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“For a few years. It was a great experience.”
“I bet dirty talk is great in French,” Bella sighs.
I can’t help but laugh as I wind my arm around Ian’s waist. “It absolutely is. Right, Ian?”
“That’s it,” Ian huffs, pointing between Bella and me. “You two aren’t allowed to be friends.”
“Oh, I think it’s too late for that,” Bella says with a grin.
I meet it with one of my own. “Much too late.”
Mei goes back to chastising her wife with hardly any real bite, pulling Ian in for backup every so often, to no avail. I watch it all happen with a smile on my face, the nerves I’ve been carrying for tonight melting away when I realize that everything here is exactly as Ian said. That there’s nothing between him and Mei but deep friendship, one that I can sense just by watching the two of them together.
“Dee,” Bella calls, waving me over. “Come help me finish up and let the squares set the table.”
Ian peers down at me as if silently asking me if I need his help, but I just give his side a squeeze before pulling away from him. “Gimme an apron, and I’m in.”
“This was a mistake, wasn’t it?” I hear Ian asking Mei as they leave the kitchen.
I hear Mei’s answering sigh. “Yeah,” she says. “Probably.”
Eighteen
IAN
“I like her,” Mei whispers to me, watching Bella and Lila chat animatedly about some movie they both like.
I peek over at her, noticing her warm smile as she eyes her wife with my…my Lila, and I feel my own mouth curling to match, a tightness spreading through my chest. I reach up to rub the spot through my shirt, nodding.
“I like her too,” I murmur back.
Like feels…not quite right, but the alternative feels too much, too soon. Regardless of whether or not it feels right.
“I guess you bringing her here means that you clarified things?”
“Not…exactly,” I tell her. “I mean, we’ve established that she’s okay being here, with you knowing that we’re…something, but as far as defining whatever it is…”
“Ah.” Mei nods thoughtfully. “Well, if the way she looked at you all through dinner is any indication, I would say it’s a conversation you should totally have.”
“How did she look at me?”
“Exactly like you looked at her,” Mei chuckles.
My grin widens. It’s been a lot more satisfying than I thought it would be, having Lila here. Seeing her blend so well with these people who are so important to me but whom she has every reason to be less accepting of, if she wanted to be. I mean, I can’t say that if she brought me to dinner with her ex I would be as cool as she’s being right now. I know that I explained the history between Mei and me, but still, the fact that she’s settled so easily into outright pleasantness with Bella and Mei takes a weight off my shoulders I hadn’t even fully realized was there before coming here.
“You seemed different tonight,” Mei says, drawing me out of my thoughts.
“Different?”
“Yeah,” she confirms. “Different. A good different though. The last few years…It’s always seemed like you’ve had your guard up. I don’t think you were unhappy, per se, but you definitely had me worried sometimes.”
“I didn’t seem happy?”
“I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “Maybe I was reading too much into it. You were always just so carefree in college. Do you remember?”
“I remember doing a lot of dumb things in the name of being ‘carefree,’ ” I scoff.
Mei chuckles quietly. “Still. You were always smiling. It was infectious, you know? I guess it was just difficult seeing you go from that happy guy to the hardened one you’ve had to be these last few years.”
