Gail doesn't know what to do; she's lying on top of her bed hoping that everything will become clear. After Holly left the bar last night, Gail sat back down and finished her beer. The bar tender came over with a shot of tequila because, 'it looked like she needed one.' Gail thanked him and downed the shot; she grabbed her coat, and somehow made it back to the frat house. Chris and Dov were still up and had a bunch of questions for her, mostly who's the brunette. She faked a yawn and went straight to her room; she must have fallen asleep at some point because now it's morning. She's slightly annoyed with herself for not closing the blinds last night, the burden of going to sleep so late when it's pitch black dark outside and now being woken by the sun rise at, she looks at her clock, 6:48am, 6:48AM! She internally screams, this is my day off! She grumbles as she rolls out of bed, taking the one step to her window to close the blinds, she flops backwards back onto her bed and pulls the covers back over her, willing herself to go back to sleep.
*beep* Gail's phone makes a noise. Gail doesn't even bother looking, she doesn't care who it is, she just wants to go back to sleep. Maybe everything will be clearer when she wakes up a second time.
Holly's helping her family put up decoration, rearrange the furniture, and make sure the floors are clean. She likes the idea of the party being at her parent's house, but she doesn't want to have to clean it all up tomorrow. She wishes she would have booked an early flight and avoided the cleanup. No, that's a lie, she would have felt guilty if she left her parents and siblings to clean all of this up on their own, she's fine with having to cleanup her parents' house, maybe begrudgingly, but still it's okay.
Holly had fun last night with Gail, she's slightly concerned that the blonde hasn't texted her at all today, but she's sure it's fine. Holly is happy that the police officer agreed to come to her parents' party and spend some more time with her. Holly thought about texting her to come early and help with the set up that way she could meet her family ahead of time, but then thought better of it having remembered how the blonde was complaining about having to do extra work, having to clean up her roommates' mess, a mess she did not contribute to, so Holly left it as is.
Gail moved from her room to the couch, and is now playing video games in silence with Chris. She continues to tumble over the thoughts in her head, whether or not she should go to the party. Sure she wants to see Holly again, but does she want to see her in that kind of setting. A party for Holly's parents', people she has never met, doesn't know anything about them not even their names…
Gail read Holly's text after she woke up at a more respectable hour. It contained the address and the itinerary, cocktails at 4 and dinner at 6. The idea of free dinner and booze is a selling point, but still Gail continues to sit on the couch playing some racing game with Chris.
She thinks back to having to go to Frank and Noelle's wedding, her boss and coworker. She wouldn't have gone to that one either if she didn't have to. She hates those things, people laughing, people caring; it just does not interest her. So she continues to play games with Chris.
"Alone again Holly?" Holly's older sister asks her, finding her sitting in the study alone, the party well under way, plenty of people there to talk to.
Holly managed to slip away from an old family friend in order to go check her phone to see if Gail texted her, to see if she was still coming. "Kind of," says Holly, "just waiting on someone."
"You invited someone?"
"Not all of us could marry our high school sweetheart…" Holly says with an edge of sarcasm.
"Who's to say you couldn't, I hear Tim is getting divorced, so I mean, you totally still could," Cindy says as she watches her little sister roll her eyes, she pats Holly's leg to make Holly scoot over and share the couch. She sighs as she sits down.
"Cindy you have a great life, a loving husband, two and a half kids," Holly places her hand on her sister's very pregnant belly.
"I know you prefer to work with bones but you're a doctor, and I didn't think I'd have to explain it to you that this 'half' a kid will eventually become a full one," she jokes and smiles, happy to have this quiet time with her sister.
"Three kids already, and who's to say you'll stop there?" Holly ponders.
"Oh no, I'm done after this one, I already told Alfred, that this is it. They're small now, but what happens when they get bigger, they'll need more space, we're going to be crammed as it is when the third one is born, and school. Don't get me started on school, we've already started putting some of our paycheques away for their college fund, but three kids…" she starts to breathe heavily.
"You guys will be fine, you clearly know what you're doing, but if you do ever get in a pinch, I'm sure mom and dad can help you, or me, I barely have any expenses right now," Holly offers.
"No, we're fine," Cindy sniffs. "It's just the future, you don't know what it holds and it's hard to plan for it."
"Very true…" Holly takes a sip of her cocktail. "Completely sober you is a bit of a buzz kill," Holly jokes.
