Twenty-Five
Daphne pulled up the comforter on her freshly made work bed, then moved over to the futon and rearranged the pillows for a second time. Pausing to listen to the silence for a moment, she shook her head.
It was late, there was no one left in the building, and no amount of folding blankets or adjusting the lights would change the fact that Gillian hadn’t been in all day.
She’d apparently called off all her clients earlier in the day, which was unlike her, a fact every one of her colleagues mentioned every time they’d stopped by, subtly suggesting maybe Daphne might know where she was, but she didn’t.
Which wasn’t the same thing as not knowing what might be on Gillian’s mind, or why. Still, she wasn’t ready to tell anyone else about the conversation she’d started to regret having this morning.
She still trusted Gillian to do the right thing, but had she left too much to chance?
She’d spent all afternoon thinking about what Tegan had said, and she’d come to the conclusion that, even while it was a legitimately big step for her to trust Gillian, if she wanted a relationship between them to work, she’d also have to learn to trust herself again, too.
And she did want this to work. She’d been afraid to admit that in the harsh light of dawn, but here in the quiet, dimly lit comfort of a sanctuary she’d built with intention and deliberation, it was impossible to deny that she did want a relationship with Gillian.
It didn’t make sense, but she wanted Gillian more than she’d let herself want anything in a long time.
A faint noise in the distance caught her ear, and she turned toward it, straining to hear better; a key in a lock, the swing of the door, cold wind howling outside until it fell shut again.
She bit her lower lip to keep from calling out. It could be one of the others, back to check again if Daphne had seen the woman they were all waiting for, but the purposeful click of heels on the hard floor caused her heart to soar.
No one else in the world strode down a hallway like Gillian DeGarmo on a mission.
Daphne met her at the door and planted a kiss on her mouth before she even had a chance to open it. She kissed her as if they’d been apart for years instead of a day, and all the coiled stress in her body eased as it pressed into the one she’d sought.
“Wow,” Gillian said when Daphne finally stepped back. “If I knew to expect a welcome like that, I might call off work more often.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Daphne said softly.
“Maybe not, but I’d think about it a lot.”
Daphne shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not saying earlier how much I wanted that. That I want it every time you walk into a room. That I’d like to keep doing it for a long time.
That I want you for a long time. I know it doesn’t make sense, and you probably have better plans, so I wanted you to make the decision because I trust you to make a good one, but in case I failed to make it clear this morning, I like you a lot. ”
Gillian smiled. “The message might not have come across this morning, but I do think you were pretty clear last night.”
Daphne laughed, relieved to see Gillian hadn’t slipped too far away to be a little cocky.
“However, you also made a serious request of me before we went our separate ways, and I took it with the gravity it deserved, the gravity you deserve. I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I had two enlightening conversations to bring things into better focus for me. The first was with Maura.”
“Oh good,” Daphne said sarcastically. “You went right to the problematic, workaholic, detached mother for advice.”
Gillian shrugged. “I have nothing to deny there. She is all those things and much more. In being reminded of that, I was also reminded every one of us is a lot of things at once.”
Daphne waited, not at all sure where this was headed.
“We’re all complex and complicated,” Gillian continued solemnly, “and I used to love that. I used to embrace it, and I don’t know exactly when I stopped, but somewhere along the way I made choices and learned lessons, probably for decent reasons at the time, but they got ingrained in ways that don’t serve me anymore.
So today, I decided I’d like to make different choices and deliberately unlearn some of those things. ”
“Like what?” she asked tentatively.
“Like you are not a problem to be fixed or a provocation to be handled,” Gillian said emphatically.
“You’re challenging, yes, but I live for challenges.
I chose this life seeking challenges. Humans fascinate me.
I love humanity, and Daphne, you’re one of the most beautifully human people I’ve ever met. ”
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she blinked them away as Gillian forged on.
“You are layers of chaos and comfort and wit and wonder. You’re sharp-tongued and a soft place to land. You are amazingly complex, and I love that, which I’m pretty sure is why I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Shock was dizzying and left her lightheaded. “I’m sorry, what’d you say?”
