I drove Sophia home, to find my mother waiting on my doorstep. I sighed, feeling exhausted even before I stopped the car. I wasn't in the mood for her company, not today. Usually, she waited for me to call her, or I went to her place. It was never a good thing when my mother dropped in to visit without warning.

The moment I stopped the car, she hurried over to open the back door for Sophia. My daughter adored her doting grandmother, so she’d already gotten herself out of her seat belt, and she scrambled out the door to launch herself at my mom.

“Grandma!” I heard her squeal.

My mom laughed, and I rolled my eyes as I got out of the car.

“And how’s my favorite granddaughter doing today, huh?”

“Grandma! I’m your only granddaughter. And you saw me yesterday!”

“Yes, I did, but how was school?”

That seemed to get her even more excited as she bounced in place. “Oh! Oh! Jessica was super pretty today!”

I winced when she said that and went on to ramble on about Jessica. It was the first time she had taken to a woman so strongly since her mother left town, and I knew my mom would have something to say about it. I locked up the car and went to open the door to let us all in. The two of them headed to the living room, while I headed to the kitchen to get us all a snack. Thankfully, I’d gone shopping recently.

After looking around, I decided on something simple, picking a pack of crackers and some cheese and putting them on a plate. I put the plate on a tray and added a three packs of apple juice and three glasses. When I walked back to where my family was, Sophia was eager to eat the moment I set the tray down, opening the crackers, taking two out and adding some cheese between them to make a sandwich, then biting into it.

I watched her with a smile as I moved to sit next to my mom.

“So,” she started.

I sighed, losing the smile, already knowing where this conversation was going.

“Oh, come on! Don’t be like that. Jessica is a nice girl.”

I pursed my lips, eyeing Sophia. My mom and I were going to have this conversation at some point, I knew that, but I didn’t want my daughter to be in on it. She loved Jessica, true, but that was as her teacher. I hadn't dated in a while, because I didn’t want to confuse my daughter. I gave my mom a look, and she caught on quickly.

“Sophia?”

“Yes, grandma?” Sophia said, still chewing on crackers and cheese.

“Why don’t we take the snacks and your bag to your room? So you can get started on your homework and eat your snack at the same time,” she offered.

Sophia thought for a moment, then nodded quickly, getting up from where she knelt beside the table. My mom picked up her backpack, then poured some crackers on the plate and cut slices of cheese, adding them to the plate. I would have bought the canned cheese instead, but a mess was usually involved with that, so I tended to avoid it. She poured some juice for Sophia, and then they were both heading for the stairs.

I decided to have something to eat myself as I waited for her, though Mom was back sooner than I expected.

“So,” she said again, the moment she walked into the room.

This time I rolled my eyes. “Whatever you have going on in that mind of yours, drop it,” I warned.

Not that my mom ever took note of my warnings.

“Ross! I’m concerned.”

That was just her polite way of saying that she wanted to interfere.

“Okay,” I said, narrowing my eyes on her. “I’ll bite. What are you concerned about?”

“Well, not so much concerned as curious, I guess you could say.” I gave her an unimpressed look. “All right, so maybe I want to be involved just a little when I find my granddaughter so attached to someone other than her darling dad or me.”

“That’s because we’re the only family she has.”

“No, no,” Mom shook a finger at me. “We’re not her only family, and that is where the problem comes in.”

I grimaced. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded of my ex and how she’d abandoned the both of us. Sophia never talked about it. I thought she’d been too young to understand, though my mom seemed so sure she must have caught some of what was going on at the time. I did have to admit, though, that my little girl might have abandonment issues. None of her teachers ever caught anything odd in how she interacted with the other kids, but she never wanted to hang out with someone outside of school.

“Don’t you think,” I said slowly, “for that reason, that maybe we should keep things going as they are? It would be better for Sophia, wouldn’t it?”

My mom gave me that look. The one that fucking works every single time. Then she moved to sit next to me on the couch, sitting sideways so she could face me.

“Look, son. I know how much you love your daughter. I know it’s been for her sake that you’ve held back on dating. But you’re not going to stay that way forever, right?”

I didn’t tell her outright, though, because I didn’t want to encourage this talk. I was barely beginning to figure things out between Jessica and me. Mom was close with Jessica’s mom, so I didn’t want to accidentally say something that she would spread around later, whether she meant to or not.

“You like Jessica, don’t you?” she continued when I didn’t answer. “And Sophia adores her. She was working at the diner over the weekend when Sophia and I went there. You should have seen just how excited she was because Jessica was there!”

Fuck, I groaned to myself.

“Mom, can I just please ask you to stay out of this?”

But then her expression went suddenly serious, and I barely held back a wince. This was what I wanted to escape.

“After the last shit storm you started up with that girl, I’m sorry, Ross, but I’m going to have to butt in.”

