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“Relationships are a lot of work. How long have you been together?”
Paige noted that she didn’t sayhow long have you been married?She must have known that relationships were longer than a piece of paper.
“Almost fifteen years. We met at the tail-end of college.” Technically, they had met before that, but Rhea had not been on Paige’s radar until her mood changed and she decided to take things like romance more seriously.Rhea was right there.
They often quipped that things happened when it was best. If they had dated earlier, then Paige might have messed up a good thing, or Rhea might have been woefully unprepared for falling in love. They weren’t destined to navigate finals, spring breaks, and club activities together; instead, their relationship blossomed because of the post-college world they entered while having each other’s backs. The romanticized past of a crappy studio apartment in Echo Park was lovely to look back on, but only because they had made it through the terrible minimum wage jobs, losing friends to the other side of the world, and family upheavals like the death of Paige’s grandmother and, subsequently, her aunt.We were glue.They were engaged after living a full year together and married not that long after. Paige’s family had called her crazy for getting married so young, but she had been ready to settle down after graduating.
She was the type of person who needed someone steady in her corner. Rhea was more than that: she was a rock.
And hot.
Paige had never pretended otherwise. There was something about Rhiannon Mendez-Kennewick that spoke to her on that primal, fundamental level from their first date, when Paige witnessed the overwhelming kindness of one woman who wasn’t afraid to be herself. For years, Paige’s superficial approach to life – mostly as a way to self-medicate how hard she was on herself in the academic sphere – had led her to overly femme women who spent a lot of money on their appearance, usually to the detriment of their bank accounts and mental health. Others she tried to stick with because she liked the aesthetic they projected to the rest of campus.
With Rhea, though? Everything was different.Shewas different.
Tomboyish. Gentle. Ready for anything. The most time Rhea spent on her appearance was in the shower or when she thought she was hiding shaving her upper lip.She thought I’d be disgusted with her…As if Paige hadn’t noticed long before she accidentally walked in on her future wife shaving in front of the bathroom mirror.
What intrigued Paige the most about her wife, though, was how different she was from those other girls… in bed. She could be as gentle during sex as she was in everyday life, or she could be a rough and rowdy lover who wasn’t willing to take Paige prisoner. As someone who was used to being the dominant one in her first few relationships, she loved finally living the “power bottom” fantasy, as Rhea jokingly called it.
I wonder what kind of lover I’d be with other women now.It was merely an academic question. Because Paige was too busy exploring this new phase in her marriage.Rhea… has so much potential if she opens herself more to it.
“I’m gonna use the shower here, all right?” Carmen announced that right in the middle of removing her sports bra. It was only her and Paige in the women’s locker room, but for some reason, Paige was the slightest bit annoyed that her client had no inhibitions about getting naked in front of her.What a body. Damn.Paige couldn’t have sculpted this for any client, not even if paid a million dollars. It was a body granted by God… and a decent enough income to pay for high-quality foodanda trainer like Paige Powell. And surgeons. More than one was involved here because Paige would eat her sneakers before admitting those breasts might be real.Still… a fine job, Doctor Whoever.
“Of course it’s fine,” Paige said long after Carmen scuttled toward one of the two showers in the corner of the locker room. She took a complimentary towel with her, whistling a tune that Paige did not recognize as the hot water fired up and steam crept toward the ceiling.
She was on autopilot until she returned home three hours later. Paige forewent her usual podcast while in the car and instead listened to the local Top 40 station as if she recognized anything from the years after Lady Gaga’s height. Names like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo were mere concepts in the corner of her mind. Ironically, Rhea knew more about them because she had time to kill during the day to look up whatever she wanted, including new music.
“This Olivia Rodrigo kid is something else,”she had said while listening to something Paige barely heard in the car.“If I had been in high school when this came out, I would have been obsessed.”
Paige didn’t get it. Did that mean she was old?
I’m not old.She was still under forty! She didn’t have a gray hair on her head! So what if she worked a lot and didn’t have time to follow what was hip and trendy? She didn’t have to still be in college to be consideredyoung!
Besides, her parents still called her a “baby” whenever she griped about something. She might as well own it.
When I get home…Paige turned on her blinker to make the corner to her street.I’m having a serious talk with Rhea.What about? Their mutual needs, for one thing. It didn’t have to be Wednesday for them to take time out for each other. It could happen on a Tuesday, too! Because Paige didn’t think she could wait another day to remember what it was like to have her wife on top of her.
As soon as she put her car in park in the driveway, she grabbed her water bottle and tucked her keys into her yoga pant pocket. The summer heat beat down on her as she made her way to the front door, noting that the front curtains were closed – probably because of the higher heat that day. Rhea was a stickler for keeping the AC at a decent level without exerting more energy because they let in too much afternoon sunlight.
So Paige wasn’t expecting to see her wife regally sitting at the dining table, back straight and black-rimmed reading glasses making her look like the stern professor about to verbally spank a student caught cheating.
I wish.“What’s up?” Paige asked, tossing her wallet and keys onto the dining table like she did every evening. “If we had a landline phone, I’d think somebody had racked up a serious bill from the way you’re sitting.”
Without missing a beat, Rhea turned over the piece of paper before her and slid it toward her wife. “This is me informing you that we’re going somewhere this weekend. For the holiday.”
Paige’s heart mildly skipped as she picked up the paper and immediately recognized the logo for a popular rental agency at the top of the invoice. “Did we win something?” Rhea wouldn’t simply book a trip without consulting her wife first, right?
“Wedidn’t, but you have.”
Paige’s eyes darted between the paper, which she barely read, and her wife’s fiercely placid countenance. “What are you talking about? I don’t remember entering any kind of contest.” She now read the text more closely. It was a three-day getaway to a lakeside cabin in the wilderness, right between LA and San Francisco. The drive alone would take half a day considering the holiday traffic. Paige couldn’t help but wonderwhather wife was thinking… especially when she saw the total printed at the bottom of the sheet. Rhea had attempted to mark it out with a Sharpie, but when held up to the light, Paige saw the amount. It wasnotcheap. “Who’s paying for this.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“Rhea!”
Both of Rhea’s palms pressed against the dining table. “I said don’t worry about it. My last royalty check more than covers it, and weren’t you saying I should spend it on myself?”
“This isn’t spending something onyourself.”
