Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: You've met the good. Let's meet the bad. Maybe we can meet some ugly later. I haven't decided yet….

Okay, so she probably shouldn't have just thrown Chase to the wolves like that. And wolves her family was. She had a brief glimpse of her mother forcibly dragging him into the kitchen before her bushy-haired best friend was obscured by at least ten of her female relatives. The questions were pelted with more efficiency and accuracy than a band of army snipers, and Aunt Milly's insistence that had she been twenty years younger, Chase would have made a fine fling made her want to pound her head into the wall. If it was this bad with Chase, who had met some of her family before and was only pretending to be her fiancé, how the heck was she supposed to subject a complete stranger to this someday? He'd never make it past the door before turning around and running for the hills. She was sure Chase would have liked to, if Bud had not gripped him so tightly around the shoulder.

Zoey sighed and buried her head in her hands. At this, the relatives who had bombarded Chase descended on her, eager with questions of their own. Even Mary Claire had shut off her country music station to turn a keen ear to the conversation. She was rushed into the kitchen, placed on a tall barstool, and surrounded by her female relatives. She felt rather like a specimen under a microscope.

"So," her second cousin, Katie, said as Zoey tried to keep her balance on the rickety stool after being shoved into it. "Tell us everything."

"Everything? Everything what?"

"Everything about Chase, duh."

"Could you be anymore vague?" Zoey muttered.

"How'd you meet?" Aunt Milly said. "That's a good place to start."

"You all know how we met. We were friends at P.C.A."

"This is that Chase?" Aunt Milly looked shocked. "Well, that boy grew up fine, didn't he?" She glanced over at said boy—no longer a boy—and eyed him appreciatively.

"Milly! You're old enough to be his grandmother!" Helen, Zoey's mother, slapped her aunt on the shoulder in shock. "That's sick!"

"It's not sick. He's an adult. Besides, some men are into older women."

"Not that much older."

"You'd be surprised!"

"You're right. I would be surprised if someone Chase's age picked you up in a bar."

"Oh, you know bars aren't my scene, Helen."

"It's an expression, Milly." Milly wave her off with a dismissive flick of her hand and continued as though her niece hadn't spoken.

"Now, the supermarket. There's the place to pick up eligible young men."

"Okay, that's a little too much information—" Katie looked positively green as she heard her great-aunt talk about hitting on younger men.

"Oh, really, dear, it's so easy. You should try it sometime. You're short enough…"

"Do I dare ask what I'm short enough for?"

"Well, it's all so easy. First, you have to find a strapping young man. Then, you have to pretend to desperately need whatever is on the top shelf. If he's a gentleman, he'll offer to get it for you. Then you make your move! If he's not a gentleman…well, you don't want one of those, anyway!"

"Oh, God…" Katie buried her face in her hands, obviously embarrassed to be related to Aunt Milly. For her part, Milly only sat there and grinned. Zoey watched the display calmly, praying they'd get so off-topic that they would forget her "engagement". Her hopes were dashed however, when Mary Claire spoke up. It was uncharacteristic of her; she was incredibly quiet, the silent sister in her mother's family. Her mother attributed it to being a middle sister, and often overlooked by their parents, so she had learned just to be quiet and not cause trouble. She was a sweet woman, and a good cook. If she could, she would spend all day in the kitchen playing her beloved country music all day. Amazingly, unlike Great-Aunt Milly, Mary Claire had married, and had managed to find a man as quiet as she was. She had met Phil—her husband—while they were in college together. She had gone for a teaching degree, and he was there for accounting. Their freshman year, they had overlapped in their required writing class, and had been together ever since. Her children were younger than Zoey and Dustin by quite a few years; they'd had fertility issues early in their marriage and it had taken them nearly fifteen years to have their first child, Zoey's cousin Lucy. They'd amazingly had one more child, a boy named Zachary. They'd stopped after that, with the reasoning that they had one of each, and anything more would just be too much to handle. The two children were in their teens now; Lucy was entering college in the fall.

"Can we take a look at your ring, Zoey?" was the quiet question from her aunt, and though it was soft, it was powerful enough to both stop the bickering and turn the conversation back towards Zoey and her "fiancé". Zoey looked down at her hand, only just remembering the ring Chase had given her on the plane. Her face flushed as she remembered their conversation. Her mother snatched her hand up to look at the ring herself.

"Well, he's got good taste, I can say that," Great Aunt Milly said, leaning over her niece's shoulder to see. "Any idea where he got it?"

"No, I have no idea," Zoey said honestly. She really didn't know where Chase had gotten the ring, and she could only hope that it hadn't cost him too much money. This was a fake engagement, after all. It would be terrible of him to spend that much on a ring she was only going to wear for a weekend. Even if she did love it.

"So, how did he propose?" Katie was dying to know.

