She giggled and turned her leg to the side, glancing down at her shoes. “These are f**k me shoes?” she asked, trying to look innocent.

I wrapped my free arm around her waist and pulled her closer to me. “On you they are,” I confirmed. “On anyone else they’re just blue shoes, but you just add that extra little sparkle to them that makes me want to strip you na**d and have you walk for me in nothing but them.”

Her hands ran across the front of my suit jacket as she chewed on her lip, looking at me lustfully. “Maybe later,” she whispered, nodding in agreement.

I sighed dejectedly. “Another night, you have company tonight.”

She groaned and let her head drop onto my chest as she obviously remembered her parents were staying the night. “Damn it, I forgot about that. Did you seriously have to look this good today? We’re going into a church and all I’m going to be thinking the whole time are inappropriate thoughts about you. I’m seriously going to hell.”

I laughed and kissed the top of her head, being careful not to mess up her perfectly styled curls. Physically, Rosie and I were very compatible. For the last two weeks, since the beach party at my parents’ place, we’d done a lot of fooling around. Rosie was definitely a dirty girl at heart. In the two weeks that I’d had her na**d for, I had already memorised every single inch of her skin. I knew she had exactly twenty-three little freckles on her body. I knew that she was immensely ticklish on her ribs on the right-hand side. I knew that when I ran my tongue down the length of her spine she gasped and gripped the bed sheet so tightly that her knuckles went white. We’d done a few little role play games already; the office one would be new though. Personally, I couldn’t wait.

Reluctantly, I pulled back and brought my other arm up, holding up the flowers that I bought for her.

She smiled gratefully and smelt them. “Aww, thank you. They’re beautiful.”

“I haven’t bought you any for a while. Plus, I thought it would impress your parents if I bought you flowers. I want to look like the romantic boyfriend after all,” I explained, grinning sheepishly.

She laughed and slapped the back of her hand on my chest. “And you were doing so well before you said that,” she teased, rolling her eyes playfully. She took my hand and nodded back to the door of her apartment that we were standing outside. “You ready for this?”

I winced and shook my head. “Not yet.” I tugged on her hand, making her stumble towards me and crash into my chest. I bent my head and kissed her, relishing in the feel of her lips against mine. The kiss was totally worth whatever her dad would do to me over the next twenty-four hours. “Now I’m ready,” I confirmed.

She laughed and walked backwards into the apartment, smiling at me reassuringly as I pushed the door shut. My heart was beating so loudly that I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole building could hear it. I couldn’t relax as I followed her awkwardly into the lounge where I could hear voices.

As we rounded the corner, I forced myself to smile. The lady was sitting on the sofa had brown hair, pulled up into a little twist at the back. She looked like Rosie and her sister. DJ was sat next to her and they were examining a drawing of his, he was explaining what it was, pointing out bits, while she smiled at it enthusiastically. Rosie’s dad was standing there looking at the photos that I had hung on the wall for her last week. His hands were on his hips. He wasn’t smiling. To say I was slightly intimidated of this man, would be the understatement of the century. He had the power to turn Rosie and DJ against me if he wanted to. She wouldn’t choose to stand up to her dad for me, and I wouldn’t really want to make her choose in the first place.

Rosie cleared her throat to get their attention, and I wanted to clap my hand over her mouth to silence her, just so I could have precious extra seconds to compose myself. The three faces turned towards us.

Rosie’s mom smiled at me politely. Her dad’s eyes raked over me slowly, as if appraising me to see if I was good enough for his daughter. And DJ, well, DJ jumped up, beaming at me, before he literally threw himself over the back of the sofa at me so that I had to catch him before he fell to the floor.

I laughed and lifted him up into my arms as he hugged me tightly. “Hey, Nate! We’re going to a party today!” he sang excitedly.

“Hey, Kid. You all suited and ready to go?” I asked, playfully tweaking his tie that he was wearing. He looked adorable in a little fashion shirt with a grey tie, and grey waistcoat over the top.

Rosie’s dad snorted and mumbled something under his breath that I didn’t even attempt to understand. Rosie smiled and placed her hand on the small of my back as I settled DJ on my hip, holding him with my left arm.

