“Oh, I can be nice to you.”
“Really?” I asked with exaggerated surprise. “I’ve never seen you do it before.”
“I was being nice when I had my tongue inside your cunt.”
I winced, hating the word but knowing she’d probably used it to get a rise out of me.
“You seemed to enjoy it just as much as I did,” I reminded her.
We were both quiet for the next few minutes. Chris didn’t need directions since she’d been to my family’s house as many times as I’d been to hers. It didn’t take long before we were driving up the street where I’d grown up.
“Are we ready for this?” I asked.
Chris pulled into a parking spot on the street in front of my parents’ house.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this, but if this dinner buys us both some peace with our mothers for a few months, it’ll totally be worth it.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “If I know my mother she’ll have made your favorite dinner as part of her plan to prevent you from dumping me.”
“I thought you were dumping me?”
I shook my head. “Oh no, whatever happens and whoever does the dumping, it’ll somehow be my fault. Trust me. My mother sees me as the Anti-Midas.”
“Anti-Midas?”
“You know how Midas turned everything to gold? She thinks I turn everything to shit.”
To my surprise, Chris seemed angry on my behalf. “That’s not true. You’ve got a nice house, a good job, a nice circle of friends. To my knowledge you don’t do drugs or drink to excess. Seems like you’re doing pretty good for yourself.”
I shifted in my seat to meet her gaze.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “That means a lot to me.”
We were both still for way longer than was polite, and for a second I thought she was going to kiss me, but then Chris shook her head slightly and reached for the door.
“We’d better go in.”
She came around the truck and grabbed my hand, threading our fingers together.
“Girlfriends hold hands,” she said out of the side of her mouth, as if our parents had lip readers stationed in the windows. “We need to look the part.”
“Of course,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze and telling myself that it was just hand holding, nothing to get all warm and fuzzy about.
The minute we walked into the house, our mothers were on us. They’d always been close friends, but now they were united in a shared mission. Meanwhile our fathers sat on the couch, drinks in hand, watching the whole thing go down.
“Why wouldn’t you have mentioned this, Christina?” Mrs. Robbins asked, ignoring Chris’s scowl at the use of her full name. “Your dating Julia is big news. We talk every day and you didn’t say a word.”
“We’re waiting to see how things work out,” Chris replied, her voice already weary. “We’d still be waiting if Mrs. Montego hadn’t surprised us.”
“And what a surprise it was, walking in and finding you two girls in bed together… like that.”
Both of our fathers winced in unison.
“Well Mom, that will teach you to come into my house unannounced,” I snapped.
“I rang the bell and knocked too,” Mom replied, her voice full of self-righteousness. “I thought maybe you’d fallen and hurt yourself and that’s why you weren’t answering the door. You know I never liked you living alone. You never know what could happen to you. One day we realize we haven’t heard from you, and we find you at the bottom of the basement stairs in a pool of blood.”
Oh God, Mom was in full martyr mode now.
