CHAPTER 7
Lacey
“I can’t do Saturday, I’m afraid. But I can do Monday,” Lacey said into her phone, which she had on speaker.
“I can’t on Monday. What about Wednesday?” her client asked.
Lacey scrolled to the following Wednesday in her calendar app and said, “I can do after three.”
“I can’t do anything after three,” the woman told her. “What about Thursday?”
She scrolled again and said, “I can do noon or one. I’m booked other than that.”
“I guess I’ll just have to get a lunch massage, then. Can you book me for noon?”
“Sure. I’ll put you in now. You’ll get the confirmation text. Just confirm for me two days before so that I know the appointment is good to go, okay?”
“I know the drill, Lacey. Thank you,” the woman said.
“No problem. I’ll see you on Thursday.”
Lacey hung up the phone and walked to her kitchen to pull something out for dinner.
She wasn’t sure whether or not River would be coming over since she had had a school field trip at the shop that day.
The kids learned how the candy was made and got to sample some.
Lacey had never had a field trip like that as a kid.
She’d gone to museums and the zoo, but never a candy shop to sample sugary treats.
The kids had likely exhausted River enough to want to crash in her own apartment for the night.
They’d joked when they’d first gotten together that they were down for marriage, but definitely not kids, because neither of them felt like they had the energy to raise them nor the money to afford nannies to do it for them.
So, while a group of kids was good for business since their parents usually gave them a little cash to buy something, from what River had told her, it probably meant that River was going to just shower and fall asleep early.
Lacey pulled out some bacon that she’d made that morning for breakfast and decided to make a BLT. She sliced the tomato, pulled out the lettuce, added the mayo to two slices of the bread she had on hand, and stacked it all together on a plate before she sat down on her sofa and turned on the TV.
Working for herself always made her feel like she should be working.
There was no real clocking out for her because there was always something to do, and she was the only one who could do it.
She had an online booking system that was technically on a free plan, but she’d need to start paying for it soon, with the number of bookings she was starting to get.
It would only be twenty dollars a month, but considering that she had just put a thousand bucks on a credit card to pay for some stupid thing that wasn’t going to happen, she was trying to delay having to be charged for that for as long as possible, which was why she also took bookings over the phone.
She was always on call in a way, but she tried to take appointments only Monday through Friday, if she could, leaving the weekends to work on the other parts of her business, like the online marketing and accounting stuff she hated.
Yes, she could go work somewhere and they’d take care of that for her and issue her a check every two weeks, but she’d bought her own table, her own supplies, a car that fit it all in the back, and she liked it this way, driving to a client’s home or business, packing up and leaving when she was finished, and doing it all over again until her hands hurt and her feet were tired.
She’d been lucky to find River because River owned her business, too, so she understood the time commitment.
She’d never once given her a hard time about having to cancel or postpone something they were supposed to do together because a client called and needed a last-minute massage.
That was money that Lacey would be leaving on the table, and she hated doing it because she was saving for her own shop one day.
Maybe it was na?ve to do this all on her own.
She’d have regular clients without all the hassle and driving around and probably make a little more, but she’d work for someone else, and she’d already done that out of massage therapy school and hadn’t enjoyed it much.
The woman she’d worked for had wanted things done a certain way, and Lacey had had to follow her rules, regardless if she’d agreed with all of them or now.
She probably would’ve stayed there, though, had a male client not flirted with her at the counter, but when she had turned him down, he’d complained to the owner, and despite Lacey telling the woman that she was a lesbian and not interested in that client or any other for that matter, she had still been told that her services would no longer be required.
Using the money from her last paycheck, combined with almost every penny she’d had saved up, Lacey had bought her table and cheap products to get her through.
She’d planned to be on her own until she found another job, but after a few months, she’d stopped looking, realizing that she liked working for herself and that her goal of owning her own place was still possible. It just might take a little longer.
When she heard a key in the door, she tilted her head, surprised, and waited for it to open. When it had, River stood there before she quickly closed it, locked it, turned around, and immediately started laughing.
“You have lettuce hanging out of your mouth,” River said as she pointed at her.
“You caught me mid-bite,” she defended and finished chewing. “What are you doing here? I thought you would be wiped.”
“I am,” River confirmed as she tossed her keys on the counter. “Can I hop in the shower real quick? I feel like my whole body is sticky because I was surrounded by children all day.”
“Your whole body is usually sticky because you make sticky candy.”
River tilted her head down, and Lacey thought she was going in for a kiss, but River went in for a bite of her sandwich instead.
“Thanks. Want something more than that? I can order us a pizza before I hop in to clean up.”
“Babe?”
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing here?” Lacey asked.
“Am I not allowed to be here? Did you have plans or something?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t know you were coming over, so I made myself a sandwich. I could’ve made one for you, too.”
“That actually sounds way better than pizza. Would you mind? I brought you a piece of chocolate-marshmallow fudge. It’s in my bag.” River nodded toward the small backpack she had laid by the door. “Oh, and some taffy, too, if you want. Watermelon, strawberry, and banana. I got all your faves.”
“You’re bribing me with candy?”
“Yes.”
“These are acceptable terms,” she replied.
River laughed and hurried off to shower.
Lacey was pleasantly surprised that River had shown up.
The candy would be a nice bonus, but on days like this, River almost exclusively stayed at her own place, so maybe Lacey had been worried about them for no reason.
Then, she remembered that River had stayed at her own place the previous three nights and hadn’t kissed her hello when she’d arrived.
They had hardly texted or talked since their date night, and they definitely still hadn’t had sex.
She made the sandwich and knew River would want a pickle with hers, so she added it to the plate, got them both something to drink before she sat back down, deciding to get her dessert out of River’s bag later, and waited for River to come out before she finished her own dinner to be polite.
