Like a Best Friend | ✓

chapter thirty

Springs Preserve is only a few miles from the Strip but it feels like another world, almost two hundred acres of a nature preserve and nature walks. It's the perfect place to wind down our trip, for real this time: we both have several alarms set for tomorrow morning, starting four hours before our flight, and we're packed. Almost. Mostly. Okay, we still have a bit to do, but it's only two o'clock and we're going straight back to finish it off once we're done here.

We wander through the botanical garden down Cactus Alley, filled with cacti from North and South America; we check out the collection of succulents from the Mojave desert and the exhibit featuring cacti from five of the world's major deserts; I take Kitty's hand as we walk through the Desert Gem Garden and we take photos of the bright colors and the rare plants. There aren't many other people around. It feels like we have the place to ourselves.

"This is exactly what I wanted to do today," Kitty says when we get to the Rose Garden, where we take a seat on a shaded bench. Vegas's weather system doesn't seem to have gotten the memo that it's almost November because it's still over eighty degrees even though it's Halloween tomorrow. I should be in thick tights and a brown corduroy dress and my boots, really feeling my fall girl vibes, and instead I'm in sandals and a flimsy dress that rides up to the tops of my thighs when I sit down.

"It's so peaceful here." I lean back on the bench, my arm along the back behind Kitty. She scoots away from me to lie down with her head on my lap, her hands laced over her stomach.

"I can't believe we'll be back in Boston tomorrow."

"Boston's not gonna recognize us," I say, playing with one of her curls. They're back to their normal glossy sheen after a bit of pampering yesterday. "I am not the same woman who left two weeks ago."

I don't want to think of the admin facing me when we get home. Officially changing my name; updating all my documents; getting out of my lease agreement; moving my life into Kitty's apartment. I need to make a list else it'll overwhelm me, but nothing can be too scary with her by my side.

"Let's get down to business: how are we going to tell our parents?" she asks, looking up at me. The sun is behind a tree so she takes off her sunglasses, those chocolate eyes imploring me. I know she's more nervous than me, and I know she has reason to be. My parents already know I'm queer; my mom already knows I'm in love with Kitty; I haven't spent the last year engaged to a guy. Sarah and Aaron Cohen are about to be in for a big shock.

"Okay, the way I see it, we have three options," I say. When Kitty wants to talk business, there's no space for joking. "Number one: we go together to both sets and we tell them as a couple, so we have each other as support. Number two: we divide and conquer. I tell mine, you tell yours. Or, I guess, if you want to shake it up, you tell mine and I'll tell yours."

Kitty chuckles and says, "I like the sound of that. Something tells me your parents aren't gonna be so surprised."

"Nah. Mom's probably been planning our wedding since I told her I love you. Little does she know..." I grin and graze Kitty's cheek with my thumb as I wind her curl around my finger. "Option three: we throw a dinner party. Get everyone to come over to your apartment and we rip off the bandaid."

Kitty sits up and says, "Ooh, a party? I like that. If everyone's there at once, we only have to say it once."

"Which will make it less emotionally draining," I add. "Although it could be socially draining, if we gather up four parents and your brothers, and we could invite Levi too."

"He already knows." She called him last night to keep him in the loop. He thought it was hilarious. He was so nice, which made me feel even worse about every time I've thought of him as boring and dull.