Page 39 of Touch of Class

“And most of the time I’m quite happy with that. I like myself, quirks and all. I like my life and the meaning I make around it. I love my job and my family.”

He smiled sweetly. “Me too. All of the above. So, what’s the problem?”

“There’s no problem,” she said quickly. “Gillian and I are vastly different people who want radically different things in life. It’s hard not to compare my messiness to her version of put together, especially when she’s wowing my daughter and impressing literally everyone in the process.”

“I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I adore your messiness.” Hugh wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in. “Come on. Let’s go back over there and break it up.”

She shook her head, but he opened the door and nudged her through. Only when she glanced up to see Gillian and Izzy talking animatedly, it finally hit her what emotion she’d been struck with earlier.

Envy.

In letting it settle over her, watching Izzy’s adoration and Gillian’s open approval, her focus, her interest so freely given, Daphne realized she didn’t want to break it up, so much as she wished she was a part of it.

Gillian didn’t know how it had gotten so late, but she moved through the crowded room with a sense of purpose she found settling.

Britney Spears’s “You Drive Me Crazy” played from the DJ’s speaker, and somewhere across the room, someone called her name. She should be dancing, and under normal circumstances she would, but tonight the song choice felt entirely too on the nose.

She headed for the back door, knowing where she’d find Daphne, where she always found Daphne. She didn’t even remember how she knew it, but did, as sure as she knew her own name.

Stepping around a folding table laden with punch and party decorations, she placed her hand on the cool metal bar across the door, and with a slow exhale, pushed it open.

Her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the darkness, but she felt Daphne waiting there even before she saw her sitting atop the hood of her red Ford Tempo. Gillian stepped into the night, letting the last connection to safety in numbers click closed behind her.

Daphne watched her approach, uncharacteristically quiet as an unseasonably warm night breeze stirred dark hair. She wore a dress, shimmering blue to almost black in the distant halo of a streetlamp, but unlike the first time Gillian had found her like this, it didn’t hang from her loosely. No, tonight Daphne wasn’t a girl, gangly and still growing into herself, but rather a woman in every right. Her body held hints of infinity, and the steadiness of her gaze held no questions. She knew what Gillian had come for. They both did, and the knowledge granted a boldness that had been absent all those years ago.

Gillian allowed herself the luxury of actually looking at her, unhurried and unashamed, taking in every detail from the lush curve of her hips to the swell of her breasts straining the V-neckline of the dress to the thick curls cascading around the smooth softness of her face. The deep espresso eyes raking over Gillian suggested Daphne may be doing the same kind of unapologetic inventory.

She was beautiful and warm and alluring in ways that made it hard to breathe.

Why had it taken Gillian so long to notice? Or had she known all along? Was that why she’d refused to let herself truly take her in? Had Daphne’s fullness been too much to look at directly, like the sun? Did it matter why she’d waited now that the deed was done? There was no unknowing something you’d already let settle against your skin.

Gillian stepped closer, knees brushing the inside of Daphne’s thigh, then lifted a hand to cup her cheek.

Daphne leaned into the touch, eyes fluttering shut briefly before meeting Gillian’s and revealing an entire world in their dark depths. Her lips parted on the sweet release of a heavy breath, and Gillian ran her thumb lightly over them.

Then lowering her head, Gillian hovered there only long enough to relish the anticipation, but just when she couldn’t wait a second longer to surrender, the sound of laughter echoed around them, loud, rich, and reverberating. It shook the air, shook the car, shook her core.

Gillian’s whole body tensed, then she wrenched away from Daphne and awoke in her own bed.

Panting, she lay sticky with sweat on flannel sheets and stared at the dark ceiling as she tried to anchor herself to the present.

She wasn’t in the high school parking lot. She wasn’t eighteen. She wasn’t standing close enough to Daphne to feel her shudder.

She was a grown woman in her own home, in her own bed, alone.

The anticipation of the kiss she’d never felt faded first. The laughter ringing through her ears proved more persistent, though she’d learned over the years that time would dull even that, or at least relegate it to the realm of warning.

Perhaps that was the root of the dream, a sort of subconscious security alert she’d let those reminders slip too far into the gray.

Daphne had been back in her life for more than a month, and Gillian had grown used to her presence in the waiting room, to shared small talk at the coffee maker, even to social interaction at community events. Her friends quickly became Daphne’s friends, too, and as much as she wanted to resent that fact, she couldn’t blame them. Daphne was almost maddeningly friendly.

Gillian had not been fully immune, either, at least not by proxy. She’d allowed herself to grow attached to Izzy, and she’d enjoyed meeting Hugh. Hell, she’d been utterly impressed by the whole family and the way Daphne had queered even the most heteronormative of structures.

She’d been so taken in by all the trappings that she’d allowed herself to overlook, or at least not look too closely at, what actually went on across the hall.

Daphne’s laughter rose up to haunt her. She deserved it. She’d dropped her guard once more, and her brain, her greatest asset and most steadfast protector, sent a vivid reminder of what happened when she’d lowered her defenses around Daphne the first time.

Rolling onto her side, Gillian curled into a ball and checked the clock on her nightstand. Four forty-five in the morning wasn’t her favorite time of the day, but it was close enough to her normal rise and shine time that she kicked off the covers.