What in the world was happening to her? She held two bottles in her hands and jogged back upstairs, hurrying to put as much distance as she could between her and Zoey.
"What's my budget?" Zoey called up to her, and Pia couldn't help but smile.
Finally, when it was time for dinner, Pia was able to sit and relax. She was always on her guard around new people, and The Shrikes band, even though they were lovely and sweet, were still brand new additions to her life.
Pia lifted a glass of wine as Meg slipped into the last chair. "A toast." She quoted a poem:
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
She purposefully avoided looking at Zoey until the very last line.
Zoey had a grin on her face. "My second favorite Yeats poem," she said.
Pia’s chest clenched with interest and appeal and attraction.
"What's your first?" Billie asked, turning to her. "Wait. Let me guess."
Zoey raised an eyebrow, the wine swirling in her glass.
"Yeah, I'm joking, I don't know any of those poems by title alone," Billie confessed.
"Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm starving right now," Domino paused, thinking of the next line. Eventually she shrugged. "Billie and Zoey, will you please stop talking about poetry-ooh?" She ended with a laugh, trying to make the line rhyme.
Pia raised her glass again. "Here, here."
Zoey played her part well during dinner. No one would have known about the tense moment they'd had in the wine cellar. Apart from the slight flush in Zoey's cheeks when she returned back upstairs, she'd have never sensed that she was bothered at all.
But Pia didn't want sexual tension. As fun as that was, she wanted what came after that part.
"Oh my God, stop talking about the pho place," Domino said, laughing.
Pia came back to earth.
Zoey looked animated. "No, it's the best pho on earth," she said definitively.
"Except in Vietnam, you mean," Billie said, raising an eyebrow.
Zoey rolled her eyes. "Of course I mean the best pho anywhere on earth besides Vietnam," she said.
"Where is it?" Pia asked.
"Houston," Zoey said.
"I'd have never guessed," Pia said, smirking. “My favorite place is in Santa Ana.”
"Please, take Zoey, put us out of our misery. She talks about it constantly," Domino said, looking exasperated but still amused.
Pia smirked with a grin. “We’ll go and maybe get that Houston place out of your system.”
Wow, if that didn’t sound like a euphemism…
Zoey's brows pulled together in confusion. "Uh," she said, as if she had forgotten what words were. Six sets of eyes snapped to look at her.
Zoey’s cheeks flushed. “Sure,” she said finally.
As dinner ended, the group sat around the table finishing the wine and chatting.
Pia felt grateful that she had invited them over. They were a sweet and kind and funny group of women, and she hoped that she'd be able to call them friends in the future.
They wrapped up conversation and began saying their goodbyes. Pia hugged them.
Sabrina squeezed her tightly. "Be careful," she said quietly, taking a step back.
Pia raised her eyebrows, surprised. Be careful? Of what?
Sabrina gave her a look as though she could read her mind.
Pia gave Zoey a loose hug, keeping her distance.
If Sabrina had noticed, who else had? She hadn't exactly done a stellar job of hiding her attraction, but she was friendly with everyone. She had made dates with Billie and Meg to check out the new exhibition at LACMA later that week, and she had promised Domino she'd get to meet the dogs the next time she came over.
She led them out the door and the group walked into the night. She watched them go, trying not to read into how only Zoey looked back over her shoulder to give a small wave.
She walked to the bedroom where Tulip and Cricket, her dogs, were and pulled out her phone to find two unread texts from Freya.
Freya: New motto. SFWSW
Pia raised a brow, reading another incoming text.
Freya: Stop flirting with straight women.
Pia: Can you tattoo that on my hand?
Freya: OMW
And sure enough, Freya showed up ten minutes later. Freya was the type of friend who could walk right in the side door.
Pia was sitting on the sofa in her bedroom, both Tulip and Cricket were cuddled up on either side of her. Freya was such a common sight that the dogs barely even stirred, except to wag their tails until Freya came over to pet their big, blocky heads.
“So, tell me the worst of it,” Freya said, rolling her eyes. Her perfectly straightened bob bounced as she shook her head. “Wait, we need more wine for this.”
She ran out of the room and returned shortly with two very generous pours in a pair of glasses.
"I'm in trouble," Pia admitted.
Freya snorted. "Don't you dare open that door," she said, shaking her head again. "She's a straight woman in the public eye, P. It's never going to happen."
"I'm not saying I want a relationship," Pia said, swirling the wine around in her glass and holding it under her nose. Fruity and floral and musky, all at once. Her favorite scent in the world. "No doors. All doors are closed. No room at the inn, you could say."
"What inn? The Vagina Inn?" Freya said with a snort.
Pia almost choked on her wine. "Jesus, Freya," she said, wiping at her chin. Tulip groaned, shifting in her comfortable sleeping position, annoyed about the commotion.
"My point exactly," Freya said with a wink.
"I don't want to sleep with a straight girl," Pia said.
"And we're positive that Zoey is straight?" Freya asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
Pia blinked, trying to remember if Zoey had said those exact words. She hadn't, right?
"Oh no," Freya said, watching her. "Stop rationalizing this little crush."
"Aren't you supposed to encourage me to get out of my comfort zone?" Pia asked.
"Not if it sends you full speed ahead into Disasterville," Freya asserted.
"Disasterville? Is that where The Vagina Inn is located?" Pia asked.
"The one and only. Population: Every lesbian who thought that a straight woman wasn't trouble." Freya nodded definitively.
"Maybe it's not like that. It could just be a fun fling, couldn't it?" Pia asked.
"'Just For Fun' is the first stop on the train to Disasterville," Freya said, as though she was exasperated that she even had to explain herself.
"And what's the second stop?" Pia asked, laughing.
"The second stop is 'Just One More Time.' 'We Don't Have To Tell Anyone' is the third," Freya said, counting the stops on her fingers.
"This train sounds like a good time." Pia grinned.
"You mock me, but I'm right," Freya said, pointing at her with narrowed eyes.
Pia raised her fist in the air as if she were pulling the cord for the train horn. "All aboard."