Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jo

Larison seemed a little distant that night. That wasn’t exactly the right word. Maybe introspective was a better one. Maybe she was thinking about all this. How fast things had changed.

I’d pretty much been with both of them for two full days and that was a huge change.

We managed to convince Juniper that we didn’t need to order pizza, again, and got her on board with tacos.

The three of us were eating on the couch again when Larison looked over at the dining table.

“I need to get another chair. Or a new dining table.”

I didn’t have one myself or else I would have given her mine. But I was going to be on the lookout for one. Maybe one of our neighbors would move out and leave one behind. That had happened to me before and I’d gotten some great stuff.

“The couch is pretty comfortable,” I said, adding some more rice to my plate.

“I love our couch, Mama,” Juniper said.

Larison and I laughed. “There’s nothing bad about the couch. But we only have two seats at the dining table, and Jo’s going to be with us, so we need a place for three people, don’t you think?”

Her words made my heart do a little squeeze. Larison was making room in her place for me already.

None of this was casual, and it hadn’t been from the start. There would be no dates where we got dropped off and shared a brief kiss at the end of the night.

“Yeah, I think we do,” I said, reaching out to squeeze her hand.

“Jo Jo, when can we have our sleepover?” Juniper asked, setting her plate down and turning to face me.

“How about next weekend?”

“But that’s so far awayyyyyy,” she whined, and I could sense that she was still tired and close to getting upset.

“I know, sweetheart,” I said, pulling her into my lap. “But I’m going to stay here tonight, and I’ll make you breakfast tomorrow, okay? What would you like to have?”

She sniffled and I glanced at Larison.

“I don’t want anythinggggg,” Juniper wailed, and the only thing left to do was to hold her and explain that we’ll have a sleepover soon and that everything would be okay. She eventually calmed down and I found Larison watching me intently. More intently than usual.

I got up and fetched some tissues to wipe Juniper’s nose and then gave her hugs and kisses all over her face until she was laughing.

“Do you want to play a game with Mozzarella?” I asked her and that perked her up.

Juniper ran to the cabinet under the TV and pulled out her favorite game and set up the pieces on the floor.

The three of us played until it was Juniper’s official bedtime and since she’d had her nap, she was unenthusiastic about going to sleep again.

Larison pressed her fingers to her forehead and I told her that I’d take care of Juniper’s bath, which she was unhappy about and had started crying again. It was frustrating, but I just kept reminding myself that she was only five and that learning how to be a person took a lifetime. A lot of adults could barely regulate their emotions.

The bath was rough, but once I had her in her favorite pajamas and read her favorite story three times, she was starting to fade and no matter what she did, sleep was going to win.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here all night, okay?”

Larison joined us and hugged Juniper before telling her “sweet dreams, sweet girl.”

I kissed Juniper’s forehead.

“Goodnight, Princess.”

“Love you,” she said sleepily.

“Love you too,” I said.

Larison and I left her room and without another word, we walked right into her bedroom and closed the door. Larison rested her back up against it and closed her eyes.

“I want to get naked with you so bad right now, but I am so tired. I refuse to fall asleep mid-coitus. Do you think we could just get in bed and hold each other?”

That sounded pretty perfect to me.

Stepping closer to her, I grabbed her waist and got up on my tiptoes to kiss her. “That is absolutely okay with me. Do you mind if I read a little bit?”

She rested her hands on my shoulders. “Not at all. Come on, let’s get ready for bed.”

We kept bumping into each other in the bathroom as we fought over the sink and brushed our teeth.

Tonight I didn’t have to wear Larison’s pajamas, but I almost wanted to pretend that I hadn’t brought them so I could wear her clothes again. They’d smelled like her. But at least I got to have her in bed, wrapped around me. I could spend all night with my nose buried in her gorgeous hair and wake up choking on it in the morning.

Had life ever been this good?

Juniper woke us up the next morning, same as she had on Sunday. I still hadn’t been prepared and almost screamed when my eyes opened and saw those blue eyes blinking back at me.

“Good morning, Juniper,” I said once my heart had calmed down.

Larison lifted her head from the pillow and I didn’t even think before I leaned over and kissed her.

“Kiss me, kiss me!” Juniper yelled, jumping between us and almost giving both me and Larison concussions.

Larison and I stared at each other, but Juniper was just begging for kisses, so we both covered her face.

“Come here, you scamp. Let’s lay down for a minute,” Larison said and Juniper wiggled between us.

“So, you know how Jo has been staying with us,” Larison said, glancing at me. Oh. Were we doing this now? Why didn’t we ever talk about things like this beforehand?

“Uh huh,” Juniper said, playing with the edge of the blanket.

“Well, Jo and I are dating. Do you know what that means?”

“What’s dating?” Juniper asked.

“Dating means that your mama and I like each other and we want to spend a lot of time together. We’ll sleep in the same bed and share kisses. It means I’ll be here a lot more than when I’m just watching you when Mama is at work.”

Juniper looked up at me and I wanted to cry with how much I loved this kid. I really, really did.

“It means that Jo might become a part of our family,” Larison said and I gasped. We hadn’t talked about that .

