A freaking ambush. That’s what I’d call this.
Sighing, I glance around the Lone Star Station. The diner is pretty empty, but then again, it’s mid-morning on a week day.
My sister bats her eyelashes at me, a huge, self-pleased grin plastered on her face. Traitor.
“Mija,” my mother says, reaching for the cream, “your father and I were concerned.”
Here we go.
They don’t call me all summer and now they’re concerned.
I shoot my sister a dirty look across the table, but she avoids my glare and rubs her ginormous stomach.
My parents sit on either side of me at a small four-top table, right next to the table I sat at with Ethan and Logan that one time. God, that seems ages ago.
“And why is that, Mom?”
She gives me that look, that you know what you did look.
I give her one in return. Seriously, I have no clue.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I wait her out. She likes the buildup. The drama. My Mexican mother is where I get all my crazy, so I know how this goes.
“We called you, Tori. Your sister says we haven’t called, but we have.” I start to shake my head, but she cuts me off. “¿Por qué me dices que no?”
Why do you tell me I haven’t?
I pull out my phone and wave it around. “Maybe because I have this thing called a phone, and it never rings with calls from you. Either of you.”
Not sure why being around them makes me whine like a teenager, but two minutes at this table with them has me crawling out of my skin with anxiety. At Ethan’s, I’m all cool, calm, and collected, but seated next to my parents and sister, I’m the fucking basket case everyone thinks I am.
I’m twenty-three. I shouldn’t care that my parents don’t call me. I sooo get that. But I care. More than I want to admit.
“You guys didn’t really drive from Corpus to argue about this, did you?” I shift in my seat, wondering why today of all days they’re here.
“No,” my dad interjects. “We wanted to make sure Katherine’s nursery was all set up.”
A part of me is disappointed they’re not here for me, but I nod. I get it. They adore my sister. Hell, I adore my sister. She’s why I considered working for Ethan in the first place. It makes sense my parents would want to check on Kat since she’s so pregnant.
My mom digs into her purse. I sit back, knowing it could take a while before she ever finds what she’s looking for in there. Toothpicks, antacids, a sewing kit, an extra shoe lace, mints. All shit she lines up on the table in her search at the bottom of the faux leather bag.
Then she waves her tiny red flip phone. “Mira. Aquí.” Look. Here. With the speed of a turtle, she opens it, turns it on, and waits for the device to light up. Finally, she holds it to my face. Like, right to my face so I have to lean back to actually read the screen.
I see my name and my number.
I blink a few times.
Huh.
“Um. Mom. That’s my old number.”
She makes a face. It’s the See, I’m right. As usual face.
“What? I told you I changed it last spring.” She lifts an eyebrow that warns me I’m going to hell if I lie to my santa madre. “I left you guys a message. Swear to God.”
“Don’t swear.” She crosses herself, likely making a mental note to say a rosary for her heathen daughter this Sunday at church.
My sister snickers across the table, and we all turn to her.
“Aww, you guys! I’m just so happy we’re together. We should do this more often. I love having you in one place.” Tears well in her eyes. Oh, Jesus. No.
I sigh, feeling too wrung out to get emotional right now. Ethan’s court date is the day after tomorrow, and I’m on pins and needles for him. I can’t get all worked up in my family’s version of a telenovela.
Needing to switch gears, I blurt out an apology. “You’re right, Mom. I’m sorry I said you didn’t call. You obviously did.”
All three heads swivel around, their eyes wide as they stare at me like I’m a monkey in a zoo exhibit, scratching its ass, about to throw a turd.
I shrug, wanting this weird moment over so we can get back to talking about how my cousins are spoiled or my aunts are gossips or whatever. Anything but this. “You’re right. I could’ve called you guys too. I probably should have.” I’m a brat. I know this. But I’m the baby of the family, and sometimes I need love too, damn it. “So yeah. Sorry.”
After a long minute, my mom blinks a satisfied smile, and my dad leans over to hug me. “You look good, chiquita.”
Smiling at my childhood nickname, Little One, I hug him back. “You too, Pops.” I pat his round stomach. “Enjoying Mom’s cooking, I see.”
He chuckles. “How’s the farm? Your sister tells me you’re working for a nice family.”
My eyes catch Kat’s and I tilt my head, wondering at my father’s meaning of the word ‘family.’ Does he think I’m working for a married couple or does he know it’s a single dad? I figured my sister would’ve told him all the details.
