Taylor was willing, as she stepped out of her RideOn and almost absently gave the driver a five-star rating and a five-dollar tip, to admit that she’d perhaps been…hasty in pursuing her current course of action.
Not because she’d joined the Jangle server. That had been the right call, and she stood by it. The server had been exactly what AllSeeingEye had advertised: a loosely organized community of underage Hunters, Awakened, and even a handful of enterprising Normals who helped facilitate off-the-books dungeon runs. Mostly E and D-rank gates that popped up in rural areas or smaller towns where the Protectorate response was slow enough that a quick team could get in, clear, and get out before anyone official showed up to ask awkward questions.
Better still, to her mind, were the groups that would buy access to perfectly legitimate -and higher ranked- gates, and let a needful Hunter or two swap out with one of their own members, for a nominal fee. Which was very much more to her preference under current circumstances, given she couldn’t exactly stray far from home without her parents catching on.
After all, even with her current movement speed, there was only just so much distance she could cover on foot.
No, making her posts and joining the server wasn’t a problem. The hasty part had been agreeing to her first run less than forty-eight hours after joining, with people she’d never met, in a city full of people on a first-name basis with her parents. Better still, the group she would be raiding with weren’t even local! Well, except for AllSeeingEye, who apparently was just as local as Taylor herself was.
Sighing softly to herself, with a mental chiding that she had to do this if she wanted to keep getting stronger, to make herself capable of standing beside her sister and finally making a real change in the world, she made sure that her mask -more akin to something from a Venetian ball that a super-hero mask- covered her properly and headed for the small cul-de-sac that held the gate.
That, at least, she could verify was real. She could feel it’s mana from here, growing stronger the closer she got, and sure enough there stood -or floated, really. Hovered.- the swirling blue-white vortex. And to her right, a Hunter, and her eyes turned from Gate to fellow Awakened even as the other girl’s eyes turned to her.
The other girl’s brilliant, pale green eyes that seemed to shine out from the shadows of her mottled, forest-green hooded cloak. A cloak that, as the other girl -AllSeeingEye, probably, unless one of the out-of-towners was hanging out by the gate alone for some godforsaken reason- rose to her feet, did nothing whatsoever to hide the form-fitting -and what a form it was!- black-and-purple leather armor that she was wearing. And what a form it was. Hunters were never unathletic, and it was rare that a Hunter wasn’t at least moderately attractive by conventional tastes, but this girl was far more than ‘moderately attractive’ to Taylor’s eyes.
She was a blonde as well, judging by the whispers of hair that drifted out of her hood, and Taylor took a moment to reflect on the fact that she seemed to be making a habit of running into gorgeous blonde Hunters -Cassie, Ariana, Victoria, Paige, and now this girl- of late.
Not that she was complaining, mind. Frankly, it was starting to feel like the universe was trying to tell her something, and God knew that there were far worse fates in the world than being surrounded by beautiful women. Plus, she was self-aware enough -or self-honest enough- at this point to acknowledge that the System’s stat boosts had started to do wonders for her own confidence in that regard. Hard to feel insecure about your looks when you’d been remade from the ground up into something that made strangers on the internet write essays about your ass. Or when you had one of the greatest healers in the world practically chasing you down and demanding a date.
Sure, she still felt anxious about the actual dating itself, given she had zero experience with that and she was pretty sure the System wouldn’t give her a how-to manual on that, but she was starting to be able to acknowledge she wasn’t ugly any longer.
“So, you’re Morrigan, huh?” the girl mused, eyes ghosting over Taylor’s own form, head tilting to the side as they fell on Tanha and Gilati. “AllSeeingEye, but that’s a bit of a mouthful, so you can call me Sarah.”
“Sarah?” Taylor asked, somewhat incredulously, and the other girl shrugged with a small smirk.
“It seems like as good a name as any. It’s not mine, they’re a million girls with that name, with a half-dozen ways to spell it, and I’m not the most memorable girl either.” she responded blithely, which Taylor found hard to believe. The last part, that was, because she certainly thought that ‘Sarah’ was memorable. The way that Sarah’s smirk turned into a grin and her cheeks stained faintly pink had Taylor realizing that she’d said that out loud, which had her own cheeks coloring.
“Well…” Sarah said, recovering her faculties -or, at least, control of her vocal cords- faster than Taylor did. “Aren’t you sweet, hmm? I’m flattered, but be careful. A girl could start to get ideas.”
