Page 20 of April

“Well, when you tell everyone, I’m sure they will have someone to set you up with. That seems to be the lesbian way. Melinda might know someone, for example.”

“I don’t want to be set up, either.”

“Okay. What is it you want, exactly? You’ve only given me what youdon’twant so far, Ash.” She chuckled.

Asher stared at her for a long moment before she turned away to face her front door. Linden wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she knew this woman well enough to know that, sometimes, silence was the best way to get Asher to say what she needed to say after she processed it herself first.

“I guess I just want to walk somewhere, and a woman comes up to me, starts a conversation, we laugh a lot, and it’s cute, and then, she’s asking me out on a date, and I’m accepting. We go for coffee first, and it’s nice. There’s more laughing, and she’s pretty, and I’m feeling butterflies, and we go to dinner next. There’s a first kiss, and it’s sweet but not passionate or heated. Then, there’s another date where we kiss, and itispassionate and heated, and we decide what we want to do from there.”

“So, it sounds like you know exactly what you want, and it’s a romantic comedy complete with a meet-cute scenario and theswelling music there at the end, right when you’re about to–” Linden stopped herself. “Well, you know.”

“It’s too much to ask for, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I think Melinda and Kyle might have had a similar situation. They met in the real world, not on an app, and no one set them up. Sophie and Bryce kind of had that, too. They met in a bar, though, and Bryce was a tourist. You don’t want that.”

“I just… I don’t know if I’ll like it, Linden. I didn’t know this part of myself was in there.”

“But you know it is now?”

“Yes,” Asher said. “And I want to explore it.”

“Okay. So, I think the best thing to do for now is to set you up with a profile. You’re in control then. If you don’t do anything with it, you don’t, but you have it, and women can see you and send you messages. You’ll have to accept them in order for them to keep messaging, so the pressure is off that way, and you can take your time with it. In the meantime, if you meet someone in the wild, you can pursue that if you want.”

“In the wild,” Asher said with a laugh.

“Oh, no… That’s your drunk laugh.”

“My drunk laugh? I don’t have a drunk laugh.”

“Yes, you do,” Linden said, laughing. “We go through this every time. You get tipsy. I tell you that you have a drunk laugh. You deny it.”

“Well, I don’t.” Asher laughed again.

“Yes, you do. Did you have the whole bottle of wine?”

“No. Gavin had half a glass. It’s still on the dining room table.”

“Okay. Let’s get you to bed. It’s late anyway, and we have work tomorrow.”

“Are you staying?” Asher asked as she stood.

“Yeah, it’s easier,” she said. “Let me help you upstairs, though,” She stood up and helped Asher, who had wobbled a bit. “You always were such a lightweight.”

“I drank my feelings tonight. Leave me alone,” Asher replied. “Shit. The guest room has a bunch of stuff in it.”

“Huh?” Linden asked as they walked up the stairs with her behind Asher, holding on to her hips just to be safe.

“My mom dropped off all my old stuff. They’re moving and didn’t want to lug all my things from high school with them. It’s boxes and boxes of trophies, photo albums, and stuff like that. I threw it in there until I could sort through it and put it away.”

“You just wanted to brag about all those trophies and certificates, didn’t you?”

Asher laughed when they arrived upstairs and said, “No. But it’s boxes of stuff, and I was too lazy to carry it up the stairs when she brought it by last week. If you want, I can help you move it all out of the way, but the bedding might need to be changed because I kind of tossed stuff on there.”

“It’s fine,” Linden replied, turning them until they were standing in Asher’s bedroom. “I’ll just go home. I’m too tired to be your mover for the night.”

“Just stay here,” Asher said, pointing to her bed. “I’ll pass out in a few minutes anyway.”

“I live, like, ten minutes from here. I’ll order a car. It’ll be fine,” she said as she pointed Asher’s body toward the bathroom. “You go in there and take care of whatever.”

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