Relationship Goals

“That bitch!”

Brooke shouts out after hearing what had happened when your girlfriends encountered your ex-wife; more accurately, when your daughter met her mother for the first time in months.

It took the girls a few minutes to arrive, from the store they encountered Diane, to the coffee shop where you and Brooke were having coffee and pastries, so you were able to encourage Brooke a little more about living with her insecurities before your girlfriends arrived. She thanked you again for allowing her to vent and say those things out loud, and giving your opinion. She agreed with your sentiment that a friendly voice can help battle her own disparaging voices when they pop up.

Although, you’re not really sure if anything you said to encourage her would ever really get through to her, but that’s to be expected. Not every person’s words of encouragement can beat your own voice guilting yourself. You know that from experience. It takes the right message and the right messenger to get through to someone most of the time. You’re not sure if you checked either of those two things for Brooke.

When your girlfriends arrived, Stella was obviously the one that was most affected by the chance encounter. She was still livid and her eyes were filled with anger as she sat down at your table with Brooke, tight lipped and deep in thought. Cassie ordered some coffees for the three of them and they took a few minutes of silence, letting Stella take the initiative in recounting what happened upon seeing her mother for the first time since the divorce.

Once Stella started telling the story, it didn’t take long for her to finish, prompting the reaction from Brooke when Stella recounted Diane’s sarcastic last words to Tanya about her dress suiting her as an insult.

“Good thing the manager was a sweetheart and didn’t kick the three of us out too.” Stella continued.

“Tanya made sure of that. There was a reason she subtly pointed out that we were the ones who were already in their clothes and ready to purchase versus your mom who was only one person, carrying one item, who they weren’t sure would even buy it.” Cassie pointed out.

“She did do that, didn't she? That’s brilliant. What a fivehead move. Didn’t even notice.” Stella compliments Tanya. “Of course you didn’t notice, sweetie. You were too busy being rightfully angry with your mother.” Tanya replies. A silence falls on your table again, after the girls have all given their two cents on what happened.

“Care to weigh in on this, Dad?” Stella asks you. You’ve been quiet since Stella told their story, and you were deep in thought after what you’ve heard. “You still want me to make peace with her after that?” Stella goads you into reacting. “She just met me for the first time in months and all she wanted to do was introduce me to that cucking boyfriend of hers.” Stella continues.

“Enough, baby. I wanted you to make peace with her so that the next time you see her, there won’t be any threat of being thrown out of a clothing store.” you finally say. “No. I am not siding with your mother. Let me finish.” you continue to say before Stella can misinterpret your words. “You obviously had every right to be angry. The audacity of her to think that there was any logical fucking explanation for what she did, other than she didn’t give a shit about hurting our family, boggles my mind.” you continued, which put a thin amused smile on Stella’s face.

“That being said, I don’t want you to have your emotions get the best of you. I don’t want you to end up in a YouTube video or on the local news being called some degenerate who wasn’t raised right because she fought her mother at a clothing store. We can both be angry her, but let’s not get carried away. You have a bright future ahead of you. Don’t throw that away with your rashness.” you advise your daughter, who nods that she understands what you mean.

“Okay, that’s my two cents as your dad. As your boyfriend, just call me next time and I’ll ‘wring that bitch’s fucking neck’ for you, okay?” You say with false bravado, remembering the words Viv used yesterday. Of course, you’re not really sure you’d be able to do it, but your words got the desired reaction. All the girls cheer on your more confident side and raise their iced coffees above their heads as a sign of supporting your thoughts on what you’d do to Diane.

“By the way, thanks for holding Stella back, Cass; and thanks for finding a way to get Diane out of there, Tanya. Stella owes both of you for keeping cool heads.” you tell Cassie and Tanya.

“De nada, papito. You have our backs, we’ll have yours, and we’ll have each other’s.” Tanya says, holding your hand tightly to show she means every word.

