Chapter 19
“What?” I said, stepping out of the car and walking up to the sidewalk. Even after my question and stare, Vi continued with an adorable but smug look on her face.
“Your hair’s down…it’s never down.”
“It is…it’s down sometimes. I sleep with it down.”
I tried to walk toward the coffee shop, which was still about three blocks away despite the idea that there’s actually plenty of street parking available in the valley, but Vi was quick to interrupt my path and nudge me back toward the car.
“No…you don’t wear it down like this, though…” she grabbed my hands lightly and looked deep into my eyes. “You’re making things extra special for Nina, aren’t you?”
I was blushing and knew it…and I hated blushing. “I mean…”
“It’s really, really cute, Em…” Vi played with a few strands, twisting them in her fingers.
“My hair’s cute, or I’m cute?” I said.”
“Oh my god, both…” Vi darted in for a kiss on my cheek, lingering for a few extra moments.
“It’s just…hair…” I laughed as she pulled away.
“And it’s hair that you’re preparing especially for our little date, and that’s really fucking adorable.” Vi backed away, giving me space, pulling me away from the car. “Now let’s go, we don’t want to be late for this date, do we?”
I trailed behind Vi, still blushing hard, feeling both weird and bubbly that she could put me on the spot like this.
—
The first “oh” from Vi was quickly followed by a much lower, much longer, much more eager “ohh…” as Nina walked into the coffee shop. We were far back enough that Nina didn’t see us when she came in and instead went to the counter first for her order.
“Now I can see why you had a problem not instantly caving to her, it’s all coming together…” Vi sipped at her latte, a puff of oat milk foam left behind on her lip that she quickly licked off.
“What do you mean?”
“Her, Monica, Sadie, me…Emma, you have a type.”
“No, I don’t, I…like what I like…”
“And…they all happen to be cute women who are about two to five inches taller than you, delicate features, have great bone structure, and can act as your beautiful princess that you can corrupt to your heart’s content?” She raised an eyebrow and a self-satisfied grin spread across her face.
“I like…other things too.” I tried to raise my defense despite knowing Vi had me pinned down here.
“Yes, but the ones you bring home with you and keep there…we’re just a bit of a sisterhood, that’s all I’m saying.” Vi leaned over and kissed my cheek and then stayed close to my ear. “And make no mistake, I’m pretty sure I’m just as into her as you are, babe…if she’s into us as well.”
“Vi, this isn’t about just possibly fucking Nina. She’s…lonely and wants friends.”
“You do know what happens to a lot of the people we’re friends with, right?”
“I’m aware…ok, fair point.” I stifled a laugh and leaned in to kiss Vi just as Nina approached the table, cobalt blue coffee cup cradled in her hands.
“Well, you two don’t hold off for long, do you?” Nina said.
“Hard to resist.” Vi smirked before standing up. “Here, let me help you with that.”
“Thanks…” Nina said, sitting down with Vi’s assistance, which I was grateful for since otherwise I would have probably ended up with a lap full of latte.
“And to answer your question directly, Nina, if you’re going to spend time around Emma and me, you are really going to have to get used to kissing.” Vi rotated the cup on the table so that Nina could more easily reach it.
“Oh, I wasn’t complaining in the least…from what Emma has said about you, this is about the greeting I expected.” Nina settled into the chair and pulled her jacket off of her shoulders, revealing bronzed skin that I hadn’t really noticed at work before.
Damn, Vi was right about my intentions, wasn’t she?
“I hope the things Em has said have all been positive…” Vi said, leaning toward Nina instead of sitting down “is it too much to hug you as an official greeting?”
“Not at all.” Nina said, standing up a little and hugging Vi before both of them sat down.
“So…” Vi said, always the one to kick off conversations…which I appreciated since I was bad at doing it, “first impression, do you like California or Florida better?”
“She’s been here for two weeks…” I said.
“Oh, I needed like a day and a half to realize I loved it here so, so much more.” Nina said. “There were a…lot of things I didn’t mind leaving behind back there, if I’m being honest. Personal and…” she flourished her hands with a frustrated eye roll, “…everything else.”
Vi put her chin on her hand and looked at Nina with concern. “Want to talk about it?”
“Oh my god…” Nina sipped at her latte again. “I’m not going to burden you two with my messy drama.”
