“That’s why I fell for, the leader of the pack,” Alice sang playfully
and she grinned widely when the tennis player chuckled and moved to
capture her lips in a slow kiss. When they parted she looked up into
clear blue eyes so open and filled with love that she felt her throat
constrict at the sight. Tucking a lock of brown hair behind Dana’s ear,
she let her hand fall down to trace the delicate curve of the athlete’s
neck as her thumb tenderly rubbed soft skin. “I didn’t think I would
ever be here like this with you again,” she confessed in a shaky
whisper. Alice couldn’t comprehend where these sudden influx of
emotions were coming from but she also knew that she couldn’t stop them
now that they were set free. “I didn’t think that I deserved to have
this again, to have you again. Not after everything I did.” Alice
followed the line of Dana’s jaw with her fingertips and said, “Part of
me can’t believe you’re really here.”

Pulling on Alice’s hand gently, Dana pressed a kiss to its palm then
looked up with earnest blue eyes and murmured, “Here is the only place
I’ve ever wanted to be.”

“I feel the same,” said Alice softly, curving her fingers back to
delicately trail over the tennis player’s lips. She released a quiet
and satisfied sigh while her hand lightly gripped the side of Dana’s
neck as they finally had their morning kiss.

And then they kept kissing and no more words were spoken.

—

One of the most difficult tasks in building a lasting relationship is
the one most often disregarded because it’s the focus of so many bad
comedy acts. What is it? Nothing except dealing with and trying to win
over the parents of the person you love. Because unless you’re involved
with someone grown in a test tube and raised by monkeys in the wild
there is some parental figure in everyone’s life. Some had ones far
better than others but everyone did have them if you looked hard
enough. Alice didn’t have much in that department and what she did have
was almost entirely defective in terms of genuinely caring about her
and her feelings.

But Dana? She was the exact opposite.

Her parents did care for her and love her and while it had taken quite
some time for them to accept both of their children’s sexuality they
had done it because they loved them. Even if they didn’t agree and
there was that ingrained Republican portion of their brain that said
their children were making the wrong choice they kept the opinion to
themselves. Because they knew their children and their children knew
them. There was no way that Howie and Dana didn’t know their opinions
on homosexuality and that was enough. They didn’t need to pound it into
them over and over because they also knew it wouldn’t make much if any
difference. One of the things that made them proud as parents is that
they had taught Dana and Howie the ability to make up their own minds.
To decide what they thought of the world in general and since they had
taught this lesson well they knew any attempts to change their minds
would be futile. And so they accepted that both their children were gay
and effectively ended that line of conversation. Which was fine with
Howie and Dana because this was how they were raised. Their family
didn’t tend to do the feel good heartwarming cliche of sharing their
feelings as they sat in a hug circle or something. That wasn’t who they
were and both of the Fairbanks children knew that if they had been
straight instead of gay that they still wouldn’t be talking with their
parents about their love lives. So taking that into consideration, it
wasn’t really as if being gay had changed anything in how their parents
treated their romantic choices.