Chapter 14
14
Kelly came into the store every day that week and Nick watched with great fascination as she made her play. She was good, he’d have to give her that. And if she’d been trying it with anyone other than Samantha, she may even have been successful, but Samantha remained totally oblivious to Kelly’s vibe.
He tried to tell her one day because as amusing as it was to watch, he felt it only fair that Samantha was clued in to the situation. The two women appeared to be becoming friends and it just seemed wrong to not say anything.
He’d found her in the back room alphabetizing the latest trade-ins. Yellow Post-it notes were stuck on front covers everywhere. “You and Kelly are going out tomorrow night?”
“Yes.” She glanced up from her job. “To Sin Central.”
“You do know what Sin Central is, right?”
“Yes, Nick.” Samantha rolled her eyes then went back to her Post-its. “Just because I’ve been too preoccupied to frequent the club scene doesn’t mean I haven’t heard of it.”
Okay. So… she knew it was a lesbian bar? “Sorry. I just didn’t think Kelly was being entirely upfront with you.”
Samantha stopped and looked at him. “Nick Hawke, are you jealous? I know Kelly didn’t fall all over you at the supermarket but there’s no need to try to ruin our friendship.”
So… she didn’t know? “I’m not. I think it’s great that you two are friends. I just?—”
“Butt out, Nick,” she interrupted. “I know what I’m doing. I’m going to have some fun tomorrow night with Kelly and a bunch of her girlfriends. I’ve been so preoccupied going out with men I’ve forgotten how much fun just hanging with women can be.”
Nick held up his hands in surrender as he backed out of the room. And butted out. Mostly. He decided he’d talk to Kelly instead. When she came in that lunch hour he made her the usual soy latte. “You do realize that Samantha hasn’t got a clue you’re a lesbian, right?”
“I kinda figured, yeah.”
“So… how’s this going to work, then?”
Kelly shrugged. “I think she’s confused about what she wants.”
“I don’t think she’s that confused.”
“Maybe because she’s just never considered it before? How do any of us truly know until we explore all the options?”
“She wants babies, Kelly.”
“We can have babies, Nick. All we need is the sperm. Fancy making a donation?”
He laughed. “Only if I can watch.”
Kelly’s lip curled in distaste. “Men,” she muttered, taking her coffee and joining Samantha on the couch.
Samantha met Kelly outside the club. The pulse of the music could be heard on the street as they waited in a short line and Kelly introduced her to her friends. She’d been self-conscious about the new dress she’d bought for the occasion – strapless, black and clingy – but she needn’t have worried, she was probably the most modestly dressed person in their group.
Teeny tiny seemed to be the fashion statement.
They were inside in ten minutes and Samantha gaped at the cram of bodies radiating enough heat to power a small city. The whole inside seemed to throb and vibrate with music and strobing lights. But when Kelly grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the floor, what she was wearing and how she looked slipped away as she danced.
For the next couple of hours, she danced. Like no one was watching. And it felt so good – freeing and fun and liberating.
One of Kelly’s friends offered her a pill but she declined. Hell, she even refused alcohol, having way too good of a time to spoil her natural high. She did slug down a large glass of water though when she finally stopped for a breather.
Kelly joined her at their table on the mezzanine level overlooking the dance floor. With the music too loud to easily converse, they watched the tangle of bodies move to the beat below, pulsing and gyrating. And it was then, looking down from above, that it occurred to Samantha that there were hardly any men at the club.
She searched all the recesses that could be seen through the light of the glitter ball and the manufactured cloud drifting from the smoke machines. Nope. Barely a man in sight.
Leaning in close to Kelly to be heard, she yelled, “Where are all the men?”
Kelly leaned in too, her mouth brushing Samantha’s ear. “This is a lesbian bar.”
Samantha blinked then looked at the grating press on the dance floor again and the intimacy of the revelers dawned on her for the first time. She looked at Kelly and the penny dropped. “Are you gay?”
Kelly nodded. “Does that bother you?”
