Oh boy.

“Kathryn. Kathryn Jansen. The woman in my life. It’s serious.”

Few words.

No beating around the bush.

Straight out.

The woman in my life.

It’s serious.

Oh boy!

“Of course you will,” he stated firmly.

I had a feeling I knew what those words meant, and…

Yikes!

“What? This Monday? Cool,” he went on. “What time are you getting in?”

Hang on a second.

What was happening?

“Great. Yeah. I’ll talk to Hawk. He’ll be cool. You want me to pick you up from the airport or are you renting a car?”

Oh my God, oh my God, ohmigod.

“Okay. Yeah. We’ll go out the first night, I’ll make you guys dinner at my place the second.” Pause and, “Yeah.” Pause and a scary “She’ll be there.” Pause and, “Great. Lookin’ forward to it, Dad. Love to Mom.” He then disconnected, looked to me, and announced unnecessarily, “Dad has had a last-minute meeting scheduled in Denver on Monday. This happens sometimes, though he usually has more notice. They’ve decided to make a weekend of it. So my folks will be here Friday.”

Friday?

Like…

Tomorrow?

“Boone—” I started.

But his phone rang again, he looked at it, grinned and told me, “Hang on,” before he took the call.

Then.

Get this.

He said, “Hey, Mom.”

He was grinning.

I was hyperventilating.

“I told Dad,” he said. Then, “Yeah, because men do not do that because we don’t need to do a deep dive into things like this when you’re gonna meet her this weekend.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

She was asking about me.

But of course she was!

“Kathryn, but everyone calls her Ryn,” he continued on a sigh. Pause and, “She’s gorgeous, she’s funny. You’re gonna like her.”

She was not.

I gave good sub.

Evidence was suggesting, for Boone, I gave good girlfriend.

What I did not do was give good girlfriend as considered such by a boyfriend’s parents.

Not one of my boyfriends’ parents had liked me.

I was too self-sufficient. I wasn’t girlie (as such). I didn’t suffer fools. I didn’t like to get bossed around by dudes (when I wasn’t subbing).

And last but oh so not least, I worked at a strip club.

Many parents frowned on that for their boys.

Like, in my admittedly not so vast experience, all of them.

“Mom, she’s right here and she knows she’s gonna meet you this weekend so she’s seriously nervous. Can we table this, seeing as you’re gonna meet her tomorrow, so I can see to my girl?”

At his sharing I was “seriously nervous,” I slapped his chest.

He grinned at me again.

I glared at him.

“Right. Love you too. Later,” he said into the phone.

He then tossed it to the bed beyond me, surged up and then down so he was on top of me.

“They’re gonna love you,” he said.

“Boone, I work in a strip club,” I reminded him.

“As a means to an end, but it wouldn’t matter. They aren’t judgy.”

We’d see about that, probably calamitously.

“I accidentally make friends with felons,” I went on.

“They aren’t gonna know about that.”

I thought that was a good call.

“Boone.” I lifted my hands to either side of his face. “None of my boyfriends’ parents liked me.”

“I think we’ve established all your exes were losers, babe, so how is that a surprise? Someone made them how they were.”

Hmm.

This was an interesting take.

“You make me happy.”

After he said this, I blinked up in his gorgeous face.

“Don’t think it escaped them I had issues after I got out of the military,” he continued. “And don’t think that didn’t worry them or that they aren’t freaked about what Jeb did because I have the same issues Jeb had.”

Right.

Now he’d brought up Jeb, it might be a good time to talk about Jeb.

Before I could instigate a discussion about Jeb, Boone kept talking.

“You think they’ll see me with a beautiful, together woman who dresses great, makes me laugh and makes me happy, and they’re not gonna like you?”

“Okay, I’ll cool it about your parents, honey. But now I think we need to talk about Jeb.”

He shook his head. “I gotta get to work so we don’t have time to talk about Jeb.”

This was true.

Still.

“Okay, but, baby,” I whispered, smoothing my thumbs over his cheeks, “we do need to find a time to talk about him.”

“The problem with what happened with Jeb is, there’s nothing to talk about. He’s dead. The end.”

“Boone,” I said gently.

“Kathryn,” he said impatiently.

I gave his face a careful squeeze before I slid my hands down to his chest and said, “I’m not gonna push it. I’m just gonna say, that isn’t the end. Not for you. And not for his wife or anyone who cared about him.”

“You’re right about that,” he grunted.

Now I was in a situation, because I didn’t want him to know that Axl and I had talked about it, but I also didn’t want to keep from him that Axl and I had talked about it.

Shit!

“Right, so it came up when we were talking things out, and he said it in a way that I know he thought I already knew, but Axl told me you look after Whitney and Muriel.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you did that?”

“Because it isn’t like I’m over there every day. But regardless, for the last two weeks, Whitney’s been in California with her folks, taking Muriel to Disneyland and the beach and shit, so there’s been nothing to look after.”

Oh.

“I’m not hiding shit from you, Ryn,” he told me, sounding a little annoyed.

“Okay,” I replied.

“I take care of it if something goes wrong in her house. I mow the lawn in the summer and trim her bushes. It isn’t like I’m over there all the time.”

“I’m not saying that’s an issue, Boone. It’s sweet you do that for her.”

“She gets another man, obviously, I’m out.”

“Is she going to get another man?” I asked carefully.

“I can’t tell the future, Ryn.”

“Would that bother you if she got another man?” I asked.

“Is there something about the concept of ‘we don’t have time to talk about this’ that you don’t get?” he asked in return.

I shut up.

His face softened and he murmured, “That was dick speak, sweetheart. Sorry.”

I drew in a breath and let it out, liking how quick he was to back down from that mood and apologize for acting on it.

“We’ll talk about this, I promise,” he promised.

I nodded.

“I miss him,” he shared. “I’m pissed at him. I’m pissed at myself I didn’t catch any signs. And I hate it that his daughter is gonna grow up not knowing how great her dad was.”