My mom didn’t use curse words that often, so I knew I was in trouble when she did. Not that I didn’t deserve it over this.

“You did a number on that girl, you know? When her parents found out, her father wanted to come and beat your ass up for making his daughter cry. I never allowed it, of course, because I should have done it for him.”

“I wouldn’t have minded if he had,” I muttered. “I made myself sick about it afterward.”

Even though it had been ages ago, Mom smacked the back of my head, not too hard, but not exactly lightly, either.

“You should have. I never raised my son to do things like that. It was the one time I was ever disappointed in you, Ross.”

Yeah, well, I’d been disappointed in myself. At the time, I was a teenager, and I was under pressure from my friends. I kept making excuses to myself to go on with it, it was just a prank after all, what could go wrong? All I had to do was get a pretty girl to go with me to the prom. She had always been pretty, with blonde hair and bright blue eyes, though she wasn’t popular back then. I’d known her growing up but never really spoken to her much, until then.

Her reaction to me asking her had surprised me. She was so happy about the whole thing. When I saw how earnestly she took it, knowing the prank would be exposed at the prom, I should have known she would take it badly and I… felt sorry for her and annoyed at myself that I’d put her in that position.

I really should have told her the whole thing the moment I started to feel guilty. I really wanted to. Instead, because I didn’t want to annoy my friends, either, I took her to the prom. We were both all dressed up. I got through it by giving myself excuses and convincing myself that since she was enjoying herself, it would be fine. That, just maybe, she could get the joke and even laugh.

Not that it ended up that way. The night was almost over, I thought I was in the clear—until it was time to announce the prom king and queen, and my friends got it in their heads to announce the fake date to the whole school.

Sometimes I still dreamed about it, and I remembered how she had looked, with a devastated expression on her face, tears streaming down her cheeks, as she gave me a betrayed look and ran off.

“I do regret what happened, Mom. You have no idea how badly…,” There were just no words. “I tried apologizing. So many times. But she didn’t want to hear it from me, and I couldn’t even blame her. Hell, I wrote her letters, not that it did any good when she either ripped them or threw them out the moment she knew they were from me.” I grimaced at the old memories.

After that whole thing, I stopped hanging around with those ‘friends’. I pretty much ended up a loner until the end of high school. Jessica was pretty much the same; only, she left almost immediately after graduation. I always thought it was my fault she left, but, now that I was older, I could recognize that I was just one of many factors she must have taken into account when she decided to move.

I still felt bad, though.

“I know that you regret it,” Mom said patiently. “But you have to realize it’s not going to be that easy. She is a wonderful young woman, but you hurt her at a very sensitive time in her life. If you’re planning to pursue her, you better know it’s not going to be as easy as you’re probably thinking.”

I snorted. “Who thought it was easy?”

It had taken months before I got a civil response out of her without me having to coax it out of her, after all. It was minimal progress, but it was progress, nonetheless.

I sighed. “Now that she’s back, when nearly everyone thought she was gone for good, and I’ve seen how close she and Sophia are already, I don’t want to give up on this and just let her go, Mom. I want to try, for real this time.”

Mom still didn’t look convinced, though, giving me an unimpressed look.

“All right, Mom! If this is what you came for… I like her. A lot, and I want to try everything before I just give up. Back then, I was stupid. I was a teenager, and I cared more about what other people thought of me, I wanted to be cool in front of my friends and the entire school. I acted how I thought everyone else expected me to, instead of expressing myself and acting on my own feelings.”

There was slight interest in her expression and, when I paused, she gestured with her hand for me to continue. I just sighed and rolled my eyes.

“Go on, son,” she prompted. “If you think that was enough, it’s not even close. Supposedly, you love this woman?”

My eyes widened, and my jaw dropped. “Mom, I am pretty sure I didn’t say—”

She cut me off with a wave of her hand. “If you want to split hairs, then she’s someone you have the potential to love. Because you wouldn’t be letting her anywhere near Sophia if that wasn’t the case.”

My jaw snapped closed, and I glared slightly, because she was right about all of it, even if it was a little too soon for me to think about being in love with Jessica.

“I’m not going to make the same mistakes I did back in high school, if that’s what you’re worried about. First, I barely have friends with all my time being taken up by work and my daughter. I’m not a little boy anymore that cares too much what other people think of him and his actions. I’m a man, and things are different.”

Her eyebrows arched, skeptical, though there was a definite approval in her eyes that made me smile a little.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I can honestly tell you right now, that the last thing I think of when I look at Jessica, is wanting to prank her.”

After pining after her for the past several months, having her naked and in my bed would be a good start.

Mom, as if she realized what I was thinking, frowned at me, though I could tell behind the look that she was pleased.

I sighed to myself as I thought about talking to Jessica’s mom, because I would have to, eventually. She wouldn’t be quite this easy.