"Er—" Zoey bit her lip. Realization splashed over her like a bucket of ice water. They'd never settled on a cover story. What if what she said contradicted what he said? It would blow their cover, definitely. "You should ask Chase about it. He really loves to tell the story. And he remembers it much better than I do. It happened so fast, it's all a blur." Please, please buy that, she thought. Her mother looked poised to reply, but a ding from the kitchen timer brought her attention to the stew simmering on the stove.

"Oh! That's dinner!" her mother said. She waved Zoey off the bar stool. "Go say hello to your father while I get dinner on the table. I'll call you guys when it's time to eat." Zoey was grateful for the distraction, and slithered off the barstool into the living room before anyone could ask her any more questions. She wondered, vaguely, what the "menfolk" had been talking about, but figured it had something to do with Chase, as he looked ready to bury himself beneath the floorboards. She ruffled his hair and perched herself on the edge of his armrest. Then something interesting happened.

Logically, Zoey knew there would have to be affection involved. Hand-holding, hugging, cuddling….maybe even kissing. After all, what kind of to-be-married couple in this century was completely hands-off? So, rationally, she knew there would have to be touching. But she had pushed it away in her mind. She had pushed it so far into a corner of her mind that it was complaining of starvation and maltreatment and civil liberties. So, naturally, she was quite shocked when she felt an arm snake around her waist and pull her into Chase's lap. She let out a surprised squeak she rather wished she'd been able to hold in and found herself laying haphazardly across his knees. She stiffened, trying to retrieve a little bit of personal dignity.

"So, you've met everyone?" she asked, trying desperately to act as though nothing were out of the ordinary.

"Not quite everyone," he said. He added conspiratorially: "Relax. You look like I'm torturing you or something." Torture? Well, maybe not in the traditional sense, though she was trying to get her heart to stop racing….No, we're not going there, her mind chastised her. It wouldn't do to start pretending this was anything more than one friend doing a favor for another. But she knew he was right; if she looked as though she was uncomfortable with his affection, there would be no way they'd pull this off. She made a conscious effort to relax, leaning back against his chest.

"I heard you got accosted by the women when you came in," she continued, hoping her apprehensions would go away if they just talked for awhile. All hopes were dashed when Chase started running his fingertips lightly up and down her arm. How the heck was she supposed to concentrate now? Answer: she couldn't. She shivered at the light contact. She tried to push on. "Sorry about that."

"Feed me to the wolves, I get it," he teased her. They chatted back and forth about her family for a few minutes before her mother came in to collect the family for dinner. She gave the two a warm smile, obviously delighted that her daughter had found a good man to settle down with. Zoey didn't know how it was going to go over when she and Chase "broke up". Well, they would cross that bridge when they came to it. She went to move when her mother dropped the bomb.

"Oh, and Zoey, Madison is coming by after dinner with the new baby," she gave Zoey a hard look. "I expect you to be nice."

"Yes, Mother," she said, but knew her face gave her away. Chase gave her an inquisitive look and asked about the exchange, but she brushed him off and they headed into the dining room.

To say that Zoey and her cousin Madison didn't like each other was akin to saying the Titanic had a little accident. Madison was six months older, and from the time they were children, they hadn't gotten along. When Zoey was a toddler, Madison would take her toys and claim that she was too young for such nice things. If Zoey refused, the dolls were mutilated. At five, Madison convinced her that she was adopted, if only for the sure joy of seeing Zoey panicking. Of course, the fact that her father had taped the birth and the tape was in the cupboard beneath the television hadn't occurred to her, so Zoey had cried mercilessly under her bed for hours until her mother came to see what had happened. Madison had claimed the she had heard it from another family member, and was only trying to be nice. When they were seven, they went to the store for bubble gum. They decided to have a bubble-blowing contest. Determined to win, Zoey took three pieces and blew a huge bubble. When it reached an impossible size, Madison had popped it, splattering it back into her face and hair. Her mother had had to cut her hair and she'd had a page-boy for a year. However, Zoey then learned to fight back; two weeks after the bubble-gum incident, the family went camping. Zoey caught a frog in a nearby stream and shoved it to the bottom of Madison's sleeping bag. The horrified squeal that erupted had been worth the two-week grounding she'd received as punishment.

As a teenager, Madison grew out of physical pranks and grew into verbal attacks. When she was thirteen, Madison and her family moved to New York City, thanks to her father's promotion. After which, Madison had no use for the back-country small town she'd been born and raised in, and vocalized loudly when she came to visit. And apparently, Zoey did not fit her paradigm of what a girl their age should be doing, wearing, or eating. She made fun of Zoey for sleeping with a teddy bear, for wearing jeans and a ratty shirt to run around the backyard, for eating junk food. She pointed out character flaws that kept her cousin single, and insisted that even if Zoey did change her ways, she was simply too plain to attract any male attention. Unlike her, who had "scores" of boyfriends back in New York. Even after Zoey went to P.C.A., Madison found ways to assert her superiority. She mocked Zoey's friends, telling her she was quite certain these friends would not stay past high school. After all, she'd said, who wanted to be friends with a small-town girl who before this, had never been much of anywhere else? Since Zoey really had no ammunition for this type of attack, she usually just ignored it. But that doesn't mean it wasn't annoying as hell. In fact, Madison was the second reason Zoey had avoided these family get-togethers over the years.

