::Brook::

"Is that really what you're wearing?" Alex asked me as I stepped out of my bedroom and into the living room where he was sitting on the couch waiting for me.

"Yeah. Why? What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" I asked, smoothing down the front of my dress.

"Absolutely nothing," he said, standing up. "I just feel like I look like a slob now."

After Target, we stopped back at Alex’s house so we could drop off the bags of stuff we bought and so he could change he clothes and feed the dogs.

I shook my head, standing in front of him and adjusting the collar to his black button down shirt.

"On the contrary, I think you look very handsome," I said, leaning up and kissing him very quickly.

"Yeah but I'm not trying to impress you. I know that you already like me."

"Believe it or not, my parents already like you," I said, walking back into my room to finish my makeup.

"What makes you so sure?" he asked, following close behind me.

"Because they never would have invited you over if they didn't," I answered, running my eyeliner pencil across my eyelid.

"What if they're inviting me over to sit us down and tell us we can't see each other anymore?" Alex asked, dramatically plopping down on my bed.

"They're not," I said with a laugh, moving to my other eye.

"How can you be so sure though?" he pried.

"Because. They're my parents and I know them pretty well. If they didn't like you I would have gotten a dinner invite for one and then they would question why I'm with you."

"But I thought you said they were overprotective of you ever since you're last breakup?"

"They are and I have no doubt my dad will attempt to put the fear of God into you but just know he means it with love," I said, finishing up with my makeup and putting everything away.

"Your dad is terrifying," he mumbled, following me from my room.

"Eh. It's just a front. Once you get to know him, he's really a big teddy bear," I said, putting a sweater on over my dress before slipping on my coat, scarf and mittens.

"Teddy bear? I'm sorry but with hands as gigantic as his, I'd say he's more like a grizzly bear," Alex said, putting on his coat as well.

"Dude," I huffed, placing my hands on his shoulders. "Calm down. You're working yourself up for nothing. I promise this is going to be fine."

"You promise?" he asked, with an adorably pathetic frown on his face.

"I promise," I said, kissing him quick. "Let's go."

"Okay," he said a little uneasy as he followed me out of the apartment.

As usual he had insisted on driving.

It was really sweet that Alex was so nervous about my parents. Sure, there was a small part of me that was a little nervous too but I wasn't lying when I told Alex I knew my parents well. If he hadn't sparked any bit of their interest in the ten minutes they spoke in Target, I would be on my way to dinner solo right now about to endure an entire meal long of Alex bashing.

The car ride there was relatively quiet. The only sound came from the radio and me whenever I would give Alex directions.

When we pulled up in front of the house Alex looked so nervous I thought he might throw up.

"If you don't want to do this, we don't have to," I said, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze.

"No. I want to do this," he said, turning to face me. "I just want to do this right."

"You'll be fine," I assured him, leaning over and kissing his cheek. "I already promised you that, remember?"

"Okay," he sighed, killing the engine. "Let's go in and get this over with."

We both climbed out of the car and Alex immediately clutched my hand tightly as we made our way up the walk way.

"Here goes nothing," Alex whispered, pressing the doorbell.

"You need to relax. Be yourself. They can smell fear and will immediately call you out on it so please calm down," I said quickly.

"Great. No pressure," he frowned.

"Don't be a baby," I said leaning up and pressing my lips to his.

"Honey! Brook is here and she's got that thing on her face again," my dad yelled out once he opened the door and found us kissing.

"My goodness," my mom said, coming into view. "Do you guys ever get short of oxygen?"

"Hi daddy," I said, rolling my eyes and kissing my dad on his cheek. "You remember Alex, right?"

"How could I forget?" my dad asked with a smile, extending his hand out to shake Alex's.

"Good to see you again, Sir," Alex said, shaking my dad's hand.

"You too, Alex," he said, slapping his hand gently on Alex's shoulder. "Come on in," he said, ushering us both into the house.

"Smells good mom," I said, walking into the kitchen with Alex close on my heels.

"Thank you, baby," she smiled, giving me a quick hug before moving her attention to Alex.

"How are you, sweetheart?" she asked, giving him a tight squeeze.

"I'm okay. How are you ma'am?"

I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of the word ma'am. Alex was about to get an earful.

"Oh Alex. When I hear the word ma’am,I picture an old shriveled up woman. Is that what you see when you look at me?"

Alex shook his head quickly. "No ma'am," he said, panic flashing in his eyes.

My mom smiled. "Call me Joanna, Jo, even mom. Anything but ma'am."

"Okay," Alex nodded slowly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," my mom said. "Honest mistake. Just don't let it happen again," she continued, ushering Alex out of his coat and quickly passing it to me. "Be a dear and get rid of the coats," she said, collecting hers and my dad’s coats from the back of a chair and flinging them at me as well.

