Page 29 of The B Side

She lifted an eyebrow, nailing Darcy with a look. “At some point, though, I’m going to need you to tell me how none of this has really fazed you in the same way.”

Darcy reeled back, her mouth dropping open. “Unfazed? Juliet, I am not unfazed,” she refuted, unwaveringly. Do you think I want to be called a predatory lesbian cheater?”

Ugh, Juliet also fucking hated that. On so many levels, not the least of which was that it was just plain incorrect on every level.

“All of that crap makes me furious,” Darcy acknowledged, her voice a little hoarse with emotion. Still, there was a softness when she looked at Juliet. “But… it’s different for me than it is for you. And I think that’s normal,” she added, as Juliet’s eyes narrowed slightly. “We’ve lived very different lives. Before you, before all this – you know what my life was like. And when it fell apart a couple of years ago, when Blythe and Emerson didn’t want to be in the group, I was reeling. You know that.”

“Yeah. But still less than I had been for the last month,” she couldn’t help but point out, and maybe it was a little petulant.

Whatever, Darcy enjoyed her petulance.

She could tell by the way Darcy bit back her own smile. “Which was only because I fell back on you and relied on you. I mean. Look at your – our – house. Look at where I get to live. With the most beautiful, funny, brilliant woman I’ve ever known. Who shares the same passion I do, so we get to write and create music together.”

“Music that we don’t have a label for,” Juliet clearly couldn’t help but state, because that was the thing she still couldn’t get over.

The media, the fan response, the cheating allegations, the gossip… she could handle those far better than she could handle the professional response. Or, lack of response, she supposed.

It had never been like that for her before. Not since the very beginning, getting that deal at Copper Canyon. That, more than anything else, gave her this feeling inside of: what am I going to do now?

“Be that as it may,” Darcy continued, refocusing Juliet’s attention. “I never imagined that this would be my life. That you would be my life.” She reached her free hand up, sweeping Juliet’s hair back over her shoulder with her free hand, her touch lingering on the light jacket Juliet wore. “And yeah, we’re in the midst of a storm right now. But the storm was always brewing. As long as our plan was to ever come out, we’d always have to go through this. So, I’m in it. I’m weathering the storm with you, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“When you say it like that, it makes me sound really awful that I don’t always have that can-do spirit in the same way,” she pointed out, acerbically.

Darcy scoffed out a laugh. “No, it doesn’t. Nothing about you is awful.”

God, the sincerity in Darcy’s voice when she said that – it left Juliet with no doubt in the world that Darcy really felt that way for her. That she genuinely believed, with her whole heart, that nothing about Juliet was awful.

Darcy had a kind of faith in her, a kind of love in her, that Juliet had never known.

And it bolstered her, giving her the strength to manage to say aloud for the first time, “And… if we have to self-produce our album, then so be it. You did it before, and it’s one of the best albums I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Darcy’s smile melted into warm honey. “And who says you don’t have a can-do spirit?” She gently teased.

Juliet smiled back at her, raking her eyes down Darcy again from head to toe.

While she’d been to weddings, she’d certainly never been to one with Darcy. And it made her think, as she trailed her eyes back up, “You know… there are some things we haven’t really talked about, yet. Things that – when you think about it – most couples who’ve been together for years and live together probably have discussed.”

She wasn’t taking a dig at them, nor did she believe they hadn’t been living a very full, very healthy life together.

But it was different. It was different when their full and happy and healthy love story could only play out behind closed doors.

Darcy lifted an eyebrow at her. “Care to elaborate?”

“Do you want to get married?” Juliet asked.

“Why, you asking?” Darcy managed to say back, after several seconds of seemingly stunning silence.

“No,” she denied, incredulously, even as the thought did make the blood pulse a little faster through her veins. And the feeling wasn’t nerves.

“Sort of sounds like you are,” Darcy obviously couldn’t resist teasing.

“Well, I’m not,” she refuted firmly. She’d never propose here – no ring? No plan? Who did Darcy think she was? “I’m merely asking if it’s something you want in the future. We’ve been together for a while now, so… it’s probably something we should discuss.”

She could tell that Darcy really was considering it, mulling it over. Which Juliet appreciated; she wanted a real, meaningful answer.

“Yeah, I think I’d like to be married, eventually. Make things official and all.” Darcy shot her a questioning look. “What about you?”

“Same,” she answered, easily. “It’s not a deal-breaker for me.” How could it be? For so long, Juliet hadn’t ever known when she’d even have a real relationship. How could she dream of a wedding or a marriage when, before Darcy, she hadn’t even been able to realistically picture having a partner? Still, she stared intently at Darcy, her breath catching in her lungs. Because… yeah, she could see it. “But yes,” her voice was soft. “I’d like it.”