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“Like, what do you even know about this stuff? Birth control? You’re aneoi tung!It was one of the first things the family taught me about you!”

“Congratulations,” Jane delivered in deadpanned English. “I do not think even your grandmother has ever said that word with such… conviction.” And Willow had said every Cantonese (and Mandarin!) variant oflesbianthere was under the sun. Even the ugly ones! “Anyway, there is a lot you do not know about me. Things your family does not know about me either. Just because I am gay does not mean I do not know a thing or two about what goes on with… the straight people.”

“Wow. Very compelling response, Auntie.”

“Call me ‘Auntie’ in English one more time, and I will rescind all of my other offers.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Look…” Jane wondered where her breath went. How was she going to power herself through this without oxygen in her poor, winded brain? “I have been in a relationship with a man before. I dare say onemuchmore intense than you have yet to experience. No offense.” She had seen what her niece was about to get up to on Saturday night and could only laugh once she detached her emotions from the situation.You deserve better, dear.Most girls Cecelia’s age didn’t know that though. That was what “cool” aunts like Jane were for, but only if she knew how to deliver such sought after knowledge. “I am not speaking from my arse when I say I know a few things.”

“You?” was all Cecelia could say.

“Yes.”

“When you were my age?”

“No.”

Cecelia was stunned silent again.

Whatever god exists, do not let me regret telling someone in my family this.“It was after my divorce with your aunt Caitlyn. Long before we got back together. I rebounded – quite momentously, let me tell you – with one of my male friends.” She would die before saying who. Cecelia had met Damon before, after all.Suppress the full-body shudder, Jane. This is not the time.“Believe it or not, I experienced all of that for the first time in mythirties.”

“Really? That’s so old.”

Suppress. All. Movements.“Only to you.”

“Wow.” Cecelia let the comforter fall off her head, half-dry hair tangling on top of her head. “I had no idea.”

“Why would you know about that? Nobody in our family knows.” Jane pointed a stiff finger in her niece’s direction. “So,you cannot tell anyone. Do you understand? Just like it is for the best that I do not tell anyone in the family about what is going on with you. Not unless you force my hand, Cece.”

She drove a dangerous bargain with her niece, but Jane had a good feeling.Offer her something, right?If this was more of an exchange than a one-way deal, then Cecelia might get over the anger she felt. Maybe they could repair this relationship sooner rather than later.

Or, at least, Jane desperately hoped.

“If you want to talk to an adult about boys, though.” Jane got up before her niece groaned in anxiety. “Try Becca. She is a lot less skittish about the subject than I am. I would say it is that unrepentant American upbringing, but… well, she can tell you. If she wants.”

“Am I still grounded?”

“Of course you are still bloody grounded. You still lied to me. But… after we get back from New York this weekend, we will discuss the terms of your grounding. I am not here to keep you from having fun and making friends in a different country.”

“No, you’re here to make sure I don’t get in trouble.”

“At least you understand it, even if it’s reluctantly.”

She left the door ajar again when she ducked back into the hallway. Jane hustled toward the kitchen before she lost the nerve to congratulate herself on handling that like apro.Because she preferred to do that in private.

“I might actually kinda know what I am doing, loves!”she texted her group chat.“Old Jane is a competent parent in some parallel universe.”

Caitlyn congratulated her. Rebecca had no idea what was going on. Jane took whatever worked.

Part 3

Menage a Perfections

Chapter 18

Rebecca