Page 103 of Derivation

Violet walked by the hallway, and a second later, Gabi heard the front door open and close.

“You’re naked under that robe, aren’t you?” Sarai asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she replied with a wink and walked into the bathroom.

Gabi smiled the whole way through it, thinking about how they’d bumped into one another in the hallway and that if no one else lived here – assuming they’d already had sex – she would’ve had that towel on the floor in a heartbeat. She understood and even appreciated Sarai wanting to take things slow, but it didn’t stop her from wanting to speed things up. The fact that Sarai had thought that she could be her last first kiss had probably been the best and most romantic thing any woman had ever said to her. Even with everyone interrupting them last night, they’d still managed to salvage their date, and it had ended with Gabi falling asleep on Sarai’s shoulder and Sarai waking her up and telling her that it was time to go to bed. They hadn’t kissed at their doors how Gabi had imagined them doing, but she’d at least hugged Sarai at the door before they’d said good night to each other.

Today, she’d woken up and found Sarai in the kitchen, making them all breakfast, and it had taken everything in her not to walk up to her at the stove and kiss her good morning. Instead, Gabi had walked up behind her, wrapped her arms around Sarai’s waist, and held on to her while Sarai had told her good morning and asked her to help set the table.

Given how Arlowe and Enya had kept interrupting them on their very first date, she had been worried that living with two other roommates while they were just starting out might be a bad idea, but when they’d all had breakfast together that morning, neither Arlowe nor Enya had said anything, so Gabi had thought it might be all right after all.

Of course, then, Violet had shown up, and they’d had a Saturday morning meeting to primarily talk about the upcoming campaign and launch, but also the issue that the app had experienced. Arlowe had asked if Gabi could help, and she’d said yes because Sarai would be there, too, and it would give her an excuse to be in the same room with her.

Now, Gabi was getting ready for their second date, and this one, Sarai had planned, having asked her at lunch if she could take her out for dinner that night. Gabi had been glad because they hadn’t talked about when their next date would be at the end of their first one, and she hadn’t wanted to wait long.

“You look great,” she noted when she walked out of her bedroom and saw Sarai at the end of the hallway, waiting for her again.

“You look great, too.”

“I like you casual. Just making sure you know that. And I loved the dress; wear that dress whenever – like, anytime, honestly – but you look amazing in everything, so this is also amazing.”

“This is just a sweater and jeans,” Sarai told her with a chuckle.

Gabi walked to her, took Sarai’s hand in her own, and said, “I love everything you wear. I even liked you in those big-ass clogs you stood in outside of–”

“I remember.” Sarai laughed. “I like that picture a lot. I still have it on my old phone.”

“You still have your old phone?”

“I kept it, yes. I had all my old messages with my friends on there, so I didn’t want to get rid of it.”

“It’s so easy to transfer stuff to new phones now, but it wasn’t back then, huh?”

“Right,” Sarai said. “I also kept it because of your messages.”

“Mine?” she asked, smiling.

“The ones from right after you left, yeah,” Sarai revealed. “I guess I could’ve exported everything and kept it all on my computer or something, but that seemed like a lot of work when I could just keep my phone. I still have the old charger, too. You know how often they change those. I didn’t want to take the chance that I wouldn’t be able to start it up one day.”

“You are very cute,” Gabi told her with a smile. “And I kept mine, too.”

“You kept your phone from Amsterdam?”

“Well, it wasn’t from Amsterdam; it was just my phone. But when it was time for an upgrade, I didn’t turn it in. I still have it. It’s in a box. Maybe when we get back, we can charge them up or something, and we could look at them tomorrow and reminisce; see how lame we were back then. Well, me. I was lame. You weren’t.”

“I’m sure I was pretty lame.” Sarai squeezed her hand. “I like that idea, though.”

“Cool. It’s a plan.”

“It’s a date,” Sarai said with a smile. “Now, we should go.”

“Are we late for a reservation?”

“No, you don’t make reservations for this place. I just know that one of our roommates will eventually emerge from somewhere, so I’d rather get out of here before they do.”

“Let’s go, then,” Gabi agreed.

They headed out on their second date, and Sarai was driving this time, so Gabi took her hand and put it in her own lap when they made it out onto the street.