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First Visit to Boyfriend's Home, I Overturned His Dad's Feast
NovelShort
Completed
My boyfriend and I had been together for four years, and he proposed on Valentine's Day. "I want to spend my whole life with you, take care of you, and grow old together." "Will you marry me?" I said yes with tears in my eyes, and we agreed I'd go to his family's house a week later. The day I visited, his parents laid out a whole table of good food. After some brief small talk, everyone started eating, and my boyfriend placed a rib into my bowl.
Chapters (4)
第1章
My boyfriend and I had been together four years when he proposed to me on Valentine's Day.
“I want to spend my whole life with you, take care of you, grow old with you.”
“Will you marry me?”
With tears in my eyes I said yes, and we agreed I'd visit his family a week later.
The day I came over, his parents had laid out a whole table of good food.
After a bit of small talk everyone started eating, and my boyfriend put a rib into my bowl.
I took a bite and asked him quietly.
“Isn't this a little too sweet?”
My boyfriend said nothing. His father slammed his chopsticks down on the table.
“Sweet ribs, that's how they're supposed to be. Are you questioning my cooking?”
I looked around the table, stood up, and set the rib down in front of his father.
“Since you think that's how it's supposed to be, then you can eat all of it.”
1
My boyfriend, Tristan Gilbert, and I met back in our freshman year.
From the moment he started chasing me, I'd told him.
“For all four years of college, I am absolutely not dating anyone.”
One sentence, and Tristan chased me for four years.
The day we graduated, I became his girlfriend.
“Why did you wait for me so long?”
“Because from the very start, I was in it for marriage.”
We joined the same company, assigned to different departments.
Four years into our relationship, Tristan filled the plaza outside our office with nine hundred and ninety-nine roses.
The moment I stepped out of the revolving door, he dropped to one knee, a ring in his hands.
“Jade Gray, I want to spend my whole life with you, take care of you, walk all the way to old age with you.”
“Marry me, will you?” Mm.
The whole company clapped and cheered.
Those four years, everyone had seen how much we loved each other.
We had our little spats now and then, but in the end we always made room for each other.
I stared at him for a long moment, then asked him seriously.
“You know my temper, so I want to ask you too. Are you ready for this?”
Tristan nodded, hard.
I bent down to help him up, tears in my eyes.
He slid the ring onto my finger and leaned in to kiss me.
“Jade, I love you.”
After everyone had gone, Tristan brought it up.
“Did you forget today's Valentine's Day?”
I gave him an embarrassed smile.
“I've got an account that's been keeping me busy lately, so yeah, I did forget.”
Back at our rented apartment, Tristan cooked himself, and I helped on the side.
Forty minutes later, the dishes were on the table, looking and smelling wonderful.
Tristan took the red wine he'd let breathe and poured it into the glasses.
“Can you finish that account within a week?”
I thought about it, then answered for sure.
“Should be fine. Probably won't even take that long.”
“Then there's something I want to ask. A week from now, come visit my family. Would that work?”
Tristan didn't say it like he had every right to.
Over all these years together, we both understood well that love was something you had to build together.
“Of course that's fine.”
The two glasses clinked, and I started dreaming about our future.
A week later, I rode in Tristan's black sedan to his family's house.
After we got out, the two of us pulled a heap of little gifts from the car.
Tristan sorted through them, a little helpless as he said to me,
“I think this is too much. Is all this really necessary?”
I shot him a glare, covering up the nerves inside me.
“It's my money, and these are gifts I'm bringing for your parents. Does any of it have anything to do with you?”
Tristan chuckled and said nothing more.
Their house was an old-style villa, a standalone three-story with a good-sized yard out front.
When he opened the yard gate, Tristan suddenly hesitated, glancing at me with a trace of uncertainty.
“Jade, there's something I have to tell you.”
第2章
I looked at the house in front of me, running through how the meeting might go in a few minutes.
"What is it? Just tell me."
My nerves must have rubbed off on him, because his voice had dropped a good bit.
"My dad's a retired head chef from a state-run luxury hotel. You know that, right?"
I nodded.
"Of course I know."
At least three of the reasons Tristan managed to win me over came down to his cooking.
I'd come down from the North to go to college in Rivertown, and I'd never really taken to the food here.
Especially the Southern dishes, which leaned sweet and heavy, or else bland and light.
But after I met Tristan, he always found a way to make me the flavors of home.
"All the cooking at home goes through my dad, but he's got one rule at the table."
"After everyone's eaten, they have to give a detailed opinion, and it has to match his."
