Page 71 of Shifting Gears

“Chickened out?” Nora supplies unhelpfully. “Seems to be a family trait.”

Sarah lifts her head to glare through the darkness. “We were trying to keep it low-key. Just for a while. You know what this town is like with gossip.”

“Intimately,” Nora says wryly.

Dani spreads her arms wide, pulling Naomi and Sarah both into a hug that Sarah seems desperate to get out of. “I’m so happy for you guys! I’ve been telling Sarah to ask you out for ages.”

Naomi laughs gently when Dani lets them both go, reaching out to stroke Sarah’s short hair. “You know, I actually made the first move in the end.”

“Me, too!” Nora says. “What is it with Coopers and stalling out at the finish line?”

Naomi offers her a high-five, laughing, while Dani and Sarah trip over each other’s words trying to argue the point.

The distraction isn’t enough to quiet Nora’s mind for the night. Dani’s bedroom is one area of the house still closed to the public, and, inside it, Nora is helpless against the thoughts that still press in at the edges: CromTech’s mistakes, the project outline sitting on her hard drive, the vitriol in Ryan’s voice, everyone’s easy agreement in hating the company Nora has worked so hard to run. The conversation she had with Dani under the tree house, about how development would affect the area.

Nora stays up long into the night after Dani has fallen asleep, typing frenetic notes into her phone until the battery finally gives out in the morning’s early hours. New ideas that could use her eco-tech prototypes to benefit Riverwalk pile up faster than she can write them down, but none solve her problem completely. None would provide the funding she came here for.

Funding or not, though, the knowledge that Nora has been avoiding for weeks has solidified in the wake of last night.

Her original proposal stopped being viable a long time ago.

* * *

The notes stay untouched in Nora’s phone for a while. She fully intends on sitting down to find a way to fold them into herproposal—she tries several times to set aside afternoons meant to sort out all the tangled ideas she jotted down. But as the last few weeks of August slip away and their time together dwindles, Dani seems intent onnotletting Nora spend her time working.

Dani takes more and more days off at the shop, which Nora is sure Sarah is less than thrilled about. She hardly ever sleeps at her own place throughout the whole month, staying with Nora instead, and Nora ensures that her needs and wants are met within the walls of the rental house or when they venture into town together. Whenever Dani wakes up to find Nora working away on her laptop, she single-mindedly finds new ways of distracting her until the proposal is the last thing on her mind.

The distractions aren’t only of Dani’s making, though.

Nora had almost forgotten about the package she ordered two weeks ago until it arrives in the hands of the very person it’s meant for. It arrives closer to the end of the summer than she’d like, meaning there’s less time to use it to its fullest potential, but Nora still intends on doing her best.

Dani knocks on her door with a coffee in one hand and a small box in the other, and she offers both to Nora.

“This was on your doorstep,” Dani says as she steps inside, wiggling her boots off by the heel and leaving them at the door as she’s done a hundred times. “Order anything exciting?”

Nora can tell by the package’s weight that it’s exactly what she thinks it is, and her excitement mounts as Dani opens the fridge and grabs the jug of iced tea. Nora’s fingers itch to open the flimsy cardboard. “I was actually hoping that you’d be here when it arrived.”

Dani looks at Nora quizzically over the rim of her glass. “Me? Why?”

“It’s sort of a gift for both of us.”

Dani looks intrigued, pulling her keys out of her pocket and selecting the sharpest one. “Well, let’s open ’er up!”

When Dani pulls the contents out of the box, ripping off the encasing plastic, there’s a moment of pointed silence before she starts laughing.

Nora can admit that the sizable strap-on she bought does look a bit silly in Dani’s hands with its leather harness dangling toward the floor. But Nora is fairly sure that, given a few minutes and some visual stimulation, Dani won’t be laughing for long.

“Sorry, I just—I wasn’t expecting that. You bought us a strap?” Dani says, still chuckling. “I have one, remember?”

Nora smiles, moving closer to Dani and reaching out. Her slightly smaller hand wraps around the thickest part of the toy just under Dani’s, and she squeezes. The expensive material gives slightly under her palm.

Dani swallows hard, her laughter forgotten.

“I told you I wanted a bigger one,” Nora says, her voice intentionally low. She’s gratified by the way Dani’s eyes widen dramatically. “And this one comes with a special feature. Look.” Nora twists the toy to show off the base, which is the real reason that she purchased this model.

As a part of the design, it’s shaped into a soft silicone cushion of sorts—rather than being flat, it’s carefully curved, perfectly shaped with ridges to fit snugly against the giver’s clit behind the O-ring of the harness. “For you to grind against.”

Dani blinks rapidly. Nora can see the picture of exactly what’s being suggested form behind her eyes.

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