CHAPTER 23
“Is she gone?” Sarai asked.
“Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t expect her to stay so long. I lost track of time. Honestly, I thought she would have left when she woke up.”
“Why?” Sarai asked.
“Why would she have left?”
“Yes.”
“Because we didn’t have sex last night. She just slept over because it was late, and I didn’t want her driving home.”
“And that means she would run out on you this morning?” Enya asked.
Arlowe was still in the garage, but Enya and Sarai were in the kitchen, sorting out their lunch, so Violet sat down in the chair Stella had borrowed the previous night for dinner.
“Not necessarily. I guess I thought she would text me and tell me she headed out or something. Then, she’s offering me cold pizza for breakfast and insisting I eat it, which you all know I don’t do.”
“Cold pizza is the best,” Sarai suggested as she started making herself a sandwich.
“Agree to disagree on that one.”
“I liked her ideas,” Enya said, sitting down with a sandwich of her own. “I think it’s smart to consider at least some of them. She has experience with VCs.”
“So do I,” Violet reminded.
“Yeah, but her experience has clearly gotten her somewhere. No offense,” Sarai added and squirted mustard onto her sandwich. “Enya’s right, Vi. Stella had some good ideas in there. And if they can help us get this investment money, shouldn’t we at least try some?”
“You want to take the ideas of the woman I’m sleeping with over the ones we’ve all been working on for this presentation for the past week?” Violet asked.
“First of all, I want their money. Second, you’re not just sleeping with her,” Sarai said as she sat down in her chair.
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Because I let her crash last night instead of making her drive home?”
“We have a couch,” Sarai stated before she bit into a pickle spear.
“She also doesn’t live that far away from here, and it wasn’t all that late.
She could’ve driven home, Vi. One of those sofas in the living room pulls out into a bed, so if she were just crashing, she could’ve crashed out there. She slept in your bed instead.”
“So? She’s done it before. You really think I should’ve relegated her to couch status like a woman who hasn’t slept in my bed before?”
“Why exactly aren’t you two dating?” Enya asked.
Violet laughed and replied, “Because we don’t like each other.”
“Says who? Twenty-two-year-old you?” Sarai asked.
“Violet hasn’t ever trusted herself.”
Violet turned and saw Arlowe walking into the kitchen with her headphones around her neck.
“Excuse me? I trust myself just fine.”
“Not with your own heart. I blame that evil first girlfriend of yours. She did a number on you.”
“Like Eline did on you?” Violet tossed back.
“Shots fired,” Enya said and bit into a baby carrot.
“Across the bow?” Sarai asked.
“Nope. Direct hit,” Enya replied.
Arlowe sat down in her chair and said, “I was in love once, yes. I ended it because of the circumstances neither of us could control. You thought you had a girlfriend waiting for you at home. You told the whole world about her. Then, you got back, and you found her in bed with someone else.”
“Come on… I really don’t need to picture that for the millionth time,” Violet said.
She hadn’t told Stella the whole truth, but when she’d gotten home, Violet had been supposed to go straight to her off-campus apartment, but she hadn’t been able to wait.
Her girlfriend had made her promises to come to Amsterdam at least once while she was away, but no trip had happened, and when Violet had offered to come home once or twice, she’d been told by her girlfriend that she’d been too busy for them to have any time together anyway.
Violet had been upset because she wouldn’t get to see the woman she thought she was falling in love with, but she really hadn’t wanted to leave Amsterdam for a weekend.
She loved it there, and she had made good friends, whom she was now sitting with ten years later.
When she’d gotten home, though, she’d gone straight to her girlfriend’s apartment.
She didn’t have a key, so she’d knocked, and one of the roommates had let her in.
Later, Violet would understand the look on the woman’s face at seeing her standing there.
She’d also understand why she’d tried to keep Violet out of the bedroom that she walked toward.
The door had been closed, so she’d knocked.
“Babe, hey! I’m home,” she’d greeted.
“Shit! What? Violet?”
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m–”
Violet had seen her girlfriend naked before, so she’d figured that if she were just changing her clothes or something, that wouldn’t matter, but she’d opened the door and stopped immediately.
Frozen, she had watched another woman jump off the bed and away from the woman she’d been so excited to see just a minute ago.
They’d both been naked, and from what it had looked like for that split second, that woman had been going down on Violet’s girlfriend.
