Page 26 of D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding

“Welcome to the family!” Kiana chirped as she breezed past us and entered the bathroom.

Chapter Four

D’Vaughn

First Service

The understatement of the year would be that I was shocked at how well things had gone with Kris’s family. Kris had been out since she was barely a teenager, so of course everyone knew that about her, but I’d fully expected rage and disbelief to follow the announcement of our engagement. The automatic acceptance—and even joy—had made my stomach churn with guilt. It was obvious that the Zavala clan was tight-knit, accepting, and unconditionally loving. Lying to them when they were so clearly happy that Kris was getting married felt like the highest of sins. Kris, of course, didn’t share in my concerns.

“The whole point is that they believe us.”

She was right, of course, but that didn’t eradicate the guilty feeling that settled in the pit of my gut. When Kiana had pulled me aside, I’d nearly cracked. Kris had been summoned by her father and the moment the two of them disappeared about the side of the house, Kiana had appeared at my side.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she’d practically shouted into my ear as she hugged me as tight as her burgeoning belly would allow.

“Um...you’re welcome? For what, exactly?”

“Thank you for loving my sister the way she deserves to be loved. All of her exes had nothing but surface level bullshit to offer her, but I’m so glad she’s found someone to make her happy.”

As sweet as the sentiment had been, it had immediately tanked my mood. I don’t know why I thought I could pull this off. The only lying I’d ever done in my life was a lifelong lie of omission, and even that had kept me up on many a night.

“Are we going in?”

Kris’s question brought me back to the present, and I chewed on the corner of my bottom lip as nerves took flight in my stomach. Immediately, Kris cupped my chin, using the pad of her thumb to pull my lip free.

“You gotta chill with that, preciosa.”

Blowing out a breath, I wrenched my gaze from the front of the church I’d grown up in to the sickeningly gorgeous woman sitting on my right. I knew that the term of endearment was just a part of the ongoing game of charades we were living and didn’t mean anything, but hearing her address me as preciosa made things speed up a little inside of my chest. It was all a little too loving for my intimacy-starved brain to ignore.

“Don’t want you to ruin that lipstick, aight?”

I kinda sorta absolutely wanted my lipstick ruined.

By her.

I wanted Kris to kiss me the way she’d kissed on me the day before. When we sat on that porch and accidentally on purpose lost ourselves in each other’s mouths. Or in that hallway after I’d had a mini freak-out in the bathroom just before her sister had interrupted us. I’d gone to sleep with my hand between my legs, my chest heaving as I tweaked my clit to the memory of her soft pink lips on mine and the way she’d pressed herself to my back as she wrapped her hands around me several times throughout the day. She hadn’t been lying when she’d said the Zavalas were an affectionate bunch, and she sure as shit hadn’t been exaggerating when she warned me that she would be all over me. If our rings weren’t convincing enough, each and every display of affection surely had done the trick. Hell, even I had been almost convinced that Kris was so in love that she couldn’t bear to spend more than a few minutes away from me.

When she’d walked me to my car at the end of the night—well, my night, the party continued on after I left—we’d stood under a streetlamp near my car, bathed in its orange glow. After heaving sighs of relief, we’d let the silence of the late hour settle over us, and we were left staring at each other with goofy grins on our faces at having survived—and mastered—day one of this thing, and it had been on the tip of my tongue to ask her to come home with me. Already I’d gotten caught up in the moment and wanted to see how those kisses felt when we were both naked.

But I didn’t say it then because Kris wasn’t some random woman I’d met eyes with over the olive bar at the grocery store, and this wasn’t the early stages of a new relationship. She was my partner in this competition, and this was week one of a six-week commitment where I didn’t have the luxury of exploring my attraction to a woman that I couldn’t stop thinking about. Not when I had so much tied up in this. Before I could even consider taking Kris to bed, I had to make sure that things were squared away with my family, and that wouldn’t happen in one day. So I blinked to clear the delicious and downright nasty thoughts of her from my mind and nodded.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I finally said, breaking my silence. “Let’s go.”

We climbed out of the car, and I straightened the skirt of my dress while Kris came around to my side and offered her hand. I looked at her, wondering if she could see just how scared shitless I was. Could she smell the fear on me? Surely it had to be leaking from my pores. I took her hand and she pulled me to her, stepping into the circle of personal space and using her knuckle to tip my chin up a couple of centimeters so that we were eye to eye. She didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared at me as I slowly and completely imploded right in front of her.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” I warned, my chest hitching just a tad. “I have no idea how they’re going to take things, but aside from all of that, I’m significantly emotional on a normal day. There’ll probably be tears, and sobbing, and maybe a little snot. I apologize in advance.” I blew out a breath, but it was a shaky, pathetic thing that proclaimed me to be just as nervous as one would expect to be if they had decided to come out to their family in the most public way possible.

At church.

On a Sunday.

Kris’s lips curved up enticingly as she chuckled and I was hit with a surge of lust so strong that I suddenly felt the urge to lay myself before the altar and ask the good reverend to sprinkle holy water on me.

“Whatever happens,” she began, “know that I’m right here with you and I got your back. No matter what goes down, you’re not alone.”

The corners of my eyes prickled, and I squeezed them shut to keep the incoming tears at bay. Yeah, this was fake, but coming out to my family was as real as it gets and I was terrified. Before I could descend too far into my mind, I felt Kris’s hands on my face. Quickly, I grabbed her wrists, using her as an anchor to keep me grounded.

“I just—I need you to have my back, okay? We haven’t had nearly enough time to get our stories together, and if I start floundering, I need you to catch me. Don’t leave me out here by myself and don’t let me fall, okay?”