Page 95 of April

“When was it for you, really? I get the crush back then, but why now?”

“Because you’re a possibility now,” she replied honestly and smiled. “God, Asher, you’re dating women now. I never thought that would happen. And I’ve been trying to be supportive, but I’ve been really jealous. Then, that stupid Stephania turns out to be real and not someone pretending, and I knew I’d never be able to compete with a famous model.”

“Linden, there’s no competition,” Asher told her. “It’s not you versus anyone else. It’s you.” She held her hand up. “And everyone else.” She lowered it, demonstrating that Linden was above everyone in her mind.

“What do we do?” Linden asked, shaking her head with a smile.

“I don’t know,” Asher said, leaning over the table now. “This isn’t anything I expected.”

“Thank Bryce and Mel for that,” Linden noted.

“Linden?”

“Yes?”

“Are you still in that phase where you want to meet a lot of women?”

Linden shook her head and said, “No. I’ve been growing tired of it for a while now, but ever since you told me about wanting to date women, I… I’ve been done.”

“There hasn’t been anyone else since?” Asher asked.

Linden leaned back, wishing she would have left sure thing’s apartment sooner, and said, “Technically, no.”

“Oh.” Asher’s face fell, and she leaned back, too. “Not sure what that means, but–”

“Asher, it was that woman I left to be with you when you got stood up. She… touched me. Her hand went–”

“I don’t need details,” Asher said. “You’re allowed to do whatever you want with–”

“I pulled her hand out, and I ran toyou, Asher. She was naked and more than ready, but when I got your text, all I could think about wasyou; that you needed me and that I wanted to be there withyou, not in her apartment.”

“You gave up your sure thing for me,” Asher said softly.

“I’d give up everything for you,” Linden replied. “That was true before I knew how I felt, and it’s still true now.”

Asher smiled and said, “I want to delete that stupid app, Linden. The reason my date with Stephania wasn’t much of a date was that I kept talking about you, and she picked up on it. She saw right through me. We spent the rest of our time talking about how I should tell you how I felt, about her ex-girlfriend and how she wished she would’ve handled things differently, and we realized that we’d be better off as friends. We only exchanged numbers because she wanted an update on me and you. She encouraged me to tell you how I felt.”

“I guess this Stephania is okay, after all,” Linden noted.

Asher smiled and said, “She’s very nice, and you should meet her.”

“Later. Busy now,” she said as she leaned forward again. “Ash, can I hold your hand?”

“You hold my hand all the time and never ask permission,” Asher pointed out.

“This is different,” Linden said, placing her own hand palm up on the table between them. “This is me asking to hold your hand as my date, not just a friend I’m pulling through a crowd to get to the car we’ve ordered.”

Asher looked down at her hand, and Linden worried when a beat went by without Asher placing her hand on top of it. She almost went to pull it back and tried to think about how she could quickly come back from this if Asher decided that she didn’t want to try whatever was clearly happening between them. Finally, Asher’s hand slipped into her own, and Linden closed her eyes for a second at the softness of her skin pressed to her own. She only opened them back to see Asher doing likely the same thing, and she turned her hand until she could entwine their fingers and continue to stare at their joined hands. She couldn’t believe she was sitting at a nice restaurant with her best friend across from her, and they were holding hands.

“What do you want to do now?” Asher asked.

“Go for a walk in the Square, like we always do,” she answered without thinking.

“Should we eat first, maybe?” Asher suggested. “We did order already.”

“Oh, definitely. Bryce is picking up the tab.”

For the first time that night, Asher laughed, and Linden couldn’t stop her smile because she really did love that damn laugh and the woman it came with.

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