Page 13 of March

“Bryce, come on,” Kelsey said as she sat down next to her. “Let’s just get some donuts in Megan here, and we can talk more.You have a life to get back to. It was an amazing night, and I get that you wish it would have ended differently, but maybe that was all you were meant to have: one amazing night to help you get ready for the woman you’re meant to be with or something.”

“That’s sweet,” Megan told Kelsey.

“Thanks,” Kelsey replied with a wink, causing Megan to blush.

Bryce stood up and said, “I’ll go for lunch, but I don’t know – this feels like more than one night with someone I was only meant to know for that long.”

She didn’t want to go get beignets, and she didn’t want sandwiches or to give up on finding Sophie, but her friends were probably right. They were being logical whileshewas being emotional. Bryce wasn’t normally an emotional person. She loved food and long drives in her car, and she loved her kitchen, which she’d been slowly redoing since she’d moved into the house that she had rented for cheap from her aunt on the stipulation that she’d remodel it bit by bit as long as she lived there until her aunt was ready to sell it. The kitchen had gotten the majority of her love and attention, but she’d not neglected the bathroom, which had been straight out of the 70s before she’d redone it with up-to-date features and a fresh coat of paint, removing the hideous patterned wallpaper. Given all that, and not for the first time, either, Bryce wondered how she hadn’t known she was gay before Sean. She wasn’t a contractor or a plumber by any stretch of the imagination, but she had the ability to watch a YouTube video or read some instructions, and suddenly, she could fix something or improve it.

She worked on the house for her aunt whenever she wasn’t blogging, going on her drives, or coming up with new recipes, and she found that it filled up her time well enough that she hadn’t missed dating or trying to find a relationship. Now that she’d met Sophie, though, as ridiculous as it had sounded, sheknew what she’d been missing, so she wanted to make time for that, a relationship.

When they got to Café Du Monde, her friends talked around two small tables they’d pushed together as powdered sugar rained down on them from above instead of just being in the air and all over the ground at their feet. Bryce couldn’t focus on whatever they were talking about, though. She could only think about Sophie and how her eyes had glimmered in the low light of the bar, how it had felt to have her hand move through Sophie’s hair, and how good Sophie had felt pressed up against her body fully during their dance and again later, in their own little corner of the world. How had she managed to lose her? Bryce wouldn’t ever forgive herself; she knew that much. She wondered at what her friends had said. Was it meant to be one night? Was Sophie the kick-start she’d needed to find someone back home shewasmeant to be with? No, that didn’t feel right. In fact, it felt very, very wrong.

CHAPTER 5

When Sophie woke up that morning, she’d sent a quick email to her boss, calling in sick. She’d mentioned a headache but left out the part about there also being a heartache. It was silly; she understood that. Still, she kept replaying the whole night over and over again, starting at the piano bar, where she’d hoped to tell Monica that she was interested in returning to Arnette should there be an opportunity for her there. She’d planned to tell Monica about having no issue starting over and working her way back up, but she hadn’t gotten the chance.

Her replays moved from one bar to the other, and her mind continued to vacillate between wishing she’d not gone with Jill and being so grateful that she had. If she hadn’t gone, she wouldn’t be lying in her bed thinking about the fact that she’d had the best night of her life with someone and would never see them again. She’d be sitting at her desk right now, working and thinking about how to approach Monica for a new job. She wouldn’t be wondering if she had just met the woman of her dreams or if it was supposed to be one amazing night, and that would be all.

She wouldn’t be up and walking around her apartment thinking about how she’d compare every future woman to this stranger who hadn’t returned to the bar after all the noise and the fighting had died down. Sophie knew that for a factbecauseshehad been there. She had gone back. She’d stood there looking like a complete idiot and lost puppy for a long time, checking the time on her phone every few minutes, telling herself just one more minute, and if Bryce didn’t show up, she would go, but she’d stayed until she couldn’t stand any longer. Bryce hadn’t come back. That meant something, didn’t it?

“No, it doesn’t,” Jill said as they talked.

“Yes, it does,” she insisted as she picked up her coffee cup.

“Sophie, from what you told me, it was a pretty huge fight, and there were cops involved. Maybe she has a warrant out or something.”

“What? You think she’s, like, a murderer?” she asked.

Jill laughed and replied, “No, like a speeding ticket she never paid. Jesus, you’re dramatic, aren’t you?”

“Not usually. You met me at a weird time,” she said as she turned to look around the busy café. “Why are we here?”

“You said you called in sick, and I had time between tours, so I thought we could just ingest a ton of sugar and see if that helped.”

“I don’t think sugar is going to help me here,” Sophie replied. “But, thanks,” she added.

“So, sick, huh?”

Sophie looked up and saw Melinda standing there. She hadn’t invited her. She hardly knew the woman beyond the fact that she was a friend of Bridgette’s, Monica’s new girlfriend, that she had her own girlfriend named Kyle, and that she practically ran NOLA Guides.

“I told Mel what happened when I was at work. I hope that’s okay. I thought you could use another friend, maybe,” Jill explained.

“You met a girl last night,” Melinda said as she sat down in the metal chair next to the two of them. “I called Ky. She’s on her way for more moral support.”

Was this what it meant to have friends? Sophie hadn’t ever had a strong group of female friends before. Sure, she’d had a few friends in college and some work friends, but even growing up, her life had been more about family and obligations with that family than about friendships. She’d just met these women last night, and they were taking time out of their days to console her over losing Bryce, a woman she’d only just met, too, in a crowd of drunkards.

“Oh, I didn’t expect you to drop your lives,” she said.

“It’s my lunch break. And Ky said she needed a break, too,” Melinda replied. “So, I gotsomedetails from Jill this morning, but fill me in.”

“Should we just wait for Kyle to get here so that she doesn’t have to say it, like, a hundred times?” Jill suggested.

“Oh, good point,” Melinda agreed. “I’m going to get in line and order. Ky should be here by the time I get back. Then, you can start at the beginning.”

Sophie went to say something in response but didn’t know what. She’d sort of been told what to do by Melinda and Jill, but it made sense, and she didn’t think she had the energy to tell the story over and over again anyway. Melinda joined the long line, but Sophie watched her as she looked at the order window and moved closer to it, saying something to the woman behind it. Then, suddenly, Melinda was walking inside and around the long line.

“Did she just–”

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