Disclosures - SF4 (51 page)

"I’m fine, Daddy. I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine." She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him goodbye, and then gave her mother their standard kiss. Ryan shook both of their hands, and they escaped into the night without further incident.

Jim Evans stepped away from the front door and surveyed his domain, drawing comfort and reassurance from being surrounded by the evidence of the obvious rightness of his world. His wife was sitting on the couch, collapsed into its cushioned comfort, obviously tired from the events of the evening and from her trip. He crossed to her and placed a perfunctory kiss upon her drawn cheek. "I just realized that I didn’t even welcome you home." The semi-apology was extended readily, from years of practice. "This thing really caught me totally by surprise. I hardly know if I’m coming or going," he admitted, running a hand through his stylishly cut hair.

Catherine could plainly see the fatigue on his face; the fine lines that years of excessive sun exposure had etched were carved more deeply than normal. "That’s all right, Jim," she said easily. She was as skilled at accepting his excuses as he was at offering them. Her rigid self-control had been tenuously re-established, and any softening that she had shared with Jamie did not extend to her husband. "We did have a rather disruptive day."

He walked over to the well-stocked bar that rested on a beautifully crafted bird’s-eye maple cart. "Brandy?" he asked, holding the bottle aloft.

It isn’t only ‘sleep’ that knits up the raveled sleeve of care.
"I’d kill for one," she replied, adding a gentle laugh at her exaggeration.

They sat beside one another on the sofa, quietly reflecting on the events of the day—together, yet separate. Letting out a ragged sigh, Catherine allowed a few tears to roll down her cheeks, only slightly irritated with herself for showing her feelings so openly. Unexpectedly, Jim scooted closer and wrapped his muscular arm around her shoulders, feeling a little surprised at how small she felt when she cuddled up against him. She hesitated just a moment, unaccustomed to receiving comfort from him, then rested her head on his shoulder, draping her other arm around his waist. After a few minutes, she felt more composed, and murmured, "I just wish it wasn’t true."

He was running his hand up and down her arm reassuringly, and when she expressed this wish, with its tacit acceptance of Jamie’s revelation, he stopped and grasped the painfully thin appendage, giving it a gentle squeeze. "It’s not, Cat." He rarely used this pet name anymore, and she gave a start when she realized she had not heard it in years.

He reacted to her gasp, assuming that she disputed his words, rather than his rare use of the diminutive. "She’s just going through a phase." His confidence was so complete that for a moment she doubted her own observations.

"But, Jim…"

"No buts, Catherine." Now his voice was firm, resolute. "No one knows Jamie better than you and me. We would have seen some sign of this before now. Ryan seems like a fine young woman—a good person to have as a friend--and I can see how Jamie would have relied on her to get through a tough time."

"But…"

"She’s not a lesbian, Catherine. Even Ryan admitted as much to me."

"She did?" Now she was truly confused. She had not had the opportunity to speak with Ryan alone, but none of this made sense, and the alcohol she had consumed did not make figuring it out any easier.

"Ryan is a lesbian—that much is clear. I think Jamie just has a bad case of hero worship, to tell you the truth. I think we need to just let this play itself out for a while."

Ah, ignore it and the problem will go away. Well, that is an approach that has worked for him in the past.
"Play itself out? I don’t think that is going to happen, Jim." She was certain that the determination she had seen in her daughter’s eyes was genuine, and the love they reflected when she spoke of Ryan could not be denied.

"I know my daughter, Catherine. This is a crush that will resolve itself. We just need to be patient with Jamie until she comes to her senses. Trust me."

Trust
.
Such a simple word for such an important thing
. She could tell that Jamie and Ryan shared it. With a weary sigh she dropped her head again, relaxing into her husband’s embrace.
I might not know Jamie as well as you think you do
, she thought,
but I know her well enough to know that she’s irrevocably in love with Ryan. We may as well get used to the idea, Jim, because that young woman is here to stay
.

