Page 350 of Branded
But neither was he when I occupied mine.
Luckily, Ethan slept like the dead.
Thirty-Five
Cas
Jules was sleeping in my arms.
Ethan was across the hall, tucked into the bed in my guest room.
Both the doors were open, just in case Ethan woke up and got scared, and the nightlights I had bought to make sure Ethan could find the way to my room were switched on. Jules and I had also both gotten dressed.
The life of a parent, I supposed.
I wasn’t complaining. The woman I loved and the woman who loved me back was in my arms. The kid I’d fallen for just as deep was sleeping soundly across the hall.
Life was fucking sweet.
And I got to enjoy it while I was awake, sunshine glimmering through my bedroom windows, the slow and steady breathing of my woman on my throat, my pup sleeping at my feet (because Sparky might be getting older, but he sure as fuck made sure he made it up the pet stairs that I had bought and kept at the bottom of my bed to sleep at my feet any time I was home).
And I got to enjoy all of that for approximately five minutes.
Because then I heard my front door open.
And my mom’s voice echo up the stairs.
“We’re here!”
Fuck.
I’d forgotten they’d invited themselves over for brunch.
Because, like an idiot, I’d let it slip that I was dating someone.
Okay, well, it was less idiot and more that I’d forgotten my mom had scheduled a family dinner because Sam and Margot were in town until my mom had called with the details yesterday. At which point, I’d tried to flake since I’d offered to watch Ethan, but my mom could sniff out excuses and deceit like a bloodhound. She hadn’t bought the pretext of me bowing out. Not for one second.
With those sniffing skills she’d obviously come to the right conclusion—that I was dating someone and it was serious—and had invited “my woman” to join in on the family dinner.
At which point, I’d had to confess that I really couldn’t join in because Jules was working and had a son, and Ethan and I were having a sleepover.
This hadn’t garnered any protests.
In fact, my mom had been in rapture.
My mom liked kids (obviously, since she had four of her own), and she couldn’t wait to meet Ethan and finally be a grandma. She even had her Grandma Name picked out already.
Because apparently that was a thing.
Anyway, my mom had decided to come over and cook us brunch. Well, she’d decided on breakfast first, because she could hardly wait to meet Jules and Ethan, but when I’d mentioned that Jules worked late, breakfast had become brunch.
Which was something I’d been planning on telling Jules last night.
Because I didn’t care how ramped up my mom was, if Jules wasn’t ready to meet the chaos that was my family, then I’d put my mom off.
Only we hadn’t spoken.
Because that conversation with Ethan had happened, and then the laundry room had happened, and then we’d tucked Ethan into the guest room, and then we’d gotten naked in my room.
