On Tuesday morning, after I've completed three shifts in a row without any more workplace sex – although there have been several fights over the thermostat with Ruth – I'm having breakfast with my parents. Mom has now finished work until after the new year, to make the most of Dad being around, and I'm making the most of not being on my feet after three intense days. It's been a while since I spent so much time standing – actually, I don't think I ever have – and right now, I'm glued to my seat at the kitchen table, inhaling coffee to revive me enough to enjoy my day off.

The first half of it, at least, before I go get Otto and Hannah from school. It's kind of fun, playing mom.

"Did I mention," Mom says out of nowhere, interrupting herself with a sip of orange juice, "that Theo's coming up on Saturday?"

"No! Really?"

"Yup! He didn't want to miss out on family dinner, what with you and Nathan being here. He's just coming up for the night, but he'll be back after Christmas with Becca and Toby."

"Nice. So we'll get the whole family together for at least an evening," I say. It's been way too long since that happened. Theo's not so bad, only a couple hours away, but did Nathan really have to move all the way to Manhattan? "That'll be cool. We never see each other."

"You know, between your new job and your new girlfriend," Mom says, "we hardly see you anymore." She adds a thick layer of jam to a piece of toast and tops up her glass of orange juice. I cradle my mug of coffee to my chest.

"To be fair, you've hardly seen me for the last eleven years," I point out.

"The girl's got a point," Dad says.

"Yes, but now you're here. You're so busy. I wasn't expecting you to be so busy."

I glance at her, trying to read her tone. "Is it okay? I mean, do you mind that I'm living here?"

"Honey, of course not!" Mom cries out. "I love that you're back with us, however long it lasts, and I love seeing you so busy and happy. I just wasn't expecting it, but I'm very happy for you."

"I'm proud of you," Dad says. "It's not easy, losing a job or a relationship, and you've been through both this year and come out smiling."

"What can I say? I'm a ray of sunshine." I flick my hair over my shoulder and bat my lashes.

"Are you here tonight?" Mom asks as I bite into my toast, getting crumbs everywhere because it was too cold when I buttered it.

"No, I'm at Laurel's tonight." I hold my hand over my mouth as I chew. "It's her chaos day, 'cause the kids have extracurriculars and she has Ava so I'm gonna get Otto and Hannah for her. You know, take the pressure off a bit," I say. I love the thought that I can help in any way. "Then I'm staying the night and we'll go into work together."

Dad adds a sprinkle more sugar to his coffee when Mom's not looking and says, "I hope you're being careful, honey."

"Oh, don't worry, Laurel gave me a lesson in sex ed. Turns out she can't get me pregnant after all so no need to worry, we're all clear on that front," I say.

Dad titters. Mom tuts and says, "He's right, Annie. Working with someone you're dating – no, working for someone you're dating, you need to be careful."

"I know." I pick at an orange segment from the plate of fruit Mom has cut up and put in the middle of the table because she reckons Dad doesn't feed himself properly when he's away from home. For a brief moment, I feel like I'm twelve years old again.

"You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket," Dad says, like he and Mom are playing ping pong with their warnings. "What if the handle snaps?"

"You mean, what if Laurel and I break up but I still work for her and it's awkward?" I ask, eyebrows raised.

"Well ... yes."

I shrug. "I don't know, I'll cross that bridge if I ever get to it, but I just don't really see it being a problem," I say, "and if it is, then we'll figure it out." Maybe it's delusion, but I can't bring myself to be nervous about the future. Laurel and I have found each other again after eight years. If that's not fate, what is? I can't imagine what would tear us apart now.

"I'm an adult, you know," I add, "as hard as that may be to believe when I'm sleeping under a comforter I've had since I was thirteen."

That gets a laugh out of Mom, who says, "Of course, hon, you are absolutely in control and responsible for your decisions. It's just our prerogative, as your parents, to worry and to want to check in."

