Page 84 of Touch of Class

A cheer went up from her friends, and, for some reason, Tegan and Robin high-fived. She should’ve been annoyed or embarrassed, but she only felt relief to have it out there.

“And now I’m proud of you, too,” Sawyer said with a grin. “How long has it been since you let go and kissed a woman without having a plan?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember. I mean, I’ve gone on dates in the last couple of years.”

“Years?” Robin fell over onto Sawyer’s lap. “I thought she was going to say ‘months.’”

She shook her head. “I’ve been kind of busy the last few months. I had friends and colleagues actively blowing up my world.”

“And now it’s Daphne’s turn,” Tegan said. “Ready or not, here she comes.”

“Wait.” Sawyer laughed. “No one’s coming yet. I mean, we didn’t interrupt that, right?”

Gillian scrunched up her nose at the crude framing of the question, but, honestly, she couldn’t completely deny the possibility. When they’d walked in, she’d been nowhere near stopping the kiss, if you could even call it a kiss by then. They had at least devolved into a full-blown make-out session and maybe even a bit more.

“Wow,” Brooke said.

“What? I didn’t answer.”

“You didn’t have to,” Robin said. “It’s written all over your face, which is weird enough with you, Queen of the Blank Slate.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Tegan sounded mystified. “You’re so into this woman.”

“I’m not sure that’s true. We’re worlds apart. She and I don’t agree on hardly anything about how we view the world or the proper ways to move through it.” Even as she said the words, a few counterarguments rose up, but she tried to push them down. “Daphne’s not what I’m looking for in a long-term partner.”

“Why not?” Brooke and Tegan pushed at the same time Sawyer and Robin both said, “Long term?”

She looked from one couple to the other, not sure which to address first. She was sure she had plenty of rebuttals for either, but her brain was too shot to summon all of them at once.

Brooke seemed to read the situation and said, “Let’s slow down. We’re all here in the same igloo, and we all love you. We want you to be happy. Deep breath, and big sip of wine.”

Gillian was being managed, she knew it, and she wasn’t too proud to appreciate it. She did as instructed, letting the air fill her lungs and the wine fill her senses. Warmth spread through her core, both the literal and the figurative kind.

“Okay,” Robin said more deliberately. “You kissed a woman you like for the first time in ages, and it curled your toes, right?”

She nodded. “I mean, two weeks ago I would’ve argued with the idea of liking Daphne. I haven’t cared for her for much of our lives, but that seems in flux now. I don’t think I dislike her anymore, but I’m not sure I trust what I do feel in its place.”

“That’s amazing,” Tegan said. “You’re growing, you’re shifting, it’s exciting. You don’t need to know everything right now.”

“But I like knowing everything.”

They all laughed even though she hadn’t been joking.

“And you’re good at it,” Brooke said, “but there’s nothing wrong with slowing down and taking some time to figure things out.”

“Or …” Robin waggled her eyebrows. “There’s also nothing wrong with speeding up to figure things out. You two have spent the better part of a lifetime bickering and miscommunicating and poking at each other, even in your minds or over perceptions of memories. What if you flipped the script completely and found out all that dancing around was a waste of time?”

“I vote for this plan,” Sawyer said.

“Shocking,” Brooke mumbled.

“Come on, Brookesy.” Sawyer nudged their friend’s foot through the blanket. “You remember G-Money in her glory days. She was a sight to behold, legs for days and a string of little budding sapphics following her around like puppies. She could get it any time she wanted.”

Brooke smiled fondly. “I remember. I also remember her wining and dining women the rest of us could barely even look at. She wooed a professor, a lawyer, and if I recall correctly, right after graduation there was a city councilwoman. If she wanted to sweep someone off her feet, she could do it without resorting to one-night stands.”

“Hey now,” Tegan cautioned. “Let’s not stigmatize one-night stands.”