Page 57 of So Not My Type

“Don’t look behind you. Just keep running!” Sophie’s lungs emptied, and she scrambled to get the keys out of her pocket. The key fob took more than one click to open, and her heartnearly stopped. She dropped into the car, Ella did the same, and Sophie squealed out of the parking lot.

“I can’t believe we just did that!” Ella pushed the back of her head into the seat and brought her palms to her cheeks. “I’ve never done anything like that before… and shit… God, this feels good. This feels so wrong. Does this feel wrong to you? But also incredible? I can’t believe we outran the cops!” She dropped her hands from her face and her legs stomped against the floor, glee transferring from her voice to her legs. “This is AMAZING!”

“It feels good to be bad, huh?” Sophie pulled back onto I-5 South. “What would your dad say?”

“I think he’d be proud.” Soon her breath evened out. “Holy shit. Do you think the police will find us?”

Traffic surrounded them, but no police cars. “No, I think we’re good.” Sophie actually knew they were good. The sirens were a happy coincidence, and nothing to do with her and Ella’s little escapade on the greens.

When Sophie talked to Remi yesterday, everything had fallen into place. She’d remembered Remi telling a story a few months ago about one of her regulars who managed a golf course, who said he owed Remi his life after Remi had introduced him to his fiancée the year prior.

All Sophie asked was if Remi could find out if she could drive a golf cart without being a member. That inquiry morphed into a three-way text string where the manager jumped on the first-date bandwagon. Soon, the three devised a plan where Sophie would pretend to break in and he’d pretend to chase after them after giving her enough lead time. He mapped out the office location, which key to take, and said he’d put the golf cart in slot 16. Everything else simply fell into place.

Maybe Sophie would tell Ella sometime about how tonight came together. But for now, she fed off of Ella’s excitement.

Ella stroked her thumb on Sophie’s upper thigh. “I think we’ve packed everything we could into today,” Ella started, and looked down at her hand grazing Sophie’s leg. “Is there anything else on the agenda?”

The agenda, work, this,us, has all led to the now.She was ready, she was sure, as sure as she was ever going to be. A hard lump grew in her throat, and she tried to discreetly swallow. As the car lights drove by and she neared the exit, she inhaled a quick breath and exhaled through her nose. “If you want, we can go back to my place.”

TWENTY-TWO

SOPHIE

Well, she said yes. And not just any yes, but an enthusiastic, breathy, sugar-dripping, resounding yes. Sophie held Ella’s hand from the garage to the elevator to outside her apartment door. When she had to drop it to open the door, she missed the warmth of her touch immediately.

“Wow… this place is so warm and homey. The colors, everything. I love it.” Ella tugged her shoes off at the door and continued scanning the apartment. “It’s great.”

Sophie’s placewasgreat. After she’d saved for a year to make sure she had a proper nest egg, she’d moved into this apartment at twenty-one and couldn’t imagine moving out. The place was everything she wanted—modern, warm, quiet. Yet, she couldn’t help but think of Ella’s gazillion-square-foot bedroom, her kitchen island the size of a king bed, and wondering if Ella was secretly comparing it to her own place.

But as Ella stood in the corner, a genuine perma-grin forming, all signs indicated that she really did like Sophie’s apartment.

“Can I get you something to drink? Eat?” Sophie fidgeted with her key before placing it on the hook. Everything sludged in slow motion. She was pretty sure if Ella felt the way she did, theycould skip all this formality and just move toward the bedroom. But suggesting that felt like a player move, and Sophie was seriously out of practice.

Jesus, her hands needed to stop sweating. She was a career woman with a great apartment, great job, great friends… not some teen about to lose their virginity. She’d had sex before, dammit. Sure, infrequent at best, but she wasn’t clueless how this happened. “Not sure what I all have. Life of a bachelorette, am I right? Probably like raspberry soda, coffee, which I know you won’t have, um…” Sophie rested her forearm on top of the open fridge door and strummed her fingertips across the top. “Let’s see… let’s see… leftover Chinese, but we might want to skip that. Probably way past its expiration. Oh, cheese? Scrambled?—”

A gentle hand on her hip broke her last words. Ella’s fingertips fanned her side, and she rested her chin on Sophie’s shoulder. “Raspberry soda sounds perfect.” Her voice was a whisper, calm and collected, and everything Sophie needed to drop her rigid shoulders.

She grabbed two sodas and moved to the couch. Ella’s footsteps followed her, and once they sagged onto the sofa, Ella skimmed her finger across Sophie’s stockings.

“Are you okay?” Ella asked.

Sophie took a sip, the bubbles fizzing her throat. “Honestly? I’m freaking out a little. Like, I love this.” She motioned between the two. “I’ve had the most incredible time with you. And, ahem, I think we’re maybe thinking the same, but I’m not sure, and sometimes I get super in my head about things, and it’s been a long time…”

Ella rested her elbow on the couch backing and leaned her head into her hands. “Do you want to have sex, with me, tonight?”

Wow.Well, she just said it. Bluntly, firmly, with zero trepidation in her words. “Well… um… if we’re both feeling that…” She scraped her thumbnail against her other thumbnail. “It’s kind of been a long time.”

Ella raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? How long?”

Why was she embarrassed? She felt the pink rise to her cheeks, and she gulped down more drink to counteract the heat filling her face. “Like a year ago, just a quick, one-night thing. And before that, honestly, a handful of times in my adulthood.”

The information seemed to settle on Ella as she slowly grinned. “Oooh… was it hot?”

Huh?

“The one-night thing. Was it hot?” Ella’s expectant wide eyes flickered with deviancy.

“You don’t really want to hear this, do you?” The last thing Sophie would want to hear was about a partner’s former escapades.

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