Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVEN
AUDREY
I’m about to press my thumb to the lock to open the door to my and Willa’s new townhome when the door opens abruptly. Willa stands there, looking frantic and relieved. Her ash-blond hair is haphazardly piled on top of her head in a lazy bun and wispy layers of hair frame her face. The softness of her relief at seeing me doesn’t last long. She narrows her eyes and says, “Where the fuck have you been? It’s two thirty in the morning.”
I push through the door and close it behind us. “Didn’t you get my text?” I ask.
“ Met a friend. Going to get a bite to eat. Don’t wait up. ”
“So why do you look like you were about to send out the National Guard to look for me?” I say.
“It’s two thirty in the morning. You never stay out past midnight.”
“My fairy godmother took pity on me and gave me until three a.m. tonight before I turn into a stick in the mud.”
“Oh, honey, you’re not a stick in the mud. You’re more like a deep-set fence post.”
“How flattering,” I murmur.
Willa isn’t wrong. Birth-order stereotypes are spot on with the two of us. I’m the solid, responsible sister who spends more time than she should worrying about and mothering Willa, even though she’s only three minutes younger and doesn’t need mothering in the least. Willa is as solid and responsible as I am. She’s also charming and vivacious and makes everything look incredibly easy while she methodically checks everything off the to-do list she pretends she doesn’t make every night before she goes to bed.
“What are you doing awake, anyway?”
Willa moves out of my way and sweeps her arm across our new living room and kitchen in her best The Price is Right hostess impression. “Unpacking.”
Our plan had been to use Saturday and Sunday to unpack before our new project begins on Monday. I expected the main floor of our three-story townhome to be full of boxes. Instead, the long rectangular space is almost pristine, and smells of lemon Pledge and Pine-Sol. Boxes are neatly broken down and stashed in the back corner by the stairs that lead to the basement and garage, and my things have been incorporated in with Willa’s seamlessly: my favorite chenille throw I snuggle under when watching TV or reading a book; a bright-orange Gluggle Jug I bought on a business trip to London sits on the kitchen counter next to Willa’s cookbooks; a half-empty glass of wine is next to an opened bottle of one of my Saint-émilion Cabernets. I look at Willa and raise an eyebrow.
“Should have been here to stop me.” She walks into the kitchen, pulls a wine glass out of the cabinet, and pours me one.
I follow her into the kitchen, my eye catching the bookshelf by the fireplace where my books are crammed a bit haphazardly onto two shelves.
“You can arrange them by the Dewey Decimal System tomorrow,” Willa says, reading my mind.
“I’m actually thinking about sorting them by color.”
Willa laughs. “Sure you are.”
“Thank you so much for doing all this, Willa. You really didn’t have to.”
She shrugs and holds out the wine glass. “It kept my mind off worrying about you running into Shae and her convincing you to stay.”
“I would be offended, but I deserve that.”
We clink our glasses together.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers,” I say.
I close my eyes and let the wine settle on my tongue before it slides down my throat. I inhale with the deep satisfaction of enjoying a good glass of wine and get the barest whiff of Toni on my lips and I am back in her bed, my head between her legs, watching her come undone, back arching and her pressing into me, her hand on my head holding me exactly where she wants me. I feel myself getting turned on thinking about it.
I raise my eyes and meet Willa’s shrewd gaze. My smile falls from my face. I hadn’t realized until then that I was smiling.
“Have a nice time catching up with your friend?”
The question sounds innocent enough, but this is Willa. My identical twin who can read my every thought and feel my every emotion. I furrow my brows. Surely she can’t feel…she doesn’t know…I shift on my feet and press my thighs together.
“You just got laid, didn’t you?”
“Oh my God.” I pause. “Noooo.” I draw out that two-letter word into at least five syllables.
Willa laughs. “You so totally did.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because you reek of sex.”
“How would you know?”
“Low blow. Don’t change the subject. Who was it? Do I know her?” Her face darkens, suddenly. “It wasn’t Shae, was it?”
“No. Shae strutted into Dewey’s with a teenage bimbo on her arm with Robin, Daphne, Cam, and Lisa following right behind like a row of ducklings following their mother.”
“I never liked them. Any of them.”
“You were right,” I say. I gulp my wine. “I wish I’d listened to you.”
Willa sighs and comes around the counter. She takes me in her arms. I put down my wine glass and hug my sister, my best friend, back.
“None of that,” she whispers. “The past is the past and you’re moving forward. I’m here for you every step of the way. And your therapist. She’s with you, too.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I say.
