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19- Don't Be Nervous

"So how's your boyfriend?" My mom is asking me the next day over dinner. She got home early from work today and decided to cook dinner. "Hudson is your boyfriend, isn't he?"

I just shrug helplessly. "I honestly don't know. I mean, he said that he wants to meet Kurt and he also invited me to a family thing this weekend."

"You're going to meet his parents so soon?" My dad wonders with raised eyebrows as he cuts into his well-cooked chicken. "That's pretty serious."

"Yeah, I guess, but I don't know if we're technically like boyfriend and girlfriend because we never talked about it. But yesterday, I got mad at him for talking to another girl—it's more complicated than that but that's kind of the gist—and he didn't pull the 'but we never agreed to be exclusive' card so I think it's a real thing."

"Well, he clearly is making you happy," My mom observes with a small smile. "And we're so happy for you, Iris. If you guys are already talking about meeting each other's families, when do we get to meet him?"

"It'll be a while," I say quickly because just the thought of Hudson meeting my parents anytime soon just makes me cringe. It's not that I don't think that my parents are great because they're totally great. It's just that my mom would get too excited and start asking way too many questions and planning way in the future and being way too intense. My dad would be his usual weird mix of apathetic and overprotective, which is really hard to read. I'm just not ready to deal with that right now.

"That's just not fair," My mom decides as I'm piling green beans onto my plate. "He seems like a nice boy."

"He is really nice," I confirm with a nod. "I just don't want to move that quickly. I know that we're already going pretty fast by me meeting his family but we don't have to rush the whole thing."

"And you've talked to Kurt about this, right? What'd he say about it?"

"He's happy for me," I say. "And he's very eager to meet Hudson. I don't know though, I'll probably hold that off as long as possible too."

"Why don't you want Hudson to meet your brother? You're not ashamed of him, are you?" My mom asks me with an alarmed frown.

"No," I say quickly. "No, that's not it at all. I told Hudson about Kurt, he knows all about our situation. I just... it's personal. I feel like if Hudson meets Kurt then he'll start feeling bad for me or something. I don't know, I'm just not ready to introduce them."

"Okay, well you shouldn't rush anything," My dad adds and I nod at him, wondering if it's normal to get so much relationship advice from my parents. Other than Marina though, I don't know who else to go to for advice and considering this is my first real relationship in forever, I have no idea how to handle it and I'm going to need a shit load of advice. Probably more from my mom than from my dad because all my dad will tell me is to break up with Hudson and to never date anybody ever again because I should be protected forever and ever.

Not very helpful advice.

"Well, when I went to see Kurt, they said that they're planning a discussion to talk about a release date which I'm sure you guys know. I think that we should decorate his room with, you know, like balloons and streamers and stuff. Maybe have a cake or something. We should do something special when he comes home."

"Iris, it's going to be a while," My dad says with a pessimistic frown.

I bite into my chicken. "I know that. They're only now starting to discuss it but it's still going to happen. We can't move anything around because he doesn't want his room rearranged but I think that we can still fill his room with balloons or something. And we can take him out to dinner when he comes home. He probably hasn't had a decent meal since he went back to Michael Hopkins."