Lee had been on the phone for over half an hour. With her mother. Which meant that it felt like she had been on the phone for hours.

Lee had gotten a message from her mother that they, both of Lee's parents, were coming down to New York and they were hoping to spend time with Kevin before school started. And have dinner with the two of them.

That is how things normally went when her parents visited. There would be a dinner with the four of them (five when Rachel had still lived in the apartment), and Kevin would hang out with his grandparents around the city for a day or two. Sometimes, if they were in the city longer, Kevin was able to talk Lee into having a second dinner.

And things had been going better as the years went on, even if Lee still wasn't ready or able to spend an entire day with them.

But even if Tarin managed to avoid seeing them during their visit, Lee wasn't going to be able to hide Tarin's presence in her life. Not that she felt she needed to. But she didn't want there to end up being a fight about it like there had been with Robert with Kevin in the apartment.

So Lee had actually called her mother to tell her about what was going on. At least in as much detail as they needed to know.

And then her mother had proceeded to ask questions for the next thirty minutes. Like with Josh, her parents had never really understood what the rift was. But her mother was now asking the same questions again in different ways, and Lee was just tired of it all.

Then Lee heard the key in the door and was more than happy to use the ready excuse. "Look mum, I really need to go," she said into the phone. "Ok, yes. Ok mum. I'll see you then." Lee didn't wait to hear what else her mother said as she tried to prolong the call, she just hung up and let the phone fall to the couch beside her as her head fell back.

Summer was starting to wind down. The heat was still kind of oppressive most days, but at night there was a slight change in the air that suggested that just maybe it was going to start cooling off. It made walking home at night a lot nicer than it had been for the last month or so.

Work had been…fine. Tarin was realizing that he had a lot of perfectly average days, and there really wasn’t anything wrong with that. Life had settled into the kind of comfortable monotony that you dreamed of when life sucked, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. Sure, there was a several thousand years old mystic out there somewhere in the city, wrecking things and shredding the spiritual psyche of any spirits that got too close…but that was not an immediate concern and he was looking into it with Lee’s help. If Michael needed more help, he’d reach out.

All Tarin cared about right now was going for a run in the mornings with Lee whenever possible, going to work, and going home to hang out with Lee and Kevin before going to bed and doing it all over again.

Into the lobby Tarin went again, taking the stairs tonight because he just didn’t feel like taking the elevator, even if things there had been getting better after a few sessions with the good doctor. That was getting easier too. There were people in the lobby for once though, and Tarin didn’t want to push his luck.

Opening the door to the apartment, Tarin made his way in and dropped off his backpack and keys before making his way into the living room to see Lee on the couch with her head back.

Walking up where he could see her, Tarin put his hands on the back of the couch on either side of her head and leaned over slightly.

”Hey, you okay?”

Lee didn't move as she felt Tarin making his way into the apartment other than to close her eyes. She knew what he did when he came home because he did it every single night.

Plus, she could feel exactly where he was in the apartment.

But instead of him walking around to the front of the couch to sit down, he stopped behind her and Lee opened her eyes to look up at Tarin as his hands came to rest on the couch beside her head.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Lee said, though her voice didn't sound completely sure of that. "I just spent the last 30? 45? Minutes on the phone with my mother. They're coming to visit. And they want to have dinner."

Lee didn’t necessarily look like she was okay. Tarin didn’t think she had mentioned anything going on today that should have caused her day to be bad, but clearly something must have happened.

Lee spoke and Tarin frowned a bit at the tone. Lee had been talking to her Mom? Tarin thought back and tried to remember if Lee had done that a single other time since he’d been living in the apartment.

He honestly didn’t know for sure and this had been a long conversation.

And.

They wanted to come to dinner.

”Here?” Tarin said, leaning down to drop a quick kiss on Lee’s forehead before moving around and sitting on the couch next to her.

”Like, with us? Or just like, with Kevin?”

Tarin was gonna get more facts before he had feelings about this development.

Lee nodded slightly when Tarin asked about her parents wanting to have dinner there. But then he leaned down and kissed her forehead, and despite how bad the previous hour had been because of the long talk with her mother, Lee smiled up at him.

