by Alexa Woods
window. Run down to the basement. Oh wait, that’s where they live.”
Arabella wagged her finger at June. “Just wait. Oh, seriously, just you
wait until she’s gone. Hiding isn’t going to do any good. Your car is out
there. She knows you’re here. She doesn’t need sugar for anything. My
mom is the healthiest eater around.”
“Maybe she has a craving.”
“A craving to ambush us and figure out who you are.”
“How does she know I’m anyone?”
“Trust me. She knows. Don’t moms always know?”
“Mom skills are pretty powerful. Not as powerful as my poker skills
but…”
A second knock echoed after the first, then her dad’s voice came through
the door, muffled and so much softer than normal. “Arabella? Your mom
wants to know if you have any sugar.”
“Tell her it’s for a cup of tea.”
“Shhh, Brenda.” Then, louder than the hissed whisper, “It’s for a cup of
tea.”
“Ugh. Even though neither of them drinks tea.”
June laughed. “Let them in. It’ll be fine. I’m excited to meet them.”
“Really?” Arabella gaped at her. “What happened to taking things slow
and meeting the parents at a pre-arranged time and place of our choosing?”
“Well, they’re out there and they’re probably not going to go away. If we
can hear them, they can probably hear us.”
“Oh, my good lord,” Arabella whispered. She could feel herself getting
totally flustered as she toned down her voice. June’s observation was
obvious, and she had no idea why she hadn’t thought of it. “You’re
probably right.”
Arabella checked her clothes and held out her arms for a silent visual
inspection. June nodded, but when she walked past Arabella, swatting her
bottom gently, it undid all her composure. She hurried over to the door, took
a deep breath in preparation for the mom and dad storm that was about to
sweep through, and opened it.
“Mom. Dad. What a surprise.” Arabella could barely keep a straight face
when she said it.
Behind her, June let out the softest snort, and that alone just about made
Arabella burst into giggles. Her parents might have heard her on the other
side, but even if they had, they couldn’t tell what she’d been doing. Losing.
Badly. At. poker. They didn’t know she’d been sitting there barely dressed
when they walked up. That was a secret she shared with June.
“Oh, well, we just wanted to come up and say hi.” At least her mom
could be honest.
Her dad placed one hand at the small of his wife’s back and smiled one of
the few genuine smiles he’d put on lately. Not that she was annoyed at
being interrupted, but it made her parents’ nosey charade worth it. She was
glad to see her dad smile. It had been a long time since she’d seen actual
happiness on his face.
“Okay. Uh, well, then you probably want to come in.”
“Really? You don’t mind?”
Arabella nearly choked at her mom’s sugary tone. “No, I don’t mind.”
She couldn’t help herself. “Are you sure you don’t want some sugar? For
your tea?”
Arabella’s mom was a fast thinker. She always had been absolutely quick
on her feet, and right now, she was dancing on her toes. “I was hoping
you’d offer some. Tea. If you did, I wouldn’t have to borrow the sugar.”
“Tea sounds good,” June said. She stepped out from behind Arabella at
the door and offered her hand. “I’m June. It’s good to meet you.”
“And these are my parents,” Arabella tacked on as an introduction.
“Obviously. I guess we’re having tea then. Why don’t you come in and we
can all visit for a while in the kitchen?”
“Oh, that would be great.”
“I’d like that,” Arabella’s dad added, and again her heart skipped a beat
because he sounded like he really would like that.
In the kitchen, it didn’t take long for her to boil water and get out mugs
and a few boxes of black and green teas. She set everything on the table,
including spoons, sugar, and honey. She let everyone make their own cups
of tea and then she sat down in the empty seat at the round table between
her mom and June.
“I have to say, Arabella is…she’s glowing,” her mom gushed without
bothering to even make herself up a mug.
Arabella coughed loudly as she grabbed the box of black tea and threw a
teabag into her mug. She poured water and watched the clear liquid turn a
deep shade of brown.
“I’ve never seen her as happy as she has been these past few weeks. We
just knew she had to be seeing someone.”
“Mom!”
June grasped Arabella’s hand under the table and squeezed. “I’m glad.
I’ve been very happy as well.”
Her dad was more practical. “Where did you two meet?”
Great. We’re getting to all the good questions right off the bat. All those
questions that have really awkward answers.
June wasn’t awkward at all, though. “Wet met at work, actually.”
“Oh really?” Mom clapped her hands. “That’s great!”
“You’re not going to list off a bunch of things wrong with that?” Arabella
realized she forgot cream. She stood up and walked to the fridge and set it
on the table before she sat back down.
