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♾ ℐ 𝒟𝒾𝒹𝓃'𝓉 𝒜𝓈𝓀 𝒻ℴ𝓇 𝒴ℴ𝓊𝓇 𝒜𝓅𝓅𝓇ℴ𝓋𝒶𝓁

"Why am I so nervous?" Jack asked me as he finished tucking his shirt in. Next to him, I was brushing my teeth. I took the brush out and spit into the sink.

"I really don't know, babes. What happened to my Smiley? Bring him back," I grinned, ruffling his hair. He gave me one of the weakest smiles I'd seen in my life. "That's bs. Come on. Gimmie a good one." That made him chuckle. "There's Smiley." I pecked his lips, then started brushing my hair.

For a moment it was quiet. Jack started to shift the positioning of his clothes on his body, move the placement of each individual hair, and stare at his reflection in the mirror. "I'm going to literally break this mirror so you will stop obsessing over every little detail. My family will love you, and if they don't, it's just one dinner."

"You're right, I know you're right."

"Thank you." I put the brush down and grabbed his hands so he would face me instead of the mirror. "You're my endgame, okay? I want you to remember that no matter what, I'm going to be with you."

"Okay, yeah." It was clear he was still nervous. I wracked my brain to figure out some way to make him less nervous, but all I could come up with was definitely not PG 13. "We should get going before we're late."

"If we leave now then we're gonna be like, ten minutes early."

"Better early than late, am I right?" I giggled at the way he said that. He was starting to cool off a bit, but as we were driving to my parents he was becoming visibly more anxious. I reached my hand over to gently lay it on his thigh. Some of the tension he was storing released when he put his hand on mine.

All of my hard work I put into calming him down was ruined when we got to my parents house. The car got put into park, and he looked at me with fear in his eyes. "You got this, babes. I believe in you," I told him.

At the door he was too nervous to knock, so I did. My parents opened the door, throwing their arms around me. Their first look at Jack did not send a good message. Both of them looked disapproving, though they brushed it off quickly giving him a half-assed hug. "Come in, come in," my mom said waving us in. Of course we obliged walking into the door and hanging our coats on the coat rack.

Dinner was ready for us on the table even though, like I told Jack, we were ten minutes early. My dad was like that. It was one of the most awkward meals of my life, and when Jack went to the bathroom I was able to talk to them about it. "What is wrong with you guys?"

They looked at each other, then back at me. It's like they just had an entire silent conversation in one glance. "He just doesn't seem like the right boy for you, Sweetie. He reminds me of that one guy you dated, uhm, what's his name?"

"Daniel," my dad said.

"Yes him! That boy I didn't like from the moment I laid eyes on him, and then the whole cheating thing... well, you know. I decided I was going to trust my gut after that and this boy, I just get a very bad feeling from him."

"You haven't even given him a chance, mom. You barely talked to him at dinner, and every time you did you were rude about it. Neither of you have really tried with him."

"Like I said, I trust my gut feeling. I think you should too. You should break up with that boy." Just as my mom's sentence was ending I was able to see Jack walking back over. He must've heard. He looked destroyed.

I jumped up and walked towards him putting my hands on his face so he'd look at me even though he was too upset to. "Hey, Babes, remember what I said earlier?" He nodded his head yes. "Good, because I do think that. I really do." To no surprise, he didn't really believe me. I turned around to face my parents who were watching us. "I didn't ask for your approval. I just wanted you to meet the guy I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with." With that, I grabbed Jack's hand. My mother tried to stop us as we left, but I paid no attention.

When we got out of the driveway Jack finally spoke. "I'm sorry, Snowflake."

"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about. My parents should be apologizing to me, not you."

"I didn't mean to come between you and your family."

I grabbed his hand before saying, "You are my family."