Forbidden Fruit (gxg)

Part 26

Kori and I decided to tell HR about our relationship in April, right around when her parents were going to be in town.

"Are you sure you're alright doing that while your parents are here?" I asked her one night at her house at the beginning of April, "I know they stress you out."

"I'll be fine," Kori said to me, "I appreciate it, though. There's no 'right' time to do it per say."

Kori was mindlessly stroking my hair as I cuddled up against her. She then said, "I did tell my mom about you. Not that I have to, being a 40 year old woman and all. I was talking to her on the phone earlier, and she asked me if I was seeing anyone. I told her that I was."

I looked up at Kori, "Did you tell her anything about me...like that I'm 13 years younger than you?"

"I mentioned to my mom that you were quite a bit younger than me. She said that as long as you're a consenting adult, that's all that matters, which kind of surprised me."

"Why did it surprise you?"

Kori looked lost in thought as she said, "My parents always have something to say about my life choices. They have, ever since I was young. It was like nothing was ever good enough for them."

"I'm sorry, Kori," I said, "That's really tough to deal with."

"Please, I know compared to what your parents put you through, it's nothing."

I sat up a bit straighter, "That doesn't mean that it wasn't difficult to deal with, Kori. Never feeling like you're good enough is hard to handle. And I'm sure it carried over to adulthood."

Kori nodded slowly, "It did. I have an MBA from Penn, and I'm an executive at a company, yet I still don't feel good enough sometimes. Thanks mom and dad."

I looked right into Kori's eyes and said, "You are good enough. You always have been."

Kori looked back at me with sincerity as she said, "Thank you, Ash. I really appreciate that."

The next night, I had a girls night with Addison and Alyssa, at my apartment. Trey decided to join us for it. Rachel was covering a night shift for a coworker, so she unfortunately couldn't.

"I'm so honored to be invited to the Davis sisters girls night," Trey smiled at us, "Even though you all kind of had no choice but to invite me since you're in my apartment."

Alyssa laughed, "Trey, you're always welcome."

"You can be an honorary sister," Addison said.

"You know," Trey said, eating some chocolate covered popcorn that was in a bowl in front of us, "I'm an only child, and I always wanted siblings. So that means a lot to me."

"You're always welcome to hang with us," I looked at Trey.

"That makes me happy," Trey smiled, and he then turned his attention to Alyssa, "How are you feeling? How many weeks are you again?"

"I'm 11 weeks along," Alyssa said, "I'm pretty nauseous, hence why I'm not eating much, but otherwise I feel good."

"Are you going to do the blood test where you can find out the gender?" Trey asked, "I know they can do that at like, 10 weeks."

Alyssa smiled, "I think we're actually going to keep the gender a surprise until I have the baby."

Addison's jaw dropped, "You didn't tell us that!"

Alyssa nodded, "That's the plan. I want to be surprised."

"I'm in full support," I said to Alyssa, "Whatever you want to do."