Taylor opened her mouth, closed it, and then decided that the best course of action was to change the subject before she made her life any more complicated than it needed to be. Especially since her System-enhanced social skills were firmly informing her that Sarah was being entirely genuine. “The others?”
“Shouldn’t be too much longer. They’re a group of travelling Hunters, apparently, so if nothing else they’re used to working together.” Sarah accepted the subject change gracefully, though she sidled closer to Taylor with a faint glint in her eye. A glint born of more than one type of interest, it seemed, as she eyed the crystalline blades resting on Taylor’s hips. “Those really are something. I saw them in the footage from that dungeon break downtown, but seeing them up close…they really are crystal, aren’t they?”
“They certainly seem to be, though I’ve never seen a crystal quite like the one they’re made from. Of course, dungeons are funny like that, they drop things we can’t recreate all the time. “ Taylor confirmed, keeping just how true that statement was -God knew the System couldn’t be recreated!- to herself, only smiling slightly at the understatement. “Still, I’m not going to complain. They’re the finest weapons I’ve ever owned, the finest I’ve ever even seen.”
“Can I?” Sarah asked, extending on hand politely enough that it came across as eager instead of demanding, and Taylor hesitated for a moment before passing it over hilt-first. No ranger, outside of an A or S-rank, would be able to take her at this range, and it wasn’t like she could deprive the other girl of the offered weapon in an instant if she needed to.
Not that she had the impression it would be necessary in the least, but knowing that she had the means certainly made her feel better.
“Damn. Lighter than I expected…” Sarah mused thoughtfully, before pulling off one of her gloves with her teeth and testing the edge before Taylor could stop her, wincing and hissing in discomfort as the lightest touch of her thumb against the blade had it bleeding lightly.
“Careful!” Taylor reached out instinctively, though Sarah had already pulled her thumb away, sticking it into her mouth with a rueful look that was somehow both sheepish and charming at the same time. All it did was make the other girl cuter, and Taylor wondered briefly when it was she had turned into such a gay disaster, even as she took the weapon back. “I wasn’t kidding about them being the finest I’ve ever seen. They’ll cut through damn near anything without much difficulty.”
“Yeah, no kidding…” Sarah mumbled around her thumb, pulling it free after a moment and examining the thin line of red with something that looked less like pain and more like impressed fascination. “That barely even registered as pressure before it broke skin. What kind of enchantment is on these? I’ve handled plenty of dungeon-drops, seen some pretty amazing stuff in the shops too, but I’ve never felt an edge like that.”
“Honestly? I’m not entirely sure.” Which was true enough. The System had given her stats on the blades, certainly, but explaining the precise nature of their enchantments in terms that didn’t reference the System didn’t seem particularly possible, same with the fact that they could self-improve as she got stronger and killed more things with them. “I’m still getting used to them, really, figuring out what it is that they’re capable of.”
“Well, if you ever figure it out, let me know. And if you ever find an quiver of arrows that never runs out with that kind of crystal for arrows, let me know. I’m tired of having to buy enchanted arrows just so I can fight some of the tougher monsters.” Sarah laughed a bit brusquely, tugging her glove back on and flexing her fingers experimentally, apparently satisfied that the cut had already stopped bleeding. “Just make sure to keep a close eye on them. Shitty people are everywhere, and someone wouldn’t hesitate for even a minute to snag a pair of weapons like that and make a run for it.”
“Noted, thank you.” Taylor said dryly, not particularly worried but appreciating the warning all the same, as she re-sheathed her weapon “I’d like to see someone try, honestly. Tanha and Gilati don’t take kindly to being handled by people I haven’t given permission to.”
That was, perhaps, just a little bit more than she should have said, but the look of delighted curiosity that crossed Sarah’s face struck her as entirely worth the minor slip. The other girl opened her mouth, no doubt to ask a follow-up question that Taylor didn’t doubt she wouldn’t be able to answer honestly -and would doubtlessly be tempted to try anyway-, but the sound of an approaching vehicle cut through the evening air and saved her from having to find out.
A sizeable vehicle judging by the sound, and she turned to see a large, full-sized RV pulling a sizeable trailer coming down the road towards them. It was a beast of a machine, too, one of those luxury models that cost as much as some houses and came equipped with more amenities -and more comfortable amenities at that- than most high-end hotel rooms. The trailer itself was the size of a small horse-hauler, perhaps a little bit larger, and Taylor couldn’t help but agree with Sarah’s low whistle as it pulled over and braked, the rumble of its diesel engine cutting off a moment later. She could hear movement inside, the lower murmur of voices, and then the door hissed open softly to disgorge six people, four young men and two young women.
