“Amy! You’ve brought a friend?” My mom may have stated the obvious just then, but don’t let that give you the wrong impression. The “Education” section of her resumé is just as impressive as her long work history as an engineer. Yes, I think I mentioned both parents were engineers. While having a bit less of a one-track mind than my father she was still a force to be reckoned with.

That’s a bit overdramatic, she seems nice.

I didn’t usually bring friends over often growing up. Sue me.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Thorne. My name’s Dahlia.” Liah explained, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. I couldn’t help but notice my mom’s eyes widening at the sight of her ring, her eyes darting to the ring on my own finger in turn.

So much for subtlety, Liah. I would have expected her to at least let us get settled in before bringing up the main reason for our visit.

Think of it like ripping off a band-aid. Getting it out of the way now, at least the pseudo-engagement thing we had planned to tell them about. Besides, at least we’re planning a nice ceremony, didn’t you say your brother completely half-assed his wedding?

Kinda. He takes after my parents the most, but my mom still wasn’t happy about that.

“Nice to meet you too. Please, call me Theresa. Too many Mrs. Thorne’s might make things confusing.” The pleasant smile on my mom’s face belied the level of insight that one statement showed.

How’d she tell that much! We switched the rings to the opposite hands. It was Liah’s turn to be blindsided.

Tan lines….fuck. Wait, how’d we even get them that fast? It was an oversight on my part. There must have been enough of our thoughts shown in the furtive glances we shot each-other, but my mother just chuckled.

“You can explain later, I’m sure you have a good explanation for everything. But come on in, no sense waiting on the porch.”

At least she doesn’t seem to have an issue with us being together. Liah was taking the positive view on things. Lucky her.

Don’t let her fool you. She’s probably pissed I got married without telling her on top of everything else.

I’m not going to say you’re overreacting, but she didn’t expressly disapprove of anything. What was it you said earlier, “Don’t go borrowing trouble?” Liah’s smug grin soon turned to a startled hiss, as the family dog started wildly barking at her.

My mom seemed taken aback. “I’m sorry! He’s normally friendly. If anything the friendliest dog we’ve ever had. I don’t know what’s come over him.”

I had an inkling of an idea, but how to explain it? Oh, the easy route. Of course!

“He probably smells our pet cat on her.” I wasn’t even lying, technically. Technically correct is the best kind of correct, after all.

“Our?” my mom laughed at the choice of words. It feels like everyone close to me has been laughing at me lately.

“Lately?” The aforementioned cat asked, prompting a confused look from my mom. Dangerously insightful, as has been demonstrated, but even she can’t sus out psychic stuff, at least for now. But the less slip-ups the better for all of us.

“So.” my mom said, changing the subject. “You never mentioned getting a cat. Do you have any pictures?”

“Oooh, yes! Let me bring them up!” I started searching through my phone, back a bit when I first adopted what I thought was just a random stray. “Here, right after I adopted her.”

“Awww. What’d you name her?” My mom asked, prompting an awkward look between me and Liah that thankfully went unnoticed. “Hold on, I can read the collar in this picture...Chesty?” Is it just my nature to assume my parents are judging me, am I just that broken of a person? “You named your girl cat after a Marine general?” Nope, she’s totally wondering where she went wrong with raising me. Liah’s own face matched my mom’s in an eerily uncomfortable way, but with a hair more disgruntlement at the edges.

“Can’t we just go in now?” Please save me from this. To think I was worried about introducing Liah to my mom. Wait, yeah, no, I have plenty of reasons to be worried now. Wait, Liah, why are you grinning? Oh fuck.

“Honey, Amy and her friend are here.” My mom called out as we headed for the kitchen.

“Oh, perfect timing. Amy, try this.” And just like that a pint glass of beer was shoved into my hands. I think I had mentioned my dad having retired, right? So one of his new hobbies he took up was brewing beer. Despite that, he has maybe the second-worst palate of all my family. I can only imagine the struggles he went through in the past several months I spent sequestered at home.

With a practiced eye, I held it up to the light, observing the clarity of the brew and swirling it slightly to see if it has legs. Then, I placed the glass at about breast height, seeing what aromas I could pick up. Raising it up to chin height, I repeated the sniffing, and once again right in front of my nose. Finally, I took a careful sip, swirling it around my mouth before swallowing. I wasn’t going to spit it out, after all, that’d be a waste of good beer.

