nellie, right?”

Mr. Marchand’s eyebrows were raised as he looked at us. Della Kinsley’s lips were in a comical O-shape. And from the couch, Anne-Marie shrieked so loudly that Remy, who was sitting beside her, winced in pain and I was pretty sure the wine glasses on the table cracked.

“I knew it!” she shouted, leaping up and bounding across the room towards us.

“I’ll make it up to you later,” JP muttered in my ear just before letting go of my hand so when Anne-Marie threw her arms around me, it was only her and me who went crashing to the floor.

“It’s about time!” she screeched in my ear. “I am going to kill Sydney, she promised she would tell me when she gave you the address! I thought it would take longer, honestly; what day did it happen? Why did you not call me? When did—”

And somehow, even though he’d completely betrayed me, I laughed.

It was a smart plan, as much as I’d hated to admit it. He’d make it up to me, sure, but I’d definitely find a way to get back at him.

Because of course he hadn’t wanted to tell her on his own.

Of course he’d made sure I was around to take the brunt of Anne-Marie’s excitement.

Of course he’d been careful how he phrased things so I wouldn’t remember, right up until we were walking into his parents’ house, that I always had to be on my game around JP Marchand.

Because if I wasn’t, he might convince me to do something stupid, like fall in love with him.

And God, did I love that bastard.

The End…