Finally, Tarin was moving around to the front of the couch and sitting beside her, so Lee snuggled up against his side and rested her head against his shoulder.

"Yes, they want to have dinner here," Lee said after a minute of silence. "They always do when they come to town. They will take Kevin out to do things around the city for a day or two while they're here, but they still want to have dinner with us.

"All three of us," Lee continued, moving her head to look up at Tarin. "Apparently Robert has told them I'm seeing someone, though he wouldn't tell our parents who. All he would say was, as my mother said, that I've 'made another bad dating decision'. So they want to meet you to make up their own minds."

Tarin sat down and Lee snuggled up into his side, clearly still not happy about the whole situation. Shifting slightly so he could wrap his arm around her, Tarin listened as Lee started to explain.

Her parents liked to come to town and take Kevin to do things…that was fine. They wanted to have dinner. That made sense.

With all three of them.

Tarin cringed when Lee said it, instantly apprehensive, especially considering the fact that Lee seemed so uneasy with the whole thing.

And Robert had told Lee’s parents that she was dating someone and that it was a bad decision and her parents wanted to meet him to make up their mind.

”Oh my god.” Tarin said, and it was his turn to lean his head back against the couch. ”He didn’t…”

It was one thing to just be meeting Lee’s parents, it was another to know that they were already coming in with ideas from Robert.

”What did you tell them?”

Lee nodded as she looked up at Tarin. "He did," she confirmed. "Though apparently she told him to mind his own business." Which was good, right? They'd come to their own decision about Kevin's father after being told things by Robert and had been alright with the conversation.

If her mother had told Robert to mind his own business, that had to mean they wanted to decide for themselves, right?

"What did you tell them?”

What had she said? Even though her mother had asked a lot of the same questions repeatedly, Lee had told her a lot of things in a short time.

"I told them the basics about what happened, how everything with us started," Lee replied. "And I told her who you are. Which led to a lot of questions about the rift, about the two of you, and about Kevin."

Well. That was something. Lee’s Mother had told Robert to mind his own business. Maybe everything was going to be okay.

It was at least a good sign.

Lee had told her parents the basics about how they got started. Tarin kind of wished he had heard that…

And who he was. Tarin winced a bit about that, but there wasn’t really any avoiding it was there? Especially not considering the fact that the rest of Lee’s family knew.

There had been questions then, lots of them.

”I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have to constantly explain….me.” he said a bit lamely. He wasn’t going to make a big deal out of this, Tarin decided. Lee seemed unhappy enough with the whole situation as it was. Tarin was not going to add by that by complaining.

”Well, I’m sure it will all be fine.” he said, giving Lee a little squeeze. ”When are we going to do this?”

It really would be nice to not have to explain about who she was dating. At least not beyond the normal who he is and how they met kinds of things. But the fact was, she probably would have to do all of this explaining to anyone who had known the man she had married.

"She did ask some of those questions," Lee said softly as she rested her head against Tarin's shoulder again. "But most of it seemed to be about the rift and asking about how Kevin's doing with all of it. Honestly, I'm still not sure if she understands what the rift is, but she did say she would tell my father so I don't have to go through it all again." Which Lee was actually a little surprised about when it happened.

Though Lee did know she had trouble remembering how much progress her parents, her mother in particular, had made over the years when she was stressed.

Tarin wanted to know when this dinner with her parents was going to happen. "Thursday?" Lee said simply, then held her breath. If she was nervous and worried about it, Lee wasn't sure how Tarin would react finding out it was so soon.

Well, at least most of the questions hadn’t been about him. They’d just been about the rift itself. And Kevin. Even Tarin had to admit that those were probably fair questions, but he had a feeling that Lee still hadn’t liked talking about it very much.

The subject of the rift had to be hard for people who hadn’t been there to understand. Truth be told, sometimes it was still hard for Tarin to really understand everything that had happened.

Kevin, on the other hand, seemed to take everything in stride.

”That's good at least…” he said to the news that Lee’s Mom was going to relay as much info to her Dad as possible.

