"Is it weird that I'm more nervous about your mom liking me than I am about our next round of seed funding?" Lucy asked, staring intensely at the tray of cupcakes on her lap like they were the final exam in a class she hadn't studied for.
Cole grinned as he backed his car out of the driveway. "That's very weird. But honestly? Totally on-brand for you."
She raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Excuse me? I happen to be adored by moms everywhere. It's basically a superpower. I just... don't usually meet them when I'm still in beta mode."
Cole chuckled. "You're not in beta. You're version 2.0—improved stability, enhanced sarcasm, dangerously caffeinated."
She laughed, but her foot tapped nervously against the floor mat.
Today marked Big Day Number Seven since *The Kiss.* You know, the one under that ficus tree at the fundraising gala. It made it to the front page of TechCrunch and was later dubbed by Twitter as "Silicon Valley's Cringiest Attempt at Love Actually."
Now they were driving to meet Cole's family for Sunday dinner.
No pressure. None at all.
**At the Kingston Family Home**
Lucy stood stiffly on the front porch, holding her Tupperware of cupcakes like a knight might grip a shield. Cole knocked. The door opened almost instantly.
A tall woman appeared, stylish bob, warm smile. The kind of person who probably remembered everyone's birthday and alphabetized her spice rack.
"Hi, Mom," Cole said, stepping back.
"You must be Lucy!" the woman beamed.
Before Lucy could even formulate a response, she was pulled into a full-on hug. Warm, firm, the scent of vanilla and competence wrapping around her.
Lucy blinked rapidly. Was she seriously getting emotional from a hug?
Dinner was a whirlwind of voices, flavors, and stories that overlapped in the way only old families can manage. There were so many inside jokes Lucy felt like she needed a decoder ring. She dropped her fork once, spilled her water, and accidentally called Cole's sister's boyfriend by the cat's name. (To be fair, "Milo" worked either way.)
They laughed. They teased her like she was already one of them. It was chaotic and imperfect and completely lovely.
And yet…
**In the Guest Bathroom**
Lucy stared into the mirror above the sink. Her reflection stared back with just a little too much panic in the eyes.
"What if I screw this up?" she whispered.
Things were going *well*. Too well. Historically, every time life gave her a high-five, it followed up with a slap. That was the bug in her emotional codebase: an embedded assumption that good things weren't built to last.
A soft knock at the door.
"Hey," Cole's voice. "You okay?"
Lucy cracked the door open. "What if your family thinks I'm just some startup groupie? Like, I'm only with you because your pitch deck has a hockey stick graph."
Cole blinked. Then grinned. "They think you're sharp, hilarious, and according to my aunt, 'the kind of woman who wouldn't let a man mansplain her thermostat.'"
"…Really?"
"Also, my niece wants to know if you're secretly a Disney princess and if she can borrow your boots."
Lucy chuckled despite herself. "She has good taste."
Cole took her hand gently. "Babe, stop running debug mode on your self-worth. You're not a glitch. You're the main feature."
She stared at him. "That is... the nerdiest and most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me."
He shrugged. "What can I say? I deliver on-brand."
He kissed her forehead, and for just a moment, the fear paused. Not gone, but quieter.
**Later That Week – Brew & Byte Café**
Lucy was typing like the keyboard owed her money. "If I recode the onboarding experience to mirror user speech patterns, we could reduce churn by, like, twenty percent."
Cole walked in, holding two lattes and a tiny cactus in a neon pink pot. "We're not naming this one after your ex."
She looked up. "The cactus?"
He nodded. "Too prickly. Too obvious."
She snorted and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "You're ridiculous."
They were falling. That kind of terrifying, giddy, can't-look-away falling. The kind you don't even realize is happening until your feet aren't on the ground anymore.
**But Then…**
One text. That's all it took to flip her world upside down.
From her former CTO: *Investor pullout. We're down to fumes. Need a new plan. Call ASAP.*
Lucy froze. Her fingers hovered over her keyboard, unmoving. Her heart did that weird thud-skid thing.
The app. *Her* app. The one she'd built from scratch, the one she believed could actually change things—it was on the edge of imploding.
She didn't tell Cole. Not right away.
Not because she didn't trust him. She did. More than she trusted her own instincts, sometimes.
But there was still that small voice in the back of her mind whispering: *If you fail, you'll lose everything. The app. Your team. Him.*
She silenced the phone screen, slid it into her pocket, and forced a smile when he sat down next to her.
Because she wasn't ready to let the future fall apart.
Not yet.