"Appreciate the concern," I say, and I mean it. I love that they care, that they worry about my feelings. That was easy to forget when I was off in Washington breaking my heart all over the place, going on date after date in search of a Laurel replacement.

*

When Liyo comes over for a coffee, she arrives armed with bags of gifts she needs to wrap, dumping them out on the dining room table.

"I figured we could work as we chat," she says. "I'm behind on my wrapping and it's hard to do Cas's stuff when he's always in the house." She's back in all black today, no pop of color – not that I can see, anyway. "How good are you at wrapping?"

"I'm a solid Snoop Dogg," I say. Liyo uses a roll of snowflake-print paper to whack my arm.

"You're not as funny as you think you are," she mutters. I've heard that before. During one break-up, I was told that I use humor as a deflection, which I don't agree with. I'm just a hilarious person.

Liyo spreads out her stuff like she owns the place. Mom and Dad have taken Cooper out so we have the house to ourselves for at least an hour and she has brought everything we could possibly need, in duplicate: two pairs of scissors, the big kind that do the satisfying glide when cutting wrapping paper; two tape dispensers with extra tape; four rolls of paper; two packs of stick-on bows, and a big bag of gift tags.

"You came prepared," I say, taking a seat opposite her. "Who's your least favorite person? I'll wrap their stuff."

We soon fall into an easy routine, cutting strips of tape and squares of paper, measuring gifts, sticking on labels and bows. Most of our conversation so far has been about Christmas and family and our plans for the day itself, so it takes me by surprise when Liyo says, "How's your sugar mama?"

"Hardly a sugar mama," I say with a snort, accidentally tearing the piece of paper I'm cutting. Oh well, it's only for Cas's cousin. "Mama, yes, sugar, no. She's not rich."

"She owns her own home and her own business, that's rich enough for me," Liyo says, though I'm fairly sure she makes more than Laurel does. Christian probably pays more in child support than Laurel makes from the bookstore. "So?" Liyo prods. "How's it going?"

I don't need to say a word for her to know. My face speaks volumes. Liyo reflects my grin back at me, her nose ring twinkling when she leans forward and catches the light, bright eyes shining as she makes her eyebrows dance.

"Oh, man, you're in so deep," she says, sounding highly amused.

"I really am." I let out the heavy sigh of a hopeless romantic.

"Quick, if Laurel proposed tomorrow, what would you do?"

It's pathetic, how my heart soars at Liyo's hypothetical. "I'd say yes," I admit, because I'd be crazy to turn down the chance to really be a part of her family. "And I'd probably sink to the floor and cry at her feet."

"Oh my god, Annabelle." She laughs, shaking her head at me. "You've been with the woman for, what, two weeks?"

"But she's had my heart for eight years." I point a pair of scissors at her. She uses an empty cardboard tube from the wrapping paper to lower the snapping blades. "When you think about it, our relationship has moved at a glacial pace. I've been in love with the woman for almost a decade and only now do I get to call her my girlfriend."

"Hey." Liyo tilts her head. "That's a new development. When did that happen?"

I fill her in on Saturday's game night, the way Laurel stood up to her mom, the way she said she wants me in her life for a long time, the way she accepted after I asked her to be my girlfriend three times.

"Damn, girl," Liyo says with a whistle.

"I think I'm allowed to fantasize about being Mrs Jacobs," I say, sticking a bow over the torn paper.

"Fantasize away," she says, writing out a tag for Cas's sister. "Although, wouldn't that be kind of weird? Being Mrs Jacobs? That's, like, taking her ex-husband's name."

"Then she can be Mrs Abraham."

"But all her kids are Jacobs. Probably get a whole bunch of questions if she ever tried to take them on an airplane and she doesn't share their last name."

"Then maybe I keep my name and she keeps her name and we stop this majorly hypothetical conversation before we take it too far?" I suggest. Liyo chuckles and salutes, and we return our attention to the task at hand.

But not for long.

