I love it when I'm right even if I can't say it

 "What else was I supposed to do?" Nori's mother, Noreen, looked over her glasses at Roman, who was looking through her Christmas card list of family. She nursed her cup of coffee as if she wanted to hand off this Christmas tradition to her nephew.

"I don't know, Sis." He shook his head. "You know how careful Nori's always been."

"Precisely," Noreen nodded. "The girl can't take a step forward. I guess it's all my fault, but she is  stuck in a rut."

Noreen nudged the cookies in Roman's direction. She said he should take some home. Eddie needed to be fattened up.

Roman sighed with a smile and went back to the list, checking off who had been nice this year, and the naughty ones, too.

"This..this Jared is quite the nervous fellow, but he's the first she's ever had any chemistry with, and they met at work. Do you know how many times she's been on dating apps? Answering all those questions just to find Mr. Wrong? Evidently, she is not answering those questionnaires correctly.

"They are in different departments," Roman mentioned.

"She's so different than me at that age. Of course, I know she thought she was right about everything and I thought at the time, too. But I wanted to get away from home. And I liked the military. I did. But this girl, I  didn't know if we'd ever get her on her own. She wouldn't learn to drive until she was out of high school for a couple of years." Noreen remembered, but she smiled at herself, thinking she should have gone into acting. She would do her best to getting used to this Jared fellow. She was sure they'd be here for Christmas.