“Guys, this is Nate Peters. Nate, this is my mom, Tracy, and my dad, George.” Rosie waved a hand between us all introduction.

Smiling, I stepped forward, trying to act confident. Surely the fact that DJ is hanging around my neck, will help the situation? George looked me over distastefully. Huh, apparently not…

“Nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you guys from Rose and DJ,” I greeted, holding out my hand to him.

He frowned, looking like he didn’t want to shake my hand at all, but reluctantly did it anyway. “You too. Rosie tells us that you’re a cop. Kind of a dangerous job, don’t you think?” he replied tersely.

Okay, we were straight into the pissing contest.

“Er… I guess, but I’m always careful. I’m actually never really too close to the action or anything,” I explained, looking down at our hands because he still hadn’t relinquished his grip on mine. He was definitely trying to scare me away; this was obviously his bad cop routine. According to Rosie, I just needed to push past it.

He looked like he was choosing his words carefully. “Do you think that being in a dangerous job is a good example to be setting for my grandson?”

I internally groaned. I hadn’t prepared myself sufficiently for this at all. “I think that he’ll see me doing my job and being on the right side of the law. So that’s setting a good example, yes,” I answered. I could almost feel his eyes boring into my head as he scrutinised every little thing that I did or said.

But then DJ opened his mouth and dropped me in the shit. “Nate let me hold his gun. And I put on his handcuffs,” he boasted.

Oh fuck. Nice one, Kid! I winced and looked at Rosie. She hadn’t liked it when I did that either – until I explained that it was empty and that the safety was on anyway. I’d even removed some of the inside parts so it couldn’t shoot; it was basically just a worthless piece of metal when DJ held it.

George made a snorting sound in the back of his throat. “Very responsible.”

Rosie stepped forward and slipped her arm around my waist. “Yeah, we all had a go. It was an old gun that was out of service, so it wouldn’t shoot or anything. I asked Nate to bring it around because we’d never seen a gun up-close before. Right, Nate?” she lied, smiling at me, telling me to play along. I nodded, wondering why she’d just said that.

“I still don’t think that handling a real gun is something that you should be allowing,” George countered.

Rosie shrugged. “Wasn’t your decision, Dad, it was mine. Nate said it was safe, so that’s good enough for me.” She held up the flowers to show her mom. “I’m going to put these in water. Nate bought them for me.”

Tracy smiled at me warmly. “Oh that’s sweet,” she gushed.

I laughed. That was probably where the word ‘sweet’ came from. I couldn’t help but wonder if George ever got labelled ‘sweet’. I flicked my eyes back to him. He was still watching me like a hawk with a stick up its ass. I winced slightly. Yeah that dude is as sweet as a f**king lemon!

I cleared my throat as Rosie walked off, leaving me in what felt like hell. I clung to DJ, using him as some sort of human shield from the death glare I was receiving. “So, how was the train ride? I told Rosie that I didn’t mind driving to come and collect you guys, but she said you were fine on the train,” I said, shrugging, trying to alleviate some of the tension.

Were they feeling this tension, or was it just me? Was it getting hotter in here? Maybe I should open a window or something…

“The train was fine. Rosie told us that you suggested that, but it just seemed silly for you to drive all that way when we could just as easily get the train. Thank you for the offer though,” Tracy replied. Her tone was warm and welcoming. Clearly it was only George that I needed to win over.

“It wouldn’t have been a problem.” I shrugged, and DJ wriggled in my arms, as he tapped on my shoulder to get my attention. I smiled down at him. “What’s up, Kid?”

“When we gets to the church, am I allowed to play on your phone?” he whispered, giving me the puppy dog face that I was yet to find a resistance to. DJ had developed a fondness for my cell phone lately; I now had more games downloaded on there than anything else. With the way he was going I was going to have to buy him his own one soon, before he overloaded my memory with drawing apps, drum sets and angry birds.

“Sure, Kid.”

“He has a name you know,” George interjected.

I smiled and nodded. Looks like I wasn’t getting anything right today. “Yeah, I should really use that.”

