Chapter Twenty-Six
Seven days till the show
Annie had barely opened her front door before Lola kissed her. “I’ve been waiting to do this all day,” she declared dramatically, stepping over the threshold to capture Annie’s mouth with hers.
It was Saturday night, and they had big plans to stay in.
They’d spent the day running the show in full for the first time—once in the morning, then two more times after lunch.
Endurance theater. The stage felt like an extension of Annie’s own body, the smell of it more familiar than her own salon.
Annie wasn’t just scaling the mountain she never thought she’d scale.
She was running up and down it. She was summiting daily.
Annie kissed Lola back quickly before extracting herself and gesturing awkwardly at the sofa. “I don’t think you two have officially met. Sal, this is Lola. Lola, Sal.”
Given that Annie had stayed over at Jazz’s twice already this week, and Sal had seen Lola leaving with Annie several more times than that, Lola wasn’t a secret. But the Sal × Lola collab hadn’t taken place until now.
“No smooches for me, please,” Sal said, rising from the sofa. “I’m getting over a cold, and I’m very gay.”
“S-sorry,” Lola stuttered, putting down the bag of Thai takeout she’d brought. In her cream cutoffs and tight cream tank, she looked both fresh and unbearably sexy. “Didn’t realize you had company.”
“Sal isn’t ‘company,’ ” Annie said, hooking her arm into his. “More like family. The kind who knows you a bit too well.”
“Ask her about her unholy obsession with stray socks.” Sal aimed a teasing look at the mismatched pair on Annie’s feet. One red-and-white stripe, one checkered with a frill. “Anyway, I’m not staying—we were just having a chat.”
“About the Groom Room,” Lola surmised, gesturing at Sal’s light pink jumpsuit.
“Nope.” Sal poked his tortoiseshell glasses up his nose. “We were having a chat about you.”
Annie elbowed him. “I’d offer for you to stay,” she said through a shut the hell up smile, “but we’re planning on a lot more smooching.”
“You’re already a we?” Sal grimaced. “Lesbians are weird.”
“Wait till you see our hers-and-hers Birkenstocks,” Annie said, “and matching tattoos of anatomically correct vulvas.”
“Thank you for relieving me of my appetite permanently,” Sal said smoothly. His gaze slid back and forth between the pair. “I’m excited for the show. Can’t believe it’s in—what—a week? Then I guess you’re back to New York, right, Lola?”
His tone was light but the subtext was deafening.
Lola blinked, looking taken aback.
Mortified, Annie hustled Sal to the door. “And that’s your cue.”
“Nice to meet you, Lola!” he called, before giving Annie a hug and a meaningful look, speaking too low for Lola to hear. “Just…be careful, okay?”
Annie smiled, playing dumb. “We can’t actually get pregnant, dude. One day I’ll explain it to you in full, but basically—”
“I’m serious. I know you’re happy. Just…make sure you don’t get left behind.”
Annie blinked, caught off guard.
“Okay, bye!” Sal added in his usual chirp, clomping down the stairs.
Sal’s warning replayed as the door clicked shut behind him. Make sure you don’t get left behind. It wasn’t like she was planning on it. It was just too early to actually be making plans, so Annie shook it off—mostly.
Lola was here. All night. Even though they were doing sleepovers, they hadn’t yet had sex, as in Annie had not yet come with Lola in the room (climaxing on her own while thinking of Lola, well, that’d happened a record number of times).
The idea of letting Lola see all of her was exciting but also a little bit scary.
What if intimacy just complicated something already uncertain?
She stole a peek at herself in the hallway mirror. Funky midi floral-print skirt and a cropped boxy tee exposing a pink satin bra strap. Her underwear was a matching set. The girl equivalent of a starter gun.
What if everything worked out?
Lola emerged from the kitchen, placing bowls of drunken noodles and red curry on the coffee table. “Sal seems cool,” she said, brushing Annie’s lips with a kiss. “Straightforward.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Annie said with a laugh, sliding to the carpet and reaching for her noodles.
“We mostly talked about Hood—he’s a huge Clay Russo fan.
” Sal had made her watch a lot of behind-the-scenes TikToks of the Robin Hood reboot.
“He cannot believe you were almost in that film! Neither can I.”
Lola half shrugged, seeming more interested in her curry than a sliding doors moment. “That’s the life of an actor. A lot of near misses and working lunches. That anything gets made is a miracle.”
“Sounds hard,” Annie said, twirling noodles around her chopsticks. “But there’s no part of you that’s bummed about it?” The film was shooting in London with an all-star cast. It seemed so glamorous and exciting.
