Page 21 of April

“Linden, find clothes in my drawers and stay here. I can just drive us to your place tomorrow, and you can change. You don’t have an early meeting, do you?”

“No, not until ten.”

“Okay. Then, let’s just get some sleep.”

Linden hadn’t ever slept in Asher’s bed before. On the rare occasion she’d stayed over, she usually slept in the guest room,and that was because they’d been drinking or hanging out late, and she hadn’t wanted to go home. She even had a drawer in that room with some extra clothes and a toothbrush in the guest bathroom. The guest bedroom mattress didn’t provide the best night’s sleep. Asher’s bed looked much nicer than even her own. She had probably spent thousands on it and found the perfect mattress for herself, while the guest room had gotten whatever they had on sale. Linden stood still as Asher walked into the bathroom. It took her a full minute to decide to go downstairs and grab the clothes from there, along with her toothbrush, but when she opened the door, she could only see boxes upon boxes.

“Good Lord… How many trophies did she win?” she asked herself.

She couldn’t even see the dresser behind them, so she went into the bathroom and found her toothbrush, leaving the cluttered bedroom and making her way back up the stairs, where she found a shirt and some sweats in Asher’s dresser and changed. Finishing up right when Asher emerged from the bathroom, she held her toothbrush up as if silently asking if she could go in and brush her teeth now.

“So, you saw the boxes?”

“Yes. How many of those are filled with trophies?”

“Oh, at least five,” Asher joked with a wink.

CHAPTER 7

There was someone in Asher’s bed, which made no sense because she had broken up with Gavin. She rolled over onto her back, feeling the slight headache she had from drinking too much wine. She covered her face with her hands and remembered now: she and Linden had been hanging out, and there had been wine. Now that she thought about it, though, Linden had only had a few sips when she finished her glass. The rest of the time, she’d just refilled Asher’s glass and had stuck to water, which meant that Asher had drunk almost the whole bottle herself.

“That explains it,” she whispered to herself.

Asher turned her head slowly and removed her hands from her face. Linden was still sleeping next to her. Her short blonde hair was half over Linden’s face and half on the pillow under her head. It looked like a mess, and it had Asher smiling. Linden had asked her if she’d go with her should she decide to chop off her hair. Asher had thought it was all talk because Linden kept saying she was going to do it and then didn’t, but one day, they were at work, and Linden had made the appointment for that afternoon.

She still remembered when Linden had sat down in the chair. Asher had been there to watch the long locks sway on their way down to the floor of the salon, and Linden’s smilehad been the widest she’d ever seen it. She’d gone with her and watched Linden’s happiness at something as simple as a haircut. She hadn’t fully understood it then. She’d suspected, yes, but she hadn’t really tied Linden’s haircut to her being a lesbian and wanting a shorter, morebutchcut, as Linden had explained to her later. It suited her, though, the new length. Asher had liked her longer hair, but Linden had always pulled it back and rarely wore it down. Now, she seemed freer with this hair.

Asher wondered about her own then. Should she get it cut? She liked her auburn hair, how it flowed into waves when she put effort into it. She usually wore it down for work, but when she was actually at a wedding, she always pulled it back into a tight updo with a clip. That way, it didn’t fall flat with the New Orleans’ humidity, and it stayed out of her way when she put the headset on and was running around. She didn’t want to get a haircut. That was settled.

She watched as Linden shifted a little in her sleep, turning to face her, but her eyes remained closed. Asher smiled at her and wanted to reach out to cup Linden’s cheek, but she couldn’t do that. Linden would wake up and ask what the hell she was doing because while they were close, they didn’t cup one another’s cheek randomly. Just Linden sleeping in her bed was more than enough for Asher with these newly discovered feelings. She’d been wondering about the possibility for a while now. Was she attracted to women, too? Could she kiss another woman? Would she want to have sex with one? Could she see herself going down on a woman?

Those questions had been running through her mind for months, but she hadn’t planned on truly answering them. Before Gavin, there was another short-term relationship and when it had ended, she’d fallen right into one with her now ex-boyfriend. Her possible attraction to women hadn’t mattered because she was in a serious relationship and wouldn’t do anything tojeopardize that. Watching Linden kiss Jill had changed things, though. And it wasn’t just about Linden. It was about Asher. She knew that shewasattracted to women now and that she could kiss a woman and have sex with one. She had no idea if she’d be any good at it, but she knew that she wanted it now.

Linden kissing Jill had awoken something in her that she hadn’t expected. Urgency. Asher had felt this urgent need to end things with Gavin, knowing they were going nowhere, and watching that bride seem miserable on what should’ve been the happiest day of her life was the icing on top of the gay wedding cake. Asher needed to act now if she was going to see what else was out there for her, or rather who.

She spent another minute staring at Linden and wondering if she could actually tell her best friend that seeing her kiss Jill had made her want to vomit and that she’d gotten off to her when she arrived home, and it had been one of the best orgasms of her entire life. Deciding against that because she didn’t want to risk their friendship, and Linden was clearly in her finding-many-women-and-having-a-good-time phase, Asher rose without waking her and made her way to the shower.

“Morning,” Linden said later when Asher arrived downstairs and walked into the kitchen.

“I wondered where you were,” she replied.

“Making coffee,” Linden said and held up Asher’s travel mug. “Black with no flavor, just how you like it.”

“Coffee has flavor,” Asher said and chuckled.

“Yes, and it’s bitter. So, us, humans, add things like sugar and cream to it.”

“Well, I like it as is. This is an expensive Kona coffee. I’m not going to pay all that money for it and then make it taste like something else.”

“Fine. Fine. We can argue about this later.”

“We’re not arguing about it now,” Asher replied, taking the mug from her.

Linden shook her head and said, “I’m going to shower at my place. Can you just drop me there? I’ll drive myself into the office.”

“I thought we’d just drive in together.”

Linden looked down at the empty travel mug she usually used for herself and said, “I have a lunch thing, so I have to drive.”

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