Page 117 of Catching Sparks

“Yet. Not yet, sweet girl. He will. I’ve been waiting for this day he brought home his forever person since we found out I was pregnant, and it has been worth it to have you sitting here with me today,” she declares.

I feel like a hormonal teenage girl with how often I’m tearing up today. It’s impossible to fight it off. My emotions are in turmoil. Time is moving too quickly.

“Now, what is this I hear about you only having a few more weeks with each other? You must be from Cherry Peak, correct?” she asks, a slight bite to her questions that isn’t at all angry but concerned.

“Mom, why is my girlfriend fighting off tears?” Garrison’s familiar rasp slathers glue over the parts of me that have begun to break over the past few moments.

“Would you believe me if I said I told her a joke so hilarious she was laughing hard enough to cry?”

“No. You’re not funny at all,” he deadpans.

Long, lean legs wrapped in denim eat the space between us until he’s standing between my legs, tapping my knees.

“Up.”

“Manners, Garrison,” his mom drawls.

He smirks down at me. “Up, please, honey.”

Reluctantly, I step out of the chair before he steals my spot. I open my mouth to tell him off for not finding his own chair, but then he’s gripping my hips and tugging me down onto his lap. My annoyance flies out the window.

“Much better,” he notes, banding an arm around my front and cupping my side in his huge palm.

I remain wooden atop him but don’t attempt to get up. “I’m sorry, Cynthia. It seems he’s feeling a bit barbaric today.”

She tilts her head, eyes full of warmth. “I think I enjoy seeing him a bit undone.”

“I don’t think too many would agree with you, Mom.”

“It’s all about balance. All work and no play is why you have all those greys in your hair you want me to keep plucking for you,” she retorts.

A laugh explodes from my mouth. Twisting, I start running my hands through his hair, searching for said greys. Garrison simply scowls at his mom and swats at my forearms.

“Look what you’ve started,” he scolds her.

“Have you been plucking them yourself?” I ask him when I don’t find a single grey strand.

“I’m not answering that question.”

Cynthia does it for him. “He definitely is.”

“We’ve been here an hour and you’ve already turned her against me, Mom.”

I drop my hands, one on his knee and the other patting at his chest. “I assure you my mother will do the exact same thing to you.”

Our eyes catch, questions stirring in the green of his. I inwardly kick myself for dropping that on him. He could not want to meet my family. Just because he brought me here doesn’t mean he’s ready for all of that.

“Oh! Please keep me updated on that meeting. If he isn’t on his best behaviour, you make sure to let me know,” Cynthia tells me.

“Did you forget what I do for a living? I speak with people every day. I’ll behave myself in front of her parents.”

It’s a simple statement. Nothing romantic. Yet it means so much to me. I go liquid in his arms, my lungs pinched.

He reads my expression with ease. Nodding once—the movement nothing more than a slight tip of his chin that nobody would notice but me—he puts an end to every doubt that just appeared in my mind.

“They’ll love him, I’m sure of it,” I tell Cynthia while not taking my eyes off him.

He offers me a tilted grin, and I know without a doubt that if we were alone, he’d be kissing the shit out of me.

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