“You don’t have to hide anything from us, darling,” Mom assured her, squeezing her tightly. “We’re thrilled. Just thrilled.”
Tally glared at me over her shoulder, her eyes spearing me like a sword. “Fix this,” she mouthed.
I shrugged helplessly. They seemed so happy. I couldn’t bear to disappoint them by saying it was only fake.
“How did it happen?” Dad asked, sliding the last steak onto a plate and circling around the counter to close the distance between us.
“It isn’t how it—”
“It was after Tally’s breakup,” I blurted out, cutting her off.
Mom cocked her head. “That’s right. You were seeing that finance guy. What was his name? Chad? Brad?”
“Thad,” Tally corrected stiffly. I could feel her glare burning into my forehead.
“Right, right. What happened with him?”
I hadn’t told them any details because Tally was embarrassed, and even though she had no reason to be, I didn’t want to spread gossip that might make her uncomfortable.
Tally’s upper lip curled. “He turned out to be a cheating asshole.”
“Want me to break his kneecaps?” Dad asked, deadpan. I knew—just knew—that he was channeling a character from his favorite show about the mob. It was in the way he suddenly had a New Jersey drawl.
To my surprise, Tally giggled. “No. But it’s sweet of you to offer.”
Dad looked a little miffed that his vengeful offer had been called “sweet,” but he nodded and leaned against the counter, crossing his legs at the ankles.
“Anyway, she called me after the breakup, and I went over to her place, and one thing led to another and…” I trailed off, hoping they’d extrapolate from there.
Mom beamed. “So romantic.”
Guilt twisted in my gut like a knife. I really shouldn’t lie to them. But they were so pleased, and now I couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing them. Better to just pretend to break up down the road and tell them we’d decided we were meant to be friends, not lovers.
Finally, I turned to Tally, acknowledging her furious glare. Silently, I implored her to just go along with this for a while. We could fix it later. My parents had dropped hints over the years that I might like to settle down, but I hadn’t realized just how much joy it would bring them if I did.
Tally tilted her head to the side, capitulating, but her expression told me that we would be having words later. Stern words.
“Should we eat before dinner gets cold?” Dad suggested. “We can talk over the meal.”
“Sounds good.” I waited for each of them to grab a plate before following them to the glass dining table.
Mom and Dad sat at the far end and the left side. Tally sat on the right, so I took the chair kitty corner to her, at the nearest end of the table. She tossed her long hair over her shoulder and a wave of sweet-scented air drifted toward me.
I peeked at her out of the corner of my eye. How would it feel to actually be dating her? To know that this beautiful woman, who’d always made me smile, was mine?
A surprising sense of satisfaction rippled through me. Strange. Did I actually like the idea of dating Tally?
I’d always known she was pretty, and it hadn’t taken long to learn that she was kind and capable too. Those were good qualities in a friend, but I’d never allowed myself to think more on the matter than that.
Now, I found myself uncertain of what to do or how to act.
She was mad at me. Meanwhile, I was in the midst of a crisis and potentially having some more-than-friendly thoughts about my best friend. Like, would she smell sweet and fruity if I buried my face in the crook of her neck? Would her eyes burn in a different way if I dared to kiss her?
I tuned back into the conversation just in time to hear Mom say, “...know it’s a bit premature, but we’ve always thought of you as part of the family.”
Tally’s eyes were panicked, her smile forced. Mom and Dad must have noticed, but perhaps they chalked it up to nerves and that’s why they were going so far out of their way to make it clear they approved.
Unfortunately, Tally was blatantly uncomfortable and my mood soured. What had I been thinking, pressuring her into this? She was going through enough without me adding another layer of complication.