“By the gods, I can’t believe that we’re finally here!” one of the men groaned, a tall and powerfully built stretching his back and rolling his shoulders with an expression of mingled relief and discomfort. “I don’t care what those damned salesmen claimed, there is no earthly way to make sitting in any sort of car seat comfortable for hours on end. Even if the car is the size of a bus.”
“You could always try walking, the fresh air might to wonders for that shitty attitude of yours, Vince.” one of the women shot back, her tone fond enough to rob the words of any real sting. She was tall, nearly as tall as Taylor herself, with dark skin and close-cropped hair, and she moved with the fluid, easy grace of someone who’d spent a lot of time in dungeons. A mage of some sort, based on her robe-like outfit and the staff strapped to her back. “If nothing else, we’d be spared having to listen to you whine about how a leather recliner with a massage function isn’t a good enough way to travel the country.”
“My attitude is a gift to the world, Sabrina, and I’ll thank you not to suggest otherwise.” Vince retorted with exaggerated dignity, before his gaze settled on Taylor and Sarah, and he grinned. “Now shut up and stop making us look bad in front of the locals. You two must be Morrigan and AllSeeingEye.”
“You can call me Sarah for today, short and sweet is better in a fight. You must be the gate-holders we’re waiting for?” the pale-eyed archer responded before Taylor could open her mouth, and he nodded, gesturing to the group around him.
“Yeah, that’s us. I’m Vince, and I’m a tank with a Talent. Every time I taunt any enemies, I can create duplicates of myself to take a hit. Not much of a hit, but it helps. You’ve already met Sabrina, sort of, she’s a Talented Mage. Not sure how much it will do you,” here he nodded at Taylor. “But she can give short-term flight and duplicate non-magical items. Pretty useful for you, Sarah.”
“I can think of worse things than being able to sit twenty feet up in the air with unlimited arrows, yeah.” Sarah acknowledged, her eyebrows going up, and once again Taylor found herself in agreement with the other girl. Not the most powerful Talent on it’s own, but with the right party synergy and the right dungeon environment -and monster types, presumably- it was probably quite the game changer.
The rest of the introductions went quickly, with Vince and Sabrina’s older brother Jake -also a tank, and looking like it- as well as their friends Max, Cory, and Faith. A Ranger, a Rogue, and a Healer respectively. All Talented as well, and their interest when Taylor had displayed her Talent, and Sarah described her own -the ability to discern the ‘weak spot’ of her target, though it took time to work depending on how powerful and durable the target was- had her feeling a bit uncomfortable, but she’d pushed it aside. Her System-enhanced perception wasn’t warning her off any danger, and it would be way too obvious for her and Sarah to go missing after they’d chatted with this group on Jangle.
Criminals were dumb, but she didn’t think they were ‘kidnap/murder a couple of girls after talking to them, while in a dungeon that they’d officially registered for’ dumb. Plus, she had the System supporting her, she had the potions she’d looted and she had -very soon, only about 200 exp away- access to the System shop. Which would probably be amazing, and all the gold she’d gathered, and the items she intended to sell, were burning a hole in her pocket.
“Alright, so this shouldn’t be a difficult dungeon. It’s only a C-rank and there are eight of us. That being said, we’re used to working as a team while the two of you haven’t worked with us before.” Jake said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together after several minutes of exchanging pleasantries. “So Morrigan, you’ll stick with Vince and kill anything trying to flank him, and use those birds of yours to scout for enemies the rest of the time. Sarah will stick with Max and Faith in the backline, and we’ll all adjust as needed as we work any kinks out.”
It was a fair strategy, stated fairly, and she said as much, with Sarah echoing her. Satisfied by the lack of argument, Jake continued. Most of what he said was just repeating what Taylor already knew -that this was a lower-ranked dungeon with the expectation of a decent amount of mana crystals which would be sold, with Sarah and Taylor quietly getting their cut in cash.
Their plans made and their agreement reiterated, the group headed for the gate, and as they walked through the magical portal into the world of the dungeon, Taylor couldn’t help but feel anticipation. This would be the first time she’d been in a proper raid since she got the System, and she couldn’t wait to see what she could do.