“It’s a great family.” I sound like the freaking Frosted Flakes tiger, but why spill the beans now if they’re under the wrong assumption?
Is this why Kat picked me up this morning and told our parents we’d meet them at the diner? She wanted to avoid them meeting Ethan? Avoid them seeing my living situation?
“¿Y la esposa?” My mother sips her coffee, her expression not giving me a hint of what she wants to know.
Is the wife… what?
I look to Kat for a clue here, but she’s too busy gorging on the omelet the waitress set down in front of her to notice my distress.
Come on, Kat!
She’s chowing down, making these hungry sounds like she’s starving to death.
Meanwhile, my stomach gurgles, from acid reflux or some kind of ulcer, and I press a sweaty palm to my belly.
Fuck it. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid.
I glance between my parents. “You know they’re divorced, right? That I work for a single dad and his brother?”
Based on the shock on my dad’s face and the horror on my mother’s, they did not know.
Folding my hands in front of me, I wait for the apocalypse to rain down on my head. It’s a position I’m used to in my family. Because this is what I do. I screw up.
Kat finally pauses in her race to fend off starvation and waves a fork at us.
“Ethan is awesome. I told you guys,” she says around a mouth full of food. “He’s good friends with Brady, and he pays his taxes, and he’s an awesome dad.”
That’s your argument? That he pays his taxes?
Where has my sister gone? The one who could argue the devil out of his due?
The bell over the front door jingles, and goosebumps break out on my arms. It’s the most insane thing ever that as I look up, I already know Ethan is here. He’s strolling up with his daughter.
My first reaction is the one I always have when I see him. Elation. The same feeling I got as a kid when I’d daydream one day my parents would win the Lotto and buy me a pony.
When our eyes connect and his lips tilt up, I swear I hear that old time-y song my parents love by Frank Sinatra about flying to the moon.
Or maybe it’s playing on the overhead speakers. Whatever. The important thing is Ethan Carter is mine, and booyeah, baby, I’m fucking psyched!
But then I remember we’re not alone.
That soaring sensation of being batshit crazy about him takes a steep nosedive as I quickly tabulate all the things that can go wrong when he meets my family.
Sweet Jesus. I’m so sorry I haven’t been to church in ten thousand years!
A gurgle bubbles up in my gut.
What is it they say? When it rains, it pours? Here comes the deluge. I brace myself for my parents to lose their shit. At least our brunch will be memorable despite the hole in my stomach lining.
When my sister called this morning and asked if I could join her for an hour, Ethan said he and Logan could watch the kids, that I’d earned a reprieve from the ranch. I hadn’t known my parents were lurking to ambush me, just that Kat wanted to grab something to eat.
Had I known, I might’ve mentioned something to prepare him in case he randomly decided he needed to come to the Lone Star diner in the middle of a work day.
He’s holding Mila’s hand as she skips toward us. They’re so freaking cute together. Pretty sure the people next to us hear my ovaries explode and splat on the floor.
“Hey, babe.” The smile on his face makes my insides somersault. I smile back, likely looking dumb and in love, but he gives me all the damn feels. What am I supposed to do? Be a robot?
My parents look slowly between us, like they’re trying to gauge, one, if Ethan is a serial killer; two, if he really pays his taxes; and three, if we’re sleeping together.
No, yes, and definitely.
When my father’s searching gaze reaches mine, my smile fades, and I cough. “Mom, Dad, this is Ethan Carter. My, um… my, uh, boss.”
God, that doesn’t sound right, though technically it is. But I can’t exactly put an asterisk by that statement and add he makes me want to spawn and have his babies. That’s not brunch-appropriate.
I’ve never brought a guy home to meet my parents. Never ever. I saw how they gave Brady the nth degree when he was trying to get Kat on the love lockdown. I didn’t want any part of that drama.
Ethan glances down at his shoes, a brief but shy smile on his face like he knows I have no clue how to do this, and then he reaches over and gives each of my parents a friendly handshake.
In my head, I’m yelling for him to ignore everything we say at this table. Every. Thing. We. Say. And that he should run far, far away before this conversation goes to shit. Because it will.
My father is in the middle of taking a drink of his coffee when Mila leans up on the table, gives us a wide grin, and declares, “Tori is Daddy’s girlfriend. They have sex.”
Oh, holy fuckadoodle.
Well, that was fast.
