Winter Jacket: New Beginnings (24 page)

“
Sure your intern wasn’t punking you?”

“I’m starting to wonder.”
Troian pulled a dress from a rack and held it up to her torso. She made a face and returned it to the dress rack. “Speaking of work, have you thought more about my job offer?”

“I couldn’t do that to Hunter,
” I said determinedly.

“Do what? Become wildly successful? Get invited to fancy Hollywood parties? Win pretty statues
for your writing? Wow,” Troian snorted, “what a deal breaker.”

“That’s not what I mean,” I said, rolling my eyes at her antics.
I’d thought about Troian’s offer again last night after ending my video call with Hunter. “I can’t do long distance relationships, and I wouldn’t let Hunter move out here.” I also couldn’t trust that Hunter’s roommate wouldn’t jump into her bed a second time; and maybe the next time Hunter wouldn’t show such restraint. I kept those thoughts to myself. I still wasn’t ready to tell Troian about what had happened.

“Nik moved out here for
my
job,” Troian pointed out. “We made it work.”

“You two don’t count,” I grumbled.
“Your favorite pastime is adoring each other.”

“That’s because
we’re awesome,” Troian sniffed, turning her attention back to a rack of white dresses.

Troian was a bit of an anomaly to me. I could seriously imagine her lounging in a field of overgrown weeds, staring at the clouds as they change
d shapes in the wind, reflecting on the awesomeness of her girlfriend.

A woman who looked to be in her mid-40s approached us. I had
been focusing on Troian so I hadn’t noticed from where she’d suddenly appeared. “Troian Smith?”

Troian abandoned her fruitless search. She removed her sunglasses
, but they got caught in her long hair. “Yeah,” she said, carefully untangling herself, “that’s me.”

“Welcome.” The woman spread her hands at her sides. “We’re so glad you’
ve chosen us to help make your special day even more special.”

“Uh, thanks.” Troian turned to introduce me. “
This is my friend, Elle.”

I gave the
woman a small, cheerful wave. “Hi. I’m the Best Woman.”

I spotted
a ghost of a smile on the woman’s lips, but it was soon gone. “What can I help you ladies find today?”

“Well, I’m getting married,”
Troian said. She jerked her thumb in the direction of the dress rack she’d just been perusing. “So I guess I need a dress, probably one of these white ones.”

“And I’ll need something, too,” I chimed in. “But probably not in white. There’s going to be enough chicks standing at the altar without me confusing the other guests.”

The sales woman smiled mildly. “Did you have a particular designer in mind?”

“
Not really,” Troian admitted. “I’m not into labels.”

“
Okay, well have you thought about a silhouette?”

Troian’
s eyes perceptively widened, giving her a slight deer-in-headlights look. “No.”

The woman turned to me. “
How about you? Any style or color palate in mind? What about fabric?”

I
jerked my thumb in Troian’s direction. “Whatever she wants me to wear. She’s the bride. Well,
one
of them,” I corrected myself.

I imagined we weren’
t exactly the kind of customers this woman was used to dealing with; I’d never looked through a bridal magazine in my life and I had a hard time believing Troian had either.

As if sensing Troian’
s impending panic, the woman nodded curtly. “Let me set you up with dressing rooms and I can start to bring you some options.”

By the time we were assigned fitting rooms and had tried on half a dozen dresses, I’d about had my quota of wedding prep. Maybe Troian should have asked one of her twenty cousins to be her Best Woman.
The only good thing to happen that morning was the complimentary champagne that had finally found its way to us in the dressing rooms. I’d volunteered to drink Troian’s share of the bubbly.

I squeezed into the next dress the sa
les associate had brought me – a violently pink A-frame dress that I’d probably have to stop eating carbohydrates for. The sales woman had told me not to pay attention to the color when she’d handed me the dress, but I couldn’t help feeling like a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

I heard Troian q
uietly swear in the fitting room next to mine.

The dressing rooms didn’
t have actual doors, just fabric partitions. I knocked as best as I could on Troian’s dressing space. “How’s it going in there?”

Troian yanked the curtain open.
She was still in all her clothes and looked like she hadn’t even attempted to try on a dress yet. “I don’t know what I’m looking for,” she sighed dramatically. “I played with Lego’s as a little kid, not Barbie and her Dream House.”

“
Then why go to all the trouble of a wedding?” I pragmatically asked. “If you want to get married, but without all this hassle, just bring Nik to a Justice of the Peace.”

Troian s
hook her head. “I’m only getting married once. I want to do it right. Besides, it’s for Nik.”