Another party, another dungeon, another raid…but the excitement was the same, and the grin on her face was wild as she drew her swords and called up her ravens, the mountain valley of the gate’s interior snapping into view around them.
This is what she lived for!
######################################################################
Amy was a young woman on a mission, almost literally. The mission, of course, being both self-assigned and one of the most important that she had ever taken. A mission that was the first of it’s kind, entirely unique, and almost guaranteed to cause a ‘hooplah’, as her grandmother Dallon would have said. What was that plan? Successfully seducing Taylor Hebert, of course, and keeping her heart once she had won it.
She had it all planned out, too. A movie, then dinner, and then a long walk that would end up taking them through the quietest, most private section of Brockton Bay’s finest nature-park, where she would completely blow Taylor’s mind with kissing and heavy petting. N-not sex, of course, Amy wasn’t that sort of girl. Even if she still got painfully wet when she thought to Taylor spanking her, of how good the taller girl looked now, and couldn’t help but imagine that utter goddess she had seen obliterate the dungeon break’s boss spanking her ass raw before bending her over and breaking her mind…~!
Amy shook her head violently, feeling the heat rush up her neck and into her cheeks as she stood in front of her bedroom mirror, and firmly told herself to get a grip. She was not going to show up to their date looking like a damn tomato because she couldn’t stop fantasizing about the girl she was supposed to be wooing, especially not such uninhibited, kinky lewdness. That was absolutely, categorically, and under no circumstances not the kind of first impression she wanted to make. Well. Second impression. Or…was it her third? Did the dungeon count as a first impression, or did the hospital?
There would be a hell of a difference between the two.
One, she was a snarky, slappy, horny mess. The other, she was a flustered, stuttering, mostly-silent idiot that couldn’t stop staring.
God, she was a mess.
And yet, somehow, she was loving this.
She’d never cared about looking good for the previous dates Vicky and Crystal had ‘encouraged’ her to go on, letting Vicky dress her however her sister damn well pleased, because she’d never particularly cared for the people that her family was setting her up with. Sure, most of them were aesthetically pleasing, had money, were successful Hunters often enough, but none of that was all that important to her.
Not least because she couldn’t help but think of her father’s approach to ‘romance’, which was most certainly not something she wanted to emulate. She loved him, she truly did, and she admired his ability as a Hunter, but the rest of it? No, thank you! She wanted a real romance, and she seem to have inadvertently gotten herself started down the road of having it when that stupid, pretty, breathtaking idiot had saved her in that ‘instanced dungeon’.
An instanced dungeon that she still didn’t fully understand, that had nearly killed them both, and that had somehow ended with Taylor’s hand on her ass and Amy’s dignity scattered across the floor of a dungeon boss room.
Romance for the ages, truly. Shakespeare himself couldn’t have penned a more absurd beginning than that!
She turned back to the mirror and scrutinized herself for what had to be the fifteenth time in the last twenty minutes. She’d gone with a deep burgundy blouse that Vicky had bought her for Christmas and that she’d never worn, paired with dark jeans that were just tight enough to suggest without being blatant, and ankle boots with a modest heel that gave her an extra inch and a half without making her feel like she was walking on stilts…and, more importantly, would still leave her a couple of inches shorter than Taylor. Her hair was down, which was unusual for her —she almost always kept it pulled back, both for practicality in the hospital and because of how it fell in her face— but tonight it framed her features in soft waves that she’d spent an embarrassing amount of time coaxing into existence with a curling iron and fervent prayer.
She looked…good. Actually good. Not ‘Amy Dallon, the healer who always looks tired and vaguely annoyed’ good, but genuinely, put-together, ‘I am a girl who has her shit together and is worth your time’ good.
At least, she hoped so.
The doubt crept in anyway, because of course it did. Taylor had seen her covered in dungeon grime, tear-streaked and terrified, and then again in a hospital room where Amy had barely been able to string a coherent sentence together. The bar for improvement was low, admittedly, but that didn’t stop the anxious little gremlin in the back of her brain from whispering that maybe the mind-blowingly beautiful girl that hadn’t asked her out didn’t want to take her out. She didn’t think that was true, not really, and hoped that it wasn’t, but what did she knew about love?
