“Okay,” I said. “Just the two of us or…” I didn’t want to make her feel bad about being a mom, but Preston was a part of her life.
“We can go out. Someplace nice, if you’re up for it.”
I remembered there was an extremely fancy restaurant that Sasha had told me Jax took her to. When I mentioned the name, Piper perked up.
“I love that place. I’ll call and make reservations.” I was happy to let her take care of that. I didn’t know if I’d actually ever called a restaurant to make reservations in my life.
“Then…it’s a date?” I wasn’t sure what we were calling all of this.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to call it a date. Can we just call it dinner?” That was fine with me.
I was going to have dinner with Piper. Was this real?
“Oh, and one more thing before we go back out there,” Piper said.
“What?” I asked.
She grabbed my shirt and pulled me in for a searing kiss.
“That,” she said, when I could no longer remember my own name.
I didn’t think I was too much of a weirdo when Piper and I went out to the kitchen to pretend we hadn’t been making out instead of doing yoga for most of the morning.
“Long class today?” Natalie asked, her eyes raised. I wish I’d checked my mouth in the mirror before I left the room to make sure I didn’t have Piper’s lipstick all over my mouth.
“Yeah,” I said. “Lost track of time.”
That wasn’t a lie. I had lost track of time kissing her.
“Tea,” Piper said, clearing her throat and going to the kettle.
“Oh, those contracts came in while you were in there, so you’ll need to review them really quick before we send for signatures,” Natalie said.
“Hm?” Piper said, as if she hadn’t even heard Natalie. “Right, contracts.”
Natalie looked at Piper, then she looked at me and then she purposefully looked down at her phone.
“Oh no, I forgot I need to, um, go, do something,” she said, not looking up.
“Do what?” Piper asked, filling the kettle with water.
“You know, the thing, I had to go get?” Natalie said, edging toward the door.
“Okay,” Piper said, her eyes narrowing slowly.
“Sorry to miss teatime, but I should really get on this,” she said, and then she was out the door.
I looked at Piper. “Well, that went well.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she knows something is up,” Piper said with a sigh, leaning against the counter and putting her head down on the granite.
I walked over and put a hand on her back, rubbing in circles.
“We weren’t going to be able to hide things forever,” I said. I’d held myself back from touching Piper so much that now I couldn’t stop myself. I just wanted to be touching her all the time.
Piper looked up at me.
“People are going to have opinions,” she said.
“I know.” That was something that I was really nervous about. Not that I’d let people affect me, but so many opinions could really knock you off your axis.
“What are we doing?” Piper asked, standing up. I stepped closer to her, until our chests were almost touching.
“Right now? We’re going to have tea,” I said, tucking some of her hair behind her ear.
“And then?” she asked.
“And then I’m going to kiss you and you’re going to go back to work and I’m going to go back to work and then think about you all night.”
There was no way I was going to be doing any kind of serious concentration today. I was supposed to film at least one class, and I already knew it was going to be a struggle with my mind full of Piper.
“I hope you do think of me. I’ll be thinking of you.”
The kettle whistled and she left me to go turn it off and pour water into the two mugs.
“You’ve never kissed a woman, huh?” I asked as she handed me my mug.
“No. Got close, but never did. I was too scared of what it would mean for me. Isn’t that silly? I was raised by two queer men and I still was scared to be anything but heterosexual.”
I understood perfectly. I had two queer siblings and I also had struggled with dealing with insecurities around my own sexuality.
“Did you love your husband?” That question had been plaguing me ever since I met her. Obviously, I knew he was a complete jerk, but had she loved him?
“I did, at first. Or maybe I told myself I did. It’s so hard to know, McKenna. We’d known each other our whole lives, and it was always sort of expected that we would end up together. I never considered anything else. I definitely never considered you.”
Now that we’d started saying all the words, it was like we couldn’t stop. Now I could tell her all the things I’d wanted to tell her and had been holding back for weeks.
It was still surreal that this incredible woman was saying all these things I’d always wanted to hear.
This beautiful, smart, intelligent woman was looking at me like she wanted to kiss me again. Life could change a lot in a few days.
I stayed and did have actual tea with Piper. This time, though, we sat on the couch together. I tried not to let too much of the white couch get in contact with my body.
“Why are you sitting like that?” Piper asked.
“I don’t want to spill,” I said.
“You’re hovering like the couch is a questionable toilet seat at a concert,” Piper said. “Sit. This is special fabric that resists stains. A little bit of tea isn’t going to hurt it.”
I was extremely skeptical about this, but I sat down like a normal person.
“There, see? It’s not going to bite. I couldn’t own regular white furniture with a toddler. So I paid an arm and a leg for this,” she said. “Well, I didn’t pay. It was a gift from my parents.”
That made sense. I knew she was successful, but it didn’t take a genius to see that she had been born with money.
“They’re coming up to visit later in the summer. They want to see Preston and hover and make sure I’m not inches away from a breakdown.” She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
“Sounds like my family,” I said.
I sipped my tea and talked with Piper and it was so perfect. I could admire the sunlight in her hair and the way her face moved while she spoke without it being weird. I could gaze at her as much as I wanted to.
My cup was long since empty when I realized I definitely needed to go, and she needed to handle her own work.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, and even I could hear the whine in my voice.
“You could stay here and distract me from work all day.”
She ran her hand through my hair.
“We both know that’s not a good idea. I’ll see you at dinner, okay?” I said, getting up. She let me and stood up as well.
“Do I get a goodbye kiss?” she asked.
“I suppose,” I said, pretending that that I wasn’t as eager to put my lips on her again.
“Tease,” she whispered, taking my chin and tilting my head up so she could slick her mouth over mine.