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Julia has her phone in her hands, and Justin’s hand is on her lap, but all of his attention is focused on me.
I meet his eyes, and they're a stormy blue sea of concern and affection. With a quick kiss on Julia’s temple and a flick of his seat belt, he's over to the other side of the town car we ordered and settling in beside me. He lifts my hand in both of his and plays with my ring before lacing our fingers together.
It’s my right hand, so the black ring stands out stark against his pale skin. He links our hands together, and I flip them around, so his hand is on top, and I can see the silver band that matches mine. They should both match. He should have a ring from me, too. Something that marks him as mine, as I am his.
They both should.
"You okay?" he asks again, pulling me out of my ruminations.
Julia lifts her eyes from her phone to look at us, then smiles and drops her gaze to give the impression of privacy. Mrs. Jones is on the short bench by herself, her knitting bag taking up the other seat. The older woman doesn’t even pretend not to be listening in. She meets my eye and winks, never slowing the clicking of her needles. Somehow, the knowledge that she finds my anxiety amusing relaxes me somewhat. If she had doubts about the three of us acknowledging our relationship in a formal setting, she’d have spoken up.
I give my attention back to Justin. "Yeah,” I nod.
Justin lifts his brow.
"Nervous," I concede.
I have no idea if my parents are going to be at the banquet tonight. Justin’s folks will be. We're sharing a table with them. It's a fundraising event, and even though Jules is being honored for the amount of time and money she's donated to the hospital, we still shelled out thirty thousand a plate to sit at the same table as the Williams.
Before,my parents would have been here. It would have been expected if for no other reason than they were good friends of the family. But I haven't seen my mother since the night I messed up the 247 merger. I haven't talked to my old man since the day Deb and I walked out. I can't decide whether I hope to see them or not. A public setting would all but guarantee we don’t have a fight, and at the same time, I’m almost itching to rub my happiness in their faces.
My mom called me. It was just the once. Weeks ago. Then she sent a text. She despises texting. Now she sends me some sort of greeting at least once a day. It's getting harder and harder to ignore her.
But even with all of that, and despite all the time I’ve spent working on getting my head in a healthier place, any sort of confrontation with my father still terrifies the hell out of me.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do,” I cut him off. I feel Julia’s eyes on us but keep my face on Justin's. “I do have to, and beyond that, I want to. I’m done hiding, J. I want to hold your hand in public.” I shake my head. That’s not even it. “Not just in public. Walking down the sidewalk with my arm around your shoulders is easy. I want to march into that hotel filled with some of the most judgemental people we know and confirm their suspicions that we’re a bunch of horny degenerates.”
Justin and Mrs. Jones both burst into laughter. The doc and I have been talking about it for weeks. It’s time. The truth of the matter is the damage our relationship could cause has been done. I hit bottom. There’s nothing else my father, or anybody else for that matter, can take from me. Now it’s about proving to the rest of the world, and myself, that I can love myself as much as JJ loves me. It’s about acknowledging that I deserve to be happy, and the blonde puppy dog beside me and the woman carrying our child makes me happy.
Justin takes my face in his hand and drops his forehead to mine, his chest still huffing in amusement.
“I love you, too,” he says, and he stays like that, arm in my lap, fingers laced with mine until it’s our turn to climb from the limo.
* * *
HaveI ever mentioned how much I hate the dog and pony show? Don’t get me wrong. I like donating money to a good cause. I’ve even become an official volunteer with Jules at the Children’s hospital. J and I have been tossing around the idea of signing up for the Big Brother program or something like it. But dressing up in thousand-dollar suits to pat each other on the back for donating money that most of us will never miss feels self-serving and somewhat gross, in my opinion. Posing for pictures so the gossip rags can publicly comment on what designer you wore at an event geared toward charity is—annoying.
That’s what it is.
It’s annoying.
“Chins up,” Mrs. Williams says at my shoulder. Justin’s mother has been latched around my elbow since we found each other in the banquet hall. She drops my arm and rapidly turns me around. Her face has lost her motherly smile, and a look of fierce determination fills her eyes. She snaps her gaze over my shoulder before grabbing Julia’s wrist and linking our elbows together. “The ice queen is on her way over.”
Led-filled stones drop into my stomach. Julia tightens her hand on my elbow, and Justin immediately ditches his old man to come and stand beside me. As unobtrusively as we can, we pivot back in the direction Mrs. Williams and I were originally facing and brace for Mrs. Caldwell's arrival.
The Ice Queen, aka, my mother’s oldest friend.
Mrs. Williams confirmed with the person checking invitations that my parents weren’t planning to attend. It lured me into a false sense of security. I’d forgotten about the rest of the inner circle. There’s more than one reason Rebecca Caldwell earned the nickname the Ice Queen. Besides her rather frosty personality, she’s had enough botox and micro-plastic surgery done that her expression looks frozen in ice.
“Barbara,” she coos when she and her party reach where the Williams’ are holding court. The women do the upper-crust cheek kiss that the old ladies are so fond of, and Justin’s father shakes Mr. Caldwell's hand. “So good to see you.”
“Rebecca,” Mrs. Williams smiles. She takes a step back so that her body is slightly behind and to the side of the three of us with Bri on the other side. “You remember my children. Brianna and her husband, Jody.”
The old lady smiles—or makes an expression as close to a smile as is physically possible.
“Of course. It’s so nice to see your family’s dedication to charity being passed on.”
