Chapter 14
THE WOMAN ON THE SCREEN WAS take-your-breath-away beautiful.
A toothpaste-commercial smile; giant, round eyes that glowed as much as her dewy skin; thick hair that cascaded in gorgeous waves down her back.
According to her profile, she was a physiotherapist; she loved hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter; she had an adorable dachshund-Chihuahua mix with ears like a bat’s; her ideal Friday night was screw-top wine and takeout Thai; and she lived downtown, not far from Simone.
She was easily the most promising woman Simone had encountered since downloading this dating app for queer women.
She held her breath as she hovered her thumb over the heart button. Then, with a sigh like air whooshing out of a slashed tire, she put her phone face down on the toilet paper dispenser and finished what she was doing in the washroom.
Simone stuffed her phone deep into the back pocket of her jeans before she washed her hands and went back out into the office. She’d had just about enough of torturing herself for the day.
Now that she was back from Whistler, work was stressful enough on its own.
The air was getting thicker with nervous excitement the closer they got to next Friday night’s launch party.
Frankie had made it clear that the launch party was just as important as when they opened their doors to the general public the following week, if not more important.
On Friday of next week, they’d be hosting a respected group of journalists and influencers whose early reviews of the Rainbow Museum could make or break the company’s success, as well as a bunch of powerful investors who’d want to see their financial contributions had been put to good use.
Simone trudged back to where she’d been working at the office kitchen counter, which Nina was also using as a standing desk.
The communications director was guzzling a glass of cold brew and cursing the members of the press who still hadn’t RSVP’d to the event.
“It’s fucking homophobic,” she declared.
Nina tended to say this in regard to most inconveniences, no matter how trivial: the time they ran out of oat milk in the office fridge; the time the Wi-Fi went out for a few minutes; the week the streetcars were running on an alternate route due to construction.
Simone adored Nina, but it could be hard to tell when she was kidding and when she was serious.
Simone plopped back onto her stool and returned to the emails she’d been exchanging about marketing assets with their freelance graphic designer.
A few minutes later, Seth wandered over to refill his Stanley. He eyed Simone, who was hunched over her laptop like a jumbo shrimp, and Nina, who was glaring at her screen like she wanted to set it on fire.
“Either of you know if we’re allowed to bring plus-ones to the party?” he asked.
“We are,” Nina answered bluntly.
“Okay, sick, because I already invited Claude.” Claude was Seth’s new boyfriend, and they were still very much in the honeymoon phase. Case in point: “He says he wants me to teach him some of my makeup looks, and that he’d be down to try them out for the party. Couldn’t you just die?”
“Cute,” Nina said without looking up from her laptop.
Frankly, Simone could just die, although Claude learning to apply shimmery highlighter would not be the cause. The cause would be Simone ripping her own brain out, because every time she thought about the prospect of dating new people, her mind inevitably went back to that Vancouver hotel room.
To Ryan.
The sturdy, six-foot-two straight man who got off on making her come over and over again.
Whenever she saw him around the office now, she made sure to keep their interactions strictly platonic.
They were just friends. Friends who’d had a singular night of mind-blowing sex, never to be repeated again.
She’d told him that her gym got a SkiErg and joked that it was almost as fun as actual skiing (not); he’d shown her a photo of the chili he’d made, using the recipe he’d gotten from the Roundhouse Lodge.
But if their interactions were family friendly, the memories running on a loop in Simone’s head were very much rated X.
She’d been riding the stationary bike at the gym last night, when bam!
—she was thinking of his face between her thighs, his magical tongue and hands, the way he’d catapulted her into another plane of existence.
She’d had to get off the bike and end her ride early to avoid orgasming in public.
At home, she’d stripped off her workout clothes, pulled out her vibrator, and cued up something sexy to watch.
Something with women only, so she was less likely to think about him.
When she climaxed, she wasn’t watching the screen.
In fact, her eyes were closed. She was picturing Ryan kneeling on the floor and freeing his rock-hard erection from his boxer briefs.
After, she tried telling herself the video had been the problem: that the music had been distracting and the script had been cheesy.
But deep down, Simone knew those weren’t the real reasons she’d come thinking of Ryan.
