Page 103 of Flirting Lessons

Taylor grinned at her.

“Me, too.”

When Taylor walked away, Avery turned back to the garden bed, but she could feel Beth’s eyes locked on her.

“Later,” she said.

“Oh, that’s for sure,” Beth said.

Avery put her gloves on and went to work. This time of year, there was so much to do. Weeding, hand-pollinating, harvesting, cleaning up leaves with fungus or black spot, clipping off branches that looked like they were about to break and take the rest of a plant with them. Soon, they had basketfuls of cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, jalapeños, and radishes, and there were a bunch more ripening on the vines.

“What are you going to do with all of this?” Beth asked her as they divided up their fruits and vegetables. “I still can’t believe that we managed to grow so much.”

Avery pushed back her hat and looked around at the garden, at their little plot, at the other plots, and all the activity going on. It seemed like everyone in the community garden was here. All day people had been walking by and greeting them, complimentingtheir successes, and commiserating with their failures. Lots of people had shared their fruits and vegetables with them, so they had even more varieties of tomatoes, and so many zucchini that Avery didn’t know what she was going to do with them all. People really liked to give away their zucchini, she’d discovered, and she felt like she couldn’t say no to any of it. But even that felt good. She was so happy and proud of herself that she was a part of this.

“I know, me, too,” she said. “Even with the stuff we tried that didn’t work, we got so much, it’s amazing. As for what I’m going to make, I guess some sort of zucchini bread with all this zucchini that we somehow have—maybe I’ll figure out how to do that later?” She bit her lip and then smiled at Beth. “I’m trying to teach myself how to become better at baking, and I feel like zucchini bread is a good thing to practice on, right? Since we have so much, I feel like if my first attempt is a failure, I can just try again?”

Beth clapped her hands and stood up.

“Zucchini bread is the perfect thing to make when you have a ton of zucchini and you want to learn how to bake. Plus, I have a great recipe. Come over to my place and we can snack and bake and debrief, which you know I’ve been dying to do for the past two hours.” She stopped and looked at Avery. “That is, unless you have plans with your hottie, in which case I excuse you.”

Avery laughed.

“She’s working tonight, so I’m in.”

Thirty minutes later, Avery pulled up in front of a cute little corner house on a side street, and Beth threw open the door.

“Come in, come in.” Beth ushered her into the house.

There was a big tomato, cucumber, and herb salad on the kitchen table that Beth had made from their garden bounty, and Avery contributed some cheese and prosciutto and bread she’d picked up on the way.

“Okay,” Beth said after she’d sliced up the baguette and deposited it on the cutting board next to the cheese. “Whatis going on with you and that impossibly hot woman? I thought you were just sleeping together, but that goodbye kiss was more than sleeping together.” She spread a bunch of cheese on a piece of bread and looked at Avery expectantly.

Avery blushed and laughed.

“We’re mostly just sleeping together. I mean, I guess it’s sort of more than that, but not really—Taylor doesn’t do serious relationships, I’ve known that forever, so I guess it’s just casually dating. Which is fine, I didn’t want anything serious either, especially since—”

Beth brushed that off.

“Yes, yes, now that we’re done with all the disclaimers, tell me the good stuff.”

Avery laughed. And then she let herself smile.

“I don’t even know what to say—things are just so easy with her. That’s probably because it’s not serious, so I’m not spending time worrying about the future or stressed about everything. Though, I mean, I am kind of stressed about how long this can last, partly because it feels too good to be true, but mostly because it’s Taylor, so I know it can’t last very long. But other than that, it’s great. We spend a ton of time together—we take turns now surprising each other for dates, which is fun, but sometimes she’ll just come over after work, or I’ll bring takeout to her place or whatever, and we’ll just hang out, and it’s just so…” She couldn’t think of the right word to describe it. “It’s…I don’t know, I haven’t had a relationship like it. Like, I’m excited whenever I see her, and I have a great time with her, but also being around her doesn’t stress me out? I’m weirdly proud of myself; part of the point of the flirting lessons in the first place was to learn how to do casual, no-stressrelationships, and I did it, and it feels great.” She made a face. “Sorry, that was probably too much information about my relationship baggage, but I’m so used to being quietly tense around the person I’m dating that it feels amazing to me that I don’t feel that way, like, at all.”

Beth spooned some salad onto her plate.

“First, we’ve been bonded by soil, okay? There is no such thing as too much information. Second, I am so glad you’re finally dating someone who you can relax and be yourself around, that’s huge. But third…” She waggled her eyebrows at Avery. “Now that we’ve established that there’s no such thing as too much information…”

Avery laughed at the look on Beth’s face. Then she gave in. She’d been dying to talk to someone about this.

“Beth. The sex is so good. Just…sogood. I didn’t know sex could be this good! I mean, I guess I knew that it could be for some people—I read romance novels and everything—but I thought some of it was hyperbole, you know? But it’s that good with Taylor. I know you know this, but God, having sex with a woman is fucking incredible. Have women who have sex with women been walking around in the world on this cloud of incredible sex forever and I just didn’t know? It’s like there was another world that I didn’t even know existed!”

Beth started laughing midway through Avery’s speech and didn’t stop.

“Absolutely yes, there has been another world going on of women walking around being totally satisfied by their sex lives. You just confirmed something to me that I’ve always suspected about straight people: this is why they’re so uptight—the sex is so bad!”

Avery couldn’t stop giggling.

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