Before he could say anything else, I answered the call.
“Hi, Mom.”
There was a dramatic inhale on the other end. “Evania Quinn Blackwell!”
I winced and pulled the phone slightly away from my ear.
“How could you keep something like this from me?” she demanded.
“Keep what from you?” I tried weakly.
“Don’t play that game with me. You have a boyfriend. A boyfriend. And I’m hearing about it from someone else?”
I closed my eyes.
“I was going to tell you,” I said carefully.
“When? After you eloped?” she shot back.
The irony nearly made me choke.
“I just—”
“And you met his parents?” she continued, voice rising. “You met his parents before he met us?”
I almost corrected her. I almost said, He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my husband. The words hovered on the tip of my tongue. But I knew better. If I dropped that bomb over the phone, I genuinely believed my mother would suffer either a heart attack or a homicidal episode.
So I swallowed it.
“It just… happened,” I said vaguely.
My father’s voice sounded in the background. “Let me talk to her.”
There was a shuffle, and then my dad cleared his throat. “Evania.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Is this serious?”
I hesitated.
Callahan was watching me now, his expression no longer amused. Just attentive.
“Yes,” I said softly.
“You should have told us,” my father said calmly.
“I know.”
My mother’s voice came back, louder than before. “You will bring him for dinner this weekend.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Dinner. This weekend. I want to meet this boyfriend of yours.”
“Mom—”
“No excuses. Be here on Saturday.”