"Sure," I said slowly, giving Alex a reassuring smile as I quickly slipped out of the room and dropped all the coats on my mom and dad's bed.

"I made Baked Ziti," I heard my mom tell Alex as I walked back into the room. "Do you like that?"

"Yes," Alex said quickly. "It smells great and your house is beautiful," he continued, looking around the kitchen.

It was your typical gigantic Italian family style kitchen. I always thought it was a little on the too big side but I was afraid I'd be disowned if I voiced that opinion.

"Thank you," my mom practically beamed. "You're such a sweetheart!"

"You're welcome, Alex smiled and he seemed to relax a bit after that.

"Brook, would you mind helping me set the table?" my mom asked me, shoving a stack of plates at me before I could even answer.

"I'll help!" Alex quickly offered, reaching to take the plates from me.

"Oh no, no, no," my dad spoke up. "Let's leave the women to the kitchen. Let me take you downstairs and show you the basement."

"More like your man-cave," my mom muttered and I giggled.

Once I had officially moved out of the house, my dad slowly started to transform our basement from my teenage hang-out to his sort of sanctuary where he could go relax at the end of the day and watch whatever sports event was on. He had sports memorabilia up everywhere and crummy old furniture he found at some thrift store that didn't match but he loved it.

"You shush over there," my dad hissed, only causing me to giggle more. "Come on, Alex," he said, gesturing in the direction of the basement.

"Go on," I encouraged him, giving him a quick kiss. "We'll call you in a few when dinner is ready."

"Okay," Alex nodded and I could see some of his nerves popping back up.

"You got yourself a real cutie there, Brook," my mom's voice said once Alex and dad were in the basement.

"Thanks mom," I rolled my eyes, spreading the dishes out on the table and folding the napkins.

"I didn't know you were into that whole tight jeans and tattoos thing," she said, passing me the glasses.

"I didn't know I was either,” I said with a shrug. “I guess I'm not dating him because of his tattoos and tight jeans."

"Then why are you dating him?" my mom asked, going back to the stove and stirring the pot of sauce.

"I don't know," I shrugged, placing the salad bowls on top of the dishes. "He makes me feel better about myself. I feel more like me when I'm around him than I've felt in a really long time.”

My mom smiled.

"I could tell there was something going on with you. You've been a little different since Christmas."

Now it was my turn to smile.

"We met right before Christmas."

My mom nodded. "How long is he gone when he tours?"

I sighed. "A while. Right after New Year’s he was in the UK for about a month and then he was home for about three days and left again for Canada for about a month."

"So, you've almost been apart from him longer than you've known him." my mom pointed out.

I nodded slowly. "Pretty much. Yeah."

"How does that even work?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It just does, I guess. It was nice while he was gone though. We spent all that time texting and emailing and whatnot just getting to know each other. It was really nice to just be able to focus on that instead of constantly freaking out about everything else."

"I'm only going to say this once and please don't get mad at me," my mom started. "Are you sure you can trust him?"

"Mom," I sighed.

"Look, I'm just saying, you know what you went through before. Is dating a guy in a successful band who's constantly on the road the best idea?"

"I don't know if it's the best idea, Mom but I do know that he makes me really happy and yeah, I feel like I can trust him. He really is a good guy. You should have seen the way he got along with Sami."

"Sami?" she asked confused. "When did Sami meet him?"

I bit my lip, looking away from her.

"When she was here for Christmas. She's a big fan of his band. So, I wanted to surprise her."

"So you let your little cousin meet this guy but your mom doesn't find out about him until three months later?"

"Aunt Marie knew about him too but only because she caught me texting him. Oh and Bianca also kind of knows because she was in the room when Aunt Marie called me out about the texting."

My mom frowned dramatically. "I thought we were closer than that."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh relax, okay? I didn't say anything because I didn't want to jinx it and I didn't want you to get all can you trust him? on me until I was sure that I could."

"And you're sure?" she asked again.

I nodded. "Totally sure."

"Good. Go get the boys downstairs and tell them dinner is ready."

"Okay," I smiled and quietly made my way down the stairs.

I didn't want them to hear me right away. I wanted to eavesdrop a bit.

"This is Brook at her first Yankees game," I heard my dad say and I found him and Alex on the other side of the room looking at the pictures my dad had hanging on the wall in frames.

I knew what picture he was talking about. I was about three years old, decked out in a mini-Yankees uniform. I was holding a foam baseball bat with the Yankees symbol in one hand and a half eaten piece of pretzel in the other. My dad was always going on about how I wouldn't keep the little baseball cap on but somehow managed to keep it on long enough to snap this picture.