When her phone dinged, she had nothing else to do, so she checked the email, thinking it would be a client booking a massage, but it wasn’t.
“Holy shit,” she whispered and covered her mouth.
Miss Keller and Miss Ervin,
Thank you for your generous donation to a deserving non-profit whose sole purpose is to help eradicate childhood cancer.
We are pleased to inform you that you have won the raffle for the double date night with Kennedy Gannon and Cameron Levine.
In order to be eligible to participate, you must be available on the dates listed below.
Transportation to the venue will be provided, as well as accommodations for the entire weekend.
Any questions you may have will likely be answered in the attached agreement, but if you have anything further, you can reply with them to this email.
Both parties must sign, date, and return the agreement, along with confirmation that you are available on the selected dates, by the date included in the agreement.
If the agreement and confirmation are not received by the time indicated, another couple will be chosen, and no prize will be awarded.
Please remember to read the terms and conditions included within the agreement, especially the sections referring to the filming and use of any content recorded during the event, including from the time you are in the provided transportation to the time you are out of that transportation, as well as the non-disclosure agreement.
Again, congratulations, and please return everything to us as soon as you are able so that further arrangements can be made.
Event Organizers
Lacey reread the email, thinking she had to have read it wrong.
She’d done the same thing when she’d gotten her acceptance letter to the college that she’d dreamed of going to in order to study kinesiology, believing then that she might become a physical therapist. Next, she opened up the attachment, which was a lengthy PDF document with a lot of legal stuff that she hadn’t expected.
Of course, it made sense, but she hadn’t actually believed that she’d win this thing, so she hadn’t been prepared to read, understand, and sign any of it.
“Hey,” River said, emerging from the bathroom. “Pickle? Thanks, babe,” she added and sat down next to Lacey, grabbing the plate in front of her. “What are you reading?”
“Um… Well, I need to tell you something.”
“You’re pregnant?” River joked and laughed at her own joke.
“God, no,” Lacey said. “I entered this contest thing for charity a while ago.”
“Contest?”
“Do you remember how we saw that billboard with Kennedy Gannon on it, like, I don’t know, a long time ago, and you said you thought she was a talented actress?”
“I guess. Didn’t I say she was hot, too?”
“Yes, but I left that part out for obvious reasons,” she replied. “How would you like to meet her?”
“Meet who?”
“Kennedy Gannon.”
“In what world would I meet Kennedy Gannon?”
River took a bite of her pickle.
“This one. It’s a celebrity double date raffle. It was for charity, and I never thought we’d actually win, but I donated and entered us. While you were in the shower, I got the email and a lot of paperwork, but we won.”
River nearly choked on her pickle.
“You okay?” Lacey checked and rubbed River’s back when she leaned forward.
“Yeah. All good. Sorry; I thought you said you signed us up for some double date thing with one of the most famous couples on the planet.”
“I did.”
“And that we actually won.”
“We did,” she confirmed, turning her phone to River.
“Sorry. What? You won?”
“We did, technically. It looks like there’s a ton of paperwork to review, and we need to sign it soon, or they will give the prize to another couple.”
“Let them,” River replied.
“Why would I do that?”
“Did you enter this to donate money or to meet them? I didn’t know you were a big fan.
I know we went to that movie Cameron Levine was in, but you didn’t, like, rush to the theater to see it or anything.
If you hadn’t wanted a date night, you probably would’ve just waited until it was streaming to catch it. ”
“True. I’m also not not a fan of them. I think they’re both really talented.”
River set her plate on the table and asked, “So, you really want to do this? Go on a double date with these two? Do they pick the restaurant? Wait. Do we have to drive up to LA to get to a fancy restaurant where neither of us fits in just to ask them questions we don’t really care about the answers to? ”
“It’s more than that.”
“More? Do we get a behind-the-scenes tour of some set and then dinner?”
“No, it’s a whole weekend.”
“Weekend?”
“At a beach house in Malibu, according to their paperwork. The address isn’t there, obviously, just the general location, but it’s all inclusive. They will pick us up, probably in a really nice car, maybe a limo or something, and drive us there and back.”
“But we’re staying with Cameron Levine and Kennedy Gannon?”
“Yes, for two nights.” Lacey set her phone down and turned to River. “Come on, babe. We need this. We’ve both been working really hard lately. We’ve… River, we’re in a rut, and we could use some time in a fancy beach house we could never afford.”
“With another couple who also happens to be two famous lesbians?”
“Well, that’s what the prize is. I can try to enter a bunch of other contests to see if I can get us some fancy free trip or something, but I think my luck at winning things won’t get us there. I’ve literally only ever won this in my entire life, so we’ll be waiting a while to take that trip.”
“Okay, come on here, Lace. I didn’t know about this. I mean, that’s not entirely true – you had your computer out, and I accidentally saw a confirmation that you’d entered some contest, but I didn’t open the email or anything to check the details, and I never thought you’d win.”
“I did.” Lacey shrugged a shoulder. “And I’d like us to spend two nights and what probably amounts to only a total of forty-eight hours in a fancy beach house with a nice bedroom and free food and drinks. It will have a view of the ocean, and we can just relax, River. Please.”
“You really want this?”
“A beach house weekend away with my girlfriend? Yes, I do,” she said.
“I’ll agree to at least read through whatever they sent, but that’s it for now, okay?”
“I can be okay with that.”
“Give me your phone. I’ll check it out.”
“I’ll get you another pickle,” Lacey offered and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“I only agreed to read the stuff.”
“I know,” she replied, got off the couch, and headed into the kitchen with her heart racing.