Page 87 of Love Is…?

“I’d like that, too.”

“Right. Good. Confirmed.” Tessa threw a wide-eyed gaze at Jayde and blinked.

Jayde squeezed her hand. “How about I go first?”

Tessa shook her head, then disentangled her hand so she could reach into the rapidly dwindling bowl of Smarties, and popped four into her mouth. She gestured to her face. “Fortification.”

Jayde laughed. “Do you need it?”

“Chocolate? Absolutely.”

Jayde poked her in the ribs. “Fortification. We don’t need to talk if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, but I do,” Tessa said emphatically. “Okay. So, here goes.” She pointed. “I know you suggested that you would gofirst but I’ve eaten the last blue Smartie so I’m feeling very brave.” She reclaimed Jayde’s hand. “I suck at communicating, which is a bold start to our conversation but there it is. More to the point, I don’t communicate well to lovers about the sex part. To my own detriment.” She scoffed. “I don’t even communicate with myself about that.” She exhaled mightily. “Right. That’s a start.”

Jayde’s eyes never left Tessa's. “My turn. So, my biggest hang-up is that I don’t communicate with a lover either because, if I do, I think that I’ll have to take it further into relationship land, so therefore I don’t communicate. It’s sex and nothing else.” Her voice wobbled slightly at the end.

“Oh, sweetie,” Tessa murmured, and pressed into Jayde so that she could wrap her arms around her.

“We’re a pair,” Jayde said, leaning her head on Tessa’s.

“I think I’d like to be,” Tessa said quietly, then she sat up. “I have more to share.” She shot finger guns, then, in the same action, curled her fingers into her palms, and gave an affirmative hum.

“My communication style, or lack thereof, is that I’m always on the back foot. That happened on Saturday night. I’m so sorry.”

Jayde raised an eyebrow. “No sorries.”

Tessa grimaced. “Sor—.” Then she grimaced again. “I didn’t tell you what I liked. I don’t tell any lover what I like.” She gave a derisive snort. “Not that there have been heaps of those.” She flipped her hand. “Anyway, I stay in the negative. I say what Idon’twant to happen. What Idon’tlike. Never what Idolike. It’s so silly. It’s always at the point when the thing I don’t like is about to happen, and the entire evening, morning, bed situation, comes crashing to a halt, and more often than not, someone leaves.” She shrugged. “In Saturday’s situation, it was me.”

Jayde inhaled carefully. “Wow.”

“Yep. See why I left? Saved both of us from decades of therapy.” She attempted a deadpan look, but a wobbly smile fell on her lips.

Jayde tipped her head.

“You don’t enjoy yourself because of what might happen?”

“Bingo.”

“That’s complicated and stressful.”

“You have no idea.” Tessa released Jayde’s hand and pressed her fingers at her eyelids, then slid her hands down her face.

“Sounds like we’re both a bit complicated,” Jayde said quietly, and Tessa looked up. “And yet here we are not being complicated.”

“Not pretending is not being complicated. We haven’t been pretending for a while now.”

“Bingo,” Jayde said, repeating Tessa’s word with a quirk of her lips. Tessa squeezed Jayde’s thigh, then rubbed it absently.

“I need to tell you what I don’t like, even though I just said I shouldn’t saydon’tanym?—”

“Tess, it’s okay. Tell me.”

Tessa squished her lips together. “Okay, So, I don’t like anyone to go, you know, inside.” She glanced at Jayde. “I know that makes me part of a teeny minority as far as the sapphic community goes.”

Apart from the ticking of the clown clock on the kitchen wall that freaked Tessa out but Angel refused to get rid of, there wasn’t a single sound. Tessa waited. And waited. Finally, she had to know.

“Aren’t you going to ask why?” she said, then swallowed, and stared into Jayde’s eyes.

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