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If you had asked Isabelle what her dream life would look like, living in a small studio apartment with two insanely hot women she was madly in love with probably wouldn’t have been in her top three answers, but it was still pretty much perfect.
(Well, it’d be pretty much perfect if they had more counter space in the bathroom, but for Manhattan they weren’t doing half bad.)
There was one looming issue, though: Izzy hadn’t told her mother. Alec knew, and Jace knew, and she hadn’t talked to her dad in years. Lydia was also estranged from her parents, and Maia’s parents were giant hippies who regularly sent Izzy and Lydia hand-knit sweaters. But Maryse Lightwood. Well. She was old fashioned, to put it mildly, and though it killed Isabelle to admit it, her mom’s approval meant a lot to her.
But things were getting serious with Maia and Lydia, to the point where it was more awkward not to talk to her mom about her lesbian polyamorous relationship.
So she started planning. She chickened out with the first lunch, and, well, the second. By the third, she was beginning to hate herself, and her mom had obviously cottoned to the fact that Izzy was completely crazy.
“I talked to her about taxes today,” Izzy said, slumping down into Maia’s lap in defeat.
“Look, if you don’t want to to tell your Mom about us. . .” Maia shrugged, carding her hand through Izzy’s hair. “Well, I can’t say I totally understand, but your happiness is what matters most to us.”
Lydia nodded in affirmation from where she mixing drinks in the kitchen. “I mean, I get it, my parents are giant homophobic dicks, but. Also what Maia said.”
Izzy sighed. “I’ve never been this scared about anything in my life. I just, I love you guys so much, and I want her to love you.”
“Don’t let her meet Lydia before coffee, then.”
“Hey!” Lydia shouted from the kitchen. “I’m totally going to spit in your drink.”
Izzy couldn’t help but laugh, and for a moment she forgot she had any problems at all.
(It turned out, to Izzy’s surprise, Maryse was weirdly wildly supportive of Maia and Lydia, much more than she had been with Simon. She couldn’t quite do the hand knit sweaters thing, but designer jewelry wasn’t a bad Christmas gift either.)
~
Lydia was aware that she was a bit. . . meaner than her girlfriends.
Maia and Izzy would both argue with that notion. And it wasn’t like Lydia and Maia were pushovers or anything. She once saw Maia verbally slay a construction worker who catcalled them, and she’d never been hornier than the night in the bar when Izzy had nearly broken the wrist of a guy who’d gotten too handsy. But when it came down to it, Maia and Izzy were fundamentally nice people. They were trusting, and kind, and never assumed anyone was acting with ulterior motives, despite people having given them plenty of reasons to think otherwise.
Lydia was not like that.
She’d learned growing up to be ruthless. A girl with absent rich parents didn’t get a lot of love at school, and she’d quickly figured out the easiest way to avoid bullies was to be one herself. She’d said and done a lot of things in her life she wasn’t proud of, and though she was mostly at peace with herself now, Lydia would never be as kind as Maia or as forgiving as Izzy. She wasn’t warm and fuzzy, and she didn’t have a lot of use for feelings.
For the most part, Lydia thought that was a good thing. It meant that, as long as she was around, no one would ever hurt either of her girls.
There was one giant chink in her armor though, as corny as it was: love.
So when her ex-girlfiend Johnna walked into her bar, the woman she’d left Lydia for on her arm, Lydia felt that tough exterior she’d worked so hard to build crumble away.
Izzy and Maia were at home, curled up and watching a movie; Lydia was only working this godforsaken shift because she owed Johnny coverage and he’d played hooky to go to an amusement park.
“Oh, Lydia,” she said, smiling a little too wide. “I forgot you worked here.”
It devolved from there. Words like your whore, and cold unfeeling bitch got thrown around until Johnna was getting kicked out of the bar and Lydia was being sent home for the night. When she walked in, Maia and Izzy looked up sleepily from the bed where they were obviously waiting up for her.
Lydia, to her horror, immediately burst into horrible, screeching sobs.
She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d cried. Before she could even try to get control of herself, she was being drawn in by two warm bodies.
“I’m sorry,” she hiccupped, “I just—“
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, mi amada,” Izzy said from somewhere to her left.
“Let it out,” Maia said from her other side.
And for the first time, Lydia felt okay crying.
~
Maia, much to her disappointment, woke up alone.
The bed was still warm, and the rejection letter for the fellowship that she’d spent weeks applying for, that everyone said she was a sure bet to win, was nowhere to seen. Nor were the mascara streaks on her cheeks—someone had clearly removed her makeup while slept.
Maia wasn’t one to generally feel sorry for herself. She took her lumps, and she moved on; she didn’t let herself get down for too long. But she’d wanted this so bad. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Maia had convinced herself that she could be good enough. She’d felt on top of the world as she’d ripped that letter open, Lydia and Izzy by her side. She wanted it for herself, but she’d also wanted to make Izzy and Lydia proud of her.
She stumbled into the kitchen, looking for her girlfriends. She blinked, taking in the roses scattered on the floor, and the cake from her favorite bakery was on the table. If the Congratulations icing hadn’t quite been successfully scraped off, Maia wasn’t going to say anything. A pitcher of mimosas were on the counter, and Lydia was flipping an omelette. (The best part was that Izzy was nowhere the food.”
“Hey,” she said, leaning against the wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the apartment.
They turned around to face her, Lydia cutting off the stove. “How you feeling?”
“Been better.”
Izzy cleared her throat. “We wrote you a poem.”
Maia definitely wasn’t crying. “You did?”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “It’s bad. But we wanted to show you how stupid the admissions committee how stupid they were for not seeing how awesome you are and picking you.”
“Really bad,” Izzy said, laughing a little. “But you love us anyway, and we love you.”
And, well, Maia didn’t have the fellowship she’d worked her ass off for, and she was a little concerned that her girlfriends thought that pineapple and candle rhymed. But, she thought as Lydia and Izzy wrapped her into a warm blanket and put on her favorite movie, she had something better.