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Samantha hesitated. “Sure.”
She didn’t sound sure at all, but again, Carly wouldn’t argue. “Okay, I’ll drop her a message. And I’ll see about the rest.”
“Very good. One o’clock sharp.”
With that, Samantha hung up, and Carly stared at her phone.
“Everything okay?” Lauren mumbled, finally crawling out from underneath the sheets.
Her hair was bent in all directions, and she had lipstick smeared across her mouth, which Carly wiped at with her thumb. She was still considering Samantha’s suggestion. What was stopping her? Was it her dad’s reaction? He’d never been one hundred percent comfortable with her partners. Or Beth’s, for that matter. And seeing Lauren with Berkeley would make it real; it would mean the dog had moved on. It was also very early. Maybe throwing Lauren into the complicated ring of her family dynamics so soon would be too much.
“How would you feel about lunch?” she asked, running her fingers through Lauren’s hair to flatten it.
“Great, I’m starving.”
“It’s with my dad.”
Lauren’s eyes widened. “Feeling less hungry by the second.”
That answered the question. She wasn’t ready for it.
Carly stood and swigged the water on her nightstand before replying, “No worries, another time.”
“What?” Lauren replied, climbing onto her knees. “No, I’m interested. You just took me by surprise.” She shuffled to track Carly as she walked around the bed. “Would you really want me there, though? Meeting your dad is kind of… huge. What if he doesn’t like me? What if he isn’t happy with how I’ve been looking after Berkeley? What if he wishes you were dating, like, a soldier or something?”
Carly laughed. “A soldier?” She cradled Lauren’s cheeks, unsure about a lot, but not about what she was about to say. “He just wants me to be happy, and I’m happy with you, so of course he’ll like you.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. But even if he doesn’t, so what?”
“Well, if you’re anything to go by, he might threaten to shoot me.”
Still laughing, Carly made her way into the ensuite. She left the door ajar so that they could hear one another. “He’d have to get past Samantha first.”
“Is that meant to be reassuring?”
“No.”
The bed creaked, and then Lauren’s figure cast a shadow from the doorway. “I’ve never met parents before,” she whispered. “Apart from Paige’s mum, and she hates me.”
“Time to fix that, then?” Carly checked as she grabbed her toothbrush and streaked it with paste.
“Okay.”
“Sure?”
“If you are.”
Raising the toothbrush to her mouth, Carly smiled into the mirror. She could see Lauren creeping about by the bathroom doorway, nervous but willing to do this. They both were.
“You best hurry,” Carly said. She kicked the door further open, then handed Lauren a brand-new toothbrush still in its wrapper. “And I think you’re going to need this.”
Lauren clutched it to her chest. “You got me a toothbrush?”
“Yep. Stop cuddling it and get ready, because Berkeley’s probably busting by now. I thought you were supposed to be showing my dad how well you look after him?”
The toothbrush packet was torn apart, discarded, and Carly nudged out of the way in two seconds flat. She chuckled, cleaning her teeth as she watched Lauren run and stumble her way around collecting her clothes, hopping into her jeans, tousling her hair and bursting through the bedroom door calling Berkeley’s name.
