Chapter 28
Friending
Los Angeles
Amy waited round the corner from the bar, anxiety gnawing away at her.
She’d arranged to meet Luisa outside so that they could go in to the party together, and she’d made sure that she was early so as not to keep Luisa waiting, but now she was starting to regret it because, well, this felt significant.
Meeting her friends… make or break in any budding romance, but an entirely new experience for Amy because in the past she’d always been the ‘she’ and it had been her friends that whichever guy she was seeing needed to impress.
Being on the other side of it could charitably be described as interesting.
She literally had no idea what to expect with Luisa's friends.
She knew that a few of them were also Mexican, but that most were from the US and that all of her friends in LA were recent friends rather than childhood friends.
Luisa's guidance on dress code was to dress up for a party, so Amy had gone shopping that afternoon and chosen a dark red, abstract patterned long sleeved mini dress that the shop had called a skater dress, and she chose to wear that with nothing but a pair of high heels and some of her favourite lingerie underneath.
She wasn't entirely sure whether Luisa was bringing her as a friend, as a 'friend', or openly as her date, but one way or another she wanted to make a good impression and knew that she had the figure to pull a look like that off.
She wore her hair half down, half tied at the back, aiming for the sort of look that said effortless while clearly being far from it.
Luisa ended up arriving a few minutes late, and Amy saw her coming down the pavement from some distance off.
As she got closer, Amy could see that Luisa was wearing a silver, sparkly dress, longer than Amy’s so that it went down to just above her knees but with no sleeves, tight around her waist, emphasising her figure.
She was wearing high heels as well, and her hair was tied back.
When Luisa saw Amy she grinned and came over, giving Amy a big hug. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “You look stunning… if we weren’t already seeing each other I’d be asking to buy you a drink tonight.” She stepped back to look admiringly. “Those legs…”
Smiling, Amy replied, “Same to you! I love your dress and what you’ve done with your make-up.” Close up Amy could see that Luisa had gone for a smoky sort of look, particularly around her eyes. It worked very well on her.
“Shall we?” Luisa asked, nodding towards the door of the bar.
“Yes, lead the way. Just… uhhh… can I check what I’m here as?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, am I your friend for tonight, or your date, or what? I don’t mind, but I don’t want to accidentally out you in front of people.”
Luisa smiled. “I guess only my closest friend Maria knows about you, but it’s not like it’s something that I want or need to keep secret with others that I sometimes like women.
So why don’t we call you my date if anyone asks, and just act how we’d normally act?
It’s not like we need to announce anything to anyone. ”
“Ok, that sounds good,” Amy replied with some relief.
She’d have accommodated whatever Luisa wanted to portray to her friends gladly, but inside Amy would have been not worried but maybe a touch perturbed if Luisa had wanted to conceal what they had between them.
She made the conscious decision to be discrete, though, and let Luisa take the lead…
she wouldn’t tell anyone herself, because she didn’t know all of the subtle and complex interactions there might be at play between everyone there.
She followed Luisa up the steps into the bar, and they soon found themselves in the throng of the party, at least fifty people there with half of the bar cordoned off for them.
It was a bigger party than Amy had expected but she was glad as it meant a less intense evening…
something more intimate risked ending up getting grilled by one of Luisa’s friends, whereas there were plenty of people to talk to here.
Straight away Luisa bumped into a couple that she seemed to know well judging by the hugs and kisses on the cheek they gave each other, and turning to Amy she said, “Amy, let me introduce you…”
With her friendliest smile on her face, Amy got herself set for a long night of meeting new people.
***
Around an hour later, Amy was having a great time despite her earlier nerves. She’d had a couple of drinks which had helped, and had already been introduced to more people than she could possibly remember.
At that precise moment she was talking to Katie, an American model friend of Luisa’s that, she realised with a smile to herself, she was flirting a little with.
Not much, certainly not enough to make Luisa jealous, but Amy was finding it impossible not to because the model also happened to be one of the most beautiful women that Amy had ever met.
“This whole modelling world is new to me,” Amy said. “Luisa’s told me a bit about it and she seems to love it, do you like doing it?”
Katie thought for a moment, then replied, “Yes, on the whole. I mean, I get paid to make sure that I eat well and keep in shape, a lot of people would love to do that. So yeah, I think so.”
“You must get people hitting on you loads though. I mean, look at you…”
Laughing, Katie replied, “That almost sounds like you are…”
Amy blushed and stammered out, “No… sorry… I didn’t mean it like that.” She looked away over to where Luisa was stood on the other side of the room talking to a couple of men that she knew, and when she looked back she could see that Katie was smiling.
“Don’t worry, I was joking. But yeah, you deal with it though.
Honestly, a lot of men assume that because you’re a model you’re easy and a lot of men want the bragging rights of sleeping with a model, but you learn how to brush them off and how to avoid situations.