"She hated that hat. I was so happy I got it to stay on long enough for this picture," I heard my dad say.

"She looks adorable," Alex said. "She pretty much has the exact same face."

"Yeah. She'll have that baby face until she's collecting social security," my dad said with a laugh.

I rolled my eyes and cleared my throat, gaining both their attention.

"Hey sweetheart," my dad said. "I was just giving Alex the tour."

"I see that," I said, coming up next to Alex, smiling a little when his arm wrapped around my shoulder. "Anything good?" I asked, looking up at Alex.

“Oh yeah,” he nodded. "I'm a big fan of your baby pictures."

"Of course you are," I rolled my eyes and my dad smiled. "On that note, it's dinner time."


::Alex::


Brook, her dad and I headed up the stairs for dinner. Brook's mom had already started piling the food on our plates. She quickly pointed to where she wanted me and Brook to sit.

I was beginning to think that maybe I was being super nervous for no reason. Brook's parents were really cool and I sort of got the feeling they liked me.

Granted, while we were in the basement, her dad did bring up the fact that Brook's had her heartbroken in the past and subtly mentioned that he’d ruin the next guy that ever tried to hurt her.

I did my best to convince him that I had no intention of hurting Brook and that I really, really cared about her.

"You guys haven't told us how you met," Brook's mom said once we were all settled at the table and started eating.

"Oh no," Brook muttered under her breath.

"Well," I started and Brook shot me a glare.

"We need to come up with a new story to tell people," Brook muttered again, earning two confused looks from her parents.

"My dog had gotten out of the yard and Brook found him and brought him back," I explained, leaving out a major part of the story for Brook's sake.

"Well that doesn't sound bad," Brook's dad said.

"That's actually really sweet," Brook's mom added.

Brook sighed loudly, taking a large sip from her glass of wine.

"What Alex has failed to tell you is that I only came across the lost dog after I thought I hit him with my car."

Her parents both gasped at the same time causing Brook to sink back in her seat and I laughed quietly.

"Brook! You didn't," her mom gasped.

"No," she shook her head. "I didn't!"

"She brought him back to me and I was sure he was okay but Brook, being the wonderful person that she is, insisted that we go to the vet to make sure," I added. "And he was totally fine."

"Good. A happy ending," Brook's mom smiled.

"I think there was a happy ending either way," Brook's dad said. "If it never happened we would never have had the pleasure of meeting Alex."

"Aw Daddy, that was so sweet," Brook smiled.

"Thank you, Sir," I nodded.

I noticed Brook's mom shoot Brook's dad a look before he opened his mouth to speak again.

"Alright, fine. I had enough fun with it. Alex, please call me Paul. Enough with that Sir stuff."

"Okay," I nodded. "Will do."

"Thank you," Paul said. "Now, tell me more about this band of yours. I'll let you know, I downloaded a few of your songs to my iPod when we got home from the store. I actually like it."

I probably couldn't hide my shocked reaction if I tried.

"You listened to my band?"

"Not to all of the songs, of course but I really like that Therapy one and that one about something about Sunday."

"Thank you so much si- Paul. I really appreciate that," I smiled. "Don't take this the wrong way but you have an iPod?"

"I do,” he nodded. I'm not stuck in the Stone Age like my darling daughter. My cell phone's got a full keyboard too."

"Oh here we go," Brook mumbled, taking another big swig of wine.

"I bought her one of the old mini-iPod off the internet. You know, the little ones from when iPods first came out? I got it for her when she graduated college. I figured she'd be able to use it. It wasn't anything fancy. I don't think she even took it out of the box."

"I did too take it out of the box!" Brook defended herself. "I just didn't know what to do with it once I figured out how to hook it up to the computer."

"That's okay," I assured Brook, laughing just a little.

"The thing is obsolete at this point between the iPads and the iPhones," Paul shrugged.

“Who cares that I don't have one of those I-touchy-pod things? I've gone on just fine in my life without one," Brook frowned.

"Alright let's stop ganging up on Brook," Joanna spoke up. "It's not her fault she's old fashioned."

"I kind of think it's cute," I said.

"Thank you," Brook said, looking over to me with a smile.

The rest of dinner went on relatively uneventful. Brook's parents asked me a lot more questions about the band and the different places I'd been. I knew I gained major brownie points when I mentioned, truthfully, that Italy was one of the most beautiful places we'd ever toured.

Although I was full after the first generous helping of food Joanna had piled on my plate, she wouldn't take no for an answer when she offered me a second and third helping. By the end of the meal I was afraid the button on my jeans were going to pop right off and once dessert was served I was sure Brook was going to have to roll me back to my car.

