I’m surprised. I don’t think I’ve heard Bette talk for this long ever before. I also don’t recognise the determined side of her, the alpha one, the side of her that organises things. I can’t deny that I do like it. 

“So nothing happened?” I ask carefully.

“No, well, you were very drunk and made a fool of yourself. Most people were too drunk to notice, tough.”

I smile a little. Than something else hits me.

“What are we going to tell my mom?”

“That, my dear, am I trying to figure out.”

I blush as she calls me ‘my dear’, altough I know she doesn’t mean anything by it. I look under the sheets and see that I’m still wearing my clothes. Bette notices this and says:

“I would have given you pj’s, but you were in no state of putting them on. And well… I didn’t know… I didn’t know if you’d be comfortable with me undressing you since I… you know… since I’m…”

I frown my eyebrows, waiting for her to continue. It doesn’t seem like she’s planning to do that and I am just about to ask her what she is and how that makes her unable to undress me and get me into pj’s, when she whispers: “Gay.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well… not a problem, clearly. There has to be something about me, all my friends being gay,” I laugh.

“Yeah… well… anyway, that’s why I was sure. But about your mother…” 

She clearly wants to change the subject and I let her. What to tell my mother…

“You could say I was very very drunk and I was home alone, but I wasn’t able to take care of myself so you decided to come home with me and look after me? She’d find that very considerate of you, wouldn’t she?” 

“Yeah, but what will she think of you?”

“I don’t really care, I mean, it’s more important she thinks good of you since she’s your mother and you have to live with her every day.” 

“No, Bette, I don’t feel comfortable with a lie like that.”

“Okay, if it’s what you want. Does Shane care much about what your mother thinks of her?” 

“Not really, why?”

“We could say Shane was very drunk, and there was nobody home at hers, and we didn’t have a key of her house so we let her sleep here to take care of her, and I couldn’t handle it on my own so you decided you’d stay and help?”