Anna’s eyes widened in shock.“Sister Brooke?” She mused, before shrugging.“It honestly sounds kind of hot.”
Brooke’s jaw dropped in shock, but she forced herself to continue her story. Anna had dated a man, and they were becoming friends, Brooke reminded herself. This was not a real date.“Well, thank you. I obviously let my life take a different turn and instead settled on attending Oxford for university.”
“Settled?” Anna asked, poorly mirroring Brooke’s accent.
Brooke inhaled sharply.“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I simply meant I landed on going to university as opposed to becoming a nun, or running away. I chose a school.” She shrugged and tried to wave the whole awkwardness away with a flick of her wrist.“My parents had gone there, and they had shipped me to one of the most prestigious boarding schools in all of Europe. My life was very much supposed to go according to their plans.”
“Which were?” Anna pried gently.
“Law school. A similar path to their own. They’re diplomats.” She straightened her spine even farther, her perfect posture, somehow finding a way to become even more rigid.“My brother, Nathaniel, that’s what he’s in school for now. As is his bride.”
Anna hummed again, thoughtfully.“Well, you’re a badass computer engineer. You have a killer job and you’ve proved that you don’t need them.”
Brooke blushed, letting her eyes meet Anna’s, completely unprepared for the radiating warmth she found in them.“Thank you, Anna.”
They sat there, staring into each other’s eyes for far too long before Anna cleared her throat.“Okay, I think we need to get our story straight. Well, notstraight, but you know, together.” She winked.
Brooke huffed out a laugh, the seriousness of their conversation all but melted away.“Okay, what were you thinking?”
“I think we’ve been together for three months,” Anna suggested.
“Isn’t that a bit quick to attend a black tie wedding and meet the whole estranged family?” Brooke asked, skeptically.
Anna smirked at her.“I thought lesbians moved quickly?” she shot back.
Brooke’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but she quickly forced it shut and nodded.“You’re not wrong.”
Anna let out a giggle.“Plus, it’s cute. Then our first date could have been Valentine’s day.”
“Not my style, but okay,” Brooke said with a grin that even she would have categorized as flirtatious.
“If you let me have Valentine’s day, I’ll let you come up with our first date,” Anna flirted back.
“Easy,” Brooke retorted. She had always known what her dream first date would be, but the one time she had suggested it she had gotten shot down so hard it had left a lingering burn.
“Ohhh, charmer,” Anna lifted an eyebrow.“Do I get to know what date we went on?”
Suddenly the memory of the rejection had nettled its way under Brooke’s skin.
Anna sensed it immediately and her hand shot back across the table, finding Brooke’s forearm again.“Seriously, B. I’m sure it’s a great first date idea. What is it?” Her voice was soft and impossibly understanding.
Brooke winced and spoke with her face half scrunched up and braced for rejection again.“I’ve always wanted to take a girl to a bookstore with minimal information on what books she likes and we’d buy each other books without the other getting to see and then we’d inscribe silly little messages in the front cover that are just completely absurd. Like‘never mind the exam, you’re brilliant,’or something like‘at the very least, there are always books and lilies,’and then signing it with just the most obscure name you can think of at that moment like Winthrop.”
Anna studied Brooke’s face for a while after she had finished speaking.
“Oh God, you think the idea is terrible, too?” Brooke asked, resigning herself to the fact that her idea just might suck after all.
Anna quickly shook her head.“No. Hey, B?” She hooked her free pointer finger, the one that wasn’t already resting on Brooke’s forearm, under Brooke’s chin and gently coaxed eye-contact out of Brooke.“I’m just wondering why that’s not everyone’s idea of a perfect first date. I would absolutely love for that to be what we did. In fact, we still should.”
Brooke’s eyes widened with surprise.“What?”
Anna nodded.“Yes, absolutely. We should have pictures of our inscriptions, you know? If someone hears the story of our first date—anyone in their right mind that is—they’ll be dying to know what we wrote.”
Brooke’s heart pounded in her chest.“You want to go to a bookstore right now?”
“Absolutely,” Anna was positively thrumming with energy, practically radiating a golden glow from her whole body.
Brooke licked her lips. She usually wasn’t this impulsive. She controlled everything she could, but at this moment, there was nothing in the world that sounded better than following Anna anywhere she wanted to go. She nodded, hoping to match Anna’s excitement, but knowing no one in the entire world would ever be able to do that.
