As his niece exited his office, he looked down at his sister. “Don’t sass? Where did you pull that one from?”

“Just wait until you have one. You’re going to sound like your mom in no time.”

“Why do I need a private conference with you?” John said, giving up on the stacks of paper. He shoved them all in the bottom draw and faced Jessi head on. “Am I in trouble too?”

“It depends. What’s this about a woman at your place?”

John frowned. “Sandy told you?”

“Maggie told me,” Jessi said. “Well, actually Mom told me later that night. According to them, she was there in the morning wearing your pajamas.”

John pressed his lips together and stared at her. “And?”

“So you wanna talk about it?” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Mom said she’s a darling.”

He scratched the side of his beard. “Honestly, I would have talked to you about this much sooner than our mothers, but I was caught off guard that morning.”

“It sounded embarrassing as fuck,” Jessi whispered. “They seemed excited more than anything. They think you’re going to marry her.”

“I may have made a joke about that.”

“So...is she the one?”

He shrugged. “I can’t say just yet. I just know that I like being around her. She’s...a fucking mystery.”

“Oh god, you’ve got that far-off look in your eyes.”

John’s eyes cut back to the screen to see Jessi grinning at him. “I just keeping learning new things about her. Victoria has surprises and I find myself wanting to discover them all.”

His sister clasped her hands together and stuck out her bottom lip. “That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard...”

“I’m just picking up on a little hesitance on her end,” John said and proceeded to repeat the same story he’d told Chris. Jessi listened carefully, nibbling on her lip as she nodded along.

When he finished, she rubbed the space under her bottom lip, something she’d done since they were young. It was her “thinking” gesture that always produced helpful advice. “Okay, I see what’s going on here.”

John raised a brow. “Do you? Please enlighten me.”

“She’s a little uptight and high-strung, but you’re going to get that from an academic. It just comes with the territory. They’re not all squares though, and she sounds like one of the cool ones. Now, when you add the mom issues, you’ve got a storm on your hands. And as sweet as you are, you know you can’t compete with that.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” John said, resting his chin on his knuckles.