A couple of minutes later, Rosie walked back in and smiled. “Are we ready to go? It’s going to take a while to get there because of security,” she said, shrugging and grabbing her purse.

I nodded and set DJ down on his feet. “You been to the bathroom, Kid? There won’t be one there; you don’t want to have to pee in the bush in front of a load of cameras, do you? I did that once, it’s not fun,” I stated, nodding towards the back hallway. Rosie burst out laughing, and DJ skipped off. I grinned up at her, but then saw her dad looking at me with one eyebrow raised; he obviously didn’t find it funny. “That was a joke, I’ve never done that,” I added quickly.

“Hmm,” was all he said as he headed for the door.

When Tracy followed him, I turned to Rosie, looking at her desperately. “This is not going well,” I whined.

She shook her head and went up on tiptoes, pressing her lips to mine. “You’re doing great. I haven’t heard one pick-up line, or slutty comment come out of your mouth. That must be some kind of record for you,” she teased.

I sighed and pressed my forehead to hers, wishing today was over already. DJ skipped back to the lounge then, his shirt un-tucked, his hands still dripping with water where he hadn’t dried them. I laughed, and Rosie bent down to sort him out.

“After I go to the bathroom, you gonna do that for me?” I asked, as she pushed her hand down his dress pants, tucking in his shirt.

She winked at me. “If you’re a good boy.”

“Nate’s always a good boy,” DJ chimed in, making us both laugh.

The drive to the church took a long time, we had to stop a couple of times at checkpoints, they’d blocked off certain roads and you had to produce ID and an invite to get past. This was all because of Anna’s father. He was serving his second term in office, after all; the President of the United States had a lot of security.

By the time we made it to the church parking lot, I was in a bad mood. The whole drive George was nit-picking at everything I did. Complaining about my car not being big enough for five people, how I drove too fast, how I should have pulled out at a junction when I didn’t, how long it was taking. If he was doing it to piss me off, it was having the desired effect.

I sighed gratefully as we got out of the car, taking a few deep breaths. My peace didn’t last long though because Seth came wandering over with a big grin on his face. He knew I was nervous; I’d spoken to him about meeting the parents. He was definitely going to make this harder for me, I could tell by the wicked glint to his eye. I shot him a warning look as everyone else walked around to my side of the car.

Seth hadn’t officially met DJ yet, I’d spoken about him, of course, but this was the actual first meeting. I wasn’t sure how Seth was going to handle it, he really didn’t like kids. He smiled at me.

“This your girl’s sprog?” he asked, motioning towards DJ.

DJ frowned. “I’m not a frog.”

I laughed and patted his head as Seth stuck out his hand for him to shake. “Hey, I’m your uncle Seth,” he introduced himself. DJ looked at me curiously, and Rosie laughed. Seth turned to her and smiled his game smile. “Why do you have to be so damn fine every single day? Can’t you take a break and let me concentrate on something else for a change?” he asked, smirking at her.

“Still trying?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

I cleared my throat awkwardly, willing him to disappear. “Seth, think we could give it a rest for today?” I asked, nodding discreetly at her parents that were standing beside me.

Seth grinned wolfishly and looked at Tracy. “You can’t be Rosie’s mother. Were you five when you gave birth?”

I’m going to to kill him.

Tracy laughed and blushed, looking at her husband uncomfortably. She obviously wasn’t as comfortable with chat-up lines as her daughter. “Well aren’t you the charmer,” she replied, looking a little embarrassed.

“We should get inside,” I suggested, looking at the five secret service agents that were standing guard outside the church door. I recognised a couple of them as Anna’s security guard detail when Ashton wasn’t around. I gripped Rosie’s hand and put my other on DJ’s shoulder, guiding him over to the security. I nodded at Patrick, one of Anna’s guards. “Hey, Patrick. Listen, that guy over there, he says he’s with us, but I don’t know him,” I stated, nodding at Seth, who was now hitting on another guest as she got out of her car. Patrick wouldn’t know who Seth was; he didn’t hang out at their place as much as I did so he didn’t know many of their security detail.