The worse is being alone with a more predatory photographer or agent, but the key there is not getting into those situations in the first place. ”
Amy took a sip of her drink and scanned the room, then asked Katie, “Do you know a lot of people here?”
“Most, it’s a nice group. What brings you to LA though? How do you know Luisa?”
“Oh, I’m here with work for a couple of weeks.
I met Luisa last time I was over and we enjoyed hanging out, so she invited me along tonight.
It was either that or sit in my hotel room watching TV.
” Amy hoped that that was a sufficiently vague but true answer as she didn’t know how well Katie and Luisa really knew each other.
“Luisa’s really good fun,” Katie replied, glancing towards Luisa as she said it.
Amy looked her way too and just at that moment Luisa glanced over at Amy, flashing her a smile as she did so, the sort of look that somehow managed to convey a kind of shy and intensely private desire, and to make everyone in the room momentarily disappear.
Amy smiled back and felt herself blush a little.
Katie started laughing. “Oh… met like that! I see…”
“What do you mean?”
“All I’ll say is that I hope one day someone smiles at me like Luisa just smiled at you.” Katie smiled. “Luisa is lovely, I didn’t realise she was like that but…”
At that moment Luisa came over. Amy felt Luisa take her hand and give it a little squeeze, subtle, not overt, but a display of affection nonetheless. “Katie, sorry to interrupt but I need to introduce Amy to some more people.”
“No problem, nice meeting you Amy.”
As they walked off Amy said as quietly as she could to Luisa over the music, “She could one hundred percent tell that we’re involved…”
“Really? It’s good that it’s not a secret then.” She stopped and faced Amy in the middle of the bar, taking both of her hands and looking her in the eye, before leaning in to briefly kiss Amy on the lips. “She was watching us walk away, and she definitely knows now.”
***
A few hours later, sometime around midnight, and the party was going strong.
Amy had had quite a few drinks by that point and was fully into the swing of it, sat next to an equally tipsy Katie and Luisa's Mexican friend Maria, and explaining precisely how her life plan to retire to Thailand by the age of thirty was entirely on track despite only having two years left to do anything about it and virtually no money saved up.
Luisa was sat next to her, facing across the table in deep conversation with another of her friends, but the two of them had hours before settled into their natural closeness, and Luisa’s hand was currently resting comfortably and gloriously possessively on Amy’s leg.
In a lull in the conversation, Katie asked, “I meant to ask earlier, how exactly did you and Luisa meet?”
“Oh… I know this one, she told me all about it,” Maria interrupted in her nearly West Coast accent.
Amy had taken an immediate liking to Maria, who unlike most of the women at the party wasn’t involved in modelling or fashion but rather did a job in finance and had been in LA for a while now.
Maria had known Luisa through a mutual friend back at home and she was now Luisa’s closest friend in LA.
Despite not being a model she was an attractive woman, but normal world attractive rather than model attractive.
It felt good for Amy to chat to someone who worked and lived more in her world.
I’ll bet she didn’t describe it all, Amy thought, but her curiosity was piqued. “I would love to know how Luisa described it?” she replied, laughing.
“Well, the first part was easy. I was there in the club that night with her, I can remember seeing you dance with her and then you and her going somewhere from the dance floor. Right?”
“One hundred percent. You’re her friend that’s into that scene?”
Maria laughed. “Guilty! Well, sometimes.”
“You don’t seem like the type?” Amy teased.
“Neither do you and Luisa, but look at you…” she replied, grinning.
“Very true!”
Katie laughed. “It doesn’t happen often, but I’m feeling outnumbered by all you ladies who like ladies.”
Amy, tongue loosened by the alcohol, couldn’t help teasing a little.
“You’re one hundred percent completely straight?
Because that’s what I thought three months ago and…
” She gestured to Luisa’s hand which was resting comfortably on Amy’s leg, fingers gently caressing her inner thigh, a little promise of what was to come when they were in private later.
“I’d never say never but, yeah. It's probably on my bucket list but...”
“Really?” Maria asked in surprise.
“Really never, or really I’d never say never?” Katie replied.
“Really never? You’ve got try it once.”
“Absolutely,” Amy added. “What are you both doing on Friday night?”
“Nothing planned,” Katie replied.
Maria shook her head. “Same.”
Turning to Luisa, Amy said, “We’re free next Friday night, aren’t we?”
Luisa smiled cautiously. “Yes… why?”
“Because you, me and Maria are going to take Katie to the club where we met. See if Katie can tick something off her bucket list. Sound good?”
“I’d love to,” Luisa laughed. Turning to Katie she said, “It’s great fun and no men hassling you. And… you know, who knows what might happen?”
Katie was blushing, but simply said, “Ok, count me in. I’m going to regret this in the morning…” Maria nodded her agreement as well.
Luisa turned back to Amy as a new song came on and, standing up and holding out her hand, said, “We’ve got to dance, I love this song.” As Amy stood up, Luisa turned to the others and hauled them all up on to the dancefloor.