And now she was married with a baby. She could only imagine how Madison would use that against her. Probably something about getting to be an old maid. Or that her biological clock was ticking. After all, Madison bought into the whole "Must get married and have kids before thirty" mentality the rest of her family had, and this was just one more way she could feel superior over her cousin. At least Zoey wasn't alone…Madison would tear her apart.

Dinner was a rather noisy affair, and she was wondering how Chase was taking all this in. Admittedly, she'd never met his family—only talked to his grandmother over the phone—and couldn't accurately say what mealtimes were like at his house. But he'd mentioned once that he was an only child who lived with his parents in Boston, and his extended family rarely came to visit. Unlike her family, in which half of her extended family lived in the same town and visited the house regularly. Family dinners like this were the norm about twice a month, always loud, always crowded. Even she was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. The children were settled at their own table in the kitchen, save for someone's toddler, who was banging his spoon on his highchair tray and demanding more food while his mother implored him to at least say please. Her uncle Bud said a quick grace, and her father missed his cue to tell everyone to start, instead chiming in a few seconds after everyone grabbed dishes as though they hadn't eaten for days. Zoey snuck a glance at Chase to see how he was handling this, but he seemed perfectly content. In fact, her mother had introduced him to the rest of the table, and he was engrossed in a conversation about baseball with another cousin of hers. Though Zoey knew nothing about baseball, she caught snatches of the dialogue, and knew that Chase was trying valiantly to defend his team, the Red Sox, while her cousin insisted that there were tons of teams better than them. She had to snort when her cousin mentioned the Yankees; being a Red Sox fan, she knew Chase wouldn't stand for anyone even implying the Yankees were better. Zoey heard her name being called, and turned to talk to an aunt.

After dinner, the family worked like a well-oiled machine to get the dishes cleared and washed, and to hose down the kids that were now covered in food. As usual, the older men and women separated into their own groups, the men adjourning to the porch outside and the women to the living room to talk. The younger family members milled around the house, the ones with children preparing them for bed. Zoey glanced at the clock and started biting her thumbnail. Madison was due over any minute. She would be nice, since she'd promised her mother she would, but that didn't mean it wouldn't give her an ulcer in the process.

"You know," her mother told her over a pan of soapy dishwater. "I'm just so glad you decided to give Chase a chance."

"Hmm?" Zoey was only sort-of paying attention, instead gazing out onto the fields beyond the window over the sink. The children were out catching fireflies in the dusk. She heard a little girl squeal as one landed on the back of her hand.

"Giving Chase a chance," she continued. "It's always been obvious that he loves you. I was afraid for awhile that you were going to break his heart."

"Wait, what?"

"Oh, yeah. Your father and I had a bet going. You'll be happy to know I won twenty dollars."

"I know. Dad told me."

"Did he? Well, regardless," her mother wiped her hands off on a dish towel and slung an arm around Zoey's shoulder. "We're just so happy you realized you love him, too. I swear, you've got a glow to you I haven't seen before. You just look so happy with him. Your father and I always hoped you'd find someone like Chase." She pressed a kiss to her daughter's temple and went back to washing dishes. Zoey stood there, dumbstruck. For once in her life, Zoey did not know what to say. Or what to think. Rather, she knew what she didn't want to think about, which was everything her mother had just said….

After the dishes were done and the clock edged closer to Madison's arrival time, Chase wandered into the house with the same cousin he'd been discussing baseball with earlier.

"What's wrong, Zo?" he asked, leaning back against the kitchen counter and crossing his arms over his chest. She'd taken refuge in the kitchen, where she wouldn't have to be accosted by anyone asking about her engagement or gushing over her cousin's visit.

"My cousin Madison is coming over in a few minutes."

"Okay?"

"She's the most awful woman in the entire world."

"Ouch," Chase winced. "That bad, huh?" Zoey was immensely happy that Chase hadn't told her she was jumping to conclusions. Her mother had done that every time Madison had done something wrong, and she couldn't bear to hear it again.

"Worse. She tortured me when we were kids."

"She tortured you?"

"You know Rebecca?"

"Yeah…" Chase grimaced. Rebecca was still a sore spot between them. She was never really mentioned after the blackmailing incident.

"I would take her over Madison any day of the week."

"That's….awful." At that moment, Zoey heard the front door open, and a tentative greeting drift through the house.

