“Would you just try and relax, Henley?” Jeff says, stuffing some underwear into the side pocket of his suitcase. My nail beds are destroyed as I’ve been picking and chewing at them thoughtlessly for the past hour. I have been nothing but a basket case of epic proportions ever since the magnitude of this wedding invitation truly slapped me upside the head.

It’s one thing for him to tell me to relax. It’s another to actually achieve desired levels of relaxation without the assistance of a Xanax, a bottle of wine, and my trusty vibrator.

I fold my fingers in my lap and take a few slow and calming breaths, willing my nerves to settle the fuck down. But I still feel like I'm going to lose it.

Jeff looks back to his dresser and pulls out an armful of fancy, colorful dress socks. I like to think I've done a pretty bang up job of hiding my annoyance this evening. But with each drawer shut and shirt ripped down from a closet hanger, I mentally shoot daggers in Jeff’s direction.

Come to my brother’s wedding! he said.

You can meet my family! he said.

It'll be fun! he said!

What he failed to mention was that the Carrington last name causes people to stop and stare at the mere mention of it. Revelation that his family is kind of a big deal surprised me. Apparently, it carries more weight than an elephant tap dancing to mariachi music once we crossed the Colorado border. An imaginary line we'll be crossing in a few short hours since we're taking the first flight out at o’dark thirty tomorrow.

I've been packed, repacked and then packed again for this weekend since Monday night, but leave it to Romeo to wait until the last minute, effectively causing us to miss our dinner reservations, making me hangry and wound up tighter than a minister’s wife’s panties at a Vegas strip show.

“Let the record show that I was doing just fine until you told me that this wedding was going to be a two hundred thousand dollar black tie affair at The Little Nell in Aspen. I looked up photos. We have to take a motherfucking private gondola three miles up the side of a mountain to get to the ceremony, Jeff. Our room alone is more than eleven hundred dollars a night! You could buy a private island in the Caribbean for that price tag.”

Seems like a smarter investment at least.

The online photos showed me a little piece of snowy heaven on earth. But the only way I could ever afford to visit this place is if I blew my life savings and worked a street corner for a few weeks for good measure.

I know I shouldn’t complain. It’s not like I’m paying for any of this. The property looks immaculate. The kind of place where the three-second rule doesn’t apply when you drop food on the floor. But I already know that I’m going to be the odd man out in the game of one of these things is not like the other when we arrive. Even still, I hope it will be worth the mental anguish. I need to get away if only for a little bit in the height of frozen mountain tops. And if I have my way, my presence will go virtually undetected, and I can hide by the top shelf open bar most of the night.

“Aww, come on. It’s not that much.” Jeff gives me a knowing look.

“Says the man whose last name automatically qualifies him for the friends and family discount at every five-star ski lodge in North America.” A little-known fact that only came up days ago.

I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around the thought of dropping two hundred thousand dollars on one party that’ll last maybe half the day. Jeff’s parents insisted on paying for the wedding, with his mom lamenting the fact she never had a daughter. But that kind of money is just a drop in the bucket for Colorado’s leading environmental lawyer, who singlehandedly defended the National Parks in a huge corporate lawsuit, and the woman whose family nine-figure inheritance comes from the Snowfalls chain of luxury ski resorts.

For coming from money, it's amazing how grounded and headstrong Jeff is. “I'm not rich. My parents are. And from an early age they were clear that if Chris, Kyle, and I wanted that kind of life, we had to be the ones to work for it,” he had told me during a recent conversation.

I'm just a teacher. His parents probably make a year’s worth of my salary in one week of work. From the stories he’s told me, they certainly don't live—or act—like their bank accounts could purchase a Major League franchise.

“I promise it'll be okay. I love you, so I know for a fact that they are going to love you, too.”

I try to take his word for it, but the whole meeting the parents thing is foreign territory, and damn near maddening under any circumstance. Let alone this particular scenario that requires me to be on my game for everyone.

“That's easy for you to say. They’re your parents. They have to love you,” I sigh in defeat.

“Besides, everyone is going to be so busy with the wedding, they'll probably forget we're even there.”

I roll my eyes. Jeff is in the wedding, so his presence—or absence—will be quite obvious. The best I can hope for is to fly under the radar without incident.

I sit down on the end of his bed and watch him finish packing sweater after sweater. Colorado in February seems like a risky idea for a wedding, but hopefully, Mother Nature has an unseasonal hot flash and avoids a deluge of snow. With my luck, we’ll get snowed in.

