Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Texas (FF, rom, nosex), by Medea (medeafk@hotmail.com)

   "You missed the exit," she sighed.

   "What?  I thought we had another mile to go."

   We were driving cross-country, on our way to her parents' house for
their wedding anniversary.  The idea had been to make it all in one day,
starting Friday morning, but I was called in to work after the mail server
started having fits, and it was lunchtime before I managed to get out of
there again.  A few hours after dark, we still had a ways to go, so Beth
suggested that we stop for the night at a motel in the next town, but
evidently I'd driven right past the exit.  This is a problem when you're in
the middle of nowhere.

   "There's nothing else for miles.  Can we turn around and go back?"

   "Yeah, I think so.  Hold on."

   She sighed again, and I glanced over, a little concerned.  "Everything
okay?"

   "I...  I don't know."

   "We'll be to the motel in just a bit."

   She nodded, silent.

   I continued until I found a safe place to turn around, then headed back
the way we'd come.  Five minutes later, we were at the exit again, and this
time I turned off and found the motel my girlfriend remembered from
previous trips.

   We checked into a room at one end of the building, and carried our bags
inside.  It was definitely a low-end place, but the room didn't seem too
scary.  No giant spiders, and the paint was mostly intact.

   Beth flopped onto the bed and lay there staring at the ceiling. 
Concerned, I sat down next to her and started to stroke her head.  "What's
wrong?"

   "I should call and tell them we won't be there until tomorrow."

   "That sounds like a good idea.  But that's not what's bothering you, is
it?"

   "I want them to like you."

   I blinked.  "We've had dinner with your parents before, when they came
to visit.  I didn't get the impression they had a problem with me."

   "I don't think they took you seriously.  We'd only been together a
month, but now it's been half a year and we're living together.  I think
they still expect me to grow out of this lesbian thing."

   I bent down and kissed her on the forehead.  "Hon, it'll be okay.  I've
dealt with parents before, including my own.  They'll get used to it, but
I'm not going to abandon you if they don't."

   This didn't seem to help her.  "I'm being silly, I know I am.  But
sometimes I wonder if they're right.  What if I wake up some day and I want
the husband and the kids and the SUV, and all of this looks like youthful
foolishness?  You're the first woman I've ever been with.  Maybe it will
turn out to be a phase in the end."

   I smiled despite myself.  "Does it feel like a phase?"

   "Oh, I don't know.  Not right now, but..."

   "You worry too much.  Anyhow, isn't that always the gamble with love? 
You can't know how you'll feel, years down the road.  You just have to
trust that it works out."

   "How can you be so confident about this?  You said yourself that
deciding to move in together was new and scary."

   "Age brings wisdom, or at least better bullshitting skills?  I do worry,
sometimes, but then I remember that I love you, and I'm incredibly
attracted to you, and it's enough." I paused, hand resting against the side
of her face.

   She looked up at me and smiled.  "So as long as the sight of you still
makes me weak in the knees, everything will be fine?"

   I grinned.  "Something like that." I stretched out on the bed beside her
and nuzzled in at her neck.  She shivered and tilted her head back.

   "You're beautiful," I whispered.

   She sighed, looking more relaxed.  "There's way too much pressure to
have it all figured out, isn't there?  From my parents, from society,
from...  from myself.  Fuck that, I give up.  I'm having fun."

   I responded by kissing her neck.

   She turned to look at me.  "I really do need to call them."

   "And then?"
   She sat up and reached for the phone, and laughing, said, "We'll see."