Page 64 of The Fates We Tame

“Your hair looks great.”

“It looks like I slept with damp hair, which I did.”

“She’s gonna love you,” he says, before kissing me firmly.

“Hey, Teddy Bear. Whoa. Okay.”

Theo grins and looks at his phone. “Hey, Mom.”

“This must be the girl,” she says, putting her hand on her heart. I immediately see the similarities. They have the same kind eyes and smile.

“Yeah. Mom, this is Sophia. Sophia, this is my mom, Clare.”

“It’s so nice to meet you,” I say.

“Well, it’s even nicer to meet you. Wait, hang on.” She leans back in her chair. “Jason, get your butt in here.” She looks back at the screen. “Your dad’s coming.”

I place my hand on Theo’s thigh and squeeze hard. He glances at me and winks.

“Thought you didn’t need to leave for the hospital for another ten minutes,” a man says off camera.

“No.” She gestures him over. “Theo’s got a girlfriend. Come meet her.”

Theo grins as his father comes into view. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my wife.”

Both their mouths open. Then Clare raises both hands in celebration. “Iknewit. When those girls came back to the clubhouse telling me how cute the two of you were together, I knew. It was a Spidey sense.”

Jason shakes his head. “You did not know.”

“Oh, shush. I knew. It’s a mom’s second sense. I could tell you were happy, Teddy Bear.”

I glance up at Theo. “Teddy Bear, huh?”

He furrows his brows. “You ever call me that and I’ll divorce you. Bad enough she still does.”

“Why did you get married so damn fast? You couldn’t wait a few weeks? Wait, am I gonna be a grandma too?”

“God, no. No babies. At least not yet,” Theo says.

“She wouldn’t have minded,” Jason says. “Was just building those bunk beds in the back room she keeps going on about. Congratulations, Son. Sophia.”

“Tell me all the things,” Clare says. “How did you propose? Is there a ring?”

Theo opens his mouth to speak, but then doesn’t. I don’t know if it’s because he can’t think of the words, but I suddenly sense that lying to his mom isn’t as easy as lying to his brothers.

“It happened at lunch,” I say, stepping in. “Which I suppose doesn’t sound all that romantic. But we spend time with each other every day. And we support each other through it. And you can’t go through things like that without getting close to the other person. So, we were eating our food, talking about what it would look like when we left. You found it hard at first to say you couldn’t live without me, right?”

Theo looks at me, his face ripe with its own kind of emotion. “It’s not the kind of thing you just blurt out.”

I keep my eyes focused on him, but out of shot, I press the tips of my nails into his denim-clad thigh. He seems to encourage me to press them into him harder when we have sex, and I wonder if it will help center him. “It started with where our first date outside would be.” I feel awful lying to my new mother-in-law, but this was Theo’s end of the deal. His mom got to see him happy while she battled cancer. I can pull this off. “You said we should go to a bike rally.”

Theo glances down at my fingers and then closes his eyes for a second as he sighs.

“Oh, Theo,” Clare said. “You can do better than that.”

“Pretty sure a bike rally is where you conceived Theo,” Jason says. “You want those grandbabies, it’s not a bad idea.”

I laugh as Clare blushes.