I nodded. That was really al
l she needed to say. I knew she’d walk across hot coals if she thought it would make Nikole happy. The same went for Nik though; she was just as crazy about Troian, only she was more subtle about her affections.

“Do you have regrets?”
I asked.

“About what?”

“About not sleeping with more people or dating someone other than Nik,” I clarified.

Troian was a gold star in every way possible. She’d never had sex with a man, she’d only ever seriously dated one person – Nikole – and Nikole had been her only sexual partner. It was sweet, but a little unnatural to me for whom monogamy was often a chore.

“No. No regrets.”

“You’re not just saying that because you’re getting married?”

She laughed. “I lucked out, ya know? And why would I look elsewhere when what I’ve got is so perfect?” Her brow creased. “But you’re not asking about me. You’re thinking about you and Hunter.”

I was always thinking about Hunter, waiting for the other shoe to drop or something. If I wasn’t fretting about the nearly decade age difference, my worries circled around the simple fact that I was the first women with whom she’d ever had a relationship.

I felt guilty too often that because she was committed to me, she was missing out on life experiences. When I’d first Come Out, I’d hopped from one mattress to the next, often eschewing the mattress altogether.

“Remember my
Glamazon student from the coffee shop?”

Troian’s face crunched
as she tried to recall to whom I was referring, but then her eyes widened in recognition. “Oh yeah. What about her?”

“She’s Hunter’s
new roommate.”

“
Her
? No way. When did that happen?”

“A few months ago.”

“Why am I just hearing about this?”

“Because it wasn’t a big deal at the time,” I reasoned. “I basically avoided Hunter’s apartment last semester because of it.”

“But now it’s a big deal?” Troian correctly guessed.

I hesitated momentarily. I still wasn’t sure I was ready to tell Troian because I still hadn’t wrapped my head around what had happened. Plus, when you say something out loud, it just makes it more real. I took a deep breath. “S
he-she apparently hopped into bed with Hunter last night.”

“Hunter told you this?”

I nodded. “She said she promptly kicked her out.”

“And you believe her?”

“Do I have a choice?” I threw back.

“The Elle I used to know would have
gotten out while she was ahead,” Troian remarked.

I stared straight ahead at a
n overflowing rack of taffeta bridesmaid gowns. It wasn’t a lie.

“Is the Glamazon gonna keep living with her?” Troian pressed.

“Sounds like it.”

“And you’re gonna let that happen?”

“I can’t just pack the girl’s bags and toss her to the curb,” I scowled.

“If someone snuck into Nik’s bed, that someone would be losing body parts.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? She’s not your student anymore, right? I see no reason why you can’t kick a little ass.”

“Hunter wouldn’t like it.”

Troian raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Sure it wouldn’t get her wet?”

Some wom
en nearby must have overheard Troian because they looked at us in horror and hustled out of the fitting area.

“Troi…” I said warningly. No matter how long we’d been friends, I couldn’t get accustomed to the explicit-nature of her conversations. I certainly wasn’t a prude, but Troian could be so
earthy
sometimes in her word choice that even after all these years of being friends it still made me uneasy.

Troian gave me a cheeky grin, but she held her hands up in surrender.

“I’m half-tempted to tell Hunter to go ahead and have sex with Loryssa,” I admitted. My stomach twisted as the words fell out of my mouth.

Troian stare
d at me, mouth slightly agape. “Don’t you
dare
, Elle Richard Graft.”

“
Why would you think my middle name is Richard?” I blinked.

“Because you’
re being a dick!” Troian practically yelled. “Why would you do that to Hunter?”

“
What? Give her a free pass to sleep with a gorgeous woman?” I rolled my eyes. “Geez, that
is
awfully cruel of me.”

“It is!”
Troian’s voice was shrill. I could sense more eyes on us; we probably shouldn’t be having this conversation about infidelity in the middle of a bridal gown shop. “What kind of head games are you trying to play with that poor girl? She chose
you
, Elle. You have no right to belittle that.”

“
Belittle
?” I spat the word back. “I’m not belittling anything. I just don’t want her to have any What Ifs.”

“
She turned down the Glamazon for a reason,” Troian pointed out. “Hell if I know why,” she snorted, “because you’re clearly not that great of a girlfriend.”

I scowled, but I couldn’
t deny what she was saying wasn’t true.
“I just don’t want to be the reason she doesn’t get to experience other things, other people.”

“You’ve had multiple partners. How’
d that turn out for you?” Troian challenged. “Can you honestly tell me that any of them were worth the heartache, or that if you had to do it all over again, you’d date them all again?”