“You be in our family?” Juniper asked.

“Yeah, I guess I’m asking if it’s okay if I join your family?” I asked, my voice choking on a few words. I didn’t even bother to stop the tears this time.

Juniper smiled. “I get two mamas?”

Holy shit, this was a lot at once.

I absolutely broke down at the idea that Juniper might see me as one of her parents. It hit me hard, right in the chest.

“Don’t be sad, Jo Jo,” Juniper said, cupping my face with her hands.

“I’m not sad. These are happy tears, I promise. You don’t have to call me your mama, okay? But I do love you.” I think it was definitely too soon for Juniper to be attaching words like that to me. Larison and I were still so new, and I didn’t want to move too fast, even if we were already moving too fast.

“You can still call me Jo Jo.”

Juniper thought about that. “Okay. Can we have pancakes now?”

I’d been so engrossed in Juniper that I hadn’t seen Larison quietly crying next to me. Reaching out, I wiped some of her tears and she smiled at me.

“It’s not fair. You’re even gorgeous when you cry.”

That made her laugh.

“Mamaaaa, pancakes,” Juniper said, standing up on the bed.

“Okay, okay, let’s feed this one,” I said, grabbing Juniper and dragging her back down so I could tickle her.

“Jo Jooooo,” she giggled and I stopped.

“Okay. Pancakes.”

It was a different start to my morning than I was used to. Chaotic. Loud. But Larison handed me a cup of coffee and kissed my cheek and that was pretty damn great.

It was strange to have to send Larison off to work after being with her for pretty much two days.

The murals were being painted this week and I was dying to see the progress.

“How about if we stop in and bring you lunch?” Larison was running behind and needed to meet with the woman painting the mural.

“Could you? That would be amazing.” She chucked some snacks into her bag and rushed to make sure she had everything.

“Ugh, I’m going to be lateeee,” she said, coming over to kiss me.

“See you at lunch. I’ll hold the fort down.”

With one last kiss she did her little goodbye routine with Juniper and then she was gone.

“Okay, PJ, what are we gonna do today?”

“Everything!”

That was a tall order.

The next few days I barely went back to my apartment. Only to get more clothes and other things I needed.

Larison and I hadn’t talked about me moving in, but I’d basically moved in.

Our friends wouldn’t stop sending messages and asking how things were going, but we’d kind of stayed in our bubble, except for when I asked Sophie to watch Juniper so I could take Larison out on a date on Saturday night.

“My moms want us to come over this weekend,” Larison said, looking up from her phone on Thursday evening. “They’re both mad that they’ve been out of the loop about us, but I told them that everything was new and we were still figuring it out and didn’t want to go public, but that did not fly. So now we are requested to be at dinner on Sunday. No getting out of it.”

She rolled her eyes.

“That’s fine with me. As long as it’s fine with you that I take you out on a date on Saturday night. Sophie has already agreed to come and stay with Juniper.” I had wanted to confirm with Sophie before I told Larison about it. She’d also suggested a few ideas for dates, which was so sweet, but I wanted to do something on my own for Larison.

Something fun and unexpected.

“Really? Wow, okay,” Larison said, a smirk on her face. She came over and put her arms around me. My hands took hold of her waist, where they’d gotten very comfortable over this past week. Sometimes I just needed to hold onto her. To ground myself. To calm down and know that things were good.

Our ideas about not acting like a couple during work hours had been kind of foolish since they didn’t work out that much in practice. Having hours where I couldn’t kiss her? Yeah, I was not doing that, and she wasn’t either.

The rules basically got tossed out the window, but we decided that fooling around during my work hours was definitely a bad idea, so that was a rule we stuck to.

It was difficult, trying to keep up with my two online classes, taking care of Juniper, and having enough time with Larison, but I’d never been happier.

Every single minute with her and with Juniper was better than the last. Even when Juniper didn’t want to go to bed. Even when she woke us up so early.

This was my life now and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Reid wasn’t surprised at all when I told her what had gone down. I wanted to see her, but I was so busy with everything else. This was what happened when you got into a relationship and I hadn’t wanted to be that kind of friend, but Reid said she understood, since everything was fresh and new with Larison.

Let me know when you come up for air. I’ll be here. We’ll go hiking and you can tell me all about her.

I had listened to her gushing about Sophie plenty of times, so it was only fair.

“And where are we going on our date?” she asked. Juniper was already in bed, so we were enjoying our quiet time together on the couch. I couldn’t wait to get her naked in bed, but I needed to decompress from the hours I’d just spent getting my coursework done. I’d have to catch up this weekend. I couldn’t let myself get behind. School still had to be one of my top priorities. I’d just added other priorities too. Things were going to be hard, but I just had to hang on for a little while longer. Once Juniper was in school, things would be so much easier. Who knew that I’d be eager for the academic year to start.

“That is for me to know and you to wonder about. I said I’d plan this one, remember?”

She narrowed her eyes and glared at me.

“Fine. I guess. But don’t make it anything expensive or dangerous. I’m not jumping out of a plane.”

