"My mom called earlier asking if we'd like to go to her house for Thanksgiving," Eddie said, giving a nod of thanks to the waitress who set down her coffee before turning back to Jamie. "It would be us, her, and my dad. I told her that I'd have to talk to you first before I gave her a definite answer."
"Well… do you want to go?" he questioned. "It's up to you."
She shrugged, "I don't know…. maybe. I mean, our relationship is better now. I'm at least on speaking terms with both of them but I don't know about spending an entire evening with them. What about the plans with your family? Would they be upset if we went with them?"
Jamie immediately shook his head, "Not at all. There was many Thanksgivings and Christmases where Erin and Jack would go with his family and Danny and Linda would go with hers. They won't care if we go with your family."
Eddie nodded, "That makes me feel a little better. But I'm still iffy about going."
"Well, how about this? I know Lena will probably want to start dinner around four. Pop usually has dinner ready by seven o'clock sharp. I say we go to your mom's house and stay until six, maybe even six thirty at the latest. Then, we just tell her that we have to make it to my family's house on time and we go." Jamie clapped his hands together. "We get to spend an even amount of time with both families. Problem solved."
Eddie laughed, "I like that. I would feel bad not going to my mom's but I don't want to stay there the whole time with them either. Let's go with your plan."
Jamie smiled and gave a nod, "It's settled then."
Jamie and Eddie spent a few minutes talking amongst themselves as they ate. Then, Eddie spotted someone familiar heading toward their table.
"Oh my god," Eddie mouthed, trying to bite back a laugh as she looked at her husband.
He furrowed his brow at her, "What's wrong, Ed?"
"Jamie-eee," they suddenly heard in a sing-song voice.
Jamie's eyes widened as he recognized the voice. Suddenly, he was attacked with a hug from behind. He turned to see that it was Alison Gable, his former classmate.
"Oh my gosh!" Alison squealed happily. Then, she let go of Jamie and immediately went to hug Eddie. "I knew it had to be you two!"
"It's nice to you again, Alison," Eddie answered. "How's it been going?"
"So good girl!" she responded. Alison turned, stole a chair from the other table next to them and pulled it up to theirs and sat down, which elicited a tense smile from Jamie. "The podcast is still going so well! I can't believe that I've been doing it for so long now." Alison looked between Jamie and Eddie. "How about you two? I'm more interested to hear how it's been going for you guys."
"I'm still on patrol," Eddie said then gestured to Jamie.
"I'm a Field Intelligence Sergeant now," Jamie added.
"A Field Intelligence Sergeant?! That sounds so amazing!" Alison responded, patting Jamie's shoulder. "What does that entail? Tell me all about it!"
"Oh… well," Jamie laughed nervously. "I don't think we have time. Eddie and I have to be somewhere soon. Right babe?"
"We still have plenty of time, honey," Eddie replied with a devilish smile. She remembered the long, drawn out two hour conversation she had with Alison when she visited their apartment a few years back so she decided that Jamie needed a little taste of what she dealt with. "Tell you what, I'll go pay for our food and Jamie can tell you all about his job."
"Oh yay!" Alison clapped excitedly.
Eddie stood up and walked off to the register. She couldn't help but laugh as Jamie's pleading eyes followed her. She decided to prolong her stay at the register and sit off to the side where she had a good view of their table. Her poor husband looked like he was ready to run out the exit and never look back. She was sure that Alison was doing more talking than Jamie was. Alison was quite a force to deal with and a conversation with her was exhausting. After a few minutes of watching, Eddie felt that Jamie had endured enough and decided to swoop in and save him.
"It's been so great to see you Alison but we really have to go now," Eddie interrupted, walking over to Jamie and pulling him up from his chair.
"Yeah we have to go," Jamie said quickly.
"Oh man. Well, it's been nice to see the two of you!" Alison replied, hugging them both again. "We definitely need to meet up and have lunch sometime! Ohhh, maybe I could have the two of you on my podcast! It would definitely build up my following even more!" She reached into her purse and pulled out a business card, then handed it to Eddie.
"Uhhh, we'll have to see about that," Eddie replied, taking the card. "But I'm flattered that you would want us on. We'll think about it for sure."
"Please do. And if you're up for it, call me!"
"We will Alison," Jamie said, grabbing his wife's hand and slowly starting to walk toward the exit. He knew that if he didn't push this goodbye along, then Alison would keep the conversation going as long as possible. "We really need to get going. It's been great seeing you. Hope to see you around."
"You guys too!" she waved. "Bye!"
"Bye!" they replied in unison.
When they made it outside, Jamie turned and gave Eddie a look.
"Thanks for leaving me all by myself with her!"
"Well now you know what I had to deal with when she came over to our apartment that one time," Eddie laughed.
He just shook his head at her as they started their walk back home.
"I have a great idea," Eddie suddenly said after a few minutes. "Let's invite Alison to Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house."
Jamie widened his eyes at her, "Are you serious?"
She stared at him with a straight face for a long minute before she broke out into a smile. "I'm kidding."
He let out a sigh of relief, "Good. I think Lena would lose it if we brought Alison to her house."
"She would," Eddie agreed. "But it would be fun to see."
"You're crazy," he chuckled.
"But you love it," she smiled cheekily.
"Yeah... yeah I do," he replied.
He let go of her hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close to him as they walked the rest of the way home.