17. Kiera
Kiera
W hen Kiera came home from class, Hunter pulled her aside in the dining room. Kiera grinned, leaning in for a kiss, but Hunter drew back and gave her a serious look.
“What?” Kiera asked.
“Abby’s having a rough day,” Hunter said. “She got confused while she was with your mom at the salon, thought your grandpa was still alive. She’s been calling me by your aunt’s name all day.”
Kiera frowned, then asked, “How did my mom seem? Was she taking it okay?”
“She seemed a little lost,” Hunter said. “It can be hard to deal with, having a loved one who’s still with you but isn’t entirely with you. I see it a lot at the nursing home, family members struggling to come to terms with it.”
She put her arm around Kiera’s shoulders, pulling her into a comforting hug. Then after a moment to gather her thoughts, Kiera said, “Well, we knew this was going to start happening more often. We’ll just have to adjust.”
“She seems better now,” Hunter offered. “I think she’s basically lucid now, but she’s still a little disoriented. Are you going to be okay if I head home?”
“Of course,” Kiera said. “She’s my grandmother, I can take care of her.”
“I would offer to stay, but Piper’s got a late shift tonight,” Hunter said. “You can always call me if you need anything, or you can just call me even if you don’t need anything.”
Kiera leaned in to give Hunter a kiss. She’d been a few minutes late to her noon class and even after she arrived, she wasn’t exactly present with the lecture. She could think of nothing but the sound of Hunter groaning her pleasure, the taste of her, the feeling of their bodies pressed together.
It had been wonderful, and Kiera hoped to do it again as soon as possible.
“You’re great,” she said. “In general, and because you take such good care of my grandmother.”
“I think you’re great, too,” Hunter said. She gave Kiera another kiss, and then a coy smile spread across her lips.
“What?”
“Something else happened this afternoon.” She was full-on grinning now. “Your mom knows about us.”
“What? How?” Kiera asked.
“I don’t know,” Hunter said. “She waited until you left and then she asked me about it.”
“Did you confess?” Kiera asked, teasing her.
“Was it supposed to be a secret?” Hunter asked.
“No, of course not,” Kiera said, putting her hands on Hunter’s hips and stepping into her space. “I wonder how she figured it out.”
“Mother’s intuition?” Hunter asked. “She said we seem like a good match.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Kiera said. They kissed again, and then Hunter had to get home to collect her nephews off the school bus and Kiera needed to check in on Nana.
Kiera made a hearty chicken noodle soup from one of Nana’s recipes for dinner that night and she kept a close eye on her, checking for signs of confusion or lucidity.
She had no problem following the recipe, or telling Kiera exactly how much of each spice to add to the pot, but she did talk about how nice it was that Aunt Niamh visited earlier in the day.
Of course, she was referring to Hunter. Aunt Niamh lived in Colorado and hadn’t been home to visit in months.
When the soup was done, Kiera followed Nana down the hall to the dining room, carefully holding the tureen between a pair of pot holders. Nana paused in the hall, glancing at her cabinet full of ceramic figurines. When she started counting the dolls, Kiera asked, “What are you looking for, Nana?”
“Cynthia,” she said.
“Who’s Cynthia?” Kiera asked, her heart heavy. Maybe they weren’t out of the fog just yet tonight.
“She’s one of my Florence ceramics,” Nana said. “She’s wearing a pink dress.”
“There are a lot of them with pink dresses,” Kiera pointed out - at least half a dozen of them, in fact. “Come on, Nana. The soup is going to get cold.”
Nana reluctantly turned away from the shelves, going into the dining room as she muttered, “Your grandfather found Cynthia for me when he was in the war. She’s rare.”
“We’ll find her after dinner,” Kiera promised. “Have a seat.”
She guided Nana over to the table, then served her a bowl of soup and a small baguette. Then Kiera sat down opposite her, with a bowl and a piece of bread of her own. She didn’t have much of an appetite, though. While she watched Nana eat, Kiera just pushed her noodles around in the broth.
When she first moved in here, Kiera’s mother had been right. Kiera didn’t understand the full extent of Nana’s condition or what it would mean to watch her memory fade.
Now, it was starting to feel real.
Kiera picked at her soup, taking little bites here and there and pondering her grandmother’s mortality. Then Nana caught her off-guard.
“Hunter is a really nice girl,” she said.
Kiera looked up, meeting her eyes. None of the haziness that had been obvious in her face all afternoon was visible. Nana looked sharp again.
“You like her?” Kiera asked, smiling. “I’m really glad the two of you get along so well.”
“I can tell that you like her, too,” Nana said, and Kiera felt her heart wanting to climb into her throat. What did she mean by that?
