“Hey! I thought I was your bestie.” Gemma threw a cushion at Teagan and laughed. She knew that however close she and Teagan got, there was nothing to come between Teagan and her friend Jess. Their friendship had often reminded Gemma of how she and Rory used to be. “Anyway, I’m pleased that we have reconnected, and I think we can be friends again. I’m going to hers for dinner on Friday, so you can have the flat to yourself.”
Teagan smirked and pulled out her phone, presumably to tell her boyfriend the news.
“So….” Teagan drew out the words as she did when she was fishing for info. “Just how well did you ‘reconnect’?” She waggled her fingers in the air to imitate quotation marks and poked Gemma.
“Oh, nothing like that.” Gemma bit back a smile as images of Rory in her suit flew through her mind. Her body instantly remembered how it was when she stroked her neck in the theatre. Despite all the women she had been with, that remained the single most erotic thing anyone had ever done to her. Her body was getting aroused again just thinking about it.
“Oh my God! You totally hooked up, didn’t you? Your face is a picture.” Teagan threw her arms in the air triumphantly and then slapped Gemma on the arm.
“No, we didn’t,” she mumbled. Images of Rory stripping Gemma’s bikini top down assaulted her mind, the memory of how her body reacted as Rory took her nipple in her mouth coursed through her and sent a longing to her clit.
“Then why are you blushing?”
“Because.” Gemma blew out a breath to centre herself. “I really wanted to.” She admitted, more to herself than to Teagan. She took a moment to centre herself, wondering how much to reveal. But she needed to talk to someone. She couldn’t talk to her parents. Getting together with Rory would be everything they wanted for her, and they wouldn’t understand that Gemma didn’t do relationships.
“So why didn’t you?” Teagan regarded her over the rim of her rapidly emptying glass.
Gemma pondered the question for a bit and bought herself time by going to the kitchen to get the bottle of wine to top their glasses up. She ignored the fact that it was only 5 in the evening and rationalised her early drinking by figuring it was Sunday. She didn’t know how much of her story Rory would want shared. Judging by the way she acted as she revealed her secret to Gemma, she wouldn’t want it told to anyone else, certainly not without her permission.She swilled the red wine around her mouth before walking back to Teagan on the sofa.
“We did fool around a bit.” She had to admit that. Teagan was too good a friend to fool. Her blushes and smiles would give her away.
“And?” Teagan drew out the word.
“And we decided to be friends. Just friends. You know me, you know I can’t make a relationship last. I want her in my life as a friend.” She paused and looked away to centre her thoughts. “If we sleep together again, I might lose her forever, and I don’t want that.”
Teagan pulled a face but didn’t push the topic, preferring to talk instead about the opera, the dresses Gemma had seen and the hotel they’d stayed at. Fortunately, Gemma had taken several pictures and showed them to Teagan, pointing out the couple of celebrities that she’d spotted.
As she lay in bed later that evening, her phone pinged with a message from Rory
Rory:
Hey, I got home safe and looking forward to seeing you on Friday.
She then sent another message with her address.
Gemma hugged her phone to her chest and stared into the low light of her bedroom. She thought about everything that Rory had told her this morning and went back over the events of the past few days with that in mind. The chemistry between them was unmistakable, and she knew it wouldn’t take much to fall into bed with her.
She closed her eyes and remembered being nestled in Rory’s arms on the sun lounger. She had never felt so comfortable as she had been in her arms. Could she really be friends again with Rory after their night together? That had kept her away fromRory for ten years. She hadn’t known what to expect meeting Rory again but rediscovering her best friend was not something she had expected. Still being insanely attracted to Rory was something else that was out of the blue, and she didn’t know how to handle it.
She briefly considered reaching into her bedside table for her trusty battery-operated friend but felt awkward with Teagan in the flat, even though she had heard Teagan and Brad have sex several times and she was sure Teagan was aware of what she got up to with her previous lovers. Besides, being wound up about Rory and then pleasuring herself with Rory’s face imprinted on her brain didn’t feel right either. She let out a huff and then raised her head to look at her phone as it pinged with an incoming message.
