Beyond the Family Ties

Part 14

A few days passed by without incident. Despite Becky's objections, there were no break-ins, no surprise attacks, no threats or anything of the like. Their furniture was delivered, they reorganised the rooms to their liking, made the beds anew and tidied up the kitchen cupboards, and life moved on. Freen was barely home anyway, working odd hours and overtime with James, and Becky spent most of her time filling out paperwork for her approaching training with the DEO, and planning the rest of Laurel's birthday party.

On Saturday, the day before the intended party, she spent the entire morning cleaning the house, keeping her daughter occupied with Lego and cartoons while she vacuumed and scrubbed, did the laundry and finished the last of her work forms. Freen had been working the night shift, and was home a little before lunch, letting Becky fix her a sandwich before she tumbled into bed. She woke at dinner time, scrambling to shower and shovelling down mouthfuls of the casserole Becky had made, telling her about the date she had with a woman called Leslie. Pulling up photos on her phone, Freen let Becky see the woman with bleached hair and a startling amount of leather, ignoring the raised eyebrows from Becky as she took in the sight of the woman and compared it to Freen's penchant for plaid shirts, pastel skirts and cardigans.

Becky lent Freen her cherished Saint Laurent leather jacket, spritzed her with Chanel No. 5 and ushered her out of the apartment at seven o'clock, feeling somewhat relieved that Freen was going on a date. It made things between them seem more detached, more casual, and she was content to sit by the fire, neatly wrapping birthday presents with bows and ribbon while Laurel was tucked up in bed.

Moving onto the task of decorating the apartment, Becky moved into the open living area and got started on the balloons, patiently blowing them up one by one as she tied lengths of string to the ends of them and let them float up to the ceiling. The sound of a key in the lock made her pause, head cocked to the side as she listened to it turn and the door was opened, and she looked towards the door with bewilderment.

"You're home!" Becky quietly exclaimed, surprise flitting across her face as Freen quietly let herself into the apartment, gingerly shutting the door so as not to accidentally wake Laurel up. Glancing over at the clock on the wall, Becky's eyebrows rose slightly. "Early. It wasn't good?"

A laugh bubbled up and fell from Freen's lips as she wrinkled her nose, shaking her head as she shed the borrowed leather jacket and slung it over the back of the chair. "No. She took me to a rock show at this really gross bar, and then found another girl and ignored me. I don't even think she saw me leave."

Grimacing, Becky gave her a sympathetic look as Freen walked over to her, sighing as she folded her lanky legs beneath herself and sat across from Becky. They were silent for a few moments as Freen watched Becky blow balloons up with the tank of helium, tying the ends into careful knots and then attaching a length of string to the end, before letting it float up to join the others grazing against the ceiling. She was halfway through trying to tie another one when Freen finally spoke.

"Do you want to have sex?"

Clumsy fingers slipping, Becky let go of the balloon, which was propelled around the room as all of the helium fled out of the untied end, and she let out a spluttering laugh, eyes widening as she gave her friend an amused look.

"Are you drunk?"

Earnestly shaking her head, Freen gave her a solemn look, "no, I only had one gin and tonic."

Picking up another balloon, Becky slipped the end of it over the nozzle and started inflating it, an amused smile curling her lips as she glanced up at Freen. "Yeah, but we only do this when we've been drinking."

"Yeah, but why?"

Letting out a snort of laughter, Becky shrugged, rubbing the back of her neck as she looked down at her lap. "I don't know, so we can pretend that nothing happened? I mean, it's a good excuse right? We were so drunk, we didn't mean to, it just happened and now we're sober so we don't have to talk about it."