“That’s a nice line,” Samara teased.
“Not a line. I mean you’re actually hot. Whatareyou, a furnace?” Dana laughed a little and tightened her arms around Samara’s body.
“Why do you think I’m picky about the temperature?” she asked, laughing a little as well.
“You’re going to make me sweat,” Dana stated, kicking at the blankets.
“Hey, don’t put them on the floor. I doubt they actually vacuum this room every day.”
“You’re in the fancy hotel now, babe. I’m sure they do.Hey, do you mind if I just get up and shower?”
“You don’t want to go back to sleep?” she asked, feeling a little disappointed that Dana wanted to get up.
“I’m up, and your voice sounds like you are, too,” Dana said. “Besides, I bet your breakfast will be delivered around the same time it normally is, and you probably don’t want anyone to see me here.”
“Oh,” she let out, realizing that Dana was right. “Sure. Yeah. Hop in. I’ll get ready for my morning workout while you shower.”
Samara sat up, but Dana held on to her.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“To get dressed to work out,” she said as if it should’ve been obvious.
“You won’t kiss me good morning first?” Dana asked, running a hand through Samara’s hair.
Samara smiled down at her and gave Dana a quick kiss.
“Not what I had in mind, but I guess it’ll do.”
“You can use whatever you want in there,” Samara said and got out of bed. “I’ll just stay out here and change.”
“Okay,” Dana replied, sounding like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t. “I’ll leave your clothes on the counter in there, if you want, or I can take them with me and wash them.”
“No need. They have laundry service here,” she said and walked over to her suitcase, which she had yet to unpack into the drawers.
“Okay,” Dana said, still sounding a bit weird, before she climbed out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom.
Samara waited a few minutes, but she really had to pee. Thankfully, the toilet was in its own little room, so she was able to take care of that and wash her hands while it sounded like Dana was getting in the shower. When Samara returned to the bedroom, she sat on the side of the bed and rubbed her hands together. It was awkward now. She’d made things awkward between them. Dana had wanted a real kiss, but Samara hadn’t known how to just kiss another woman followinga night of sleeping next to each other, so she’d given her a peck. She’d also made Dana worry that she wouldn’t want anyone to see them together in a hotel room in the morning when obvious conclusions could be drawn.
For a second, she thought about changing into her gym clothes, grabbing her phone and headphones, and just leaving Dana a note that said she’d decided to run down to the gym instead of waiting, effectively running out on one of the most awkward mornings of her life, which was saying something because she’d had more than a few, but she couldn’t move. The thought of Dana being hurt by that note got to her. The concern in Dana’s voice earlier that Samara had been going cold on her again had been almost too much for her to hear. She didn’t want to go cold on Dana again. She wanted to go hot. She wanted them tobehot together. She wanted to be able to talk about this with Dana without a meal between them or her rambling about how tofu didn’t have flavor on its own, but when paired with something that did, it elevated it somehow, while Dana had stared at her in disbelief because she’d just asked Samara if she was going back to LA or somewhere else for the holiday break.
Samara stood up then, deciding to stop being this way because she knew what she wanted. She’d known since she first saw Dana and had been fantasizing about it ever since. She’d already taken so many steps since coming to New Orleans. She was twenty-five years old, bisexual, attracted to the woman who was currently naked in her shower, and she was ready to show that woman that she was into this in the same way Dana was. So, she took a deep breath and stripped down to nothing, leaving her clothes on the floor by the blanket that Dana had kicked off, and opened the door that led to the bathtub and shower. The shower door was frosted, so she could only make out Dana’s form but couldn’t actually see her, and Samara wanted to see her. She leaned back against the door and licked her lips, seeing that Dana had her hands on her chest, cleaning her breasts or maybe massaging them, because surely it didn’t takethatlong to clean them. When the doorclicked, indicating that she had leaned back hard enough to close it all the way, Dana stopped moving, and Samara could tell she was looking right at her.
“Samara?”
“Yeah, hi,” she said in a soft voice.
“Um… What are you doing in here? I’ll be out in a minute. And I’m not using too much of–”
Samara took five steps and pulled open the door of the shower, walking in as Dana moved back in surprise. Then, she closed the door behind her and wrapped her arms around her chest, just standing there as the water from the shower hit her hair and skin. Her eyes were closed because she hadn’t exactly asked Dana’s permission to see her naked for the first time.
“Babe?” Dana said softly. “Are you okay?”
“I want you,” Samara replied. “And I don’t know how to act around you because I do. So much. It’s like I can’t think about anything but wanting you, and I wanted to really kiss you just now. I didn’t know how, without ending up on top of you. Then, things would probably start, and I didn’t know how to start them and stop them because I want you.”
“You’d want to stop them?” Dana asked. “Can you look at me, please?”
“You’re naked.”