"So, what do you think, Tiger?" The question was deliberately open-ended, but Jamie was anxious to hear Ryan’s assessment if she chose to share it. Jamie had dropped the top of the Boxster, hoping the brisk wind would keep her alert as well as help to sober Ryan up. Her partner wasn’t really drunk, but she was tipsier than Jamie had ever seen her. They were cruising along 101, the traffic quite light on this Saturday night.

"I thought the Irish were the drinkers," Ryan said slowly, with a rather hazy gaze. "Your parents sure don’t like to see the bottom of a glass."

Jamie nodded, knowing that Ryan was not trying to be unkind, but her words still stung a bit. Both of her parents, but particularly her mother, had an enormous capacity for alcohol, and she had often wondered if she should make a comment to either of them about their drinking.

"Other than the profusion of alcohol, what did you think?" Jamie repeated, hinting at her interest in the content of Ryan's conversation with her father.

Ryan tilted her head up to stare at the murky gray/black sky. There were no stars visible, not an uncommon occurrence in the Bay Area. "I think," she drawled, "that we’ve got our work cut out with your dad. He seems to be pretty focused on the lesbian label," she revealed.

"Yeah, he focused on that pretty heavily," Jamie agreed. "Not a good sign."

"It’s funny," Ryan mused. "If he had a friend that even looked at another man in the locker room, I bet your dad would think the guy was gay. But you tell him that you’re having sex with me and totally loving it, and all he can focus on is whether or not you admit to being a lesbian. It’s just incongruous."

Jamie shook her head, her lips beginning to purse as she did so. "I tried to get him to see that the title doesn’t matter, but he doesn’t seem to want to listen to my reasoning." She took in a deep breath and held the wheel with her left hand while the right rubbed up and down Ryan’s leg. "What matters is that I love you. I think I’d love you just as much if you were a man," she said thoughtfully. "But we’ll never have to find that out, because you’re a woman. You’re a wonderful, gorgeous, fabulous woman, and I’m madly in love with you!"

Ryan gave her a dazzler of a smile, her blue eyes sparkling as the oncoming traffic reflected off of them. "I couldn’t agree more, Love," she said, running her hand in a similar manner up Jamie’s thigh. "It’s gonna be hard for them to accept that you’ve chosen to spend your life with me, but we need to remember that no matter what they think, we’re a part of each other now—for better or worse ."

"I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re gonna have more better than worse," Jamie smiled, then glimmer of concern passed across her face. "Do you want to tell me what he said when you were alone?"

"No, not really," Ryan decided. She didn’t want Jamie to be angry with her father, and she didn’t think anything had transpired that merited discussion. "It was nothing that we didn’t expect, Love. He said some things that might upset you a little bit on my behalf, but he was just being your dad." She recognized that Jim was just flexing his lawyerly muscle with his interrogation, and she felt that she had done as well for herself as could be expected.

Jamie spared a glance in her direction that indicated she needed some more detail from her partner. "He didn’t hurt your feelings, or upset you, did he, Honey?"

Ryan gazed back at her partner lovingly. It made her heart swell to know that Jamie was more concerned about her than about herself, and she had to admit that her own desire to shield her partner from Jim’s inferences sprang from the same wish. "Nah," she said lightly. "He just asked a bunch of questions about me and my plans for the future."

"What else?" Jamie asked, fixing Ryan with a look that warned her to reveal what she was hiding.

"Look, Jamie," she said calmly, not surprised that her light tone didn’t fool her lover. "He’s a big-time attorney. What he does for a living is try to make people feel uncomfortable under questioning. He did that with me, but it wasn’t really a big deal. The bottom line is that he thinks you’ll eventually break up with me when you discover this is not right for you."

Jamie would really have preferred to hear what her father had to say so that she could be fully prepared for any future encounters, but she trusted her partner’s judgment and respected Ryan’s decision not to disclose the particulars. She chose to let the subject drop and responded lightly, "Well, if that’s what he’s waiting for, everything will be just fine, because we both know that’s never going to happen. I love you and I always will." Ryan favored her with a full wattage smile, then closed her eyes and rested her head back against the seat.

