RP: Lunch date Date: June 6, 2012 Characters: Erica Allen, Neve Stadheim Location: Restaurant in Fort Worth Status: Private Rating: PG Summary: Neve and Erica meet for lunch. Completion: Complete
There was some comfort in the routine, Erica thought, of having lunch with Neve every week, or nearly every week. There were times when things would come up that would prevent them from getting together one-on-one, but even if they didn't manage to get together for lunch, they still saw each other at the house if she was hanging out with Ezra or whatnot. They usually got together on Fridays, but this week was different. Today was different.
Today marked the one year anniversary (though that made it sound far more pleasant than it actually was) of the night she met Neve. That wasn't the unpleasant part. No, the circumstances of that meeting was, the fact that one year ago today Joanne -her mother- tracked her down and made contact and complete threw her life out of balance was the unpleasant part. It had triggered a kind of domino effect in her life, though. It had broken something inside of her, a dam of some sort, so that she could no longer hold all of her worries and insecurities and true desires for her life in. What she'd gone through after meeting her mother for the first time had opened the door for her to let people, friends in for the first time, to let them get to know who she really was, where she'd come from. Without all of that, would she have been able to open up to J.J. the way she had? Without that practice, would it have even seemed possible? She didn't know, couldn't she supposed, but she was glad that it had all happened.
And now Erica was going to get married. In just over three months, she realized with a moment of panic as she drove to the restaurant where she and Neve had agreed to meet today because she'd had appointments scheduled most of the day on Friday and wouldn't have a flexible lunch hour. That was the excuse she'd given, though she wasn't sure if Neve saw through it or not. Would Neve remember that they'd first met one year ago tonight when Neve and her partner had answered a 911 call to her apartment? She wasn't sure if she wanted Neve to remember.
It was storming, hot and rainy - just another Texas summer storm. She was used to them, having lived in the area her entire life, but that didn't mean she enjoyed driving in them. Still, she wanted to see Neve today, and she and J.J. had dinner plans tonight, assuming they both managed to get off work at their scheduled times. Erica really wasn't surprised when she pulled into the nearly empty parking lot of the restaurant, having figured that not many people would venture out to go to lunch. What did surprise her was that she didn't see Neve's car, as Neve was almost always early. She used an umbrella as she got out of her car, not wanting to soak through her work clothes, and hurried into the restaurant, smiling as the hostess seated her and gave her a menu to peruse while she waited for Neve.