Chapter 11
Julia
“That’s what you’re wearing?”
“Well hello to you too,” I said, opening the door to find my one night stand and fake girlfriend scowling at me on my porch. “What’s wrong with my outfit?”
“It’s… pink.”
Apparently the unspoken truce we’d had while we were fucking each other was over.
I looked down at my pink shirt dress. Stopping an inch or two above my knees, it had a patent leather belt in a darker shade of pink which almost perfectly matched my pink ballerina flats. With my hair straightened and just enough makeup to bring out my features, I thought I looked good.
Meanwhile Chris looked the same as she usually did. She wore a tight white tank top tucked into black cargo pants, with a black shirt that she’d left unbuttoned and her usual black boots.
I used to think she was kind of plain, not quite unattractive but not cute either. Now I found her trim figure and androgenous style of dressing almost appealing. Maybe that was because my pussy was still sore from everything we’d done last night. And early this morning.
“Let’s hit the road,” I said. “My mom gets annoyed when I’m late.”
“I’ll drive,” Chris said as we walked outside the house.
Oh good, she was one of those people. I suppressed a sigh. “Okay, whatever you want.”
I followed her to one of those small sized pick-up trucks, black and pristine. There wasn’t a smudge on it.
“What do you need a pickup truck for?” I asked as we got settled inside the vehicle. “You live in the city, not on a farm.”
“What do you drive?” she asked. “A Subaru?”
It was a running joke in the Pacific NW that if you were a lesbian you had to drive a Subaru.
“I have a Honda Civic Hybrid,” I said. “It gets around fifty miles per gallon. I fill up my tank like once a month.”
She looked surprised, though I didn’t know if it was about my choice of cars or the fact that I knew what kind of gas mileage my car got.
“Remember, if we’re going to pull this off, we have to be nice to each other. At least in front of our parents.”
“Oh, I can be nice to you.”
“Really?” I asked with exaggerated surprise. “I’ve never seen you do it before.”
“I was being nice when I had my tongue inside your cunt.”
I winced, hating the word but knowing she’d probably used it to get a rise out of me.
“You seemed to enjoy it just as much as I did,” I reminded her.
We were both quiet for the next few minutes. Chris didn’t need directions since she’d been to my family’s house as many times as I’d been to hers. It didn’t take long before we were driving up the street where I’d grown up.
“Are we ready for this?” I asked.
Chris pulled into a parking spot on the street in front of my parents’ house.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this, but if this dinner buys us both some peace with our mothers for a few months, it’ll totally be worth it.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “If I know my mother she’ll have made your favorite dinner as part of her plan to prevent you from dumping me.”
“I thought you were dumping me?”
I shook my head. “Oh no, whatever happens and whoever does the dumping, it’ll somehow be my fault. Trust me. My mother sees me as the Anti-Midas.”
“Anti-Midas?”
“You know how Midas turned everything to gold? She thinks I turn everything to shit.”
To my surprise, Chris seemed angry on my behalf. “That’s not true. You’ve got a nice house, a good job, a nice circle of friends. To my knowledge you don’t do drugs or drink to excess. Seems like you’re doing pretty good for yourself.”
I shifted in my seat to meet her gaze.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “That means a lot to me.”
We were both still for way longer than was polite, and for a second I thought she was going to kiss me, but then Chris shook her head slightly and reached for the door.
“We’d better go in.”
She came around the truck and grabbed my hand, threading our fingers together.
“Girlfriends hold hands,” she said out of the side of her mouth, as if our parents had lip readers stationed in the windows. “We need to look the part.”
“Of course,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze and telling myself that it was just hand holding, nothing to get all warm and fuzzy about.
The minute we walked into the house, our mothers were on us. They’d always been close friends, but now they were united in a shared mission. Meanwhile our fathers sat on the couch, drinks in hand, watching the whole thing go down.
“Why wouldn’t you have mentioned this, Christina?” Mrs. Robbins asked, ignoring Chris’s scowl at the use of her full name. “Your dating Julia is big news. We talk every day and you didn’t say a word.”
“We’re waiting to see how things work out,” Chris replied, her voice already weary. “We’d still be waiting if Mrs. Montego hadn’t surprised us.”
“And what a surprise it was, walking in and finding you two girls in bed together… like that.”
Both of our fathers winced in unison.
“Well Mom, that will teach you to come into my house unannounced,” I snapped.
“I rang the bell and knocked too,” Mom replied, her voice full of self-righteousness.
“I thought maybe you’d fallen and hurt yourself and that’s why you weren’t answering the door.
You know I never liked you living alone.
You never know what could happen to you.
One day we realize we haven’t heard from you, and we find you at the bottom of the basement stairs in a pool of blood. ”
Oh God, Mom was in full martyr mode now.
“Maybe she won’t be living alone too long,” Mrs. Robbins said slyly. “Chris just lives in that crappy one bedroom apartment. She can move in with Julia.”
“It’s not crappy!” Chris protested. “It’s just small and boring, but there’s nothing actually wrong with it.”
I looked over at my father, widening my eyes and tilting my head towards our mothers in a silent entreaty to help us out. Fortunately he intervened.
“When’s dinner, dear? I’m starving and I think the interrogation portion of our evening can be over now.”
He stood up, and Mr. Robbins followed suit, adding, “These girls will figure things out in their own time. There’s no reason to badger them.”
The rest of the dinner went relatively well. Other than a few random questions about our first date and how much we worked together, our mothers mostly stayed on other topics although they kept giving us meaningful looks and whispering things to each other.
Chris and I were on the same side of the table, across from the mothers, and we scooted our chairs together close, the way that you’d do if you were dating someone.
All for show of course. My fake girlfriend leaned towards me to press her shoulder against mine, and I put my hand on her thigh, gave it a comforting squeeze, and left it there.
When I looked up I saw my mother’s eyes on us, taking in the way my hand had gravitated into Chris’s space with a small smile.
“You two are so cute together,” Mom beamed.
Chris and I groaned in unison.
“These pork chops are delicious Mrs. Montego,” Chris interjected.
“I made them special for you,” Mom said proudly. “I remembered how much you always liked them.”
I resisted mentioning that Mom rarely made my favorite foods. She’d told me more than once that with my curves I needed to be careful not to gain weight.
“You’ll have to come to our place next time,” Mrs. Robbins said. “We could do a taco bar. You girls always loved that when you were younger.”
By the time we’d had dessert and helped with the dishes, the strain of the evening was getting to me.
I stepped close as Chris closed the dishwasher, looking over my shoulder at our mothers who were watching us through the space between the kitchen and the dining room.
Putting my hands on Chris’s shoulders, I leaned in and put my mouth by her ear.
“I’m going to need a fucking drink after this. You in?”
She smiled, then popped her head forward to give me a quick kiss on the cheek, playing it up for the parents, I was sure. I kept having to remind myself of that.
“You read my mind. Can we get out of here now?”
I pulled her into a tight hug before stepping back. “God yes.”
It felt like it took forever to get out of there, but finally Chris and I were in her truck, heading back to my place.
“I feel like we went through hell back there,” I said.
“Because we did. Let’s drink until we forget about it.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We parked her truck at my house then walked three blocks down to my neighborhood bar. Like every Saturday night, it was fairly busy, but mostly with people from the neighborhood. Finding two stools at the bar, we ordered shots of tequila and a basket of chips.
“To our fake relationship!” I said, holding up my shot glass to clink against hers.
“To getting our mothers off our backs,” she replied.
We downed our shots and gestured for another round from the bartender.
“Bartender! I’m in the mood to celebrate.”