Page 37 of Beauty and the Nerd

Ben slipped into the apartment, smiling when he heard Emma laughing in their guest bedroom. He poked his head around the door, finding her lying on the bed while Megan unpacked her bag. “Hey Meg.”

“Hey Mr. Emma,” Megan returned, and Emma laughed even harder.

“It’s Miss Emma’s fiancé, not Mr. Emma,” she corrected her friend as he slipped over to drop a kiss onto her lips.

“I don’t know, Mr. Emma sounds pretty good to me,” he stated, his eyes roaming over his girl, and the calmness behind her eyes soothed him. “Feel better now that you’ve gotten to tell your friend our news?”

“Yeah, and thank you, you didn’t have to text her. I could have managed until next week.”

“No, you’d have ended up caving in and FaceTiming me tomorrow or Friday at the latest, then still be bugging out over the rest,” Megan said sending his brow up a hint.

“What rest?” he asked holding Emma’s gaze for a long moment.

“Why don’t you go fill him in while I finish unpacking, and he can change or whatever before we find something for supper?” Megan suggested and he pulled Emma up from the bed, with a nod of thanks to her friend.

“Okay, what’s wrong, baby?” he asked as she settled onto their bed while he pulled off his tie. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

“I know, I just…I’ve been anxious wanting to post photos from our trip, but I didn’t want to post the best ones until I was able to tell Megan about this,” she said wiggling her fingers with a huge grin. “Now that I’ve told her, I still really want to post them, but…”

“But what, Emmy?” he asked when she paused.

“I didn’t want to bother you about it because whenever she gets brought up you get all tense,” Emma said, and he stopped with his dress shirt hanging off his arm knowing with ease who she was talking about.

“My mother is not going to ruin this for us, I won’t let her,” he promised kneeling down to see her face to face.

“I know you won’t, but I was still hoping that maybe she’d come around, then I worried that she definitely wouldn’t if I posted about our engagement online and that’s how she found out.

I know I don’t have your parents or the twins connected to my pages but if I post it, someone who I am connected with could like or repost or comment on it, and they could have a connection to your family, or they could have a connection to someone else that does have a connection to your family.

And even if your mom never ends up liking me, your dad and the twins seem to at least be okay with me, and I don’t know if they’d be upset if they only found out through a second or third party, you know? ”

“You are so amazing, baby. It’s going to be my mom’s loss not having you in her life, not the other way around, but maybe we can call my dad and tell him later tonight or this weekend might work better?

You could post some of the pictures from the start of our trip to Hawaii leading up to those pictures, and then after we talk to him and maybe the twins, you can post as many of them as you want,” he suggested, loving her smile, and he texted his dad as they made their way to get dinner about possibly calling him and the twins about something this weekend.

We’ll be at your aunt’s Saturday afternoon for her summer bbq if that works, his dad responded and he smiled, showing the message to Emma who grinned, nodding in full agreement.

He let the girls enjoy time together Thursday and Friday, not caring that they were hanging out more together than with him those evenings.

He had Emma all to himself this past year, he wouldn’t deny her time with her friend.

Not when he got to sleep next to her every night, and especially not when they were able to enjoy each other before they went to sleep together.

Saturday afternoon, Megan slipped into the guest room, giving them a bit of privacy as he called his dad. He was relieved not to see his mom with him, and he smiled as he heard Daphne asking him to lower the phone so she could see it.

“Hey guys,” he stated seeing the twins come into view when his dad took a seat. It was pretty quiet, so he assumed everyone else, including his mother, was outside.

“Hey. Hi Emma,” Daphne said giving her a grin and he was glad that his sister liked his girl.

“Hi Daphne, Adam…Mr. Morris,” Emma said in greet to them as he held her close.

“Well, I’m not going to beat around the bush or anything since we don’t know how much time we have before we’re interrupted,” Ben said and his dad nodded in understanding, not thrilled with his shutting his mother out, but also realizing it was his choice.