“That is something you will never have to worry about.” She pulls back and holds me at arm’s length. “Now, enough about Shae and her gaggle of sycophants. Who is this woman and how was the sex?”
I can’t keep the grin from my face, so I take a huge drink of my wine.
“Spill,” Willa says.
“Something snapped when I saw Shae walk in that bar,” I say. “I didn’t mean to end up in this woman’s bed.” I pause, remembering the kiss Toni gave me as I left, the softness, the promise or hope of something more. I meet Willa’s gaze. “But I’m really glad I did.”
“That good, huh?”
I let out a long breath. “Oh, yeah,” I say, and laugh.
Willa raises her eyebrows. “I want to ask for a play by play, but I know you won’t give me one.”
I’m not one to share intimate details, even to Willa, but I feel a little giddy from doing two things so out of character and almost spill it all. I catch myself at the last minute.
“No.”
Willa raises both eyebrows. “Oh, I’ll get it out of you eventually.”
“Not a chance.” I take a deep drink of my wine and spy myself in the pristine glass double-oven door. I run a hand through my long blond hair. “Good God, I have sex hair.”
“Uh-huh,” Willa says, her eyebrows raised in anticipation of a nugget of news.
“Not happening, Willa.”
“Come on, throw a celibate girl a bone.”
“Watch porn,” I say.
Willa’s eyes widen. “You had porn sex?”
“No.” I can’t help but laugh. “No.” I sigh. “Fine. She let me run the show. I forgot how much I enjoyed that.”
“You were the dom?”
“It wasn’t S&M, Willa. I was the top.”
Willa leans on the counter and rests her chin on her fist, her expression turning thoughtful. “You haven’t done that in a while. Was it like riding a bike?”
The memory of riding Toni’s face flashes through my mind. I press my lips together to keep from laughing. “You could say that.”
Willa’s eyes widen. “Oh my God you’re getting a visual. And now I’m getting a visual.”
“I better not be in that visual.”
“Ew, gross. No, it’s Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.”
“ The Proposal . Solid choice.”
Willa shakes her head. “Enough of that. Back to you.”
“No, really. Keep fantasizing about the characters in an oughties rom-com.”
“Hey.” Willa reaches out and takes my hand. “I’m happy for you. Shocked as hell you picked up a stranger and slept with them, but happy, too. You’re a smokeshow, Auds. Denver lesbians are going to be lining up to date you.”
“A smokeshow? What is that, like a vaping convention?”
Willa rolls her eyes. “Use your context clues to figure it out.”
“Oh, you’re calling me hot , as in sexy.”
“Yes.”
“Which means you’re calling yourself hot and sexy, too.”
Willa straightens and shrugs her shoulders, lifting her wine glass to her lips, and grins. “It’s a truth universally acknowledged.”
“When are you going to get back out there?”
She sets her wine glass down with a solid click. “You mean picking up strange women for a one-night stand at the Dew Drop Inn? Never.”
I open my mouth to clarify, but Willa cuts me off. “I don’t want to talk about this, Auds. OK? I’m fine. I don’t need a man to make me happy.”
“I know that.”
“Then stop pushing me to get back out there. I’m having better sex with my bullet vibe and lesbian porn than I ever had with a man. And this is hardly a good time to try to date. We start our first project Monday, remember?”
I finish off my wine and hold out my glass. “Top me up.”
Willa pours more for both of us. “Greta Giordani texted me tonight,” she says.
“Why? Everything OK?”
“Well, it’s Black Friday. Their website was at a crawl and they’d sold out of their bestsellers by noon. They gave out a ton of discount codes to keep the customers happy.”
“Waste of money. Fourteener gear is hot right now.”
“Even hotter now they’re going to have a shortage going into Christmas.”
I touch the tip of my nose in agreement. “A private, family-owned company. American made. People will pay full price. Hell, they ought to raise their prices.”
“Greta wants to send out a newsletter on Monday, apologizing for the inconvenience and talking about the future.”
“Good idea.”
“It’s going to be full on for a while.” Willa raises the empty wine bottle and shakes it. “If we’re going to get drunk, tonight’s the night.”
“None for me. I’m exhausted.”
“I bet.” Willa picks up our glasses and puts them in the sink. “Don’t forget about our appointment with Johan tomorrow morning.”
“I remember.” I run my hands through my hair.
Willa catches me and raises her eyebrows. “You gonna finally do it?”
I twist my long hair into a bun and hold it there, looking from side to side in the mirror. “Yeah,” I say slowly, letting my hair fall back against my shoulders. “I think I am.”