“Why would there be anything wrong with that?”
“We’re very thankful that Arabella has a good job now,” Dad said.
“Aren’t we, Mother?”
“Yes. Yes, we are.” Mom nodded.
Arabella squirmed. If her parents found out June wasn’t just her boss, but
that she was the CEO of the entire place, they’d no doubt have other
questions. Or maybe they wouldn’t, but if they did, she really didn’t know
how to answer them.
“We’re very happy to see such a beautiful, smart young woman is dating
our daughter,” Mom went on, oblivious to how Arabella turned a bright red.
Dad nodded. “With a good head on her shoulders. We couldn’t ask for
anything more than that, and that you treat our little girl right.”
“Dad…” Arabella protested. “I’m not your little girl.”
“Whether you’re my oldest or not, everyone knows that a man’s
daughters are always his little girls.”
Arabella felt her tear ducts starting to work. She blinked back the sting.
Because now was the time to get all sappy and sentimental. Her dad gave
her the softest look, though, and it was hard to remind herself why she was
bothering to hold the tears back. It was nice to sit like this. As a family
again.
“Are you guys having tea?” Arabella asked. “Or am I the only one
keeping up the charade?”
A chorus of laughter rang out around the table, and everyone got busy
making their tea. She was sure her dad didn’t even like tea, but even he
made an attempt at it. After they all had steaming mugs in front of them,
Arabella’s mom picked up on her line of questions.
“Did you grow up here in Cincinnati, June?”
“Actually, I did,” June responded smoothly. She left it at that, and that
seemed to satisfy the ques
tion. It wasn’t that Arabella wanted to hide a
bunch of stuff from her parents, she would just rather let them in on all the
details when they knew June better.
“Do you want a family? Kids? Marriage?”
“Da-ad!” Arabella wanted to move her mug and drop her head smack
down on the table. “Those kinds of questions are off limits. We haven’t
been dating that long. If you want me to keep having a girlfriend and not
scare her off, you shouldn’t ask things like that.”
“Are they hard things?” As if her mom didn’t know the answer to that.
“No, it’s fine.” June freely set her fingers on Arabella’s hand right there
on top the table. “I know that forty is the new twenty and more and more
people are putting off having kids until they’re older and more settled. They
want the career first, all the life experiences before they have a family. I
guess I fall somewhere in the middle on that. I’m very career oriented, but
I’ve done a lot of the things I’d like to do, and I know I could leave the co
—I mean, my position in more than capable hands if I wanted to take a year
off or more to start a family. I think I’m just like everyone else in that I’d
like to find the right person and get to know them for a number of years and
enjoy our time together as a couple before I would like to talk about
marriage and kids, but of course I want them.” Her fingers flexed over
Arabella’s when she said right person and Arabella’s heart started to beat
that much faster.
Her tear ducts were acting up again, and so she cleared her throat and
sipped at her tea, which was still incredibly hot despite the liberal dousing
of cold cream she’d given it. “I think that’s enough of the hard questions.
How about commenting on how hot it’s been or, Dad, you could talk about
boring sports, or, or just something that’s not about us or about June’s
personal life.”
Her parents were so not into that, and Arabella could tell they probably
had a whole list of questions they’d been percolating down in the basement
suite for the past few weeks. She was a little worried that said list might
contain a heck of a lot more questions than she was ready to answer and
that it might make things extremely awkward for her and June, but her mom
surprised her.
“It has been awfully hot lately, hasn’t it?”
Her dad took it one step further, giving her a soft, knowing smile. “How
about baseball? Does anyone like baseball?”
June jumped at the chance to talk about something that was neutral, and
also somewhat familiar grounds for her. She commented on the weather,
then she talked about the game they’d just been to and rattled off what she
knew about the team because her dad was a baseball fanatic.
Arabella sat quietly, enjoying just listening to June talk, loving the fact
that she hadn’t bailed on her the second her parents knocked on her door.
She hadn’t panicked. She hadn’t run. She’d met the parents and it had gone
okay so far. It was going to go okay. It was all going to be okay.
And now she knew for sure that June wanted kids. Which made her feel
so warm inside, so tender, so blissfully happy, that she was afraid their
beautiful bubble would burst, but then she thought about it and realized they
weren’t in a bubble at all. They were living a very real life and they’d been
as honest with each other as they could be.
June had already seen the worst of her, and she’d already been the worst
version of herself. They’d gotten through that to where they were now and
that was not an easy thing to do. So, no, they weren’t really living in a
bubble. They were being very, very real about everything, taking it slow,
like June said.
