Page 12 of Our Secret Summer

“You’re not a bad bisexual just for living your life,” Raffo said. “As far as I know, you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I’m sorry for not asking you before, but… are you bi? I certainly didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m so gay.” Raffo pointed two thumbs at herself. “Look at me. I’ve never been mistaken for straight in my life.” She shrugged.

“Looks can be deceiving,” Dylan said.

“Sure, but in my case, they’re not. What you see is what you get.”

An extremely hot butch, Dylan thought, but luckily didn’t say out loud because she needed to brush up on the latest lingo to check if butch was still a thing. Probably not for some people and it was impossible to know if Raffo was one of them. Dylan didn’t have the courage to ask in that moment. Besides, she wanted to ask Raffo something else.

“What about me?” Dylan put away her empty champagne glass, well aware of the speed she’d knocked it back with. “What do you see when you look at me?”

Raffo’s features folded into a grin, and she held Dylan’s gaze with an audacity that made Dylan’s pulse quicken. “I’ve definitely been getting mixed vibes,” Raffo said, her voice carrying a hint of something that made Dylan grip her glass tighter. “Although I was a lot less confused after the Ida-Burton-speaker incident.”

“Oh, god.” Dylan pressed two fingers against her forehead. “It’s this app. I have to applaud the makers as well as the marketing team because I’ve found myself completely unable to resist it.”

“I have it, too,” Raffo said. “It’s insane.”

“I’ve had a crush on Ida Burton since her very first movie,” Dylan admitted.

“And then, all of a sudden, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, she’s whispering all of that into your ears.” Raffo had the kind of knowing smile that could only come from having listened to the same story Dylan had enjoyed.

“Yeah. That’s quite something.”

They fell silent for a few minutes but it wasn’t an awkward silence. That was the other thing about Raffo. She was an easy person to be quiet with.

Dylan wanted to stay in that chair a good while longer, but she had dinner to prepare, and maybe a little break from this conversation, and its unexpected intensity, was what she needed most of all.

CHAPTER 11

Could it be? Raffo gazed into her empty glass, as though the answer lay at the bottom of it. Was Connor’s mother flirting with her? Even if she was—and it was a big if because Raffo could immediately think of about five arguments against it—Raffo wasn’t open to flirting right now. Especially not with her best friend’s mom. Not in a million years would Raffo even entertain the notion, although—admittedly—she might well have started it. It was all well and good to tell Dylan, as she had, that she wasn’t trying anything on with her, but did that stand if her actions contradicted her words? If she spent the morning painting a topless picture of Dylan—and enjoying the hell out of it?

These things were so easily misconstrued and Dylan could be feeling vulnerable in a way that made her extra sensitive to the attention of another woman. She clearly admired Raffo as a painter, there was no mistaking that.

Granted, Raffo had been riding the high of her startling painting flow so hard, that she might have failed to pick up on some things. And she wasn’t clueless enough that she couldn’t see there was some chemistry between them. That they enjoyed each other’s company in this dreamy location away from everything and everyone. A situation like this was the perfect breeding ground for heightened emotions, for feeling something inadvertent for another person that you wouldn’t even consider in normal-life circumstances. Three days ago, they’d both been in crisis. To her surprise—and delight—Raffo was feeling so much better already, and she didn’t know if it was just the surroundings, or the woman she’d been spending time with—and who took such great care of her—or a special combination of the two, but for Dylan nothing much had changed. Except for Raffo’s arrival.

There were so many reasonable explanations for a touch of flirting over a glass of champagne. For coming out as bisexual—because, why not? Raffo had done her utmost to keep a poker face, to not give away her secret glee at what Dylan was saying about herself, because a reaction might have… Raffo didn’t really know. Nor did she know what to do about this situation—this possible flirting vibe between them—so she decided to do nothing.

Moreover, it would be preposterous to assume that Dylan was flirting with her simply because she was bisexual. What was quite possible, however, was that Dylan flirted with her because Raffo had, on more than one occasion, expressed her appreciation for Dylan’s physical appearance as well as her kind nature.

But none of that mattered, because not only was Dylan Connor’s mother—and Raffo would never come between her best friend and his mother like that—but a fling was the last thing Raffo was looking for. Thoughts of Mia might have dimmed, pushed into the shadows of her mind after she’d started painting again, but Raffo’s heart was still broken into too many pieces. All she wanted was a good, long break from women altogether, and to paint. That’s why she’d come here, after all. Instead, she was living with an extremely easy on the eye middle-aged bisexual woman going through, Raffo guessed, something like a midlife crisis.

As soon as they sat down for dinner, Raffo would change the subject. With her history, she had plenty of other things to talk about that could not be misinterpreted and firmly closed the door to any flirting.

“Hot damn,” Raffo said. “This is incredible.”

“It’s just a salad.” Dylan’s modest deflection belied the dish before them—tender roasted bell peppers that melted on the tongue, a dressing perfectly balanced between tart and sweet that Raffo could drink by the cupful.

“Do you want to know why I hate cooking so much?” It was high time for a swift gear change.

“I’d love to.” Dylan refilled their water glasses—a wise switch from the earlier champagne.

“I don’t know what Con has told you about me, but, um, my mom died when I was thirteen. Ovarian cancer.”

“I’m so sorry.” Dylan put down her cutlery.

“Yeah.” Raffo had missed her mother every single day of the almost twenty years she’d been gone. “So, it was just me and my dad and my three brothers. Guess who had to do all the cooking at home from then onwards?”

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