“Okay. Let me see if I've got this right. Kyle’s your oldest brother, and he’s been dating Kayla for a while.”

“That’s correct.”

“Chris and Erin met while volunteering at an animal shelter in downtown Denver last year, and knew each other for five months before deciding to get hitched.”

Jeff listens to me prattle on as he moves into his bathroom to gather his toiletries. “See? You know what's up!” He returns with his arms full of face soap and shaving cream and razors and shampoo and …

Is that premium organic moisturizer?

No wonder his skin is so soft. Most men can get away with just one bottle of generic travel stuff: an all-in-one type cleanser that not only takes care of the hair on your head but also the hair on your feet and ass, too. But Jeff isn't most men.

“Hardly,” I scoff. It's one thing to recall what I've been told. It's another to experience it first hand while trying to avoid their judge-y eyes. “Your family is big.”

A tinge of jealousy washes over me at the thought of his big family. I am an only child, born to two only children, so beyond my immediate family, there wasn't ever anyone around. It made for some boring summers and lonely holidays being the sole person under the age of forty at family affairs. I guess that's why any close friends I made, I latched onto like a sibling.

“Beyond my brothers, you'll probably meet a gaggle of cousins, many of whose names I can't keep straight, and a few overbearing aunts and uncles. But watch out for my Uncle Russ. He’s pushing sixty but claims he’s only as old as the women he dates. He likes ‘em young and pretty.”

Ew!

He kisses my forehead, and I make a mental note to simply steer clear of his extended family.

“And what about your parents?”

“What about them?” he asks without making eye contact while zipping his bag up.

Jeff rarely mentions his parents, and I can only imagine that's for good reason. Isn't there some legal or moral parental obligation that they embarrass their children regardless of how old they are? Whenever I have kids, I'm going to be the cool mom. At least I hope to be.

“It's just that I know absolutely nothing about them.”

He presses his lips together in a hard line and thinks for a long moment before speaking. No doubt meticulously plucking the right words from his brain so not to scare me. “My parents are a bit … eclectic. Martha has very little interest and awareness in personal space and my dad—his name is Colin—as daft as he can sometimes be, does his best to reign her in. They're good people. Just … different. Try not to get worked up about it. I know my mom is really excited to meet you and make you feel all sorts of awkward.”

He's joking, right?

I laugh politely and uncomfortably all at once. He must sense my unrest because he stops what he's doing and sits down next to me on the bed. “But like I said, they’re going to love you. You've got nothing to worry about.” His eyes turn soft, and he grabs my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I really appreciate you taking off a few days to come with me. I know you don't like to leave your students but—”

“It's really okay,” I cut him off. “We're just going over some basics for the standardized tests they're taking in a few weeks. I left thorough notes, and if they finish early, I’ve got some educational videos they can watch.” And by educational I mean some snoozefest about our Founding Fathers since the principal wouldn’t approve me showing Dangerous Minds. I don’t care what anybody says, there are a lot of valuable life lessons to be learned from that movie. “It’s nothing the substitute can't handle.”

His face lights up, and he takes my face in his hands, studying my lips. His grip is firm, and his eyes are longing. Before I know it, he’s lowering me back onto the bed, quenching my hunger with a slow, deep kiss that slingshots an insatiable ache straight to my nether regions.

He pulls back to sweep some of my long auburn hair from my face. “God, I love it when you talk teacher to me. It’s so hot,” he marvels just before he buries his face, kissing me between my breasts, straight through my blouse.

“Seriously, Jeff?” My jaw drops and my eyes roll as I swat his shoulder away. “You are so weird!”

He looks up my body and pounds me with a coy, mischievous smirk. “Oh? And what are you going to do about that? Send me to detention?”

We both pause a beat, me trying to determine if he’s serious about some teacher-student role playing action, and him undoubtedly trying to gauge my interest. But before I can even form a response he doubles over in laughter, rolling off of me and onto his back.

“Oh my God, you should see your face right now, Henley.”

I throw an arm over my eyes and silently feel relief. Because as much as I love this guy, I’m not sure I have it in me to actually do any role playing. Let alone role playing in my daily profession.

“Come on. Let’s go forage for food so we can get to bed. Because if I have my way, I’d like to feast on you for dessert.”

He pulls me up off his bed, and I follow him to the kitchen, noting that the most dangerous mind in my life is his.