Chapter 29

Okay so are people still reading this story? I love writing it but haven't gotten a lot of feedback lately and I'm wondering if people have constructive criticism or something and just aren't saying anything.
Onwards!

Max's POV:

"Max, your collar is crooked, come here." She was nitpicking again as we stood outside of her Aunt's house, giant casserole in hand. I let it go though considering what a big day it had been so far for her today. She had officially moved in with me and even though she had been a nervous wreck all day, I got a little thrill every time I went into my closet and saw all of her stuff crammed in there with mine. Well, almost all of it. There had been a space issue that we worked through.

"Lizzy" I said grabbing her hand from where it kept smoothing over my collar "You have to calm down." I planted a quick kiss on her wrist and dropped it from my perfectly ironed shirt.

"I know, I know, I'm just nervous for you. My family is nuts." I pulled her into a hug and she immediately buried her face into my neck where she fit perfectly.

"I'll be fine" I said laughing. Really, how bad could this be? She obviously loved her family and even though she had told me stories, I came from a nutty family too.

"You say that now.." she said trailing off when I heard a shriek and greetings from at least three different people. I felt Lizzy sigh and pull away from me quickly while three women came bursting out to greet us and lead us into the house.

"Max, this is my Aunt Mimi and her two daughters Mandy and Melissa." All three women smiled at me and sized me up. "Where's my Mom?" I felt myself being scrutinized by her cousins before one of them maybe Melissa? spoke up.

"She's in the kitchen finishing the dessert she brought."

"Oh my god, I can't believe that Eliza wasn't lying when she said she was bringing someone." This was said by the younger looking one of the two cousins who I recognized immediately to be the bitchy one that Lizzy had complained about before. Neither of us said anything but I felt her stiffen beside me.

"It's so nice to meet you Max" Mimi said pulling me into a hug. What kind of name is Mimi? I had to hunch over to hug her properly because she was so tiny. Remarkably, all of the women in the family so far seemed short, Eliza was only around 5'7" but that was tall compared to these ladies. Where does she get the height from?

"Mostly everyone's here" stated the one who I thought was Melissa. Mandy, the younger looking one looked a little flaky and had already gone inside without taking much interest in either of us. "The only ones who are late are Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Rob." Both of them laughed and rolled their eyes and I assumed that there was some sort of backstory to these people.

"Sorry Max, this is my older cousin Melissa. Her husband and kids are running around here somewhere." I shook Melissa's hand and knew that I would like her. "The other one was my sister Mandy- she doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut."

"You'll meet our other Aunt and Uncle Cynthia and Rob later. They are always late and then complain when we eat without them."

Melissa snatched the casserole off of the car hood where it had been resting and left us in the driveway where she walked inside yelling for someone to help her.

"Let's go find my Mom" Lizzy said grabbing my hand and pulling me into the house. As soon as we walked in, I noticed how crowded the small house was already.
"Ignore all of the QVC looking things around the house" she whispered pulling me through a room with different people lounging on the floor and couches.

"What's QVC?" Was this something I was supposed to know prior to coming here?

"Nevermind" she said laughing and pointing out people here and there who jumped up to shake my hand or give me a hug. It was easy for me to relax as we moved through the house because they reminded me a lot of my family and were all hockey fans making the conversation a little bit easier.

We entered the busy kitchen and an older version of Lizzy approached us pulling her into a tight hug and eyeing me critically over Lizzy's head. I was momentarily stunned by how alike they looked and that in 20 or so years, this is what Lizzy would look like.

"Mom, this is Max Talbot" Lizzy said introducing us. "Max this is my Mom, Addy." I held my hand out to shake hers and put one of my most charming smiles on my face. If she was anything like Lizzy, she wasn't going to be won over easily. That's okay, I'm up for the challenge.

"It's nice to meet you Max" Addy said smiling slightly at me and firmly shaking my hand. "I've been telling Eliza to bring you to dinner for a long time now." I nodded still smiling and waited as I was introduced to other people around us.

"How are you doing so far?" Lizzy whispered into my ear while we got ourselves drinks.

"Good. I just don't think your Mom really likes me" I whispered back. Her Mom had been carefully watching us since we had arrived and I couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Her and I got into it the other day because she thinks we're moving too fast. She doesn't want anyone taking me away from her or worse, hurting me" she said pinching my side jokingly. I was almost afraid to pinch her back, even teasingly in case her Mom popped out and used it against me.