Lola dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin, considering. “The exposure would’ve opened doors, and I do love England. The money was…” She squirmed a little. “Let’s just say I could’ve bought Jazz ten new theaters. But honestly, Annie, I’d choose being here.”
Annie fixed Lola with a disbelieving stare. “Come on. That can’t be true.”
“It is, I swear!”
“Lollie!” Annie exclaimed. “I appreciate the gratitude, and yeah, this is meaningful for me, too. But you can’t tell me you’d have picked community theater over your shot at the A-list!
Way more fame, and power, and dollar dollar bills!
” She tapped her chest. “I love Jazz more than anyone, and I don’t think I would’ve picked that! ”
“Fame, money, power,” Lola listed. “What’s missing?
Art. Passion. The bigger picture.” She let out a breath.
“I want to prioritize what’s purposeful for me, no matter how big or glamorous it is or isn’t.
I know it might sound silly, but doing this play is purposeful for me.
” Determination flashed in her eyes. “I’m not out here spouting a substandard script that wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test—I’m performing a masterpiece by one of our greatest playwrights.
I’m not being belittled or made to feel like a pretty face—I’m listened to and shown respect.
I’m helping save the town with a cast I like and admire.
And I get to do it all in sneakers.” Lola’s gaze fixed intensely on Annie as she took Annie’s hand, folding their fingers together.
“But of course, the most important part of all of this is you.”
Admiration, desire, and wonder pinballed in her chest as Annie’s heart surged. “Me?”
Lola nodded slowly, her golden-hour eyes not leaving Annie’s own. “Yes. You.”
Annie edged closer, one hand touching the curve of Lola’s cheek. She smelled like lemongrass; citrus, with a kick.
“It’s always been you,” Lola murmured, tilting her chin to press her lips to Annie’s.
Lola’s kiss was slow and deep and sweet as honey.
It wasn’t just a kiss of passion or of lust, although Annie felt both those things running like quicksilver through her veins.
It was a kiss of care and commitment. A kiss of honesty and trust. It was a kiss as big as tomorrow, containing every unspoken wish, every secret dream, every impatient, hungry desire.
Lola let out a groan, shifting to kiss Annie more deeply. Annie moved willingly, rolling her hips to grind against Lola, every second of contact revving her up more and more. She needed to feel Lola’s bare skin on her own. To cross the line from controlled to crazed. To leap into oblivion together.
Breaking the kiss, she tugged at Lola’s cream tank top, her words a pant. “Why are all these clothes still on?”
Lola didn’t need to be told twice. She pulled her top off, revealing a sheer cream bra that cupped the generous swell of her perfect breasts.
Her pink nipples were stiff inside the delicate fabric.
The sight pin-holed Annie’s focus. Breasts had long been her number one turn-on in a woman.
The weight of them. The shape. The way pleasure could narrow to such a small, powerful point.
Annie pushed Lola to the carpet, her head on a floor cushion. Still straddling her, Annie bent to run her tongue over Lola’s left breast, relishing the sensation of the bra’s slightly scratchy material, the shape of Lola’s full breast, the feel of tight nipple under her tongue.
She’d wanted to do this for twenty years.
Lola moaned, arching her back to give Annie better access. Her hands tangling in Annie’s hair. Writhing on the carpet, her moans became commands. “Yes, baby,” Lola panted. “Suck me. Lick me.”
The orders from Lola’s usually controlled mouth made Annie’s mind go static. She began licking Lola’s other breast, her tongue moving over and around Lola’s erect, sensitive nipples, soaking the sheer material.
Lola’s moans became pants. “Oh Jesus. Oh fuck.” Her head was thrown back, the skin on her neck splotchy. “Fuck, that feels good.”
Annie reached for the clasp at the back, popping it open.
The cream lace slackened. Annie helped tug it off, exposing a sight Annie had long craved: Lola’s full, bare breasts.
There was a faint tan line from her bikini, the skin that the swimsuit covered a milkier white.
The idea that she could touch what not even the sun could made Annie even wetter than she already was.
“Lollie. You’re perfect.” Annie breathed, taking a long moment to stare at the topless girl underneath her.
Commit the size and shape of her flawless tits to memory for all time.
Then she had to touch them. When her tongue hit Lola’s bare nipple, Lola almost screamed.
Annie had been with women who’d enjoyed nipple play, but Lola seemed almost crazed with pleasure.
Annie took Lola’s left breast in her mouth, flicking the tip with her tongue, sucking it like a lollipop, while her other hand squeezed, circling her pink nipple rhythmically. Annie was grinding against Lola’s thigh, her own thigh between Lola’s legs, Lola moving in time.