Page 51 of Sanctuary

Rosie wrinkled her nose. “Just a friendship?”

“Yes. For now. I’ve come to realize that I dived in too soon with the lawyer. We had an instant attraction, and we based a whole relationship on it. But after the sex faded, which wasn’t long after we’d gotten married, we didn’t have all that much to talk about, and we had no common interests.”

“Lesbian bed death. It’s a curse.”

Lori shrugged. “I don’t think it was that. Sex has just never been that important to me.”

“Really?” Rosie looked baffled.

“Really. It’s not that big a thing for more people than you might think,” Lori said. “The problem was, without a lot of sex, which was a big thing for the lawyer, there was nothing to keep us together.”

“It sounds like you’re taking the blame for her cheating on you.”

Lori shook her head. “No, I’m definitely not saying that. She should’ve told me that she wasn’t happy, and we could’ve separated without all the acrimony of infidelity.”

“Or you could’ve stayed together and agreed to have an open relationship.”

“I’ve thought about that, but I know now that I wasn’t getting anything from the marriage. She didn’t support me, she wasn’t interested in what I was doing at work or in my limited spare time, and we had no shared hobbies. If any of that had been different, I might’ve considered the option of her sleeping with other people.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Rosie said. “I couldn’t share someone. I want to be all things to one person and for that person to be all things to me. Maybe that’s why I’m still single; maybe I’ve got unrealistic expectations.”

“No, I don’t think so. To be honest, I’m not sure why you’re single, but it’s not because of your expectations, which you’re entitled to and should stick to. I think all relationships are different, and people have to find the right balance for themselves. And that’s easy to say and hard to achieve.” She used a spoon to push the foam down the glass and into the last half of her coffee before she stirred it. “But you should stick to your standards and keep looking.”

“So you’re saying you have new standards now, and Gabe isn’t anywhere near them?”

Lori shook her head, perhaps a little too vehemently. “I’m saying it’s different with Gabe. I want to build a friendship and find out what common interests we’ve got.”

“But you’re attracted to her, aren’t you?”

Lori pictured Gabe getting out of her truck the first time they’d met, and she blew out a long breath. “Like a north to south pole magnet.”

“The same way you were attracted to the lawyer?” Rosie asked.

She thought about that for a second longer than she’d needed to, because the answer in her head had been instantaneous. “Gabe is like a neodymium magnet. The lawyer’s was ferrite.”

“I have no idea what that means or how you do. Is that a no?”

“Neodymium magnets are up to seven times stronger than ferrite, so no, it’s not the same level of attraction at all. I had to do some research for the strongest magnets for doors to our elephant enclosures in Koh Samui.”

“Ah, of course, and you can’t forget it.”

Lori shrugged. “Even if I wanted to. And I can tell you I was an eight-year-old using screechy dial-up internet on a Power Mac G4 500 cube, eating imported Cap’n Crunch’s peanut butter cereal.”

“God, I remember that stuff. It was like eating caramelized razor-blade sugar.”

“Yep. It ripped the roof of your mouth off, didn’t it?” Lori laughed at the memory, grateful that it was one of the good ones given the subject of their conversation. “But it was so addictive, like the cereal version of cocaine. I used to eat it dry by the handful.”

“Ha! Me too! And that weird film it left on your teeth… Jeez, I have no idea why I ate it.”

“It was my mom and dad’s one concession to junk food.”

Rosie shook her head and motioned to the huge clock on the wall. “We’re going to be late if you don’t get back on topic.”

“Right. Gabe. I was saying that I want to build strong foundations of a friendship with her, slowly, and if that works out, and I’m still attracted to her too, then I’ll see what the future holds.”

“What if that takes so long that Gabe has been snapped up by someone else?”

“Then I’ll wait, or I’ll move on.” Lori swallowed the last of her coffee and smiled inwardly. If she didn’t put pressure on her friendship with Gabe, it would be so much easier and so much more enjoyable to get to know her. “The process I’ve got to go through to get to the other side of this is for myself, not for someone else. Gabe can’t be the light at the end of the tunnel. That light has to be finding myself again, discovering what I really want from a relationship. If Gabe’s not still around, or if she’s with someone else, then we aren’t meant to be. And maybe things will change later. But I’ve spent seven years of my life trying to make someone else happy when they didn’t even want to be with me. I won’t do that again. I need to know that there’s more than just a physical attraction that will fade as my boobs sag, my skin wrinkles, and my Buddha belly gets bigger.”

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