Samantha shook her head but holy hell, she couldn’t wait to tell Bec she’d been in a gay bar. “Is everyone gay?”
Kelly’s lips were warm against her ear, something she hadn’t registered until now and there’d been many occasions tonight that had necessitated such close contact.
“Mostly. Those that aren’t are either curious or just want to come and dance at a club where drunk men aren’t going to try and hit on them.”
Samantha nodded. Fair enough. “If straight people come here, isn’t it frustrating for you to know who’s gay and who’s not, or can you just tell?”
“Mostly you can tell. But” – Kelly tucked a stray lock of hair behind Samantha’s ear – “some women who come here don’t even realize themselves yet.”
Suddenly Nick’s words came back to her and Kelly’s vibe registered. Ohhh . Was Kelly… into her? If the way the other woman’s gaze was zeroing in on her mouth was any indication, Samantha figured that was a yes.
The cobweb-blasting music faded into the background as Kelly leaned in, her mouth inching closer. When her lips touched down it was… odd. Soft. No graze of stubble. No whiff of male scent. No trace of man. Different to what she thought it would be – not that she’d ever fantasized about kissing a woman.
Frankly the thought that she might be attractive to the same sex had never occurred to her.
Samantha had enough headaches and heartaches with the male side of the population without having to consider the other half.
Kelly pulled away. “Nothing, huh?”
Samantha touched her lips, still a little stunned by the development. “It was… nice.”
Kelly gave a half laugh. “I take that as a yes.”
“Sorry,” Samantha apologized. “I’m flattered… really I am.”
“It’s fine.” Kelly smiled a sad smile. “It seems I’m fatally attracted to straight women.”
It was then that Samantha realized she and Kelly were kindred spirits. Kelly was looking for the same thing she was, someone to connect with. To bond with.
And finding it just as hard.
Samantha left Sin Central shortly after. The air was far less steamy outside which helped cool her heated skin. She only wished it could do the same for her heated thoughts.
Was she a lesbian?
Why else would Kelly have kissed her? Surely gay people didn’t just go around kissing members of the same sex blindly hoping they’d hit the jackpot eventually? Maybe Kelly knew something about her that she didn’t?
Samantha relived Kelly’s kiss. Nope, she definitely hadn’t felt anything. Surely, she’d have felt something… a kind of rightness or homecoming or at least a bell clanging loudly at her if she’d been suppressing her inner lesbian all these years? Surely a gay kiss would be a huge light-bulb moment?
On the other hand, it hadn’t been a turn off either…
Dear God – could she really have been that wrong about herself? Maybe her body wasn’t demanding she have a baby after all? Maybe she was at some sexual crossroad and she’d screwed up the interpretation?
Typical of her map-reading ability, really.
Here she was all along thinking that her eggs were telling her one thing when maybe they’d been trying to tell her something else. Maybe her eggs were craving the company of someone else’s eggs? She placed a hand on her abdomen.
Did she have… lesbian eggs?
“Samantha!”
Turning, she found Nick striding toward her. What the…? “What are you doing here?”
“Just had a couple of beers with some friends at a nearby bar.”
His voice was deep and he looked all scruffy and casual and something pulled hot and taut, deep and low. Hmm . Maybe her eggs weren’t lesbian. Maybe they were just confused.
Or bisexual?
“Are you on your way home?”
Samantha nodded. “I was going to grab an Uber.”
“Fancy walking instead? It’s a nice night.”
It was a twenty-minute walk but probably just what she needed to clear her head. “Sure.”
They fell into step, walking in silence for a few minutes as they navigated the usual Saturday night street scene, clumps of people loitering around clubs and restaurants, laughing and chatting and enjoying themselves.
“Nick,” Samantha said as the revelers thinned out and they left the party zone behind, heading into a less than salubrious area of the city. “Kelly kissed me.”
“I figured.”
Samantha stopped and turned toward him. “You knew?”
Nick also stopped. “Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I’ve been watching her hit on you all week?”