“I do like her,” Kiera said, treading carefully.
The last time she’d talked to her grandmother about a love interest had been in high school and it had ended with Nana muttering the words just a phase and unnatural.
Kiera had made a point to keep her love life to herself around Nana since then, and tried to tell herself it was just a generational thing - Nana grew up in a whole different world when it came to things like sexual orientation.
Kiera stayed quiet now, and waited.
“Don’t play games with her, then,” Nana warned. “That’s no way to win someone’s heart.”
Kiera’s legs might have given out if she wasn’t already sitting down. Nana spoke casually and Kiera studied her face, trying to determine whether she was lucid or not.
“We don’t get to choose who we love,” Nana went on. “I didn’t understand that until your grandfather passed and I saw how awful the alternative is - to be alone.”
She took a spoonful of soup while Kiera tried to get her wits about her and figure out what to say. Finally, she settled on a simple, “Thank you, Nana.”
Then her grandmother’s expression switched from serious to cheerful and she said, “You’ll never guess who I ran into at the salon. I’ll give you a hint. She cheats at bridge and she was getting her hair permed to look like a French poodle.”
Kiera laughed aloud and said, “Nana, that’s not very nice.”
Suddenly, her appetite was back and she devoured her soup while Nana caught her up on the latest Denise gossip. She couldn’t wait to text Hunter after dinner and tell her that they now had both her mother and her grandmother’s blessing.
What a crazy day…
The next morning, Kiera met Lauren on the curb outside The Magic Bean, her hands in her pockets and her breath visible in the crisp morning air.
Her blonde hair in perfectly straightened and she wore a skirt and heels despite the cold.
As Kiera joined her on the sidewalk, they shared a somewhat awkward hug – their first embrace since Kiera’s fateful kiss.
“Hey,” Lauren said, flashing her pearly whites. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“Thanks for reaching out to me,” Kiera said.
They’d arranged this meeting through a series of texts during the week and Kiera had been slightly nervous leading up to it.
It was finally time to bury the hatchet and release all hard feelings, but the closer their coffee date came, the more worried Kiera got.
What if Lauren didn’t want to be her best friend anymore?
What if she’d screwed up their friendship?
“How are you?” Lauren asked, shivering thanks to her exposed legs.
“Good,” Kiera said. “Chilly and undercaffeinated.”
“Well, lucky for you, we’re standing in front of a place that can solve both of those problems,” Lauren said with a grin. “Should we go in?”
“Yeah, before you freeze solid,” Kiera said, nodding to Lauren’s questionable wardrobe choice. Lauren shot her a snarky look and Kiera relaxed a little - at least they hadn’t lost their banter.
They went inside. There were a lot of other students in the café, studying and waiting for their next class, but the line moved quickly as always. Kiera looked for Piper but a barista she wasn’t familiar with took their orders.
Then they found a table toward the back of the café and waited for their drinks, chatting about the upcoming 5k and other sorority news in the meantime. It was nothing that needed to be said, but it was nice to fall back into old habits with a friend.
Once their coffee had arrived, though, Lauren was the first to turn serious.
She looked Kiera in the eyes and said, “I’ve had a really hard time getting ahold of you ever since that night. I just want to make sure that now that I’ve got you here, we have a chance to get everything out on the table.”
“It’s okay,” Kiera said. “You don’t have to apologize any more. I shouldn’t have let this turn into a big thing and I’m ready to move past it. Can we please agree to pretend it never happened?”
Lauren laughed, then held out her hand. Kiera shook it resolutely and Lauren said, “Agreed.”
“Best friends?” Kiera asked.
“Always,” Lauren said. She took a sip of her coffee, then asked, “So it’s been a thousand years since we’ve talked, or at least that’s what it feels like. Tell me everything I missed.”
“Well,” Kiera said, hedging. She wanted to tell Lauren about Hunter, but she wondered if it would be hurtful considering the fact that they’d just gone over a month without speaking to each other because of Kiera’s mistaken feelings for Lauren.
“What?” Lauren asked. She raised an eyebrow, which meant she was sniffing out some juicy gossip. “Tell me - I’m your best friend.”
“I have a girlfriend,” Kiera blurted.
Lauren clutched her heart, falling back against her chair and pretending to be wounded. She said dramatically, “Have you forgotten me so soon?”
“I don’t, I mean-” Kiera sputtered, trying to find a way to explain it.
She couldn’t even really understand it herself - there was just something about Hunter. She’d never really believed in the idea of love at first sight, but Hunter was doing a hell of a job changing her mind about that.
Then Lauren let her off the hook. “I’m teasing, and I’m happy for you. Tell me about her.”
Kiera smiled gratefully. It was good to have her best friend back.