"You think this could go the distance?" Liyo asks, one eyebrow slowly inching its way higher than the other.

"I don't know," I say with a shrug, because I know our relationship is way bigger than just me, than just us – being with Laurel means being with her family, taking on her kids, and I know that's going to make her cautious. "It's almost too good to be true, you know?"

"Like you're in a honeymoon phase?" Liyo's voice is softer, more careful. I nod slowly.

"I guess. It's fast, I know, and it's so good right now, and I ... I'm scared, I guess, because I don't want this to fall apart, especially not now that I'm more entrenched this time around."

"Entrenched," Liyo repeats with a chuckle.

"Okay, maybe not entrenched," I say, because in the grand scheme of things, I am not that immovable or difficult to remove from the situation – if I left now, Ava would never remember me and it wouldn't be long before Hannah forgot I had any kind of significance – but I do feel more embedded. "You know what I mean," I say. "Her kids know about me. It's more serious. I don't want to fuck it up again."

Liyo sips her coffee and wrinkles her nose. It's been a while since I made our drinks when we sat down, and we've talked so much that they're going cold. "How'd you fuck it up last time?"

"I went back to college."

She fixes me with a withering look. "Which you had to do."

"Yeah, but then I moved to Seattle without telling her and I didn't speak to her for another eight years."

"Well, the way I see it, there's no problem." She flattens her hands on the table and holds my gaze. "You graduated college seven years ago, so that's not going to get in the way anymore. And you can just ... not leave, if you don't want to."

"I know," I say, but I must not sound convincing because Liyo huffs and tucks her hair behind her ears, which are pierced with so many silver earrings that magpies must follow her around.

"Imagine this," she says, folding her hands under her chin. "It's New Year's Day. You've had a great holiday season, and a whole month back in Deer Pines. You wake up to an email from the editor of the New York Times. They read some of your old articles and they want you to move to Manhattan and write for them. What do you say?"

I take a moment to think about the question. Of course there's that initial flicker of wow you can't miss that opportunity, but when I examine my feelings more, the brightness of the hypothetical starts to dull. I don't want to live in New York – or any city, for that matter, I've had my fill – and as much as I miss the rush and the chaos of working for a paper, I don't want to go back to that. The constant stress and deadlines and having to come up with new ideas. It was burning me out.

"I think," I say slowly, "I'd rather stay here with Laurel and watch Ava grow up."

Liyo's whole countenance glows when she smiles and puts her hands over mine and says, "Annie, my darling bestie, I don't think you're going to fuck it up."

"Okay," I say, and I play her words back in my head, trying to engrave them over my fears.

"If anyone's going to fuck it up, it'll have to be Laurel. Or her secret baby daddy. Hey, any chance she's still in love with her ex and he might jump back into the picture?"

"I really, really doubt it," I say, swatting her wrist, because the last thing I want to worry about is Christian swooping back in when their love was already dead in the water when Hannah was born. "I'm just going to enjoy what I've got, okay?"

"Solid plan." Liyo gives me a thumbs up and pulls over the last present to wrap, and checks the time. Coming up for noon already. "Shit. I should get going soon. I am actually supposed to be working today."

She takes liberties with the whole working from home thing, usually cramming a day's work into a couple hours and spending the rest of the day doing her own thing and occasionally nudging the mouse to keep her status active.

"Hey, thanks for giving me a hand with this," she says, indicating the gifts. Hers are better wrapped than mine, but I reckon I've done a decent job. "What're you up to for the rest of the day?"

"Hanging out with my parents, I guess," I say as I hear them getting back from their walk, "then I'm getting the kids from school later. I'm taking Otto to soccer and Hannah to art class, then staying for dinner and spending the night."

Liyo's lips crack into a grin that turns into a laugh. She nudges my shoulder and says, "Listen to yourself, Annie. You're already a lil soccer mom. I don't think you have anything to worry about."

*

annie is so #whipped