Wait, really? “Was she?”
He chuckled as he slid an arm around her shoulder and started walking again. “Right from the beginning she only had eyes for you. I mean, I don’t want to sound conceited here, but women do tend to find me attractive and she didn’t try to hit on me once.”
Samantha knew all about that attraction. “ I’ve never hit on you. Does that make me a lesbian?”
He laughed but quickly sobered when she said, “I’m serious, Nick.”
A crowd of pre-charged merrymakers heading in the direction of the clubs swarmed around them and he moved them out of the way, sidestepping into the entrance of a nearby alley, the brick wall to her back.
“Okay… what’s this about?” he asked as the laughter and raucous chatter faded.
Samantha shrugged, looking at a spot over his shoulder. “What if… Kelly picked up on some… tendency in me that I’m not even aware of? I mean, maybe I can’t find the right guy because deep down I’m actually attracted to women? Which is perfectly fine just… a bit of a surprise after thirty years on this planet.”
“You are not a lesbian, Sam.”
His rebuttal was so swift and sure. “How do you know? How can you be so sure when suddenly even I’m not so certain?”
“Because I know.”
Samantha studied him intently. In the half-light of the alley he looked more like one of Rita’s pirates than he ever had. “What? Like a gut feeling or something?”
“If you like, yes.”
“The problem with that was my gut thought I was straight till tonight as well.” Deflated, she leaned into the wall, her palms flattening on the rough brickwork.
“Okay, look. The kiss. How was it? You told me not long ago about Bec’s theory on the whole kiss thing. So, did the earth move? Did you suddenly think, oh my God I can’t live another day without her kiss in my life? How did it compare to your last hetero kiss?”
She thought about it for a moment. “It was soft and nice but I didn’t feel anything. But then I hardly remember the last time a man kissed me and I felt anything, either. And at least it wasn’t awful, which is more than can be said for nearly all my kisses lately.”
He sighed. “Okay, fine. You are not gay and I’m going to prove it to you.”
Samantha opened her mouth to inquire just how he was going to do that but then he moved in close, fitting his body snug against hers and lowered his mouth.
From the second his lips touched hers, everything else ceased to exist. She was conscious only of Nick. The noises of the city late at night only two meters from where they stood, faded. The roughness of the wall at her shoulder blades disappeared. The faint ripe whiff emanating from the end of the alley was replaced by the aroma of Nick.
His hair, the beer on his breath, the detergent he’d used to wash his shirt which she grabbed to pull him closer, opening her mouth to him as her pulse surged thick and hot through her belly. He groaned as their tongues touched and fire licked in the pit of her stomach and between her legs.
The kiss went on and on and Samantha thought, Oh my God , I can’t live another day without his kiss in my life . Her eggs fell into a hushed kind of awe and it was the first time those bitches had been silent in months.
Please God, don’t let this ever, ever end .
His hand found the small of her back, pressing her closer, bringing her belly into intimate contact with the hard ridge of his erection and she clutched his shirt tighter. She realized that at the grand old age of thirty she’d never had sex in an alley. Or standing up for that matter.
And she wanted to do both – desperately.
But suddenly he was pulling away, and there was space and air between them. “Still think you’re a lesbian?” he asked, his chest heaving, his mouth still wet, his voice a husky tease.
Samantha dragged in lungfuls of air as Cher played in her head. Her body was hot and her heart hammered madly in her breast. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, as she struggled for speech. And coherent thought.
But he was clearly thinking straight and done with the demonstration so she made a concerted effort to pull herself together.
She gave a shaky half laugh to cover her inner uproar. “Nope. Definitely not.” That kiss had definitely been clarifying. “Thank you,” she added.
He grinned. “Any time.” Straightening, Nick pulled her away from the wall. “Come on, let’s go home.”
Samantha was pleased, at least, as she walked beside him that one question had been well and truly answered. But another one had emerged.
If that was how Nick kissed, then how great would he be at the other thing?