"Okay guys, the dinner's ready!" Mimi called walking over to us and pulling us down into chairs in the dining room. I glanced around the table confused by all of the different plates of foreign food.

"What is this stuff?" I leaned over whispering to Lizzy who was piling her plate full of food.

"It's traditional Slovak food." She laughed at the expression on my face. "Here I'll make you a plate and explain what everything is."

I let her pile on food that I couldn't pronounce and was a little grossed out by considering the two main ingredients in a lot of the food was cabbage and butter.

"This is my favorite dish, it's called Bulbaki and it's pieces of bread soaked in sweet poppy-seed milk" She pointed to a dish that was steaming hot and had little black specks all over it.

"I'm only trying this because I love you so much" I said hesitantly picking up my fork. She blushed and I saw that her Mom was watching us carefully from across the table, having obviously heard what I had said.

"Just eat it, Maxime" Lizzy said rolling her eyes at me. I bit in and found that while it was a little mushy, it was surprisingly good and thankfully didn't have any cabbage in it.

"It's good" I said taking another bite of it. At least I could fill myself up on this stuff if everything else turned out to be gross.

The rest of dinner seemed to be going well and I spent most of my time talking to Lizzy's proclaimed favorite Aunt and Uncle who were more than willing to divulge hilarious stories about Lizzy growing up.

I was relaxed and had fooled myself into thinking that Addy's analytical looks had stopped. Wrong. Lizzy kept looking at her Mom anxiously and giving me pleading 'I'm sorry' looks. I decided that after dinner I would try to talk to her and try to make peace with her.

"Addy, could I have a minute?" I had waited until everyone was out of the kitchen to find her and hopefully have a private conversation. She nodded obviously waiting for me to continue and all of the sudden, I understood where Lizzy got her bossy school teacher look.

"I just wanted to talk to you and maybe get to know you a little bit better. We didn't really get to talk with so many people around." I felt like I was asking permission to take Lizzy to prom or something. That's how nervous this woman was making me feel.
"Max, I don't want to be rude to you but frankly, you are not the man her father nor I would have ever pictured her with. I'm worried about her."

She said this so directly that I at least had to admire her for that.

"Mom!" Lizzy had entered the room and must have overheard what she said. She looked horrified and I felt bad for even bringing it up. I should have just let it go.

"It's okay" I spoke up. Addy was waiting for me to prove her wrong and I was up for the challenge. "Addy, if the man you were hoping Lizzy would find is someone that loves her very much and wants to take care of her, then I am the person you should picture her with." That was literally the most forward I had ever been and the most I had ever put myself out there for a woman before.

She stared at me for longer than I was comfortable with and I felt Lizzy move closer to my side to squeeze my hand tightly in hers.

"Mom, I know you have your reservations about this but I'm happy, I really am. And Max is a good guy, if you get to know him, you'll see that."

Eliza's POV:

I was so angry at my Mom in that moment for putting Max in that sort of confrontational situation when she'd only just met him and he'd done nothing wrong the entire dinner. Then to top it off, he actually took a stand for me and my Mom was still unresponsive. Everything else with dinner had gone perfectly. Max was getting along great with the rest of my family and handling their nutty (and possibly fabricated stories) well by taking them in stride and laughing. Having everyone else's approval but not having my Mom's was a little too much to handle.

"Max, would you mind finding our coats?" I needed a minute to talk to my Mom before we hightailed it out of there. He nodded picking up on my hint and I heard him move into the living room to say goodbye and ask where our coats were located.
"Mom, I love you, but that was uncalled for. I signed away the lease on my apartment today to be with him and having your support was really important to me. I need you to accept that he's in my life and that we're serious about each other." I felt myself tearing up as we stared at each other and didn't really know what else to say. "I'm in love with him" I mumbled wiping tears away upset that I was telling her like this when we were both upset.

"I know honey, but that's what worries me." Surprisingly she pulled me into a hug giving me some hope that she would eventually come around.

"His parents are coming down to watch a game in a few weeks to see him play and they'll be staying with us. Why don't you come over then and meet them and get to know Max better?" I wasn't going to be able to let this go until she agreed and they all got along. It would literally tear my heart in two if I didn't have my Mom's support on this. She was the only connection I had to my Dad and it was hard already to be a woman in love without her Dad.

"Lizzy?" Max had reappeared in the doorway with our coats in hand looking at us questioningly.

"I'm ready to go" I said pulling away from my Mom and walking over to him.