Violet had dropped the flowers she’d bought at the airport onto the floor and run out of the apartment, finding her bags sitting just inside the door, likely brought in by the roommate because Violet had been too excited to grab them from the hallway earlier.
She’d dragged them back out, pulled them down the hall toward the elevator, and her cheating girlfriend had caught up with her on her way out.
That had been when all the confession had come. They were done.
She’d dated here and there but not often and had only tried having another relationship a couple of times.
Both had fizzled out fast for different reasons, but Violet had to admit that Arlowe was right.
She’d never really gotten over seeing the woman who she’d thought had been waiting for her having sex with another woman and then finding out that it had been going on the whole time and with multiple women, all while Violet had been faithful to her in another country.
“I’m fine,” she said to her friends.
“You are, huh?”
“Yes, Arlowe, I am.”
“So, why aren’t you dating Stella, then?”
“Stella doesn’t want to date me. We’re just sleeping together. We’re not friends with benefits or a couple or–”
“You’re not friends with benefits?” Sarai asked as if in disbelief. “She hung out with you, like, all day. And that was, apparently, after she didn’t get any benefits last night. What exactly is that again, Enya?”
“Friends with benefits,” Enya confirmed.
“At least,” Sarai added.
“Hey, do you like her?” Arlowe asked softly. “I mean, for real. I’m not messing with you here.”
“I like her in bed.”
“What about out of it? You said you stayed the night at her place last week, and you two didn’t sleep together then, either.”
“We did when we woke up.”
“Sure. Then, you didn’t last night. Did you snuggle?”
“No,” she replied, but she looked away from Arlowe, which she knew was her own tell.
Arlowe laughed and said, “Yes, you did, you little liar.”
“It was not on purpose. I woke up, and she was spooning me.”
“That’s why you were walking around and waking me up at, like, six in the morning on a weekend?” Enya asked. “You said it was because you wanted to get an early start on work today and made me make coffee for everyone.”
“Well, that was also true, but yeah. She didn’t know she was doing it. We fell asleep facing away from each other. She must have rolled into me and forgot it was me or something.”
“You sound like you were awake when it happened,” Arlowe noted.
“So?”
“Why were you awake?” Sarai asked.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Probably because Stella was next to you, and you knew if you fell asleep, you’d spoon her.” Arlowe laughed. “Been there.”
“That’s not how it was. I just happened to be awake, and she spooned me.”
“Did you push her away?”
“No, Sarai, I didn’t. I didn’t want to wake her up, which is another reason why I left the bedroom: she was still asleep.”
“I’m sorry; I’m still confused,” Enya said, shaking her head. “You say you two don’t like each other, but you do. It’s pretty clear to everyone else.”
“Did you not see us argue today?”
Violet pointed to the open garage door behind her as if that would explain the whole thing.
“I saw you argue with another businessperson, yeah, but it wasn’t like you were arguing over anything that had to do with your relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship, Enya.”
“I didn’t mean a romantic relationship. I meant relationship in a general sense. You disagreed with her ideas. She disagreed with yours.”
“Yeah. And even then, it was fine. You weren’t yelling at each other or anything, and neither of you stormed out of the garage when you didn’t get your way,” Sarai said before she stole one of Enya’s baby carrots and chomped on it.
“Well, we’re not six years old,” Violet replied.
“You know what I mean.”
“Sarai, Stella and I aren’t dating. And she doesn’t want to date me, either.”
“I think she does, but whatever you say, Violet.”
“You know how Stella told you that she figured out the whole wanting to have sex with you thing recently, but that it had been there since school?”
“Not exactly what she said. But what’s your point, Arlowe?”
“What if, all along, it wasn’t that you two hated each other, like some kind of deep-seeded hate that will never go away, but you actually liked each other?
You just met under competitive circumstances, and you both went a little crazy because of that.
What if you had met her in an Amsterdam bar instead? ”
“Shit…” Sarai pointed at Violet. “What if she’s right? You met Stella at school, when you were still trying to impress Mommy and Daddy Russell.”
“I had a girlfriend,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Pretend you didn’t,” Arlowe persisted. “Pretend you were both single. Stella walked up and, I don’t know, offered to buy you a drink.”
“I don’t know what would’ve happened then.”
“Well, you obviously like her physically,” Enya noted.
“Yes, I do. She’s hot.”
“And?” Enya asked.
“And what, Enya?”
“Is she just hot?”
“She’s pretty, okay? She’s my physical type. Is that what you meant?”