


We’d barely taken one step when Cynic’s phone rang. He let go of me to grab the phone. “That’s Har’s ringtone. I gotta take this.”
He stepped further down the hallway, leaving me with his parents.
“I’ve got to use the restroom. I’ll be right back, dear,” Teresa said.
Irv stood when she did. I debated going with her, but I had no need.
Irv stepped a little closer. “I’m glad we have this moment. If you haven’t figured it out, I like you for him. The last eight years have been difficult, not just for him, but for his mother and me. We want him to be happy, and I know, for some people, marriage isn’t for them.”
I nodded, and faintly drawled, “Right.”
“My boy isn’t one of those people. He was happy as a clam with Jessica. She stomped his heart flat with what she did.”
I gave him a closed-lip smile. “I know, sir, and it took quite a bit to convince Cynic that I wouldn’t do anything like that to him.”
He stared into my eyes for a long, uncomfortable moment before he finally spoke. “See that you don’t. You’re beautiful and appear to make him happy, but if you betray him like that, it’ll break him.”
“I did not just hear you,” Cynic ground out in a sinister voice.
I turned around and put a hand to his chest. But he only had eyes for his pop. Still, I said, “Calm down. He didn’t do anything wrong, honey.”
That got me his angry eyes. “He didn’t? Warning you not to betray me isn’t wrong?” He looked past me to his dad, but said, “It isn’t his place to do that shit.”
I rubbed his name patch on his cut. “Isn’t it though? You’ll always be his son, no matter your age. Family looks out for family, ’Nic.”
His chin dipped down and he looked into my eyes. The anger had dissipated. “He doesn’t need to.”
My lips quirked to the side skeptically. “That doesn’t matter. He loves you. It’s what parents do.”
“What’s going on?” Teresa asked as she walked up to us.
“Dad’s overstepping… as usual.”
“He is not,” I whispered.
“I was. I am. And I’ll do it again,” Irv said, clapping Cynic on the bicep.