Thursday. That was…soon. Tarin smiled a little bit though as Lee seemed to tense against him a bit. Was she…holding her breath?

”How can I help?” he said, giving Lee another squeeze. ”Anything.”

Lee nodded when Tarin commented it was good that her mother was going to try to explain to her father. "I'm sure there's going to be more questions," Lee replied. "But at least we aren't going to have to start from nothing again." Starting from nothing and answering every question about who Tarin was and how he was a different person from her ex-husband.

Thursday was very soon, and even without all of the questions that everyone always seemed to ask because of who they both were and were dating, Lee knew that having dinner with her parents would be a lot for Tarin. Hell, it was a lot for her much of the time. And though Tarin had been doing so much better at not running away from emotionally intense or overwhelming situations, there was a part of Lee that would not be surprised if he had done that now. At least temporarily.

So Lee smiled as she let out the breath she had held when she heard what Tarin said. "Help me figure out what to order for dinner?" Lee asked. "And try to help me not to worry too much between now and then?"

There were going to be more questions. Of course there were going to be more questions.

They wouldn’t have to start from the beginning though. That was good, Tarin supposed. How bad could it really be? Maybe Lee’s parents were just going to be curious? Maybe they wouldn’t even want to know much about him. He could absolutely do this.

”Questions make sense.” Tarin said a bit awkwardly.

Lee’s requests for help weren’t really very extensive. Help figure out what to have for dinner, and help her not worry.

”Hey, remember? The hard things are easier together. We’ve got this.”

Tarin thought for a moment, ”Do they like Italian? What about the place we went on our first date? I can also push some appointments Thursday so I can get home earlier if that would help.”

Was he nervous? Yep. Was this going to be well outside his comfort zone? Yep. Was he going to do everything he could to help? Yep.

Tarin went and repeated something that she had told him on a number of occasions when he had commented, or gone ahead and done, something on his own because it was hard or bad and he hadn't wanted to involve her in it.

Lee pulled back enough so that she could look up at Tarin with a pout. "You're not supposed to use my own logic against me," she complained. Then she leaned in and kissed Tarin. "Thank you."

They were quiet for a moment, but then Tarin started speaking again. Suggesting the Italian restaurant they had gone to for their first date. And that he could adjust some appointments around so he could get home earlier on Thursday.

"That would be amazing, Tarin," Lee said, genuinely grateful for the offer. "And they did have good food, didn't they? I'll have to pick up a take out menu so we can order.

"The good news is that means we'll have the menu so we can order again in the future," Lee smiled up at Tarin as she said that, really liking the idea.

”I prefer to call it good advice.” Tarin said, kissing Lee back and smiling. ”You're welcome. ”

Lee liked his idea and Tarin grinned happily as she seemed to brighten up. She wanted to get a takeout menu. ”I’ll stop by tomorrow after work and grab the menu, you can decide what would be best to order since I don’t have any idea how to order for a group, and I’ll snag the food on the way home Thursday.”

Lee was absolutely right that the overarching benefit of the idea was that they’d always have the takeout menu.

”We will definitely have to make good use of it…but I kind of like the homemade stuff better.”

Good advice. Sure, that's what it was when she was the one giving it. Not when it was being given to her.

But Lee didn't argue the point any further. Mainly because Tarin was doing quite a good job of alleviating her worry about her parents coming for dinner. At least at the moment. Lee knew from experience that it would certainly come back. Many times before the dinner was over.

Lee had figured she would just find some time in her day to get out and stop by the restaurant so she could get the take-out menu, but then Tarin was telling her that he could stop by the next day to get it on his way home. And that he would then grab the food on his way home on Thursday.

"That would actually be amazing," Lee said. That way they wouldn't have to depend on it being delivered. But she would be home if her parents decided for some reason that it was a good idea to get there early.

She then smiled up at Tarin again. "That chicken alfredo was actually extremely good," Lee murmured. "But there's no way I'd be able to cook anything on Thursday."

Lee paused, biting her lip for a moment in thought. "Maybe we could try again next week, though?"