Things are tense

With a swing of the door, my mom welcomed us home. Beatrice, my dearest mother, was a tall woman with short reddish brown hair. For a woman her age, her body was in remarkable shape, with incredible curves especially her ass. Apparently she had quite a number of guys chasing after her when she met my dad.

"Hey girls!" she cheered, seeing Alice first.

"Hi mom!" Alice cheered back, as the two embraced.

They parted quickly and then my mom turned to me. "Hey Christy," she said, hesitantly. "It's good to see you." Her energy had completely changed, and she gave me a quick one-handed hug, which I accepted just as quickly.

"Hey," I simply replied, breaking off the hug after a second of contact.

"Well let's go in!" Alice added. "I'm starving!"

"Yes, please, come in!" Mom replied, trying to sound cheerful. Alice and I entered our house without further ado. We all headed into the kitchen, where the smell of a homecooked meal was strong. I always was partial to mom's food, even if we couldn't stand to be around her.

Alice and I sat down at the kitchen table, while mom checked the oven.

"So, what's on the menu?" Alice asked.

Mom looked satisfied at the food in the oven, and shut it off. "Salmon, potato casserole, and asparagus. Oh and I got cookie cake for dessert."

"Oh, your favorite, Christy!" Alice said to me.

"Oh, yum," I said noncommittally. It's true that I did like cookie cake, it's what I always asked for as a little girl. The timing of it now though made me a little suspicious.

"And," mom continued, pulling out a bottle of Blackberry wine from the fridge. "A little something for the two of us, Christy."

"Hey!" Alice protested.

"Yeah yeah, just another year." Mom laughed and then started to get the dishes out of the oven, which caused Alice and I to get our plates and head over. Before long, the three of us had plates full of food and were getting situated around the table. Mom and I with our glasses of wine, of which I took a strong drink.

"So," mom started. "Christy, how is Lily doing?"

Ouch. Rough start mom. Alice's eyes went wide, but she said nothing. I replied, "Um, well. Actually we broke up. Turns out she cheated on me."

"Oh my."

"Twice, actually."

"I'm so sorry, Christy."

"Eh, it's okay." It wasn't. It still hurt, but since Alice and I became close it hurt a lot less. "You think you know someone."

"Well, to be honest, I never really liked her."

I put my fork down. "Wait, really? You never told me this."

Mom finished a sip of her wine. "Yeah, you just seemed so happy together, and maybe there was something I wasn't seeing. But she never really seemed to care about your opinion on things, or checked in with you before doing something. It was little things like that."

"Oh. Huh. Guess I must have missed all that."

"Well, that's how falling in love is sometimes." We both drank again, and fell silent. It was hard to come up with a conversation after that, and apparently the others thought so too.

Then it seems Alice had something to say.