Arabella guessed it was more that she was afraid of losing the
tremendous happiness she felt, but she knew that was also a common fear.
Every single person had to be afraid of those things, of their happiness
getting shattered, of bad things happening to the people they loved. She
worried about her parents daily. No, more like hourly. She worried about
her sister. And now she worried about June.
That was just part of life and learning how to let people in, learning how
to let go, and maybe even learning how to love.
Chapter 19
June
Now that they were actively talking and thinking about their new line of
children’s footwear, June was so excited to join the marketing meetings.
Not that she hadn’t been before, but she trusted that her team was capable to
handle things without her always being present. She still trusted them, but
she was so excited for the new shoes they were going to be putting into
development shortly that she made sure she always made time for the
meetings. She wanted to know everything that was happening, every single
second of it.
She told herself she was just excited about the product line, the shoes
themselves, all their fun new designs, and the fact that this was something
they hadn’t done before, an entirely new direction for all of them. June was
okay with admitting to herself that she was especially excited because it
was Arabella’s idea they were developing, her designs, even though they
were preliminary.
She was extremely proud of Arabella, but she didn’t want to just be
excited for her or proud of her. She wanted to be excited for the whole thing
and proud of the whole marketing department. She was. She was truly
proud of everyone for all the hard work they had put in already and all the
hard work they would continue to do, but when she got to the meeting, she
couldn’t help but feel a rush of pride for the beautiful, smart, talented,
driven woman who was her girlfriend.
“This is a very exciting time for us,” June said, leading off the meeting.
“I can’t wait to hear the updates about the new line. Beth, do you want to
take over?”
Beth always took over. She always ran the meetings. The marketing
department was her baby. June couldn’t remember a single time when Beth
hadn’t been just so stoked for any meeting. She was like that, always
enthusiastic, so creative, so truly gifted.
“Sure.” Beth reached for the file in front of her and flipped it open. She
took over, going over numbers and projections again, getting the team
warmed up to talk about how exactly they wanted to put the product out
there.
As the meeting went on, June kept watching Beth. She couldn’t figure
out what it was that was bothering her, but there was definitely something.
Maybe she was just stressed. Putting a new product out there was always a
risk, and they were going to invest a lot of time and money into this line.
Beth would probably feel responsible if the shoes didn’t do well, or if they
spent money on advertising and a marketing campaign and it didn’t pan out.
June promised herself that she’d talk to Beth about it and make sure she
was doing okay. She had to know not to get too stressed. She’d done this so
many times before, but June would check in anyway and make absolutely
sure that Beth knew she had an entire team behind her and that she couldn’t
take anything personally.
After the meeting, June couldn’t help herself. She found herself walking
towards Arabella’s office, already working on some kind of excuse in her
head. A work excuse. Really, she just wanted to talk to her. She couldn’t sit
in the same room with her for over an hour and not appreciate how divinely
beautiful she was. Maybe that was excuse enough. Just a few seconds to tell
her that.
Arabella was bending over her filing cabinet, putting away the meeting
minutes from the meeting they’d just been in. June admired her
organization skills. Well, no, she admired lots of things about Arabella, but
she definitely appreciated that she was organized.
June knocked gently on the glass door, and when Arabella spun around,
she smiled. “Can I come in for a minute?”
“Sure.” Arabella shut the filing cabinet and sat down behind her desk.
She was very professional at work. She even fooled June most of the time.
Her face was always blank and neutral. They’d been dating for three weeks,
and Arabella was always very controlled. “What’s up?”
June shrugged. “Nothing. Maybe I just wanted to come and see you.”
Arabella’s cheeks heated up. Her eyes flew to the closed door, then
rushed back to June’s face, where they lingered, the heat in them slowly and
steadily building since they were alone. “That’s, uh, that’s very…I like
that.”
June giggled. “You’re welcome?” She lowered her voice. “I like it too.
Anyway, I was just…I wanted to talk to you. I thought maybe you’d like to
come over tonight. For dinner, but to stay the night?” She felt hope and fear
bubble up in her chest in equal measures.
Arabella grinned widely. There was no hiding her happiness, and seeing
it made June feel so incredibly alive. “I’d like that,” she said, so soft and
contained, even though her face was radiant.
“I’d like that too.”
Arabella glanced towards the door again. “Good. I’m glad that’s settled,
then.”
“I was also wondering if you might like to go for lunch with me today.”
“You mean leave here together?”
She nodded. “People go for lunch together all the time. It’s a work thing.
Lots of people here are friends.”