“Yeah, Jay. Don’t do anything to hurt anyone in the relationship, remember? That includes preventing them from hurting themselves.” Cassie wisely adds, before leaning on Stella’s shoulder while smiling, making Stella smile at her best friend’s affection.

You notice Brooke just staring at the four of you with a smile of her own, amused somewhat in what she’s seeing. “You guys are amazing. I can’t believe you’re making it look easy.” Brooke says, unable to contain her opinion any further.

“What’re we making look easy?” Tanya asks Brooke.

“This! You guys are acting like family already and it’s been what? A day of being a whole-ass official relationship? I’ve had honeymoon periods, but jeez. You guys take the cake.” Brooke sings your relationship praises.

The four of you look at each other and smile in appreciation that things are going pleasantly so far. “Like you said though, it’s the honeymoon period. Maybe it looks and feels better because it’s amplified too.” Tanya starts, and you get a bit concerned that she slipped there about the Affection Multiplier.

“I mean, I know we’re all just officially with Jay, but we feel each other’s love for him too, and that’s infectious. We can’t deny we have some affection for each other now, outside of our relationship with Jay.” Tanya explains, making it clear that’s what she meant when she said amplified.

“I think it’s also timing.” Cassie chimes in. “We all relatively got together with him around the same time. They keep joking that I'm first, but it’s been a week since we got together, so everything was still new to us being a couple anyway. It’s not like we’ve built a dynamic beforehand that Stella and Tanya were suddenly changing, so the transition was easier.” Cassie explains.

“That being said, if you’re going to add more girls into this dynamic, you better do it quick, Dad.” Stella tells you, before not-so subtly looking at Brooke. “The transition of adding new girlfriends may not be as smooth as it was with us, if we have a more concrete way of doing things in the future.” Stella explains.

“Stella has a point. Do it while we still have rose-colored glasses on, and red flags just look like flags; because maybe the opposite is true, and when the going gets tough it gets worse because there’d be too many cooks.” Tanya warns you, before also not-subtly glancing at Brooke.

“Right now, though? Four hearts are better than one.” Tanya says to reassure everyone on the table after the grim warning she just gave.

“Okay, okay, okay. Got it. You all love each other.” Brooke says with a tone of fake annoyance, but the smile on her face signifying her happiness for the four of you is genuine. “My fifth wheel alert is blaring though. Can we talk about something else?” Brooke jokes.

“Sure. How about you two? How was your date?” Tanya asks Brooke, and Brooke blushes from Tanya calling it a date.

“There better not have been any funny business.” Stella jokes.

“If there was funny business, what’s the penalty?” Brooke jokes back.

“You need to tell me with very detailed descriptions what funny business went on first before I can promulgate my judgment and impose a penalty.” Stella answers Brooke, getting an amused smile from Brooke.

“Is that your word of the day, Stella? Promulgate?” Cassie jokes, making Brooke and Tanya laugh.

“Yeah. It was. I saw it as your last google search asking what it meant, so I decided to use it in a sentence for you.” Stella quips back.

“You got that sentence from google too?” Cassie’s not backing down anymore.

“Okay, I’m refereeing this tangent and I’m calling it a draw.” you cut your daughter off from continuing.

“She can’t draw with me! We’re keeping score here. It’s four-twenty to sixty-nine right now, I can’t let her catch up.” Stella jokes back.

“Real mature.” Cassie tells Stella, and they both just end up sticking their tongues out at each other.

“At least Stella’s back to normal.” Tanya observes, and you can’t disagree. It seems as if Stella has set aside her emotions after this one-upping match with Cassie, and forgot she was furious at her mom just a moment ago. You have to thank Cassie for that.

“Seriously though, how was your date?” Tanya repeats her question, which gets Stella’s attention once more. “Great therapy session.” Brooke says as a reply, which gets curious looks from your girlfriends.

“Bad date.”

Author’s Note: The line about red flags looking like flags when seen through rose colored glasses is from Bojack Horseman.