"Ughh…this is nothing. I'm all hormonal now, I cry at the drop of a hat, it's ridiculous," she grabs a tissue from her pocket that she keeps in there for times like these and wipes at her eyes and blows her nose. "Ugh," she says again, "I'm exhausted. I do not want to clean all this up tomorrow."
"I'm sure everyone would understand if you stayed home tomorrow."
"No, I'd feel bad."
"Show up late then, sleep in," Holly tries to compromise, "you need your sleep, your body and baby need it."
"You are the doctor…" Cindy trials off, but then switches subjects, "so who is this mystery woman and when did you meet her, cause you've only been in town a couple of days and you were out last night with your friends…"
"Friend," Holly corrects, "her, I was out with Gail last night. She's beautiful, bright, and blonde," Holly starts to describe her, but gets distracted as her phone beeps so she looks down only to be disappointed with a 'words with friends' notification, dammit Lisa!
"Does she have blue eyes?" Holly nods her head, "and is she a business woman or a baker? No wait, a banker?"
"What, no? She's a cop."
"Sorry, I was just going off the whole descriptive words that start with a 'b'. So she's supposed to be coming tonight?" asks Cindy.
"She said she would, I asked her last night, then sent her the address this morning. She did have to pick up an extra shift yesterday even though she was scheduled off, so maybe she got busy," Holly says hoping that that is the answer.
"Maybe," says Cindy. "How long have you known her, hopefully not just last night..."
"No, we met about four months ago now."
"Four months ago, and this is the first I hear of her?"
"Well, we mostly text, yesterday was the first time we hung out in person." She glances at her phone again, hoping to see if she missed a text from Gail, but still sees that the last text is the information that Holly sent over that morning. She sighs.
"So how did you meet then?"
Holly pulls her eyes away from her phone to look at her sister's, "at my going away party."
"And what?" not really seeing the whole picture, needing some more information.
"She got my number and we've been texting quite regularly since," Holly says with a smile.
"So, let me get this right, you met her, you left and the only way you keep in touch with her is by texting. And you thought it was a good idea to bring her to our parent's anniversary party?" Cindy playing the protective older sister role as well as the realistic older sister, making sure her sister doesn't get hurt, hoping that her sister doesn't get hurt from this lady that she has never met.
Holly getting a little defensive of the relationship her and Gail have constructed, they have a relationship don't they, she wouldn't want to label that relationship, but they certainly have a relationship of sorts, "we've also talked on the phone-" She says even though she does understand her sister's point, and they really only talked on the phone that once. "You're probably right, it's probably best that she didn't come, or isn't coming, I don't know…"
"Wow, you really like her," Cindy says sympathetically, she places a hand on her sister's back. "But come on Holls, think, what did you really think was going to come of this, you're not staying in Toronto, you have to go back to San Francisco. What were you hoping from this? Did you really want to start something?"
Holly sighs again, she totally gets where her sister is coming from, but she likes Gail. She feels that maybe Gail likes her too and that, now that she thinks about it maybe…maybe she hasn't thought this through very far.
Gail is tired of playing video games, she has moved back to her bedroom, lying on top of the comforter. She sees her phone's screen light up, she grabs it thinking that Holly has texted her asking her where she is. Gail knows that's not going to be the case though, if it was, Holly would have texted Gail sooner, sometime earlier in the day not now at eight o'clock at night. She looks at her phone anyways; it's a text from Oliver reminding her she starts afternoons tomorrow. She sighs. Gail feels bad, but she's not really sure why she feels bad. She's blown people off before, where she's agreed to go to something but then never shows, but this time it feels different. She did want to spend time with Holly, she just didn't want all of the add ons. She curls into herself and stares at her bedroom's wall. She picks up her phone again and sends a text.
The night continues to progress, cocktail time is over, dinner is over too. All the dishes have been washed and put away. Most people who are left are those really close to the family, not just those who are there for the well wishes, those who have been there from the beginning of the Stewart's relationship, some who even attended the wedding. Everyone's sitting in the living room have a nightcap enjoying a more quieter aspect to the night.
The phone in Holly's pocket chimes. She forgot it was there, having given up on the blonde. She unlocks her phone and reads her message, "sorry"
Thanks for all your comments on the last chapter, I hope you like the direction I chose, I put my logic / my reasoning (whatever its called) within the chapter as to why I went the way I did.
Thanks for reading, Happy Bonus Day!
