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“He’s having the door to my place replaced.”
“What?!”
“He says it’s too flimsy. I mean, he’s got a point.”
“And what does that have to do withhim?”
“Look, I fought him on it, okay? He forced me to give him the landlord’s number and then before I knew it, he was arranging to have this heavy-duty black door put onto the apartment, paid for by him.”
“And the landlord agreed?” asks Orpha.
“Well, it’s a free upgrade on the basement suite, so yeah, he jumped at the offer. They’re installing it in a couple of days. It’s gonna have a really good lock on it apparently.”
“This had better not mean he thinks he’s getting a key to your place?” growls Marilla.
“Nooo. I told him he wasn’t and he said that was fine.”
She lets out a rough sigh. “Look, I’m all for making my girl safe, but I’m just concerned that you’re letting your guard down too fast.”
“I know. I’m worried too. But, honestly being with him helps me. It kind of erases the energy of—”
“Don’t say that man’s name,” snarls Marilla in full-on mama bear mode. “I’m already stabby enough as it is tonight.”
I chuckle, reaching for my glass of white wine and taking a long sip as the melancholic notes of Landslide by Fleetwood Mac drift from the speakers.
My eyes float over a home-made sign that Marilla painted on a piece of wood hanging above the old upright piano in the corner.
IN THIS HOUSE, WE’RE UNAPOLOGETICALLY OURSELVES
If you don’t like it, piss off.
The words that I’ve seen a hundred times still make me smile.
“When are you meeting the parents?” asks Orpha, smiling at Marilla’s overprotective ways.
“I don’t know if it’s even happening. Grey’s torn about it.”
“Why does he even want to introduce you so early?”
“I don’t know. He thinks that if we hide away now, we’ll be hiding forever or something. Not that we’re even really an item. I mean, that’s what I keep telling myself, but he keeps acting like we are.”
“How very irresponsible of him,” snipes Marilla, forcing me to smile warmly just to reassure her that I still have some guards up.
“His family are pretty twisted, but at least I have experience with that,” I say, evoking my mother who Orpha and Marilla have both had the displeasure of meeting, enraged as she was by two women daring to love me the way she should have done. I twist a lock of my still-very-pink hair between my fingers. “Apparently, the mom’s gonna hate the hair.”
“Oh, she’s one of those types, is she?” says Marilla. “Send her around to me. I’ll sort the bitch out.”
Even Rami smiles this time.
“I’m gonna tie it in a bun,” I add.
Marilla’s spine bolts straight upright. “No, you fucking well will not. I’m not having my girl hide who she is for some stuck-up trophy wife.”
“Stop,” I chuckle.
“Honey, if she’s like that,” adds Orpha, “nothing you can do will please her. You have experience in that.”
“Oh, yeah, I do,” I sigh.