"If you say the wrong thing, the meal's over."
None of that struck me as excessive. If anything, I understood the old man.
"He cooks for you and just wants a little appreciation for it. What's wrong with that?"
Tristan had two older brothers, and his father was already forty-five the year he was born.
If my own parents were still alive, they'd be a fair bit younger than he was now.
"It's not about appreciation, it's more like, how do I put it..."
Tristan turned it over for a long moment, then said something that caught me off guard.
"I guess you could see it that way. Every meal, we're all just humoring him, keeping him happy."
"And once he leaves the table, most of the food ends up going to the cats and dogs."
Just like that, my nerves vanished. I turned and stared at him, stunned.
"It can't be that bad."
"He's a retired head chef from a state-run luxury hotel, for heaven's sake. Is the food really that terrible?"
Seeing I didn't believe him, Tristan gave a helpless shrug.
"Well, I've told you now. Just remember to go along with it at first, okay?"
I laughed.
"Don't worry. Back when my parents were alive, I had a real knack for buttering people up."
The two of us carried our gifts into the yard, and when we reached the house, the front door on the ground floor stood open.
Tristan's parents stood in the doorway, waiting with smiles.
"Dad, Mom, this is Jade Gray."
"Mr. Gilbert, Mrs. Gilbert, it's lovely to meet you."
Tristan made the introductions, and I greeted them with a polite smile.
"Sweetheart, you didn't have to bring all this, you know. It's not like you're visiting strangers."
Mrs. Gilbert's tone was warm and easy as she reached out and took the gifts from my hands.
Mr. Gilbert gave me a nod.
"Come inside, it's cold out there."
For a kid who'd survived Northern winters, the South really wasn't cold at all.
One thin down jacket and you could sail right through the whole season.
We sat down on the living room couch and made a little small talk.
Tristan took my hand on his own, and his mother came over and gave him a shove.
"Go help your dad in the kitchen."
Tristan and his father busied themselves in the kitchen while his mother stayed in the living room to talk with me.
"My boy's the youngest at home, and the most spoiled!"
"If he ever does you wrong, you tell me, and I promise I'll smack him."
I could tell she wasn't just being polite.
"Mrs. Gilbert, did Tristan get spanked a lot as a kid?"
She nodded with a smile, a bit of memory in her eyes.
"An absolute little terror. Nobody in the family had the heart to lay a hand on him. I was the only one who could bring myself to do it."
Nearly an hour later, sixteen dishes covered the dining table.
Once Mr. Gilbert picked up his chopsticks, Tristan set a piece of ribs in my bowl.
I'd barely had one bite when Mr. Gilbert spoke up.
"So, Jade, how does this dish taste?"
第3章
I looked up at Mr. Gilbert.
His eyes were flat and still, like the question hadn't come from him at all.
Under the table, Tristan tugged lightly at the hem of my dress.
Reminding myself this was my first visit, I gave Mr. Gilbert a polite little smile.
Then I lowered my head, chewed slowly, and finally spat the bone splinters off to one side.
"These ribs are really something, Mr. Gilbert. Tender, melt-in-your-mouth, sweet without being heavy."
He gave a small, satisfied nod.
"You've got good taste. Have some more if you like it."
After that, with every dish, he had to ask.
And each time I said the same thing I'd started with, forcing out words I didn't mean.
But I told myself, deep down:
"Jade, you only have to do this once."
Beside me, Mrs. Gilbert and Tristan had clearly seen it all before, and neither of them batted an eye.
The meal ran a full hour.
Before Mr. Gilbert went to lie down in the bedroom, he told me,
"Next time, let me know ahead of time what you'd like to eat. We don't keep a lot of ingredients on hand, so I'll need to prepare."
I answered with a stiff little laugh.
"Really, Mr. Gilbert, there's no need to go to all that trouble. Simple home cooking is more than enough."
He waved a hand, pleased with himself.
"Now, you can't say that."
"Tristan must have told you. Before I retired, I was head chef at an executive hotel."
"For me, cooking is both a pastime and a passion, and on top of that you all enjoy eating it. Three good things at once, really."
Tristan cut in then.
"Mom, Dad, it's getting late. We should head out."
"I already got a room ready for you. You're not staying the night?"
Mrs. Gilbert looked reluctant to let us go, but Tristan shook his head.
"Jade and I both have work, and the place we're renting now is close to the company. We're not thinking about moving back home for now."
Under the two of them smiling in their disappointment, we drove off.
Back at the rental, I kicked off my heels and flopped onto the soft, sunken mattress without a shred of dignity.