Mum:
Hope you got home okay. It was lovely to see you and so pleased you and Rory reconnected. I’ve got some pictures from the weekend for you. Don’t leave it too long to come and see us again. Have a good week at work. Mum xx
The message was accompanied by several photos of the weekend, and Gemma flicked through them until she got to one of her and Rory in the swimming pool. It was taken when she and Rory had been chatting. Rory had a huge grin on her face, and Gemma’s eyes were filled with a longing she hadn’t realised she’d felt for her friend.
She placed the phone onto its charger and turned the lights off before flopping back onto the bed. The bedrooms in this flat faced the outdoor walkway that linked their front doors. Most days she didn’t bother opening her window as it was noisy with people coming and going along the walkway outside. Normally it didn’t bother her, but after a weekendin the countryside, the stuffiness of the city was bothering her. After several minutes of tossing and turning on her bed, she flicked the fan on to get some air circulating and eventually drifted off to sleep thinking about her dinner with Rory on Friday.
Gemma finally emerged from the tube station on Friday evening at the back of a crowd of commuters. Almost all of them were in suits, and she could tick off in her head the likely occupations. This was the preserve of lawyers, financiers and senior doctors. Her mapping app told her it was a ten-minute walk to Rory’s house. She set off determinedly, but slowed her pace as she didn’t want to arrive frazzled and sweaty. They had agreed on “around 7pm” but Rory knew she was always late and wouldn’t mind. Gemma wished that she’d had time to change out of her office clothes, but a late meeting with a new client meant she’d had to come here straight from the office. The loose trousers and light blouse she had chosen this morning had felt very summery, but a day of meetings and tube journeys had taken its toll, and she just wanted a shower and to flop onto her sofa in shorts. She was looking forward to seeing Rory again and hoped she could at least slip her shoes off as her strappy sandals were killing her feet.
As she wandered past Waitrose, she wondered if she should stop and get something for Rory. She checked her watch and ducked inside, figuring that she had time to spare before she needed to be at Rory’s house. Briefly, she thought about getting a bunch of flowers, but that felt too much like they were on a date, even though she had never received flowers from a date before. Eventually she opted for adecent bottle of red wine, hoping Rory would see the humour in the gift, and set off again to Rory’s house.
As she walked, she thought about everything she had looked at this week and wondered how to bring it up in conversation with Rory. Having moped through her day on Monday, despite having lots to tell her co-workers about her weekend away, she had dived into Instagram and found several masc and butch lesbians to follow. This had led her down a research rabbit hole over clothes, hair, and even workout programs for butch and masc lesbians. She wanted to show Rory that she supported her journey, but didn’t want to be pushy.
As she rounded the corner of Rory’s street, her mouth dropped open, partly from the walk and being out of shape, but also because the tree-lined street was gorgeous. It was a perfect picture of British suburbia. Unlike her own neighbourhood, which had no parking and little in the way of greenery, Rory’s street had few cars parked on it because it looked like every house had a private driveway. It was tree-lined and looked like it had been plucked from a film set. The green of the trees contrasted with the dazzling blue of the sky and the evening sun. It felt like she was in another world, even though she was technically in the same city as her flat, further highlighting the differences between them. She slowed her pace and took in the houses. Most were semi-detached but still pretty big, with a couple of detached houses dotted along the avenue. It was wide and inviting and, in the early evening sun, looked gorgeous.
She checked her app again and looked up at Rory’s house. Wow. She knew Rory earned more than she did, aside from being a lawyer and working at one of London’s top firms. Yes, she had looked her up after their opera trip. The new Porsche and designer clothes gave away that Roryhad a decent bit of money behind her. But her house was something else. Did she really live here alone? Gemma reckoned her flat would fit three or more times within Rory’s house. She swallowed a couple of times and walked up the path towards the front door. Other than its size and location, the property was unremarkable. It was a standard 1950’s build and fairly generic for the area with light brick work and white windows.