The truth was, she wanted him desperately, for more than just one night.
She also knew that was a terrible idea, for the same reasons they’d listed when they’d agreed to hook up in the first place.
Simone deserved to live her best bisexual life, and Ryan deserved a partner who knew exactly what she wanted.
“Simone, what about you?” Seth asked.
She snapped back to the present moment. “Hmm?”
“Are you bringing a date to the launch party?”
“Oh. Um…” She paused to consider the question.
She didn’t want to bring a date to the party—didn’t want to date anyone else, period—but maybe she needed to force herself out of her comfort zone.
It wasn’t like she was ever going to date Ryan, so what was the point in avoiding every other potential partner? “Maybe,” she told Seth.
When no one was looking, she pulled her phone from her back pocket and opened the dating app again. The gorgeous physiotherapist—Erica—was still smiling at her. Simone held her breath and tapped the heart button.
Well then.
It would seem they were a match.
AFTER A FEW DAYS OF MESSAGING, Erica wanted to know if Simone was free for a drink on Tuesday. Simone said yes, she was, and she would love to meet up.
Only now it was Tuesday, the date just an hour away, and Simone’s insides were churning as she packed up her things. She told herself it was butterflies, but if she was being honest, it felt a lot more like a stomachful of eels.
That was to be expected when you were meeting a total stranger, wasn’t it?
She’d have normal butterflies on the next date, when she’d confirmed that Erica wasn’t a catfish or a secret axe murderer or something.
Or maybe she was anxious because she’d dreamed of doing this for so long—going on an actual date with a woman—and now it was finally happening.
Her life was about to take on a whole new dimension.
She took the elevator downstairs to the atrium, and was heading to the employees’ exit when something across the ball pit caught her eye. Something beyond the archway that had been covered by a tarp on her first day. A sliver of woodwork that seemed impossibly intricate.
Simone checked the time and saw she could spare a few minutes before she left for the wine bar.
Besides, she just wanted a quick peek. She hurried past the ball pit and through the archway into the room with moss and flowers covering the walls and took in the finished wooden dragonfly in all its glory.
She thought back to Whistler, to Ryan explaining that his ex had looked down on his work.
The idea that Ryan had ever questioned his own talent was so absurd, it made her angry.
“Don’t you see how talented you are?” she whispered to the empty room.
“I’m working on it,” came a deep voice from behind her. She spun around, and there was Ryan, standing in the archway. Really? I’m about to go on my first date with a woman and I run into the one guy I’m trying to forget?
“Oh—hi!” she stammered. Taking a shot of Ryan Foley wasn’t exactly how she’d planned to kick off her date night.
“Um, I was just on my way out, and I happened to glance over here, and I saw that the dragonfly was finished, and I thought, ‘I should go take a look at that thing I destroyed on my first day!’ ” Not only was she rambling, but she sounded like she’d inhaled helium.
Good going, Simone. This wasn’t awkward at all.
“I’m glad you like how it turned out,” he said, crossing his arms. Arms that had carried her down the hall to their hotel room—that had gently lowered her onto the bed…
The blood in Simone’s head had rushed to her navel when Ryan appeared, so that all of a sudden, she was both very lightheaded and very turned on. Why did her body insist on reacting this way to him—the man she’d vowed never to sleep with again?
“It’s a good thing I ran into you,” Ryan said.
“It is?” Simone’s traitorous heart skipped a beat. We’re supposed to be excited about our upcoming date with the gorgeous physiotherapist!
He nodded at the dragonfly. “That was the last thing I had to finish. I’m done here, as of today.”
She blinked at him. “Done, like… forever?”
“For a while. Until whenever Frankie decides he wants to switch up the designs—and that’s assuming he’d want to hire me again.”
“Of course he’d want to hire you again,” she insisted, needing it to be true.
The news that Ryan wouldn’t be around as much had hit her like an icy shower. This is good news, she tried to remind herself. It didn’t feel like good news, though. Truthfully, she’d enjoyed coming to work knowing there was always a chance of seeing Ryan, awkward as their run-ins might be.
“Will you be at the launch party?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It’s one of my moms’ birthdays on Friday, so I’m driving up to Barrie for the weekend.”
