e thinks I’m a pervert for liking older women anyway. I’m never going to un-pervert. I can say that for a fact.”
“Pervert?”
“Oh yeah. I used to get that all the time. For real. When I was sixteen and I came out and I told people I was attracted to women twice my age, like in the thirty-year-old range, they thought there was something wrong with me. When you get older, it’s more acceptable. In a couple years, no one is going to make jokes or tell me I can’t want what I want. I think they were just jealous anyway, because I was young and dumb, and I still knew what I wanted more than any of them ever did.”
Scarlet’s hand came up and her index finger traced Neera’s bottom lip, stilling her. “You were never dumb. I know that.”
Neera paused for a second, then she broke into laughter. Scarlet’s eyes creased at the corners and her lips wavered and then she was laughing too. Neera took Scarlet’s hand and kissed it, then she cupped her face, leaning in to kiss more than her knuckles.
She grazed Scarlet’s lips with her own, before going in for a full kiss. Scarlet’s eyes slammed shut and she moaned into the kiss. Neera’s eyes closed too, and she kissed Scarlet without holding back. Soon, the kiss wasn’t just lips on lips. Scarlet’s tongue swept into Neera’s mouth, exploring, demanding, and Neera’s hands tangled in her hair and held on as the taste of Scarlet’s lips transformed her from someone who had just enjoyed a rather relaxing massage, into someone who was half wild with lust and need.
They finally broke away, and Neera laughed between her hard, heavy breathing when she saw that the windows were getting foggy. Scarlet switched the car’s heat setting and in a minute they cleared.
“Are we still going out for dinner?” Neera asked again, a little more cautiously. “I’d really like to take my sexy, wonderful, thoughtful, kind girlfriend out for a steak dinner.”
“Oh, a steak dinner?”
“Or tacos. Or ice cream. Whatever you want. Your pick. I’m down for anything, as long as it’s with you.”
“And if I knew a place that only made tuna casserole?”
Neera burst into laughter. She threw back her head and let the sound bounce around the car. She laughed until she had to wipe tears from her eyes, and she was so, so glad that Scarlet joined in.
“Oh my gosh, I guess that if you really wanted it, I would suck it up and I would go and I would get a soda and call it a night while trying not to pass out from holding my breath against the tuna fumes.”
“You know, as tempting as finding a tuna only place might be, I’d love a good steak if you would.”
Neera could have told Scarlet that she’d eat tuna or wade through a pile of dung for her if it was required, but instead of starting another fit of laugher, she settled for kissing the woman of her dreams again.
Chapter 18
Scarlet
When Scarlet got to the mail at the boutique mid-morning, there was a letter waiting for her from the building’s owner. She wasn’t the only shop in the place. The old warehouse had been converted into a series of shops, and offices above those, and she recognized the letterhead immediately. She saved it for last, like she already knew it was going to be bad news before she read it.
She stared hard at the type after reading it, like that could change anything.
The guy who owned the building wanted to raise rent by almost double within six months. Scarlet didn’t stumble back. She didn’t lean over the counter. She didn’t let out a moan of despair. She was already calculating how that would eat into her profits. Or, more accurately, how there would be very little profit left.
She’d been in this building for years and years and she’d never seen anything so ridiculous. She silently debated, as she stared down at the single page of white paper with the flowing green letterhead, if she could band the other shop owners together for some kind of protest.
After she thought about that, she thought about Neera.
About last night, how when she drove her back to the hospital, to the staff parking lot to get her car, Neera had cupped her face in both hands and stared her down earnestly. She was so young, but she knew what she wanted. She had Elodie’s tenaciousness without most of the stubbornness.
She was a complex, wonderful, compassionate, old soul wrapped up in a beautiful package. She had that spark that people spent their whole life trying to find in themselves, but she’d found it early and she’d nurtured it. She had to have fears, but she came across as being afraid of nothing because she was strong enough to conquer and overcome just about anything. Neera had whispered in Scarlet’s ear, her voice thick with emotion and warmth.
“I’ve tried not to love you and I’ve failed. I failed the first day I realized what it was, and I failed all the other days after. I don’t have to worry about failing anymore, because I don’t want to fail. Now I just get to love you. All my secrets are out there, and I can be just a regular person with you. If you have other secrets, things you haven’t told anyone, let me earn them. Share them with me. Let me be the first person you think about in the morning and the last before bed. Let me be the one you want to call or text first. Let me be that one for you. That’s what I want for us. An extraordinary, ordinary life. Me loving you. You loving me. End of time. End of story. Beginning of a new story.”
Scarlet leaned hard against the counter. Did Neera talk like that to anyone else? Did she say beautiful things to reassure people on a day-to-day basis, or did she save it all for her?
She picked up the letter and waved it like a fan in front of her. She wanted to call Neera, even though she knew she’d be at work. She wanted to tell her. She wanted Neera to be the first to know. She wanted her advice. Even if she didn’t know what to do, she just wanted to hear the sound of her voice.
Scarlet bent underneath the counter and reached for her phone. She wouldn’t call, but she would send a text, even just to let Neera know she was thinking about her. She was in the middle of trying to type in something that seemed equally as profound as anything Neera had ever said, when it went off in her hand. She let out a yelp and dropped it on the counter. Her shoulders shook with her heard breaths and her pounding heart as she stared at the screen. Her hand flew to the hollow of her neck, which she did when she was agitated.
Her mom’s number was on the screen. It was hardly the time to answer a call from one of her parents, especially not after the dinner they’d had not very long ago, but Scarlet grabbed the phone up and answered anyway.
“Hello? Mom?”