“Yourfucking writer, Greta. It’s okay to like me a little. We’re friends now, right?”
“This was not the plan I had for tonight.”
“Same.” Kaelee weighed the impossibility of suggesting one last night. “So what if we—”
“No. Damn it. I cannot. You cannot.” Greta made a frustrated sound. “Please don’t finish that thought. I can see the way your body shifts when you’re… thinking about sex.”
“Really?”
“I’m observant, Kaelee,” Greta said dryly. “But you need to work with me to keep the innuendo and bad ideas to yourself. I can’t be the only one trying to figure this thing out. We are banned from even talking about it, or I need to stay completely away from you. Okay?”
Guilt rose up like a hand choking Kaelee, and she nodded. “I’ll do better. I swear it. We can be friends, and that’s more than I usually offer people.” Kaelee motioned her forward. “Let’s take a walk in Central Park, and then I’m going to get my bag and catch the Acela back home.”
“You’re leaving tonight? That’s not going to leave time for a very long walk or dinner. The last train is eight or nine at night,” Greta started.
Kaelee motioned her forward. “It’ll take a little time for me to be around you without testing your boundaries, Greta. An hour-long walk might be the longest weshoulddo this. We can figure out how to be friends. I’m sure of that, but I can’t turn myself into someone casual with you quite that quickly.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask me questions like that. I’m trying to follow your rules.” Kaelee swerved around a couple taking pictures of pretty much everything.
“I’m asking.” Greta caught her arm. “Say it. Admit that it’s notjustsex we were sharing.”
“Fine! I could’ve continued what we were doing, and it felt like it could be… more. You’re an incredible woman. Not like I thought we’d end up forever or something ridiculous like that, but friends with benefits withyouis the most I’ve wanted from anyone in my entire life.” Kaelee glanced at a mime who was seemingly arguing with a businessman, who may or may not have been in on the act.
“We already agreed that the ‘friends’ part still can exist.…”
“I know, but I really,reallyfucking loved the other part, too,” Kaelee reminded her. “So if we’re doing this new ‘friendswithoutbenefits’ thing, I’m going to need a minute to learn how to keep from wanting to fuck you.”
“Are you saying you’d still want to have sex, knowing who I really am?” Greta asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Greta gave her a perplexed look.
They walked through Central Park with distance and stilted conversation between them. Every so often, that awkwardness was interrupted by passionate exchanges on books, movies, and artists. And Kaelee did her level best to remind herself over and over that having so much in common did not mean they were ever going to have been more than friends and former fuck buddies.
This is better. This is the real person. She’s not lying about things.
“Okay, so… Patience? True story?” Kaelee prompted eventually as they were headed out of Central Park. Kids were playing some odd version of soccer meets American football that looked like they had a set of rules, even if no one outside the game knew what they were.
“Completely true. Patience was a monster at first, and honestly I couldn’t blame her. Luckily, we made up. By the time we were in high school, Patience was very much not a virgin, and I was the lucky girl who made that happen.”
“You deflowered Patience?” Kaelee exclaimed.
“And two of the Marys.” Greta shrugged. “Catholic school. Best place ever for a budding lesbian. So many girls only thought of penetration by penis as sex, and they were curious… or unsatisfied by fumbling boys who had no idea that sex could be good for a girl.”
Kaelee laughed before admitting, “I could’ve appreciated a young Greta. I was a late bloomer. I think I was almost eighteen when I figured out that I looked at girls the way I did because I was a lesbian, not because I was judging their hair or clothes like people thought.”
“I can’t picture you like that!”
“Hair to my mid-back, tight skirts, plenty of makeup.” Kaelee thought back to the image she’d adopted then. “That was what ladies were to look like, dress like, sound like, and for a lot of years, I followed their rules. I had a boyfriend, gay as can be, and I didn’t mind even though I hadn’t figured out how to explain why I was okay with his complete disinterest in kissing or anything. We let people think we ‘went all the way’ at junior prom, as my friends all did, but in truth, we watched old movies, ate pizza, and danced around the hotel room. Both our reputations were secure, though, because we lied, and that was all that mattered at the time.”
“Do you keep in touch?”
“Sometimes. He does some sort of surgery in California. Loves his job, his husband, and their toddler.” Kaelee thought about Branson. His family had come to terms with his bombshell about being gay pretty quickly; not without drama, but not with the sort of violentreaction that Kaelee had. They’d been a lot less happy about Bran moving to California. The men in their family went to Duke, tradition blah blah, but they still got over it.
“This whole ‘editor who asks all the questions’ is a side I wasn’t expecting to meet,” Kaelee pointed out after a few silent moments walking. “I could get used to it.”