Simone remembered him saying his moms had retired an hour and a half north of Toronto so they could spend more time in nature. She tilted her head and forced a smile. “Aww, that’s nice!”
“Yeah, should be good.”
A beat of awkward silence passed between them.
“Anyway,” he said, “I guess this is goodbye—at least for a bit.”
“Right.” She swallowed hard. “Well, congrats on being done! And good luck with whatever you end up working on next. I know it’ll be amazing.” She paused again. “Everything you do is amazing.”
“Thank you.”
“I really mean it.”
He looked her deep in the eyes. “I know you do. And I appreciate it.”
A sad smile crept across her face. “I know you do, too.”
They hugged. He smelled musky and warm, like always. She wanted to stay there, with her cheek to Ryan’s chest, but she knew she had to leave. For everyone’s sake. She let go and crossed her arms. “Well, see you… at some point.”
“See you at some point,” he said, stepping aside to let her pass through the archway.
SHE WAS MEETING ERICA IN THE Village, at a cozy, quiet wine bar housed in a redbrick Victorian manor.
The first thing Simone thought after walking through the door was that Ryan would have appreciated the wooden balustrade on the staircase.
The second thing she thought was that she shouldn’t be thinking about Ryan—she couldn’t be thinking about Ryan—on her first date with a woman since coming out.
She owed it to herself. Owed it to the old, closeted Simone who’d tried so hard to believe that she was only sexually—not romantically—attracted to women, even as she smoldered with envy at the sight of two women holding hands in the light of day.
Never again would she have to mourn the queer life she’d never get to have, because now she was living it.
She would be present, and grateful, and focused, and all the other words her Pilates instructor was always throwing out at them.
She turned away from the staircase and approached the host stand, forcing a smile. “Hi! I’m meeting someone here at six thirty? The reservation’s under Erica, I think?”
The host smiled back at Simone. “You can follow me right this way. The other member of your party just arrived.”
“Great!”
The host led Simone through an archway into a pretty candlelit room, where Simone tried not to think of Ryan again when she noticed the wood paneling on the walls.
Note to self: Plan future dates away from impressive works of carpentry.
She followed the host to the back corner of the room, where Erica stood up from the table, flashing that toothpaste-commercial smile.
Simone was taken aback; she was even more gorgeous in person than she was in her pictures, her big, round eyes sparkling underneath the voluminous dark brown waves that were tossed to one side of her head.
“Hi!” Erica hugged her like they were old friends, enveloping Simone’s face in her mountain of hair. It smelled like rose petals, feminine and sweet. They sat down on opposite sides of the table.
“Your curls are amazing,” Erica gushed.
“Aww, thank you,” Simone replied. Her hair was the first thing everyone noticed when they met her. Everyone except for Ryan.
“How do you get them to be so springy? Mine never corkscrew like that.”
Simone told her about the life-changing curl cream she’d found after tumbling down a Reddit rabbit hole. “You put it on in the shower, when your hair’s still wet, and then you wrap your hair in a microfiber hair towel.”
“Whoa. You’re talking about things I didn’t even know existed.”
Simone chuckled. “Then, when my hair’s dry, I’ll run a few drops of oil through it to prevent any frizz.”
Erica clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Oh my God, I need all your tips. I’ve been straightening my hair forever, and I’m just now embracing my curls. It’s been a journey.”
“Well, I’m just now embracing that I’m into women, so sounds like we can both support each other,” Simone joked.
Erica grinned. With Lucy and Seth’s guidance, Simone had put it right there in her profile that she was new to dating women.
She might get fewer matches, since not everyone had the patience or desire to be someone’s “first,” but the people she did match with would presumably be open to it.
(“Quality over quantity,” Seth had explained.)
“Oh my God, I just realized,” Erica gasped, “I’m new to curls, you’re new to girls.” She giggled. “I think we’re going to make a good team, Simone.”
“I think so, too,” she agreed. But when the server came to take their orders, and they both ordered a glass of the same prosecco, Simone had the strange urge to cry, but not in a happy way. Like after everything she’d done to find herself, a piece of her was still lost.