Page 109 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls
“My dad—” Back to family again. It needed to be said, though. “Started dating Donovan’s mother two months after the divorce was finalized with my mom. I don’t think he cheated, yet he moved on so quickly. It grossed me out.” Nadine simply unscrewed her drink, and Celene wanted to hug her for not reacting strongly at all. “Then, the second marriage dissolved, and Byron bounced from girlfriend to girlfriend. He’d take a long break, date more women, rinse and repeat.”
“Then, he gets a literal beauty queen.”
“Right.” Celene swung a thin branch, its swooshing noise satisfying to the ear. “I’d capped the age gap I’d be into at ten years. Meaning my dad and I would’ve been wading through overlapping dating pools.”
Nadine winced with her tongue out. “Tiny, insignificant overlap.Ifyou’d been dating after you and Quinn broke up.”
“My sixty-one-year-old, twice-divorced father found chance after chance for love. And I think Shanice is the one.”
“She’d better be endgame. They have a baby.”
“I still question people who change that drastically. My father’s commitment, Quinn’s eagerness to marry...” Celene’s arm rose to hail the neighbor couple—the garden gnome fanatics who, interestingly, were about her age. “HaveIchanged? Or had I gone stagnant?”
“It’s easy to catch others’ changes more than our own, but it’s gradual,” Nadine said, staring at her faux engagement ring as she addressed Celene. “You were growing away from Quinn, you went on your self-discovery travels, and now you’re improving an old childhood house in Pennsylvania. You’re dating a woman from a prominent artist’s family.” A smile crept through. “That doesn’t sound change-y to you?”
Celene pursed her lips, breaking it with her own smile. “Thank you. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees, so to speak,” she added, swinging the stick again.
“You now wave at neighbors without a sarcastic comment.” Her narrow eyes squinted deeper. “Celene, dear, you’vechanged.”
The present brought Celene into the sweetly fragrant pâtisserie in a town outside Yielding. While Yielding had its bakeries, Zinnia and June’s tastes and budget led them to this shop with its powder blue ceiling, white ladder-back chairs, and the tantalizing aroma of sugar cookies.
A beaming woman in palazzo pants—the head chef-slash-owner—escorted them to a room designed for small parties and tastings, sitting them at two short rectangular tables with two seats each. Despite the cuteness of the room’s cupcake-patterned walls, the setup kind of reminded Celene of desks so the couples couldn’t cheat off one another. Otherwise, adorable, as spoken by Zinnia, whose mouth ran the moment they walkedin. She could shatter from joy, and it’d infected Celene as she pulled out a seat for Skye.
“The head chef and herpartnerhere are great,” June said from their table, bouncing her brows at the queer implications. “Zini and I got a sampler box of their cupcakes three months ago and scarfed them down.Shewants more refined flavors?—”
“Whileshelikes the rustic, down-home stuff,” Zinnia finished with a bat of her eyelashes at June, dressed in a white sundress for the occasion. One hundred percent in bride mode. “We’re depending on you two to break some ties.”
They didn’t get much time to chat before the owner and her aproned wife brought in cutlery, dishes, and water on a platter. The taller of the two explained the simple procedure as the other set a single blue plate and two glasses on each table. They demonstrated filling out little blue cards they printed with the choices for the evening, and how they had a ranking system with checkboxes.
Celene had told Skye about Quinn’s engagement on the ride there. Skye seemed a little uneasy, sparking some doubt. That is, until Skye asked what she hadn’t considered, “Does that give you pressure to, I don’t know, catch up with Quinn?”
Then they got sidetracked by Zinnia calling to fill them in on her and June’s wedding colors, the attire in mind, the catering choices, etc., in hopes to influence their tastebuds.
Celene murmured pleasantly at her forkful of boozy cake—dark chocolate blackberry merlot. Delicious and rich, though it didn’t seem practical for children or sober adults. She scratched a ‘No’ for it with the provided pen. Now that June and Zinnia were invested in their own discussion, she leaned toward Skye, saying, “I suppose in the scheme of important life events, Quinn’s ahead of me now.”
Skye stretched legs hugged into a pair of Celene’s jeans, more appetizing than any cake. “Are you...jealous?” She placed herfork downward, over her missing half of the cake slice. “It’s okay to say. You can even call Dragonfruit.”
Jealousy wasn’t the word for it. “No need for Dragonfruit. Whatever’s meant for me will be mine.” Celene knew the look in her eyes bore a little intensely, judging by the way Skye robin switched her head in a small nod, but she needed her sincerity to radiate through. “I don’t want to make the same mistakes again. Quinn and I didn’t constructively communicate our futures.”
“Blueberry lemon with jasmine buttercream,” one of the baker wives announced, shoes gliding soundlessly into the room, swapping plates for a gorgeous slice of light cake dappled with baked blueberries.
Even before tasting it, she knew it’d be Skye’s top choice. Celene finished a tiny portion, certain of this falling into the ‘Yes’ column.
Then, Celene frowned.
Her stomach whorled. Not of the flawless flavor balance, but of the jealousy she’d shrugged off earlier. Only, it was targeted at Zinnia and June, who gestured shiny forks at their untouched slice like architects.
It pushed Celene to meet Skye’s gaze, hand hovering over the checkboxes. “How do you feel about marriage?”
“Marriage, oh, it’s cool,” Skye blathered after a long sip of her water. She’d cleaned up her part of the slice and the rest of Celene’s. “I...I would like that.”
“Like what?”
Skye bumped the part of Celene’s thigh covered by her skirt. “I would like marriage, yeah.”
Way to put the cart before the lesbian horse. Still, if Celene had had more productive, uncomfortable conversations with Quinn, their relationship probably would’ve come to a clean break and not desertion.
“I’m open to marriage.” Celene reached to rearrange a curl swept across Skye’s forehead, the skin underneath abnormally warm. Amused, she teased her lip. “When I get engaged again, it’s going to stick.”