“If I hadn’t dated them all, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” I stubbornly pointed out. “
If you change the past, you change your present and your future.”

“Thanks for the lesson in time-traveling, Professor,” Troian rolled her eyes.
“What’s your number, anyway?”

“God, don’
t ask me that,” I groaned, throwing my head back. “There was a revolving door in my college dorm room.”

“You seriously don’
t know how many people you’ve had sex with?” she openly gaped.

I shrugged
and pretended to check myself out in the full-length mirror to avoid her judging eyes. “12? 15?” I conservatively guessed. “I just haven’t taken the time to count.”

“Well all I’m saying is that, unlike you,
maybe Hunter doesn’t need to go kissing a bunch of chicks to figure out what she wants. And if you love her, you don’t put in that situation.”

“Of course I love her,”
I snapped, biting back my anger. We were making a scene for sure, but I didn’t want it to escalade. “That’s why I’m being the bigger person and wanting her to have more experiences.”

Troian shook her head so hard
, I thought I heard it rattle. “It sounds to me like you’re scared. You’re scared of Hunter finding someone else and breaking your heart. You want to throw this other girl at her before she can hurt you first.”

“What if we’re all wrong for each other, Troi?” The words caught in my throat
. “What if I’m just her transitional period from straight to gay, and she leaves me for someone her own age?”

“
Then you two weren’t meant to be,” Troian said simply. “But you can’t keep sabotaging yourself, Bookie.”

“It’
s the only way I know how to have relationships,” I admitted bitterly. “Screw things up before they can hurt me first.”

“Well, stop it.”

“Easier said than done. Old habits and all that,” I sighed. I wiped at my eyes, feeling on the verge of weeping in a bridal shop of all places.

“
When are you going to get it through that thick skull of yours that you’re a Keeper, Elle Richard Graft?” Troian said. “You’re smart, kind, generous, complicated, and you’re currently rocking that bridesmaid dress, even if it’s the color of vomit. Hunter doesn’t have to look any further because she’s already found her perfection in you.”

I felt a smile at the corners of my mouth.
“Perfection, eh?”

Troian snorted. “Don’t be getting a big head about it. I’m just feeling extra sentimental because I get to marry the woman of my dreams.”

I gave my best friend a hug. “Thanks, Troi. Sometimes the words that come out of that big mouth are actually nice.”

“You love me, Bookie.” She slugged me lightly on the arm. “You wouldn’t want it any other way.”

+++++

CHAPTER
SixTEEN

I rocked back and forth from my heels to my to
es on the front stoop of Hunter’s apartment complex. My California trip was supposed to last until the following afternoon, but I’d cut it a day short. I’d done all the shopping with Troian that needed to get done – and honestly the trip had been more about me needing to see my best friends than about actual wedding preparations.

When I’d told Troian that I needed to leave, she knew why. And since there was no real reason for me to stay the entire week, I’d called the airline to book an earlier flight. There was a penalty fee to pay, but it would be worth it to see Hunter a day sooner.

I buzzed the front entrance. I’d wanted to surprise her, but the extra security at the front door was determined to ruin everything. It was late. I had no idea if anyone would still be awake. I had been traveling all day because of two layovers and part of me just wanted to sleep in my own bed and bribe Sylvia to cuddle with me. But a bigger part needed to see my girlfriend’s face and hear her voice and hold her in my arms.

As I waited for either
Loryssa or Hunter to answer the door – although I really wasn’t in the mood to confront Loryssa that night – one of Hunter’s neighbors came home. I recognized the elderly man from the few times I’d retrieved Hunter’s mail for her from the lobby.

The man, a slight figure probably in his 70s or 80s, held the heavy door open
for me. “You coming in?” he said with an impatient huff.

I smiled and ducked my head to follow him inside.
After a genuine thank you, I bounded up the three flights to Hunter’s apartment. The pungent scent of Indian food perfumed the air. My stomach reminded me that I’d missed dinner in my haste to return.

I knocked loudly, but not impatiently.
Footsteps groaned on the other side of the door, and I uttered a silent prayer that it wasn’t Loryssa. The chain was removed and the deadbolt was unlocked. The door swung open and Hunter stood in the threshold, barefoot and beautiful. I wondered if I had interrupted her nightly ritual. She was dressed for bed in a tank top and cotton pajama pants, and her face looked freshly washed and makeup free, but her hair hadn’t made it up into a ponytail or bun yet. Instead it fell softly in layers, framing her heart-shaped face. She looked like an angel.

