Can't keep my hands to myself

The first time Mia had stayed for dinner did not go well. Unfortunately, Mia's past proceeded her, and Vada's mom couldn't quite shake the wine drinking, weed smoking, sex having image of Mia from her head. She was of course still cordial, asking Mia about dance, her dad's various art pieces that Vada had shown her pictures of, and how she was finding the newfound home-schooling. Inevitably though, the night consisted of long silences, awkward laughing, and Mia's ever anxiety bouncing knee that Vada had to routinely hold still in hopes it didn't fling the food off the table.

This time seemed different though. It had been a month since that first awkward encounter and 6 months since the incident at school. Vada couldn't quite believe this version of Mia, the one who cracking jokes and anecdotes and had her whole family in stitches around the small dinner table. Mia had changed a lot over the past 6 months; she had her ups and downs, but it seemed over the past couple of months especially, things had really improved, and Vada couldn't help but feel immensely proud of her girlfriend's progress. Now sitting with her at the dinner table, she had to raise her glass to her mouth her just hide the shit -eating grin every time someone laughed at her girlfriend's jokes. There was something so attractive about this side of Mia, this more self-assure side. Of course, the other side was attractive too. Vada's heart would almost burst out of her chest every time Mia would nervously stumble over her words, how she'd lower her eyes to avoid eye contract whenever Vada would just so much as dare to call her pretty, or how she'd blush anytime Vada looked at her for longer than 5 seconds. But this new, confident side was...exciting.

"Vada?" Mia asks, nudging Vada slightly on the shoulder with her own, snapping Vada back out of her Mia shaped trance.

"Hmmm?" Vada replies, looking up to find four sets of eyes staring at her waiting.

"I was just telling your Mom about the time we spent three hours in Justice trying on all the clothes to see who could look more like Ryan from High School Musical, remember?" Mia says, looking at a now blushing Vada conspicuously.

"Oh yeah...that was so funny. Security eventually had to escort us out because there was a line of at least 12 6-year-olds waiting to get into the dressing rooms."

"I remember I used to be obsessed with Justice when I was younger," Amelia says, inserting herself. She had grown a great fondness towards Vada's cool, mysterious girlfriend and leapt at every opportunity to try and impress her, which at first Vada found endearing, but as of now, all Vada could focus on was returning to the sweet daydream land that was her girlfriend. "I'm more of a brandy, urban outfitters kinda girl now..." Amelia continues, but it's too late, Vada's too flustered to focus on the conversation at hand.

Vada subtly returns her eyes to her girlfriend, who's laughing into her glass of cranberry juice at whatever tangent Amelia was about to go on. Her eyes look longingly to her plump and glossy lips, too fixated to care if her parents are noticing the way she's so intensely staring. Her eyes travel down to her toned and tanned shoulders, admiring their contrast against the white crop top she's wearing. They then move to the heart shaped pendant necklace she had gifted Mia for her birthday and her cheeks warm softly at the memory. Then, Vada looks to her girlfriend's piercingly blue eyes, which had a nasty habit of pulling Vada so deeply into them, everything else seemed to dissipate around her. She only breaks contact briefly to look at the lip-gloss mark that Mia has imprinted on her wine glass, and Vada wonders if it's the strawberry flavoured lip-gloss Mia often wore because one time, 3 months ago, she had told Mia how much she liked the taste of it when they were kissing, and how maybe Mia wore it specifically for her tonight with that in mind. Perhaps she was looking too much into it, but Vada felt it was a sign to pursue the advances that had been whirling round her head for at least half an hour.

"They're actually at an art auction in Milan right now," Mia says, discussing her dad's current travels. Usually, any discussion about Mia's seemingly absent father's sends a wave of indescribable rage down Vada's spine, but this was an issue for another time; there were bigger tasks at Vada's hands right now. 'Apparently a big important investor is gonna be there and they're looking for artists based on the West Coast so.'