"Can't. I'm too happy."
She groaned and dropped her head back onto my shoulder. "You're ridiculous."
"You love me anyway."
"Unfortunately."
Watson chose that moment to leap onto the bed, landing directly on my stomach with all fourteen pounds of feline indignation. He meowed loudly, demanding breakfast, and the moment shattered into laughter.
This. This was everything I'd ever wanted.
"You're bringing her to meet your parents?"
Shane's voice carried across the apparatus floor, loud enough that half the crew turned to look. I shot him a glare that he ignored completely.
"Keep your voice down."
"Why? It's not a secret, is it?" He grinned, falling into step beside me as I headed for the bay. "Brian Torres, finally bringing a girl home to meet Mama and Papa. "This is unprecedented.”
"I brought Carmen once."
"Carmen doesn't count. Carmen was a mistake you made before you knew better." Shane clapped me on the shoulder. "Ava's the real deal. Your parents are going to love her."
I hoped he was right.
My parents had heard about Ava, of course. My mother had been calling every day since the fire, demanding updates, asking when she could meet the woman her son had run into a burning building for. My father was quieter about it, but I'd caught him googling "Dr. Ava Rothwell Queens General" on his phone when he thought no one was looking.
They knew she mattered. They just didn't know how much.
"Sunday dinner," I said. "I'm driving her up to the Bronx myself."
"The full Torres family experience." Shane whistled. "You sure she's ready for that?"
"She survived a psychopath trying to burn her alive. She can handle my mother's cooking."
"Your mother's cooking is delicious."
"My mother's cooking comes with interrogation."
Shane laughed. "True. But if Ava can handle trauma codes and emergency surgery, she can handle Elena Torres asking about grandchildren."
I groaned. "Don't remind me."
Sunday came faster than I expected.
Ava was nervous. I could tell by the way she kept smoothing her dress, checking her hair in the visor, asking me, again, if she should have brought wine instead of flowers.
"They're going to love you," I said, reaching over to take her hand.
"You don't know that."
"I do. My mother has been asking about you for months. My father pretends to be stoic, but he's been looking you up online." I squeezed her fingers. "They already love you. They just haven't met you yet."
The house looked the same as it always had—small, tidy, the front yard carefully maintained despite my father's bad knee. My mother's roses were blooming along the fence, pink and red and yellow, roses she'd been tending since I was a kid.
Home, exactly as it always had been.
I'd barely parked the truck before the front door flew open and my mother appeared on the porch, wiping her hands on her apron.