“Ellio!”
she exclaimed, looking surprised. “I thought you weren’t getting back until tomorrow. Did you have to take a taxi from the airport? You should have called. I would have picked you up.” The words tumbled from her perfect mouth.

“I missed you,” I offered up sheepishly.
I had thought my spontaneity romantic at first, but now that I stood in front of her, I realized she might think I had ulterior motives for coming back early. I hoped she didn’t think I’d cut my trip short because I didn’t trust her.

I was about to say as much, but she lunged forward.
Her hands slid behind my neck and her fingers curled around the waves at the base of my neck. Her mouth found mine, hard and eager like it had been years instead of days since we’d last seen each other.

I brought my hands up to cup her face and slide my fingers through her silken hair. Her candy tongue sought entrance, which I gladly granted. She tasted like a mixture of sugar and mint.

My hands left her face to feel beneath the soft cotton of her tank top. I slid up the flat plane of her stomach to cup her bra-less breasts. Her shirt bunched as my hands glided higher and I dropped my head to kiss the soft skin in the crook of her neck.

With my mouth working against her sensitive neck, she was momentarily frozen. I took the opportunity to walk us into the apartment and I shut the door behind me with the help of my foot, unwilling to let her go. I only stopped walking her backwards until her back hit against a wall in the foyer.

I inhaled deeply between alternating wet kisses against her neck and sharply nipping at the tender flesh. She smelled so good. I hefted the equal weight of her breasts and pinched each nipple between the pad of my thumbs and the side of my index fingers. Her nipples responded immediately and she arched her back off the wall, thrusting herself more solidly against my hands.

I tugged free the knot at her waist, loosening the
pants in which she slept. I was met with no resistance and no underwear either. I unabashedly groaned into her mouth as my hand met her sex, warm and soft. I resisted the urge to immediately plunge inside of her and instead brushed along the outline of her swollen sex with just the tips of my fingers. My fingertips danced over the small nub of her clit. Her body involuntarily jerked when I flicked over the sensitive bundle of nerves.

I thought I heard a door open and then promptly shut, but it was hard to tell over the breathy gasps directed in my ear.

“Is she home?” I didn’t have to say her name. Hunter knew to whom I was referring.

Hunter gasped into my ear when my thigh
pressed hard against her core. “Uh huh. But don’t you dare stop,” she groaned. Her hands gripped the front of my shirt. “Let her hear.”

I dropped to my knees while keeping her pinned to the hallway wall. I nuzzled my nose into the soft flesh of her belly, and she squirmed when my canines grazed over the vulnerable flesh. She submitted to my touch, not hesitating or stopping me or trying to regain control as if she recognized that I
needed this more than she did.

I looked up at my beautiful girl. Her arms were elevated, raised above her head and flat against the wall. Her eyes were scrunched closed and her pink mouth was slightly open, panting and waiting for my next move. In the back of my brain, something
Loryssa had said to me once tickled at my memories:
“Go mark your territory, Professor.”

I tugged her sleep pants down over her hips and they free fell to pool around her ankles.
I grabbed her taunt thighs and pulled her to me. I licked the length of her, ending at her clit. She tasted so good. My fingers sought her entrance, and I pressed two into her, bottoming out. She gasped loudly and her eyes flew open at the intrusion. There was nothing gentle about this. I wanted her. Now.

I wrapped my left arm around her lithe waist even though I knew she had no intention of going anywhere until I had completed my task.
She was so warm and wet and soft around my fingers, I could have cried. Instead, I suckled at her clit, causing her hips and thighs to twitch and jump.

She dropped a hand to cradle the back of my head and hold me in place.
Her hips moved against me, setting a rhythm as I worked my fingers, coated with her arousal, in and out of her.

Her moans were
loud and I grunted against her. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she chanted in time with each punishing thrust. The lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin rang in my ears.

“
Do you want to continue this in the bedroom or stay right here?” I asked, looking up at her.

H
er eyes narrowed perceptively. “I told you not to stop,” she practically growled. She took a more firm grip on the back of my head, and I closed my eyes, allowing her to resume the frantic pace.

I was gasping for air by the time she did let me stop.
We laid on the floor, still in the front foyer, surrounded by shoes. My jaw and my right bicep ached and the hardwood floor dug into my tailbone. I stared at the white ceiling above me as my lungs continued to struggle.

“That ceiling plaster is cracked,”
I breathed out. I turned my head to look at Hunter and watched the rapid rise and fall of her chest.