AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Trevor was the first to throw his head back and laugh. “You’re finally asking this question? Really?”
“I’m not that big of a flirt.” I pouted.
“Tara, you’re the biggest flirt I’ve ever met,” he said. “You flirt with gay guys. You flirt with straight girls. You flirt with eighty-year-olds. You could flirt the habit off a nun.”
“Okay, okay. I know what you have to say about that by now. Any comments from the other two of you?” I looked at Nia and Kyle.
“You can be a bit of a vixen.” Nia tossed her long braids over her shoulder.
“What does that even mean?” I balanced the phone on my knee and rubbed my temples with one hand. “Do I go too far?”
Trevor narrowed his eyes. “Why are you asking all of this?”
“Well… the thing is…” Lowering my voice to a mumble, I gave a brief summary of what had happened to my friends. “So now I just feel like the worst person ever. Did I mislead her somehow? Was I always asking for this?”
Trevor cackled. “Didn’t I always tell you you’d get yourself into trouble one day? Didn’t I?”
“Okay, okay.” I rolled my eyes.
He was having way too much fun with this. “Tara Carter, the lesbian seductress!”
Nia smacked him on the arm. “Okay, Trevor, cut it out.”
“For real”—he got serious—“how did you never see this coming? You’re a pretty girl, or so I’m told. Did you not think anyone would ever take you seriously?”
“In twenty-six years, they never did yet.”
More accurately, I’d only grown into my confident persona in the last five or so years. Still, I usually got a smile or a laugh. Straight men were just confused. A few women had given me their number. Flirting like crazy was how I’d met every woman I’d ever gone on a date with—but not like this. Straight girls kissing me out of nowhere were completely out of my wheelhouse.
“Well, it was dumb of you to pass up on the chance,” Kyle said. “Getting with a straight girl sounds hot.”
“Seriously? Ew,” Trevor said. “If straight girls are anything like straight guys, they’ll take and take and never do anything in return. Trust me, I know from experience.”
“That’s awfully judgmental,” Nia said. “Maybe she’s still figuring herself out.”
“Wouldn’t she know that by now?” I asked. “She’s an adult.”
“Not everyone puzzles things out as early as you,” Nia said. “There are people who don’t come out until their forties, for heaven’s sake. The other day, I saw a video of an old lady in a nursing home talking about how she’d always been attracted to women!”
She had a point there. I knew who I was at fourteen, and that was somewhat unusual.
“It sounds a whole lot like she’s bisexual,” Nia went on.
I scratched my chin. “I don’t know.” Chelsea had even said she was straight.
“Even if she is, why bother?” Trevor asked. “There are enough girls who already know who they are and what they want.”
Nia smacked him again. “That’s a bit unfair. What if some girl said the same about me, just because I’ve never been with a woman?”
She had one boyfriend after another—it was like they lined up to take her out after each relationship ended. She’d been openly bisexual since I met her, but she’d never had the chance to try things out. Her current relationship was three years and counting, so it looked like she might never get to date a woman.
“That’s different,” Trevor said.
“Anyway,” I interrupted, “the point is moot. She’s not interested anymore.”
“Please.” Kyle scoffed. “The lady doth protest too much. She’s totally interested.”
I wondered if that was true. I’d never imagined being with someone like Chelsea. She seemed to be from a whole different world, a place where parents stuck with their kids and no one ever overdosed and woke up in their own vomit. I was certain she’d never had to run from the cops because her friends had just robbed a store. She’d never been grateful just to have food on the table, or that she’d woken up alive for another day.