"Speak of the devil," she muttered. Without realizing it, she moved closer to Chase as a brown-haired woman toting an infant carrier came sweeping through the door, a slightly bemused and lanky man following her carrying a diaper bag. The women of the house (minus Zoey) did a repeat of the attack they'd done on Zoey, except instead of peppering Madison with questions about her husband, they cooed over the sleeping baby and made silly faces at him.

"That's Madison?" Chase leaned closer and whispered in her ear. She nodded. She was about to respond when Madison looked up and saw her cousin standing in the kitchen. Zoey had a zing of satisfaction (a zing of satisfaction she shouldn't be feeling, she reminded herself) when Madison's eyes went wide and she gave Chase a quick up-and-down look of approval. She felt Chase shift uncomfortably beside her; obviously he'd noticed the look as well.

"Hello, Zoey," she greeted tonelessly as she breezed into the kitchen.

"Hello, Madison," Zoey returned, trying to be nice, as her mother had asked. However, if Madison started in on her usual bag of tricks, all bets were off. She was a grown woman, after all. She refused to be bullied by the likes of Madison.

"Who's this?"

"This is Chase," Zoey smiled. "My fiancé."

"Really?" Madison looked as though she were chewing this information like a piece of gum. She set the baby on the ground and stuck out a hand to Chase. "Well, I believe Zoey has forgotten to introduce us. I'm Madison, her cousin." Chase shook her hand hesitantly, as though expecting her to strike at any time. Madison noticed, and gave a high pitched giggle. "I'm guessing she's told you all sorts of horror stories about when we were kids, right?"

"Well—" Zoey could tell that Chase was searching for the words to be diplomatic. Luckily, he was saved by Madison cutting him off.

"That was years ago. Zoey and I have never really gotten along, and I was a bit of a wild child."

"Like Tarzan," Zoey muttered to herself under her breath. Chase stifled a laugh beside her, and it was obvious Madison had heard the jibe, too, as her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.

"Yes, but at least I can act my age and be civil in front of company, Zoey," she retorted. The baby in the carrier began to fuss as he woke up and realized he was in a strange place, and thankfully that was the end of the conversation when Madison turned to attend to him. Zoey took that opportunity to escape onto the porch with Chase, where they sat in relative silence for the next hour or so, enjoying the peace of the countryside.

When her mother announced at eleven that it was high time for everyone to get some sleep, as they would all be up early tomorrow for the first part of the reunion (for Brooks family reunions were always two days long), Zoey was more than ready to comply. Sleep had been elusive the night before, and her plane ride nap hadn't been as restful as she'd hoped. Her mother began ushering people to individual rooms, and only then did it occur to Zoey that sleeping arrangements might be a little awkward. Or a lot awkward, she thought as her mother stopped in front of the last guest room.

"And you and Chase will be in here, honey," she smiled. "I'm sure you'll be comfortable."

"But—" Zoey and Chase began to protest together.

"I'm not as old-fashioned as you think I am, Zoey," she laughed. "It's the twenty-first century. You can't honestly tell me you two haven't been sharing a room. You're engaged, for crying out loud!" Zoey didn't want to tell her mother that she could honestly say that she and Chase had not been sharing a room, and now was not the time to argue. The couple were all but shoved inside the room, and her mother bid them goodnight.

It seemed as though Chase was looking everywhere but at her. Which was fine, because Zoey was trying to look everywhere but at him. The room was sparsely decorated, being a guest room. There was one large bed in the middle, a dresser, and a sofa. And though Zoey had loved to play in this room as a child, it now seemed odd and foreign to her.

"So…" she began. "How do we want to do this?"

"I could take the sofa," he suggested.

"I don't think either one of us could fit on that sofa," she said. "I doubt even Madison's baby could sleep comfortably on that thing."

"Then I'll take the floor," he reasoned.

"But that's not fair," she frowned. "Besides, what will my mother say when she comes to get us in the morning? It would look odd for us to be sleeping apart if we're supposed to be engaged."

"Yes…but…"

"Chase, we're adults. I think we can share a bed." Plus, I could really enjo—oh, no, we're not going there.

"Right," he nodded. "Adults. We're adults, we can share a bed." With that, he excused himself to change. She changed quickly herself, opting for a demure nightgown and boxer shorts. No need to tempt fate, now was there? Chase quickly returned, obviously thinking along the same lines clad in pajama pants and a t-shirt. There were a few moments of shuffling as they climbed into the bed and tried to get comfortable. They ended up as far away from each other as they could get, almost hanging off the mattress.

"Goodnight," she said stiffly, shutting off the table lamp next to her.

"Goodnight," he returned, doing the same with the lamp next to him. And although she was tired, sleep was a long time coming for Zoey. She didn't want to dwell on why.

A/N: Finally, I got another chapter out. Writer's block and schoolwork are awful!