As they drew nearer to the city, the traffic became increasingly heavy until they were finally at a complete standstill due to some sort of problem ahead. This allowed Jamie to do what she had been wanting to almost since they had left the house--reach across the car and grab Ryan by the shoulders, pulling her close and planting a very hot kiss on her brandy-flavored lips. Her voice was low when she released her partner, smiling slightly at the stunned look on her face. "You’ve ruined me for anyone else, Tiger. I could wander the face of the earth looking, and never find anyone who could even come close to making me feel the way you make me feel."

Blinking her eyes slowly, Ryan reached up and touched her lips, the tingle still fresh. "Wow!" Her natural arousal at Jamie’s touch surged to the fore, and her lips weren’t the only part of her body that felt the tingle from even that brief contact. Another slow blink and she said, "You uh…wanna take me home and do that again when we’re dressed more appropriately?"

Jamie spared a glance at Ryan’s outfit and gave her a seductive smile. "You look perfectly fine to me. What would you rather be wearing?"

A waggling eyebrow punctuated the reply. "Just this," she offered, sharing a luminescent smile with her partner.

A light flush suffused Jamie’s cheeks as she assessed what she was being offered. "Why Ms. O’Flaherty," Jamie drawled, "I do believe you are propositioning me."

Only every day of your life,
Ryan thought, but kept her response light in turn.
"I do believe you are absolutely correct, Ms. Evans. It’s been far too long since I’ve experienced your munificent charms."

Jamie patted her partner’s leg, smiling at her hyperbole. "I guess two days is cruel and unusual punishment for your throbbing libido, isn’t it, Tiger?"

Ryan captured the errant hand considering, for a fleeting moment, the advisability of directing it to where Jamie could judge the truth in that statement for herself. Instead, she cocked her head, seemingly considering the comment for a minute longer. "That would be a good porn name, don’t you think? Throbbing Libido…"

Well aware of the beating pulse in the thigh resting beneath her palm, Jamie was distracted for an instant, then pulled her attention away from the rising heat and back to the question. "Porn name?" Jamie quirked a grin at the odd direction the conversation was taking.

"Yeah." Ryan shot her a lopsided smile and admitted, "Ally and I used to come up with porn star names for each other. It was a…competition."

"And what was your favorite, Hot Stuff?" Jamie’s hand flexed on Ryan’s leg, fingers splayed.

"Not telling." Ryan’s head shook slowly, indicating her refusal. "Porn names are in the eye of the beholder. You have to come up with your own."

"I’ll try to think of a few when I have you in your costume," Jamie agreed, giving her partner a bemused smirk, and with a final squeeze she reclaimed her hand and placed it firmly back on the wheel.

"Oooh, I like that costume," Ryan agreed, having a pretty good idea which one Jamie was referring to,

They rode along in silence for a few minutes, mulling over the events of the night so far, while a certainty of the more pleasurable events that were still to come teased at the edges of their thoughts.

"I thought your dad’s comments about you eventually leaving me would upset you," Ryan mused as she gazed thoughtfully at her partner, "but you seem really happy."

A brilliant smile lit up Jamie’s face as she turned and admitted the truth of Ryan’s observation. "I expected them to flip out, to be honest. Obviously, it would have been nice if they had shouted for joy, but their reactions were really pretty tame compared to what I had envisioned. One thing Anna told me is that coming out usually is a multi-step process. She cautioned me not to expect too much, and I really tried not to."

Ryan smiled at her fondly, acknowledging Jamie’s gloom and doom predictions of the previous days.

"Starting from where we left it tonight is a pretty darned good place, don’t you think, Honey?"

Ryan considered the events of the evening. No voices had been raised, no tearful pleas to return to the heterosexual fold, no threats, no intimidation. Okay, some intimidation, but only towards her. All in all, she had to agree that it had been very civilized and calm. "I think it went quite well," she agreed. "I think you handled yourself beautifully, Babe, and that was the winning element."