“I see you’ve been talking to your mother.” I smirk, my dimples flashing as I smile at my mom.
“You know she can’t hold her tongue, and she’s very happy with your choice in women.”
“I’m sure she is. She was spouting off to Harper down at the bakery this morning about needing to have some great-grandbabies before she dies. She told Harper she expects her at Sunday dinner this week.”
“Oh boy. She’s coming on a little strong,” Mom muses.
“You think!” I state. “I need to have a little chat with her, get her to back off some. I don’t know what this is between Harper and me, but I’d like to explore it and see what it is and where it’s going to go. We’ve got obstacles in the way and I don’t need G-Ma getting in the way.”
“She’s mostly all talk, you know that. Plus, it gives her something to focus her energy on, so be easy on her when you do,” Mom warns.
“You act as if I’m going to completely cut her off.” I chuckle. “Quite the opposite. Maybe I can get her to help me somehow. I just have to figure out what I need her help with.”
“Well, you know we’re always here to help, you just have to ask.”
“Thanks, Mom. Where’s Dad at?” I ask.
“Probably out tinkering in the garage or out back. I haven’t seen him since he finished his lunch an hour or so ago.”
“I’ll go track him down, I wanted to catch him up on what they did to the truck so he can add it to his records.”
“Sounds good, I’ve got to run out for a few errands in a bit, should I expect you home for supper?” she asks.
“Nope, I’m picking up takeout and heading over to Harper’s tonight,” I tell her.
“How about a home-cooked meal, instead? I can put together something for you to take, just pop it in the oven when you get there.”
“If, you’re sure? I’ll always take one of your meals, and I’m sure Harper won’t mind. Just nothing with mushrooms or pickles. She said she wouldn’t let me past the front door if I showed up with either of those.”
“Duly noted, I was thinking more along the lines of a lasagna and garlic bread.”
“Yes. That sounds amazing,” I tell my mother, leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek before I go in search of my dad.
I check the backyard, first, not seeing him, so I make my way out to the garage, where I find him tinkering with something on his workbench. “Hey, Dad,” I call out as I close the door behind me.
“Nathan, good to see you, son,” he says, setting down whatever it was that he’s messing with.
“The alternator went out on the truck last night, I got it all fixed up this morning. They changed out some spark plugs, as well,” I update him, handing over the paperwork from the shop.
“Thanks for taking care of that, I should have warned you that it had been giving me troubles, it just slipped my mind.”
“No worries, everything worked out,” I tell him, taking a seat on one of the stools.
“How are things going, and don’t give me no line of BS,” Dad states.
I can’t help but laugh at his directness. He knows me, almost better than I know myself. “If you’d have asked me that last week, I would have answered you very differently than today. Last week, I was stressed out over negotiations on our latest deal. Today, none of that matters. Today, I’m enjoying life. Regretting the ten years I’ve been away, wondering why I let so much time go by without coming home. Now, I’m trying to decide how I make my life combine with Harper’s.”
“A little word of advice from your old man, if it’s meant to be, it will be.”
“But how, Dad? How do we erase the distance, I just don’t see it. I can’t live in California while the woman I love lives in Tennessee.”
“You love her?” he asks, not missing that statement.
“I have since I was fifteen.”
“Does she know?”
“No,” I tell him honestly. “Or, at least, I’ve never told her.”