I sat up and looked at her. “Do you think I’d put either of us at risk by doing something as foolish as jumping out of a plane?” Absolutely not. “It’s going to be fun. And not dangerous.” It was going to be extremely not dangerous.

Larison sighed. “I’m trusting you, Josephine.”

I grinned. “I know. I won’t let you down.”

“It’s seriously amazing,” I said when I brought Juniper to the bookshop on Friday to see the completed murals. They were fantastical and looked very much like vintage romance covers with all different styles of couples and romantic themes. There was a horse and hearts and it was bold and dramatic, but not too much somehow. Once she had the shelves full and the rest of the furniture, the place was going to be quite something. The chandelier above the checkout counter illuminated the swirling words BETWEEN THE SHEETS in a similar font to the sign out front. She’d also ordered some merch and I’d already put in my order for a tote bag with the store logo on it.

“Thanks. I was afraid it would be a lot, but I think it all works together.”

“Does the horse have a name?” I asked.

“We should name him, shouldn’t we? Maybe Juni will help.”

I snorted. “She’ll want to name him after cheese.”

Larison burst out laughing. “Of course she will. Maybe I’ll let her.”

Juniper had been in the bathroom when we’d been having that conversation and she bounded out, making her presence known. That kid had never entered a room without pizzazz.

“Maybe I’ll let the customers vote. It would be fun,” Larison said.

“It’s coming soon. Are you ready?” I asked her.

She grinned. “Absolutely not. But it’s happening if I’m ready or not.” She gazed out the front window.

“What are you going to do for your displays?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ve looked online for inspiration, but I don’t feel like I’m creative enough. Probably should have figured that out before I decided to open a bookshop, but there were so many things I didn’t know until I was in the middle of this.”

I had faith that she would figure it out.

“You can bounce any ideas off me too. I mean, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ll be honest with you.”

Larison grabbed the loop in my jean shorts and tugged me closer.

“Oh yeah? You’ll be honest with me?”

“Yup. I’m fully prepared to tell you when your ideas suck.”

She laughed before kissing me.

“Me! Me!” Every now and then Juniper got jealous when we kissed and demanded cheek kisses as well. It was really cute, and I didn’t mind. There were so many cute things she did now that I knew she was going to grow out of eventually. I planned on cherishing all of them for the day when she moved on.

“Okay, it’s time to let Mama get back to work, PJ. How about we go home and pick up so it’s all nice and clean when she gets home?”

Juniper wasn’t that enthusiastic about the idea, but she agreed to go with me and help.

We got the apartment looking nice and I made sure we had everything ready for dinner. Larison and I agreed that we’d both been ordering too much delivery, so we needed to cook more. I was also going to start contributing to the grocery bill since I was eating a hell of a lot of food here. I’d even brought some things over from my place so they wouldn’t go bad. If I kept staying here, I was also going to want to contribute to the bills.

I’d already signed a new lease to start in the beginning of September, but now I was questioning if I should try and break it. I might lose my deposit, but I’d lose more money paying for an apartment that I wasn’t living in.

I wished the timing wasn’t so close. It would be a more reasonable conversation for us to have if we’d been together for six months. We’d barely been together for a week.

But the idea of moving in with Larison wasn’t as scary as it should have been. It felt logical. Why wouldn’t we live together? I was already staying with her.

I wished I could have asked my mother for advice, but I hadn’t told her about Larison. I’d said that I had a job but had kept the details light and made sure to turn the questions back on her and make her talk about herself. It wasn’t hard. She did love to avoid any unpleasant or stressful topic.

I truly envied Larison with her moms. And she’d told me lots of stories about her Gram and I wish I could have met her too. Larison had showed me pictures and I could see where she got some of her features from.

It was so easy to let myself get absorbed into Larison’s world. It was warm and comforting and supportive. Her moms were desperate to have me over for dinner. They’d been messaging Larison about it, asking if we could come sooner. It was so cute. I was glad that I’d met them twice already so it wouldn’t be the first time. Still stressful, but not as bad. I was planning on making something to bring with me. Maybe a pie. I hadn’t told Larison about that yet. She’d probably tell me that I didn’t need to do it, but I wanted to. An apple pie? That was a classic.

Larison arrived home and greeted me with a kiss and twirled Juniper around. She was happy. Much better than last week. I’d been carefully watching her and hadn’t seen that pinched look on her face or those circles under her eyes. She’d smiled a lot more and I liked to think I had helped.

“Welcome home, dear,” I said. Every day I said that, and it made her roll her eyes, but I knew she secretly enjoyed it.

“I thought we could do a steak salad. I’ve already got it marinating and a lot of the veggies are ready to go.” I had discovered a passion for meal prepping that I’d never had before. It was fun to be in the kitchen with Juniper and wash and cut a bunch of veggies and fruit at once so we had them ready. Like living in a salad bar. It seemed like something I could do to contribute.

Larison leaned down and rested her chin on my shoulder from behind. “Sounds good.”

She let out a contented sound.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just needed to hold you.”

Her body was so warm against mine and I sunk back against her.

“Mamaaaaa,” Juniper called from the living room.

Larison left a gentle kiss on my neck that made me whimper.

“Duty calls.”