"God, that meal really opened my eyes."
Tristan sat down beside me with a rueful smile.
"Honestly, I don't quite get it myself. My dad wasn't always like this."
I shot upright like a fish flipping off the ground and fixed my eyes on him.
"Okay, out with it. What's the story here?"
He fished a cigarette out of his pocket, and I grabbed the lighter off the nightstand to light it for him.
"Before he retired, my dad used to bring food home all the time."
"Back then we hadn't moved into the house yet, so in the neighborhood, my brothers and I were about the most envied kids around."
"In an era when families couldn't get enough to eat, my dad had meat on the table three times a day."
He was remembering the good old days, and the corner of his mouth curled up on its own.
"The three of us grew up big and strong. Nobody could take us in a fight."
"Too bad that all changed once he retired."
"At first, he took the kitchen over from my mom, and the three of us were pretty happy about it."
"Until one day, my oldest brother muttered that it was the same handful of dishes over and over."
Hearing that, it all made sense, though something still didn't add up.
"By rights, your dad should be a great cook. So why were the dishes today so strange?"
Tristan sighed.
"In my dad's day, the diners weren't allowed to tell the chef how to do his job."
"Whatever he made, you ate!"
"I didn't want to hide this from you, I just could never find the right moment."
I caught the discouragement and the fear in his voice, and I lifted a hand to point at my own nose.
"Are you trying to ask whether I'll still dare to marry you?"
第4章
Tristan pulled a long face, nodded, and even pushed out his lower lip on purpose.
Watching him do that, I couldn't hold my temper.
"What kind of person do you take me for?"
He quickly ducked his head and put on a coaxing smile.
"Jade, I could see you didn't take to the food much today, and you've never been one to just swallow things you don't like."
I glanced around, grabbed Tristan's belt off the headboard, and gave him a light little smack across the back with it.
"It's not like this breaks any real principle. Just get your dad to change it, that's all."
"Easy to say. But who's going to make my dad change?"
Then he brought up his two older brothers.
"That's exactly why my oldest and second brothers had to go buy their own places."
"You've got no idea. They brought my two sisters-in-law home on the very same day."
"That one dinner was a complete uproar. It nearly ended with the family splitting up."
Hearing how serious he made it sound, I turned serious too.
"Tristan, I want to ask you something."
"If my dad and I got into it over the cooking, whose side would you be on?"
Tristan opened his mouth, and it was a long while before he said, quietly,
"We've saved up plenty these last couple of years. Let's just buy our own place and live somewhere else."
I lifted his chin with one hand and tossed the cigarette away.
"I'm asking you seriously. I want a straight answer."
When my parents were still alive, my mother used to tell me one thing.
"When two people come together as husband and wife, they have to take each other's faults. Same goes for the rest of the family."
Tristan had told me once that he was in this to marry me.
But then again, wasn't I the same?
He was the first boyfriend I ever had, and I had no plans for a second.
Back in college, a roommate borrowed something from me and said she'd return it in three days.
On the third day, right before I went to sleep, I stood by her bed and asked for it back.
She stared at me, stunned, and said,
"Come on, Jade, it's this late and you want it now? It can't wait till tomorrow?"
I gave her a faint smile.
"When you borrowed it from me, why didn't you say you'd bring it back tomorrow?"
She got out of bed with a frown, found the thing, and handed it over.
"Here. I won't ask you for anything ever again."
"That works best for me."
I ignored the jab and kept my tone perfectly even.
"But from now on, you can borrow whatever you want. Whenever you say you'll return it, that's exactly when you return it."
It was the same now. Tristan stared for a moment, then spoke, moved.
"I like you, and I'm going to marry you."
"Since I'm your husband, it's my job to keep the wind and rain off you and keep you safe your whole life."
I grinned and kissed him on the cheek.
"You said it, remember. Whoever backs out is a puppy."
A month later, Tristan and I registered our marriage and held a big reception.
His oldest brother Lance Gilbert and his second brother Merlin Gilbert came with their families to give their blessings.
After the reception, Lance and Merlin came up to the two of us side by side.
"Jade, my kid's got a bit of an odd temper. Bear with him some."
That was from Lance, the oldest.
Merlin, the second brother, clapped both hands down hard on Tristan's shoulders.
"Don't let Jade suffer for a single thing, or you know what I'm capable of."
I suddenly thought this whole family was rather interesting.
Three days after the wedding, Tristan got a call from his dad.
"Come home for dinner tonight. New daughter-in-law's in the family now. You ought to stay at the house a few days."