"We'll talk this week" My Mom told me before turning to Max. "Max, it was nice to meet you. And I mean that" she said smiling at him. Her smile was much more natural and I could see Max visibly relax.

"It was nice to meet you too" he said smiling back and sliding his arm around my waist making us into a unit.

We left and got into his car, neither of us saying anything. I felt horrible for the way that my Mom had acted and didn't know what to say that could make it better or somehow excusable. How had the weekend with his family gone so well and one dinner with my family gone horribly? What had I done to make it that way?

"Are you doing okay?" he asked when we finally got back to the house. All I wanted to do was take a shower and curl into bed but I couldn't escape this time. There was no apartment to return to when I needed time to myself- there was only Max. Max and the house we now shared completely.

I nodded trying to give him a reassuring smile and hung up our coats before he could prod me more about it.

"Okay seriously. What's going on inside your head right now?" Max had followed me upstairs and was now watching me take off my jewelry from the doorway to our bedroom.

"Nothing, why?" I really didn't want to talk about this yet and wished that he would take the hint.

"Okay, so we're back to lying again. I know something's wrong with you right now. Just tell me" he said simply. "Is it about what happened tonight?" I gave another half-commital shrug in an attempt to end his questioning.

"Why are you acting like this?" he said turning me around to face him.

"Why are we fighting about this?" I asked getting angry. Why wasn't he just letting it go? I would be fine in the morning.

"We wouldn't be fighting if you would just tell me what's wrong" he said meeting me glare for glare.

"I told you that I'm fine" I said and pulled off my shirt determined to avoid an argument and go shower. It felt like both of us were digging around for a fight and I wasn't up to sparring with him. I was half-way to the bathroom when I felt him pick me up and set me on the bed, covering my body with his.

"I guess we're doing this the hard way" he said settling down on top of me. Normally he was conscientous of crushing me on the bed but this time he was full-on pinning me down to keep me in place. "You can be the most difficult woman sometimes" he muttered looking down at me.

Now that we were lying there with the hard press of his body against mine, I was completely unable to avoid his stare. I felt the tears welling up against my will and a frightened look overcoming his face.

"Baby, no. Don't do that, don't cry" he said now cradling my face awkwardly.

"I can't help it" I was feeling miserable for myself and Max at the same time. "Tonight just went so wrong and I don't know why." I said this all while Max looked vaguely horrified by my sudden burst of tears.

"Eliza" he said using my whole name, "Tonight was not that bad."

"Max! My Mom practically told you that she hates you and you think that it's not that bad?" He looked down at me a second and rolled his eyes.

"Of course that's not that bad. She just has to get to know me. I mean, it's not like I don't understand where she's coming from. You're her only daughter, do you really think she's going to want you to get involved with just anyone? You're like the prodigal daughter in your family."

"I am not" I said frowning at his description of me.

"Yes you are" he grinned down at me, his body still holding me down on the bed.

"So wait a second. You're okay with the fact that she practically bitched you out, and you understand it?" I couldn't wrap my brain around this.

"Yes" he said leaning down to plant a kiss on the underside of my jaw. Suddenly I felt the tears welling up in my eyes again except this time, out of happiness. How had I managed to find someone so understanding of everything?

"I love you" I said, the words spilling out before I could even think about it. Or regret it.

"What?" he asked probably unsure that he even heard me correctly. "Did you just say that you love me?" he asked a huge grin overtaking his face. I closed my eyes unable to hide anywhere else. Did he have to smile like that? Me confessing my love for him was not that amusing.

"You did" he said starting to full on laugh now.

"It's not that funny" I said feeling slightly irritated.

"No, it's not that. You're crazy, you know that right?" he said planting a lingering kiss on my lips.

He was distracting me with his roaming hands and I pulled away from his mouth determined. "But I mean it!" I said it coming out more like a threat than I had intended.

"I know" he said trailing his lips down my throat. My shirt was already off from before when I was on my way into the shower and Max made a noise of approval as he slid my bra straps down my shoulders.

"Well don't you have anything you'd like to say back?" My eyes were starting to get heavy from all of the attention he was paying to my neck.

"Lizzy" he laughed again, "I've told you that I love you how many times now. If anything, you need to keep saying it over and over again right now" he joked, his hands wandering further.

"Max!" I squealed as his hands slid around to cup my butt.

"Yeah?" he was giving me that mischievous smile of his that I loved and I rolled us over thinking that maybe he did have a point after all. Would a couple of "I love you's" really kill me?

Definitely not.