It took the house lights dimming for Astrid to realize she’d been staring at Jordan Everwood—at hermouth—for at least ten seconds.
Astrid cleared her throat and straightened in her seat. “Told you I could do it.”
“You sure did,” Jordan said, but her voice was softer, all teasing gone. Her tone made Astrid feel itchy, anxious, not unlike that restlessfeeling she got when she was turned on, which was ridiculous. Granted, everything seemed to make her horny lately—a body wash commercial, a whiff of cologne in the coffee shop, the feel of her own bare thighs against her expensive cotton sheets.
Sheets, for god’s sake.
In her defense, she hadn’t had sex in... well, a while. Her last time had been with Spencer, about a week before they broke up last June. Ten months wasn’t that long, but with Claire and Delilah pretty much publicly humping each other every time they were all together and Iris’s constant mooning over Jillian, her dry spell felt more like a dry era.
And she wasn’t even going to think about the last time Spencer—or any guy she’d been with—had actually made her come. The whole scenario felt like such a cliché—the repressed only daughter of a controlling mother had a hard time getting off with other people, because of course she did.
Jesus, why was she even thinking about this right now? Sheets in the privacy of her own bedroom were one thing, but Jordan Everwood’s husky voice? She had two queer best friends and a queer stepsister, so it’s not like she wasn’t aware these things happened... they’d just never happened to her.
Surely—surely—they weren’t happening now. Not in this gilded movie theater with a bucket of popcorn between her thighs and the taste of a waxy cherry stem in her mouth.
She glanced at Jordan, who tucked the cherry stem into the front pocket of her wine-stained shirt, dark brows drawn together like she was thinking her own deep thoughts, probably about her abandoning wife.
Her wife.
Jordan Everwood had had a wife. