We arrived at the party location right on time, as to be expected from me fretting over the time and having William giving us a ride.

Before getting out of the car, we asked him if he really wasn’t going to join us, to which he refused. With Abby’s mum being there, someone else had to be at the office, and that someone was him. I suppose that’s fair and makes sense, but what, were they—and by “they”, I mean Abby’s mum—expecting to find solely a crater where the company building stood by the time they came back after a few hours? Ridiculous.

We had our invitation ready to be presented to the person receiving the guests, but that proved unnecessary once we saw who that was.

“Hi girls!” Mathilda cheered, moving around the stand she stood behind. First thing she did was give Abby a hug. I’d be fine with that, were it not her considerable bust being at the right hight to make my girlfriend’s face disappear.

“Yup, they sure are nice,” I thought once it was my turn.

“Pfft, hehe.”

“What?”

“You’re being silly.”

I turned red, being somehow surprised by Abby reading my mind despite it being the norm.

Mathilda asked what we were talking about, eager to get into the conversation. Abby was seemingly considering telling her about it, looking back and forth between me and Mathilda with a smile that was growing bigger by the second.

“Should we tell her?”

“A-absolutely not!”

“Not about you being silly, silly, about the other subject! You know, the other!”

“The o— Oh! Right…”

Mathilda was even more curious now, and quite frankly, after having thought about it a lot way before anything was made official, I had concluded it was both unnecessary to keep it secret due to how obvious we made our relationship, and that it was harmless to tell to people we trusted directly. I mean, look at us and look at me. Do you think I’d have the patience to be playing “we are just friends” and both of us would withhold from smothering each other? Yeah, me neither.

Telling it to someone out loud though… Thankfully, my partner was way less reserved than me.

“Weren’t you previously?” Mathilda asked, frowning in confusion and crossing her arms.

“We made it official a while ago. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

I hope that by “all about it” she meant something a bit tamer than the truth… Not that I thought we did anything shameful, except perhaps having se—I mean, making love, before confessing. That was more of a “putting the cart in front of the bulls” situation than exactly shameless. I guess what I’m still hang up about despite it all having worked out and not feeling regrets about it is, I still would have liked having had the courage to tell her how I felt between kissing her and having asked if she was in the mood.

Then again… that would have been really uncool, wouldn’t it? “Hey, I love you, wanna do it?” That sounds like something Marcus would do.

Yeah, forget it, what I did was all right after all.

“—chokers and always walking around holding hands, calling each other babe, honey, dear, and all that, it made it pretty obvious,” I heard Mathilda say when I came back to Earth. “You’re even doing that right now.”

Like I could let Abby’s hand go when I’d be surrounded by people who I believed would be judging me and Abby could get anxious from seeing her mother. Also, going out without the choker Abby got me was almost like going out naked at this point. Not literally, obviously, it’s just a feeling.

“I feel naked without mine, so…” Abby’s voice drifted beside me. Looking at her, she had two fingers resting on the heart on the black satin around her throat. “Maybe it’s the same feeling married people feel when going out without their rings when they always wear…”

She was spot on despite not finishing her words, but mentioning being married got us both as red as we could be.

“Well, you two go on in to enjoy the party before I explode of jealousy,” Mathilda ushered, getting behind and pushing us through a door. “I’ll be there once everyone arrives.”

So, Mathilda was single? If not, her comment implied she didn’t have a particularly caring partner, or she was missing them. That was a bit of a pity. She had a bit of a weird taste in movies, but she was a really nice girl. Very pretty too.

“And with nice boobs, right?”

“Yeah… H-huh!?”

“Pfft, ah-haha!”

Was Abby reading my thoughts this whole time!? What am I asking, of course she was. She practically lived in them, however you look at it.

We turned around a corner and Abby stopped. I turned to look at her, but couldn’t see her face because she dove into me, her arms holding me tight but gently.

“Is everything ok?” I asked, also putting my arms around her.

“Yeah, I’m just giving myself a final charge,” she explained. “And also, your mind has been bouncing around at the speed of sound, hasn’t it?”

It sure had. I felt like I was at the brink of getting a headache were it not for her to have done this in the empty corridor we turned.

“Better?” she asked, putting her chin on my chest and looking up.

“Yeah, better.”

“Good,” she said with a wide grin. “But babe, while we are at it, don’t go looking at other girls’ boobs, ok? Mine should be—”

“I do no such thing! I only did that because your face disappeared in hers! And don’t say boobs!”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Ah-haha! If you say so.”

She undid our hold and attempted to start walking, but I stayed in place. Instead of that, I pulled her back, holding her from behind.

“…You know I only have eyes for you, right?” I asked.

“Sorry, did my joke upset you?”

“…No… I just wanted to tell you that.”

“Hehe, that so? Hehe, that makes me really happy to hear.”

I let her turn around and was leaning for a kiss, but when our lips almost touched, I remembered all the hard work we put in our make-up. Which wasn’t all that much, but still, we both had lipstick and I was afraid of smearing it.

“It’s fine,” she told me getting even more on the tips of her toes. “This one is smear-proof.”

Even if it weren’t, I couldn’t hold back anymore after hearing such a pleading voice.

Unfortunately, we had to cut it short because we heard footsteps of somebody approaching.

We composed ourselves and got ready to act normal once the person turned the corner.

“…”

“…”

“…”

It was Abby’s mum, and we all just stood there, looking at each other in turns. There were many things in my mind, one of them being the possibility of our lips having smeared after all. I threw Abby a couple of glances to see how she was doing and if her lips didn’t betray what had happened. As far as I could tell things were ok about the first and clear on the second.

“…Aren’t you two going in?” she asked us with a stern voice. “Or are you two working to become scarecrows?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but none would get to know what it was because Abby reacted first, grabbing my hand and telling me “let’s go” without ever releasing my hand as we walked away.

It was like I was holding a small bird. Her hand felt hot, but also, very trembly.

We took another turn, the sound of music and people chatting growing louder as we approached an open double-sided door, people nicely dressed past them being visible.

I was going to check on Abby after we passed the threshold, but a waitress cut me off midsentence.

“Margaret!” I gasped when I looked at her, holding a tray with some toasts covered in something. She was looking better than when we worked at the Le Perrot even though her work uniform wasn’t all that different. I took it to it meaning she had found a much healthier work environment.

“When Mathilda told me you were coming, I found it hard to believe,” she told me after we exchanged greetings.

“Oh, erm… my…” I made a short pause to make sure Abby’s mother wasn’t nearby before continuing. “My… girlfriend… wanted to come, so…”

“I see,” Margaret said, smiling at me and turning to face Abby. “You really hit jackpot on this one.”

Abby hugged my arm and put on a smile that looked sincere enough.

“Trust me, I know,” she told Margaret. “I thank my starts every day.”

That was when her mum walked in. Like previously, she gave us one of her looks. Maybe she heard the last exchange? What was clear was, now that Abby was hugging my arm, I could see disgust forming in her detestable face. Funny that I’d think that, seeing how alike mother and daughter looked.

“What?” Abby asked, sounding a bit hostile and tightening her hold of my arm.

Her mum disengaged her gaze and turned to Margaret.

“Champagne?” she asked dryly.

Margaret politely pointed at the side of the room furthest from the windows and gently told her she could find it there on the middle table.

“Humph, I’d thank you were it not for you pointing your finger,” was her show of gratitude before walking away.

There are plenty of words to describe Abby. Sweet, gentle, playful, lovely, a bit of a handful, loving, funny, you name it.

There are also plenty of words to describe her mother, but none that came to mind right now could, or should, be spoken by well-mannered people. I was that, but only by just a hair’s width at the moment.

“I’m sorry about her,” Abby said, being far more reasonable than me.

“Meh, I’m used to it. Still, thank you. It’s hard to believe you two are related at all.”

“…Unfortunately, yeah,” Abby sighed.

Margaret’s comment was unnecessary, but she always was one to speak her mind first and apologise later.

I’d like to have talked with her a bit longer, but she was working, so she had to excuse herself to go attend other people.

I was completely blind now, unable to see what we should be doing, but I was lucky I had Abby to guide me through.

Without letting my arm go, we started going around, greeting people she knew. They were mostly adults that exchanged a short greeting and asked her how she was doing before having me introduced. The first time was just as scary as all others. Some, I found, were legitimately scary. The way some—granted, a very small number—looked at us when they heard “girlfriend” was like we had offended them. That was something I had expected. Just because our dads were fine with it, it didn’t mean everyone would. Still, most either hid their horror well, were indifferent, or straight up accepting.

Those were the adults. I also got to meet some of Abby’s acquaintances that—some more, other not so much—shared our age.

They were all gathered around, talking and laughing amongst themselves.

“Oh Abbigail, so glad that you came!” the… leader I guess I’ll call her, said. “And who’s that?”

Her tone rubbed me in the wrong way. It sounded judgemental when she asked who I was, and it wasn’t just me projecting insecurities, Abby thought so too. I know that because I felt her hands tense up before she answered.

“Hello Jessica. This one is my girlfriend,” Abby said, sounding even more confident than any other time she said that.

“Hi, I’m Violet. Violet Evergreen,” I said, trying to sound as confident as Abby had.

“Really? You swing that way, huh? I guess that’s to be expected, you used to hang out with that guy—Paul was it? Anyway, you kept hanging out with a hot guy and you never showed any interest. I’ve never seen her before though. Did you two meet at that school of yours?” she asked, quite arrogantly.

“Yup, and it was quite the meeting. We’ve been together for almost a year since then. Speaking of, I haven’t seen Carlos around. Didn’t he come with you?”

Abby flipped the tables and was showing a bit of her bad side, and I was loving it. The face Jessica made when she heard we’ve been together for almost a year—kind of a lie, but not really if you consider all the time we’ve known each other—plus when she told us she had broken up with him was delicious.

“Oh no! When did that happen?”

“…Seven months ago.”

“What!? You two only dated three months?! I was sure you’d last way longer than that. Oh well, I hope things work out for you.”

“…Thanks…”

Such bitter tone and expression, right after acting like she was on top… yup, delicious.

“…Do you think I was too mean back there?” Abby asked while each of us placed some food on a small plate we’d be sharing. I was putting salty food while Abby was picking the sweets.

“Abby, you know I like bitter stuff, right? That was a treat to see.”

She gave me a shy smile and bumped her hip on me, whispering a joke about me being a bad girl and leading her astray. That’s what happens when you live together with someone, I suppose.

“Erm, about Paul, erm…”

“What, did you get jelly from what she said?”

“N-no, that’s not it! I just… don’t you think that…”

“…That I should introduce you two? Hmm, I guess I should, even though he never introduced me to his girlfriend. Does a double date sound fun to you?”

That was exactly it. As for the double date… how do those work? It’s not like I don’t know what they are, but for me, a date is something private, so how does it work when it’s four people?

“Think of it as a get-together if it makes more sense to you,” she told me.

We had our plate full of goodies, so we moved outside, to the balcony. We found a nice spot to sit by the handrail, overlooking the garden. After being around twenty or thirty people, this felt like heaven.

“Better?” she asked me.

“Yeah,” I told her with a deep sigh and shutting my eyes. When I opened them, Abby was offering me half of a mini cake she was currently chewing. It was a bean tart, a regional pastry made with, yes, beans, but also almonds. That was made into a cream that was poured into a cupped puff pastry. It was sweet, especially because there was a small extra hint of salt in the dough making it pop up. Maybe it was because I shared so many sweets with Abby, but this one was quite pleasing for my palate.

“Hehe, I love it when you comb your hair behind your ear before taking a bite of anything I offer you.”

“D-do I do that?” I asked, covering my mouth with my hand.

“Yup,” she confirmed, sinking her elbows on the table while holding up her head, looking at me all love-struck. “All the time.”

Like Margaret said, it was hard to believe such a sweet being could be born out of that hell spawn.

And thinking about it, where was that woman?

“Forget about her,” Abby told me as I scanned the interior. “I did.”

That was nice to hear, but I still wouldn’t forget her. Not completely at least.

I still had to keep a lookout. I was, after all, not only Abby’s girlfriend, but also her “dragon”.