“Nothing…” she sighed aloud to herself, turning away from the mirror and heading towards the stairs, already pulling out her phone to order a RideOn to take her to the theater. She knew nothing about love, at least not the romantic kind. She knew about the love of family, messy and complicated as that was. She knew about the love of a craft, the way her hands itched to heal, the way her Talent sang through her veins when she was knitting bone and tissue back together. But romantic love? The kind that made people write poetry and start wars and do incredibly stupid things with enormous smiles on their faces?
She was flying blind, and the ground was coming up so very fast.
But that was fine. That was okay. Because if there was one thing Amy Dallon had learned from years of healing people who’d done incredibly stupid things in incredibly dangerous dungeons, it was that sometimes the only way forward was through, and sometimes the best strategy was no strategy at all. Sometimes you just had to step into the gate and deal with whatever was on the other side. You just had to take what came to you as it came and do your very best.
And, honestly? That sounded…appealing, in a very real way.
She was halfway down the ground-floor’s main hallway when a high-pitched squeal of excitement slammed into her from the direction of the living room.
“Oh my God, you’re wearing the blouse!”
Amy closed her eyes, counted to three, and kept walking. Maybe if she moved fast enough, she could make it to the front door before—
“Mom! Mom, come look! Amy’s wearing the blouse!”
—that happened. Damnit, Vicky!
Carol Dallon appeared in the kitchen doorway with a cup of tea in one hand and an expression that Amy couldn’t quite read. Surprise, maybe? Some approval? Perhaps even a touch of worry?
“You look lovely, sweetheart.” her mother started, the words genuine, and Amy felt an equally genuine flare of warmth and pleasure in her chest at the earnest compliment, before frowning slightly as Carol hesitated. “Is this…you’re obviously going on a date, but if Victoria or Crystal had arranged it, I’d have heard about it. Are you…that is, who are you going out with?”
And there it was. The Question. The one she’d been dreading and anticipating in equal measure, and the one she’d been hoping to avoid entirely, or at least until she was getting home from her date instead of leaving for it. Not because she was ashamed of people knowing that she was going on a date -the first of many, hopefully!- with Taylor, but because…well, she wasn’t sure, really. She just wanted to, to keep it to herself, somehow and for some reason she could hardly quantify. Maybe because they’d ask follow-up questions that she couldn’t or wouldn’t yet answer, or might never be able to answer with a straight face. Still, she couldn’t sit there and say nothing, so she settled for an awkward shrug.
“Her name is Taylor. She’s…we met at the hospital, hit it off. We’ve been chatting ever since she got discharged, and I invited her to the movies.” she hedged, if honestly, only to have Vicky yank the proverbial rug out from beneath her feet.
“She’s the Double Dungeon girl, mom. You should have seen the look on Amy’s face when we walked in on her toweling off after some morning exercise. She was drooling~!” the blonde half of the sisterly pair giggled, getting a surprised look from her mother and a positively acidic one from the girl in question.
“I was not drooling, Vicky!” she snapped, eyes narrowing as Vicky grinned wider and opened her mouth to respond. “And even if I was, you weren’t looking much better, were you? You couldn’t decide whether to introduce yourself to her abs or her tits!”
Vicky’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click, and a flush bloomed across her sister’s cheeks that was every bit as vivid as the one Amy could feel burning across her own. For a single, glorious moment, the tables were turned, and Amy savored it.
“That’s—I was not—she just—“ Vicky spluttered helplessly, which was a rare enough occurrence that Amy almost wished she had her phone out to record it. Almost, because the sight of a phone would probably. She was too busy trying not to look smug, and failing spectacularly at it if the way Carol’s eyebrows were climbing was any indication. Though the corners of her mouth were climbing too, a gleam of warmth in her eyes, and Amy was absurdly pleased by that, somehow.
“Uh huh.” Amy said flatly, folding her arms and resisting the urge to tap her foot on the hardwood floor. “Sure, Vicky. You were the picture of composure.”
“I was surprised! I wasn’t staring, she was…she was just taller than I expected, that’s all! It just caught me off guard, ‘cause she looked so different from her picture!”
“Oh, sure. Her height, that’s what you were paying attention to. Not the glistening eight-pack that she was toweling off, right? Or her chest? Or the flex of that bicep…?”
“Girls.” Carol's words carried a tone that both of her daughters knew well, and two mouths clicked shut instantly, recognizing parental danger when they heard it, though Amy thought their mom looked more amused and curious than genuinely angry or annoyed. Just stopping the fight from escalating or going on any longer, just like she had so many other times -countless times, really- over the course of their lives. “Perhaps we should just agree that young Miss Hebert is apparently very fit and very tall, and leave it at that?”