The rest of the night seemed to fly by and I was becoming more and more comfortable with Brook's parents by the minute. They asked me a lot more questions about the band and the different countries I've seen. My favorite part was them sharing stories of a younger Brook. I'm relatively sure she had polished off an entire bottle of wine on her own by the time they were finished sharing. She tried to play it cool but I noticed her stumbling over her own feet a bit as we walked to the door to say our goodbyes.

"Promise me we'll see you again before you leave for Japan," Brook's mom said before pulling me in for a tight hug.

"Of course," I smiled when she let me go. "Maybe next time you can come to my place and Brook and I will make dinner for you guys."

Her mom practically beamed at the suggestion as she pressed a kiss to my cheek.
"I would really love that."

I stepped out of the way so Brook could say goodbye to her mom and I could hear them whisper as they embraced but I couldn't make out what they were saying. The same thing had just happened when she said goodbye to her dad. I'd be stupid to think the whispering wasn't about me.

"Guts," Paul said before dropping his hand on my shoulder. "I really liked that song too."

I turned to him, trying to fight the smile on my face.

"Thank you. That's actually one of the entire band's favorites."

"Oh! And that Poppin' Champagne one? I added it to my work-out playlist," he added.

"That is awesome," I said, shaking it firmly when he extended his hand to mine.

"Goodnight, you guys," Brook said as we made our way out the door.

"It was great to meet you guys. Thanks again for dinner," I said as Brook was practically dragging me to the car.

Once we got to the car I was so overcome with joy that the night had gone so well, I grabbed Brook by her waist, pulling her to me and pressing my lips to hers. It dawned on me afterward that her parents were still watching us from the front door.

"What's that for?" Brook smiled once I let her go and we both climbed into my truck.

I shrugged, starting the car and putting on my seatbelt.

"I'm just so fucking happy with how well that all went."

"See," she smiled at me. "I told you it would be fine."

I gave her hand a squeeze across the middle of the car as I pulled away from the road.

"Says the girl who can't walk a straight line from all the wine she drank."

Her mouth dropped open, no doubt ready to attempt to deny it, but it snapped closed real quick when she realized she had no way to deny it.

"I said you would be fine. I knew darn well that my parents were going to tell every embarrassing Brook story they could remember."

I laughed a little, squeezing her hand again and bringing it up to my lips and kissing the top of it.

"Your dad likes my music," I practically gushed. "And not just like he googled the hits and listened to those. He actually took the time out to listen and a good mix of old and new stuff too."

Brook leaned her head back against the seat and turned to me with a smile that was an equal mix of sleepy and tipsy.

"My dad gave you a tour of his man-cave. That alone should make you feel good. He doesn't just let anyone see his precious collection of junk."

I smiled at her, glad I was able to remember how to get home from here because she was certainly not going to be any help.

"He had a lot of cool stuff."

"Did he totally grill you when you guys were alone?"

I shook my head. "Nothing too bad. He just briefly discussed the fact that you'd been hurt badly before and that he promised to ruin the next guy that even thought about hurting my little girl," I said, my voice going deeper towards the end trying to imitate Brook's father. "I think I plead a good case saying hurting you wasn't really even an option for me."

"Good," she smiled, leaning over and pressing a kiss to my lips.

It probably didn't even register how dangerous that could have been seeing how I was driving.

"I'm pretty sure my mom is in love with you."

"Really?" I laughed.

"Oh totally. She made sure to tell me how cute you were every chance she could get."

I nodded slowly. "Your mom's pretty hot herself."

"Don't tell her that," Brook shook her head. "She'd probably leave my dad in a heartbeat if she knew she stood a chance."

I nodded again. "Hey, it's good to keep my options open."

Brook rolled her eyes dramatically. "I guess I should keep my options open too in case Nick Jonas ever becomes available."

I laughed. "Ah, the apple sure doesn't fall far from the apple tree, huh? Have you and your mom always been cougars?"

Brook rolled her eyes. "Ha ha, Alex."

I smirked, leaning over to kiss her quickly once I'd stopped at a red light.

"Is it okay if I sleep over tonight?"


"Yeah. It's okay but you can't whine when my alarm goes off at six in the morning to wake me up for work."

"I promise I'll try really hard."

"I guess that's okay," she laughed a little. "But really, you're okay with how tonight went right? I told you my parents were not going to be your biggest issue."

I turned to her quickly. "What's going to be my biggest issue?" I asked, a sudden panic spreading through my body.

"When you have to meet my brother."
***

Notes

Story Title: Taylor Swift -Sparks Fly
Chapter Title: Taylor Swift - That's The Way I Loved You
Brook's outfit.