“Nina, you have just made Vi want to hear about it more, I hope you know.” I said.
Vi shrugged, “I do like messy drama, especially when it’s super gay. I’m a simple woman” she grinned.
“I mean…I can talk, and even though Pallas has good insurance and I can finally get a therapist now, there’s…a lot to unpack.”
“Hey, listen…” Vi said. She reached over and grabbed Nina’s shoulder gently, “if you need me to be your free therapist, I’m here for it.”
“Unlicensed free therapist…” I said, not even being opposed to what Vi was doing, I just felt the need to be a bit of a brat at this moment.
“And I’ve had men with licenses and a wall full of medical degrees tell me that me being into women was just me getting it out of my system, so, I don’t think it really matters.” Vi slapped me lightly on the knee. “So, what’s up?”
Nina took the coffee to her lips and held it there, her eyes darting between me and Vi. “OK, I’m going to trauma dump then…”
“Fire away.” Vi nodded.
“So, Florida already sucks for gay people, and my town sucked even more. Like…we were in the middle of nowhere and there were maybe five women around my age that were into women at all. So, I ended up with Jenna. Unfortunately.” Nina looked toward the ceiling and shook her head, “ended up with her for five years…don’t have much to show for it. ”
“Was the sex alright at least?” I said.
Vi looked at me, perturbed a little bit. It’s in this moment I realized you were supposed to lead up to these things in most conversations and that my need to just get to the point wasn’t the best course of action.
“Emma—“ Vi began.
“No! Not at all! I’m fine with talking about it because it pissed me off so much.” Nina said “no, it was…it was so terrible!” She looked around, a bewildered expression on her face. “I don’t know why I even gave her the time of day…ok, for example, can I get, uh, TMI for a second?”
I had to keep myself from bursting into laughter. “Nina, I assure you that there is literally nothing you could say that would be TMI for either Vi or me regarding sex.” I very unsubtly tugged at the rope harness I was wearing under my tank top. “So don’t hold back.”
“Alright…so, everyone is entitled to their own preferences, but, she would only really use the strap-on on me. Only went down on me like four or five times, and even that took a bunch of negotiation” Nina frowned, “I had to beg her to eat me out, and I could tell she didn’t like it when she did it. ”
Even I, a rather well-documented lover of strap-ons, felt my heart sink when I saw the displeasure in Nina’s face.
“That bad?”
“Yeah…” Nina took another sip of her drink. “I’d have to go down on her, of course I did, but…always the strap-on for Nina.”
“That’s…” Vi reached out and put her hand over Nina’s. “That’s terrible, Nina, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t even know what it was, I asked her if it was gender dysphoria, but she always said no, that she just didn’t like eating pussy, uh…” Nina shook her head, “sorry, going down…”
“Nina you can absolutely say ‘eating pussy’ around Vi and me. We, uh…actually hear it a lot.” I said, looking over at Vi with a raised eyebrow.
“It, uh…is really true.” Vi giggled.
“You two are just so comfortable about all of this.” Nina sipped.
“More than you probably know…” I smirked at her.
“OK, no, what’s this whole thing with you…
these hints, the smirks, the innuendo.” Nina squinted a little, looking like she was ready to go in for the kill.
“You’ve been hiding something, and it seems like you’re always on the verge of letting it out.
And, so, since I spilled about my sad-sack sex life, you have to give it up, at least some of it. ”
“Nina, I don’t think you’re really ready…” I turned my gaze away and pretended to focus on something, trying to evade the issue.
“You haven’t told her…any of it?” Vi gripped my thigh.
I sighed. So we were getting into this. “She knows you’re my girlfriend…she doesn’t know…all the other stuff.”
“What other stuff?!?” Nina yelped.
“Nina, I’m sorry Emma has kept this from you for this long.
You were probably kind of jealous of me when you knew I was Emma’s girlfriend, right?
Because she’s told me how hard you’ve been flirting with her, even if you’ve been on your best behavior here.
” Vi grinned, deciding to just rip the bandaid off and get into this.
“Kept what from me?” Nina looked a bit perturbed, but I actually admired Vi a lot for drawing this out like this.
“I think…maybe we should explain it back at our apartment?” Damn, Vi was really just going for it.
“Sure, why not?” A flash of glee fluttered across Nina’s face as she finished her late, and we most certainly started something else.