“You finally cleaned out the hoses for the taps at least.” I finally spoke. It was good, at least. Really one of the better porters I’ve had. Liah looked on in bemusement.

“Does your friend drink? I can pour her one.” He went about filling another glass.

Real “girl who cried wolf” vibes here. Liah thought sarcastically. After all that, it was just you catastrophizing.

“So, Liah doesn’t bring friends over often. Where do you know each-other from?” He handed over the glass of porter as he asked. Looking over at my mom….she just kept her mouth shut, watching on in amusement. What the hell is wrong with my family?

“Uhhh, work?” I decided that was the best answer. Who knows what Liah would have said.

“You mentioned your new job before. You becoming an archivist was a bit unexpected, but it’s good knowing you’re getting along with your coworkers.” My dad just seemed excited I got along well enough with someone to introduce her to them… but I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Actually, how is work going? I know they wanted you to get a bachelors, but is combining the part-time work with classes too much? I know they pile on all sorts of extra electives far outside the scope of the degree, and I could see that getting in the way of your job. Although when I was hourly they were pretty flexible as long as I got my work done.” Maybe I was panicking too much earlier.

“It’s going fine, at least it hasn’t managed to kill us yet.” I chuckled. Totally hyperbole here. “It’s mostly just the usual filing and writing reports. It’s not like I got dragged off to a remote location forced to do crosswords or anything.”

This got a laugh from all of us, except from a very confused Liah. I’ll explain later. Or just show you the movie. Actually, never-mind, that’s kind of a bad omen considering what we’ll have to bring up later.

I- Oh, that Benedict Cumberbatch movie?

It was a pretty decent movie. I know someone who still describes their work as “solving puzzles” because of it. A dark horse hit in the nerd parts of the government.

“Liah’s another part-timer.” I finally explain.

“What’s she do?” My dad asked.

“Mainly restoration.” A partial truth. Eh, no, it’s totally made up. But “witch’s familiar” clearly can’t be said.

“You were always interested in art. It’s nice she shares your interests.” My mom looking at our hands, at the rings specifically, made it clear she wasn’t going to gloss over this. Liah, despite saying something upon the lines of “lets rip off the band-aid,” seemed too lost in the conversation to pursue that track further.

But the band-aid was already half-off, and dangling, ready to be brushed off by the slightest bump to soil the floor and gross out anyone who sees it. And my dad, while more technically minded, wasn’t stupid.

“That ring...is that an engagement ring?” And he had to say it outright.

“Kinda...” Don’t expect a witty retort.

“Since when did you have a boyfriend? You should have brought him along too, especially if you’re engaged to him.” Why does my mom look so amused?

“B-b-boyfriend?” I managed to stutter out. This is really something I’ve never had to deal with before. I’ve never brought a boyfriend to meet my parents. I’ve never had a boyfriend, so it’s really something that’s never happened. I may have dated one or two girls in the past, but I never brought them to meet my parents either. H-how do I deal with this? What should I do? I felt a slight smack on the back of my head; Liah trying to get me to focus. Before I could come up with an answer, my mom said what I was about to attempt to stutter out.

“She’s gay, Eddie.”

“Since when?” He seemed legitimately confused.

“I would assume since birth, since that’s usually how it goes, but she did seem a bit too obsessed with Sailor Mars.” My mom aired my dark history out to all of us. A bit of tact would have been nice. An elbow lightly in my ribs just foretold more problems.

“I’d have taken you more for a Sailor Uranus fan.” You little…

“So, you and her...”

“Actually, I don’t think I introduced myself, Mr. Thorne. I’m Dahlia.” She said, offering her hand to shake.

“Nice to meet you. And I mean it, I was afraid my daughter would end up a spinster. My name is Ed, but you can call me Eddie.” She shook her hand firmly.

“So… you don’t have a problem with me being...” I trailed off.

“It’s a bit of a surprise...” he began over the amused snort of my mom. “...but I always got along with your aunt Jeanne and her wife, didn’t I?”

“How did you possibly think you were fooling us, Amy?” my mom followed, conveniently ignoring my clueless dad. “I do have a bone to pick with you about not giving us an invitation-”

“Oh, yeah, could you help us plan a ceremony?” We tend to interrupt a lot in my family.

“You didn’t...”

“It’s a long story.” Liah at least fits with my family when it comes to interrupting people. Maybe I made too big of a deal worrying about how our relationship would go over with my family.

Obviously.