“I’ve fallen in love with you,” Gillian repeated calmly, “and I know that might feel fast, but weren’t you the one who said something about decades of foreplay?”
“Do you plan to remember everything I say and throw it back at me?”
“Why, are you into that? I’m kind of a pro at active listening.”
“Are you seriously joking with me right now? Like, this is the moment you decide you have a sense of humor? What happened to all the crises and provocations and grappling with the weight of your responsibility from, like, twelve hours ago? Did it all just vanish?”
“No,” Gillian said, with a slight smile, “all still very present, but I’m trying something new.”
“What’s that?”
“I had a fellow mental health professional, or rather someone who likes to think of herself as mental health adjacent, introduce me to a new theory, or maybe modality of crisis management, distress tolerance, and emotional regulation. I haven’t read the formal studies, but my initial experimentation has yielded a few promising results, at least anecdotally. ”
Daphne folded her arms across her chest, not at all enjoying Gillian’s return to her overly formal speech patterns and business vernacular after all this time.
Then Gillian leaned forward almost conspiratorially, and added, “Have you heard of ‘just not doing that’?”
Daphne stared at her for a long moment before finally cracking up. “I’m familiar with the concept, but it sounds rather unserious and vague for you.”
“Yes, but I’ve been told that when I start to overthink or over plan or blow things out of proportion, I could just not.
Apparently, it is possible to make a choice about whether or not I want to see situations as crises.
I’m also told I can choose to have faith in my people, or maybe in myself and our capability to handle whatever comes our way. ”
“Oh really?” Daphne planted her tongue in her cheek. “Someone mentioned all that, did they?”
“I’m still not totally clear on the details, but we’ve been pretty resilient up until this point, so I’m willing to entertain the possibility that it’s not necessary or even advantageous to freak out proactively. Maybe I could save those skills for situations when I absolutely need them.”
“I kind of like that policy,” Daphne nodded slowly. “No anticipatory freak-outs. Zero freak-out at all until absolutely necessary.”
Gillian wavered slightly. “Zero is a very low number. I’m not claiming to have mastered the methodology yet.
There may be flaws in the reasoning, or more likely in me and my implementation, but I’m banking on a lot of grace from this woman who mentioned this morning that it’s okay to not have all the answers all the time. ”
“Uh-oh.” Now Daphne turned playful. “I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea. I’m actually not okay with you not having all the answers all the time.”
Gillian arched one perfect eyebrow.
“It’s way more than okay. I prefer it. In fact, I kind of love it. And I kind of love you, too.”
“Kind of?”
“Okay, totally.” She snagged Gillian with an arm around her waist and pulled her close until their bodies pressed together. “You admitting you don’t have all the answers might be the most perfect thing you’ve ever said.”
“Perfect? I just admitted so many imperfections.”
“And I love you for it.” The big emotion surged through Daphne with a consuming ferocity.
“I love you for being this open and vulnerable and present, and because you put yourself through this for me. Gillian, I always thought you were too perfect to be real, but now I see you’re the most perfect when you are real. ”
Then she kissed her.
Thoroughly, completely, and entirely giving herself over to this moment, to this woman.
Like so many things between them, the kiss started slowly, then picked up in both pace and passion. Without a word or even a fully coherent thought, Daphne took a few steps backward, pulling Gillian with her, and did a trust fall onto the bed.
Still mouth to mouth, they rolled so they faced each other, arms and legs tangled together as kissing turned to making out, then edged toward something more.
As Gillian slipped a hand under her shirt and skilled fingers brushed against her skin, Daphne had a sudden flash of awareness.
“Wait.” She eased back only far enough to see her eyes, but still close enough to feel warm breath against her neck. “You said you had two conversations, one with Maura. Who was the other one with?”
“Um, fencing, sports, sorry …” Gillian blinked a few times, her pupils retracting as if trying to focus on something other than her own arousal. “Let me try again. I kept my meeting with Lauren and Jess to talk about the possibility of working with them.”
“And?” Daphne held her breath.
“And it’s kind of a disaster.”
She grimaced. “You’re not going to do it?”