There was a mumble of agreement, neither foolish enough to attempt any protest at this point, and she made a soft sound of satisfaction.
“Good. Now, Amy. Taylor Hebert? Annette and Danny’s daughter?”
“You know her parents? From Hunting, back…before?” Amy responded, only half-surprised. Her mother had once been a very active and very deadly Hunter, before she’d given birth to Amy and Victoria in close succession, and decided to focus on a law career and raising her daughters instead, so it was hardly an outlandish idea for her to have met two other local Hunters from her generation.
“From hunting before you two were born, yes, and since then. They’re old friends with Alan, from the firm, and his wife Zoe, so I’ve seen them often enough at social gatherings over the years. I was…” she hesitated for a moment, shaking her head as her eyes darkened. “Horrified to hear about what happened to Taylor, and very happy to hear she survived.” she glanced over at Amy, eyes lightening again to an almost teasing glint. “Are you ‘Florence Nightingaling’, Amy? Watching over the girl day and night, hmm?”
“I—no! That’s not—“ Amy started, then stopped, because the honest answer was yes, kind of, and she’d never been a particularly good liar. Especially not to her mother, who had spent two decades cross-examining witnesses for a living and could smell bullshit from three zip codes away. “I checked on her. Professionally. Because she was my patient, and I take my patients’ recovery seriously.”
“Mmhmm.” Carol took a sip of her tea, the picture of maternal serenity, and Amy had never wanted to sink through the floor more in her entire life. “And the texting? Also professional?”
“How do you even know about the texting?!”
“You’ve been smiling at your phone for, like, a week, Ames,” Vicky supplied helpfully from the couch, apparently having recovered enough from her earlier mortification to relocate and resume being the worst sister to ever exist, only to immediately beat herself out for the position. “Plus, I told Mom all about how I got you her number, so it was pretty easy to put two and two together.”
“I did not fall in love with her while she was in a coma!” Amy growled, immediately regretting it when Carol’s eyebrows went up, a faint smirk creasing her lips, while Victoria looked like all of her Christmases had come early. She could see the words forming in their minds, and she jabbed a finger in each of their directions with the darkest, most threatening glower she could muster. “Don’t! Not another word! It’s just a date! I’m not saying I’m in love with her!”
“Yet~…” Vicky whispered, just loud enough to be heard, and Amy seriously considered whether a jury of her peers would convict her for sororicide. Probably not, if they’d ever had a sister like Victoria Dallon. Once they saw the evidence, they’d probably reward her for…
Carol, to her credit, seemed to sense that her eldest daughter was approaching some kind of critical threshold, because she set her tea down and crossed the hallway to place a hand on Amy’s shoulder. The touch was grounding, warm in a way that Carol didn’t always manage to be but was clearly trying for right now, and some of the tension bled out of Amy’s spine despite herself.
“I think it’s wonderful, Amy. Truly. I’m glad you’re putting yourself out there, and Taylor seems like a wonderful girl. Annette was always the sharpest woman in any room she walked into, and Danny was steady as a rock. If their daughter is anything like them, not to mention her willingness to sacrifice it all to save the rest of her raid party, she must be a truly good young woman. Just…” she hesitated, and her hand tightened briefly, before she pressed a kiss to the top of Amy’s head. “Just be careful with your heart, baby.”
She knew where that was coming from, why her mother would say that, and while it might normally have stung or made her doubt herself, in this circumstance and paired with the affection? All Amy could do was blink against the sudden sting behind her eyes, swallow hard, and nod. “I will, Mom. I promise.”
Carol studied her for a moment longer, something soft and almost vulnerable flickering across her features before she stepped back and oh-so-deliberately picked up her tea again, the moment of raw and uninhibited maternal tenderness tucking itself neatly back behind the composed, reserved exterior that she so often wore like armor. “Good. Now go, before you’re late. And text me when you get there.”
“And text me everything else!” Vicky called from the living room, because apparently she had a death wish and couldn’t read the moment that Amy and Carol were having!
Amy didn’t dignify that with a response. She grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door —a fitted leather number that she’d bought on impulse months ago and never worn, because what on earth would she even wear it for?— and stepped outside, shoulders squared and set with determination.
This was her moment!