“Emma and I have something we wanted to tell you all. First, we got back about a week ago from a week in Hawaii that was part work part vacation for me, while full vacation for my girl. Second, you all might see some pictures of my girl in the near future on ads for Satin Touch because she’s doing some modeling for them and in fact she spent the time we weren’t together in Hawaii with the owner of Satin Touch, who happens to be married to my boss, and Emma’s modeling for Emerson is the reason I met Lyle Cort and have the job at Cortland Finance this summer. ”

“Wait…what?” Daphne half-screamed. “Your girlfriend is going to be modeling for the most popular line ever?”

“She is, I’ve seen the photos and they’re incredible, they’re my second favorite set of photos of her ever,” he said making his dad’s eyes widen a hint and Emma forced herself not to blush, certain he wasn’t thinking of possible engagement photos but something naughtier.

“Which actually leads me to the third thing which is also connected to the second thing.”

“Huh?” Adam said not following.

“There’s another set of photos that Emma’s going to start posting on her personal social media pages, so if you see them, we wanted to share the news behind them first,” Ben said, hitting send on the text message with two of the ones they were going to post.

The first one Ben was kneeling with the ring box in his hand, while the second one was the one she shared with her parents as well. They could hear the ding as they came through, and Daphne’s gasp said they saw them.

“She said yes,” Ben stated as their eyes flew back up to them. He lifted her hand, showing off the ring and Emma grinned at the shock on their faces.

“You’re engaged?” Daphne cried, her voice rising as the word engaged went on.

“We are, nothing planned or even discussed as to when we might begin to start planning, we’re enjoying being engaged right this moment, and we’re going to take it from there.

I’m working most of this summer but I’m enjoying it, it’s with things I want to do as a career, so while it’s work, it’s interesting and useful.

I’m definitely missing Emma while I’m at work but at least I have her once I get home, because we’ve moved in together…

or I moved into the apartment with her with her parents’ approval for it, along with their blessing to the engagement,” Ben added getting it all out for his family.

What they told his mother was up to them, he couldn’t control that piece of it, but he could control the contact with her he had, and especially the contact she had with Emma.

“Oh my god…I’m so totally going to be in the popular crowd next year,” Adam said making his brow lift curiously at his brother.

“No, you aren’t,” Daphne said rolling her eyes at him as well.

“Uh yeah I am when they find out our brother, Mr. Nerd Alert, is engaged to the Homecoming Queen who also is modeling for Satin Touch, because most of their ads are bras and underwear and bikinis and shit like that. The guys at school are going to be begging for an autographed photo,” Adam said, and Emma couldn’t quite stop the laugh that bubbled up, and she turned her face into Ben’s shoulder as he glared at his brother.

“You’re not using my relationship with Emma for anything, got it?” Ben warned.

“He will,” their dad said with a warning look his way. “Congratulations Ben, Emma, we’re happy for you both, truly. If you want us to keep this to ourselves…”

“I’m sure it will get out around town once Emma posts the photos so there’s no reason not to tell her, I simply am not going to listen to any negativity from her, or anyone else on it.

If we decide there is anything that we don’t want shared with someone, we’ll let you know.

It depends on how things go from here on how much we share when we do make plans,” he stated getting his agreement to that before they ended the call.

Emma laughed as Ben pulled her over his lap, giving her a million little kisses until Megan interrupted them.

“Okay, I’m still here you know,” she joked.

“We know or else we’d be in the bedroom already,” Emma returned, loving the new dynamic in her relationship with Ben, but also being able to share it with others she loved.

“So, when are you going to freak everyone we graduated with out by posting that I’m pretty sure you’re the first one in our class to get engaged?” Megan asked her, and she grinned further at Ben seeing his smile as that thought rushed through his mind.

“Oh yeah, you’re posting that today,” he teased her, and she pulled out her phone, opening up the draft she had save with her ‘favorite moment from our Hawaiian vacation’ and hit post.

“Done,” she told him, letting him see the spread of the pictures she’d chosen, the last one her favorite that showed off the ring but also the sweetness of his love for her.

“Beautiful, just like you baby,” he said handing her phone back as it started going off with notifications.

“I think you might have broken some of them,” he teased as they checked out the comments already posted, most of them just emojis of shocked faces, several of exploding heads, and she didn’t care about any of the ones that were snarky or nasty.