The journey home

It didn’t take a lot of convincing to get your drink back from Emma once you whispered your apologies in her ear and promised she’d get to see the kiss between you and Grace later tonight once she fell asleep.

Grace didn’t seem to mind that Emma had joined you in the back but you were both on your best behaviour as the mood felt too calm to start anything up at the moment. Emma rested her head on your shoulder and her hand fell on your lap, letting you lace your fingers together and relax as Grace pulled the car onto the freeway.

You felt like you had a lot to think about but after your talk with Grace, you felt mentally exhausted from spilling your guts and just sitting here with Emma at your side let you slowly recharge your batteries.

You didn’t even realise when but as your focus drifted over to listening to Emma’s breathing at the side of you, your eyes slowly closed and you found yourself drifting off and letting your body relax.

Normally you would have bolted upright after accidentally falling asleep but you felt Emma move, the disappearance of her warmth from where she had been hugging you finally rousing you slowly out of unconsciousness.

With the KDK perks, sleep had been something you needed less and a nap like this was something it said you no longer needed. Taking in your situation as you awoke however, told you that it had been something you had desperately needed.

It felt like your earlier worries and nervousness had left and having that clear separation between your weekend with Izzy and everything else was just what you needed to get back into the swing of things.

You didn’t know if it was just having a new perspective or if the nap had given you some sort of system reboot but you weren’t about to dig too deep into your thoughts to find out when you were feeling better than you had all afternoon.

From looking out the window you could tell you were pretty close and while the sun was no longer high in the sky, you still had an hour or two of daylight that would last until after you made it home.

Emma was in a similar state to you and was rousing herself from her sleep, not adjusting quite as quickly as you were. She briefly looked around and then turned back towards you, giving up entirely and just cuddling back up next to you. You could only smile to yourself after that as you didn’t blame her for her choice and feeling the warmth of her body return was a welcome feeling.

You heard Grace chuckle to herself as she had witnessed the scene but her eyes mainly stayed focused on the road ahead of you. Her drink was almost empty and based on your estimate from what you could see outside, you were only about 5 minutes away from home.

It wasn’t much of a warning but you texted Mom and Sarah that you would be back soon while trying not to move too much for Emma’s sake. It was still early enough that you would be able to join them for dinner but given your late message, you knew there was a chance you would need to make something for yourself even with your message.

“What’s the plan when you get back?” you whispered to Grace, not knowing what either she or Emma had in mind once they got home.

“Unpack, eat, freshen up and probably head over to the gym to see how things have been. I hate to be a stickler, especially after the weekend we’ve had but, you did say you’d do shifts on Sundays and Mondays.” Grace replied, jogging your memory of what you had said with everything else going on before she quickly continued.

“I’m not forcing you or anything…” she went to add, struggling to toe the line between her business and personal feelings.

“No you’re right and I’ll gladly join you if you are happy with me going down there with you. I’m sure Mom will have a few questions about the trip so I might need a bit of time to fill her in on some of the less secret activities we got up to” you replied, taking into account that you would have an easier time unpacking compared to Emma and Grace.

“Yeah that’s fine. What are you gonna tell her by the way?” Grace questioned, knowing that most of the weekend which hadn’t been dedicated to your goals regarding your father, had been filled with you, her and Emma getting each other off in various ways.

“She already knows about me and you. And me and Emma. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say the three of us did things together. I’m not gonna go into details either. I’ll avoid outright saying anything unless she asks and we did enough ‘normal’ activities if I need to pull stories from them.” you explained, not having prepared what you were going to say as you weren’t sure what direction Mom was going to go in.

“Okay, that’s fine with me. Just let me know how much you do end up telling her so we are all on the same page” Grace replied, sounding somewhat relieved that you weren’t planning on revealing everything right out of the gate.

Emma relaxed her hold on you as you and Grace continued talking, the sounds of your voices helping her to stay awake even if she didn’t want to. You thought about changing the topic to something that would definitely attract her attention but you had one last thing you wanted to confirm before you did make it home.

“And what about you? If my Mom ends up asking you for details, do you think you will be telling her the truth? I’m fine being an open book so the decision does come down to you really” you asked, trying to find out how much she and Mom shared with each other.

“...I won’t lie to her but I’ll skirt around the topic most likely. Or I’ll get her to reveal some of the stuff you and her have done together. She’s said very little about that so if that’s the price for getting her to talk then I’ll give her the details.” Grace revealed, giving you the insight you wanted.

“That’s fine with me as well” you said in agreement, nodding along as your attention turned to the view out of the window.

You could now fully recognise where you were and the streets were only getting more and more familiar. You did your best to rouse Emma from her groggy state and before you knew it, you were heading down your street and Grace stopped the car so she could reverse onto her driveway.

It took some coaxing but you got Emma to detach herself from you and after giving her a quick kiss on the forehead, she got out of the car on her own and she headed to their front door, leaving just you in the car as Grace went to get your bag for you.

Authors note: And that ends the weekend trip arc(if you can call it an arc). Like every part of this story, it ended up being longer than I expected it to be but I think it gave me a chance to write some scenes I don’t think I would have been able to normally write. As always, I really do genuinely appreciate the support from everyone and I wouldn’t have made it this far without you all :)