Page 14 of Make Her Mine

“It was the late 90s. I didn’t have health insurance. I really had no choice but to know who her father was.” Another chuckle. “Keith was just a friend I met while he was doing his PhD at UCLA, and I was working in a coffee shop on campus. I wanted a kid, and after we talked about it a few times, he volunteered.”

Nora felt her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. “That sounds risky as hell.”

“Well, it would have been, except we were not at all each other’s types.” Esme gave her a significant look. “We got tested, and we managed to make it work enough times to produce Holly. Keith went back to Australia after his doctorate was done and I got my girl all to myself.”

“So he’s not involved.” Nora was amazed at how forthcoming and even friendly Esme was being, and she couldn’t resist being nosy. “A faraway gay Australian PhD father sounds like the perfect setup.”

“It really was. But he did meet Holly later, when she was a teenager, and helped her get her Australian passport. She moved there to stay with him in Brisbane after she graduated high school.”

“You must miss her,” Nora ventured.

Esme shrugged, but there was a faraway look in her eyes. “I do, of course. But she’s a very talented surfer, and Australia has some of the best surfing in the world. So she’s following her dreams. I’d be a terrible parent if I didn’t encourage that.”

That made sense. And was an admirable stance. Nora felt certain that Esme hadn’t told her daughter about her troubles, not wanting to make the girl feel like she had to come home and support her mother. But then, Esme had one hell of a support system here already. From her Lounge employees and her regulars, and even local businesses. Hell, even two of the Fairchilds were on her side.

Nora wondered what that kind of support felt like. She’d always had to claw her way through and up on her own. Her own family had been financially supportive up through college, but otherwise were a holidays-only kind of folks, so she rarely saw them. And they hadn’t exactly been the warm and cuddly parent type anyway. She’d bet anything Esme had been a very attached mother.

Suddenly, it occurred to Nora to do some mental math. “You were a single lesbian mother when you opened up this place?”

“I wondered how long it would take you to get there.” Esme smirked. “Yes. Holly was three when I started trying to figure out how to open up my dream sapphic community hub. I was visiting banks and landlords with a toddler clinging to my skirt hem. In the early 2000s, though, that was a surprising asset. They wanted to help a scrappy, young, marginalized mom with a can-do attitude. What a time to be alive that was.”

Nora could picture it absolutely perfectly in her head. The neatly dressed plucky bohemian mother, less gray in her hair but no less steel in her spine. The tiny towheaded daughter in some kind of colorful romper, one hand clutching a wad of her mother’s long skirt and her thumb firmly in her tiny mouth. Yes, that was a vision any California businessman would have been hard put to resist at that time. They could be dreadfully easy to manipulate, as Nora knew herself.

Easy to manipulate… She sat up straight and shook her head. Her personal interest and attraction to Esme had blinded her. “You’re telling me all of this for a reason.”

“You asked,” Esme pointed out, but there was something a little too frank about the look in her eyes.

“Yes, I did.” And she’d also been braced for some form of antagonism since she’d arrived. Esme had softened enough earlier to invite her here to eat and talk, but that didn’t mean Nora had to relax entirely. She wanted to be ready in case she said something to set Esme off. And she’d thought that eventually, Esme would get annoyed at her nosiness.

Yet, that hadn’t happened. Esme hadn’t told her to where to shove her questions. She’d answered them in full detail, friendly, forthright, and matter of fact. Nora frowned. “What are you playing at?”

“Uh, nothing. Weren’t you the one who said it might be good for us to find some kind of non-antagonistic ground?” Esme set down her container of noodles and leaned forward, her hands gripping the edge of the desk. “I am trying to meet you halfway here.”

Nora inhaled and held her breath for a moment while she thought. What she wanted to say would definitely start a fight, so she had to find a better way to put it. She breathed out and chose her words with care. “I feel like you have an agenda here, with what you’re telling me.”

Esme threw her hands in the air. “You asked me questions! I answered! What agenda could I possibly…” Her eyes went wide. “Oh, come on.”

“I just think—” Nora began, but stopped when Esme shook her head violently, her curls flying.

“You ‘just think’ that I’m naïve enough to believe that you could be swayed by the can-do story of a lesbian mommy and her baby girl just trying to make their way in a cold, hard world.” Esme snorted. “Please! Give me some credit. I have been nothing but direct with you about my feelings and intentions. Why the hell would I resort to cheap, manipulative tactics like that now?”

I fucked up, Nora realized. Of course Esme wouldn’t consciously manipulate a situation. She, Nora, absolutely would. But Esme was not Nora. Esme was making a true effort to keep the peace that Nora herself had asked for, and now Nora had gone and blown it. What to do?

While she thought, Esme moved to push herself off of the desk. Nora guessed that her goal was to squeeze past and leave, but the office was just so small, and they were so close. Esme’s feet hit the floor, and Nora saw consternation flash across her face as she realized she’d landed standing between Nora’s thighs.

Nora seized her opportunity and grabbed Esme by the hips. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, crumpling the slippery, stretchy material of Esme’s skirt under her fingers. Their eyes met.

She expected Esme to push her away, to squeeze her way to the door and stomp out.

To have Esme reach her hand out and stroke it over Nora’s hair, down her cheek and along her jawline, then cup Nora’s chin and hold it with surprising firmness… that was a surprise.

Nora held her breath.

Esme didn’t know what had possessed her. Not at any point today, but especially not now.

She held Nora’s chin in her hand, her thumb stroking over Nora’s cheek. The energy between them tonight wasn’t as explosive as it had been Friday, but it was no less undeniable. Esme knew she should still be angry at the vague accusation of manipulation Nora had leveled at her, but at this moment all she could do was stare into the clear blue depths of her eyes.

Esme had such a weakness for a strong woman who wasn’t afraid to be a little subservient sometimes.

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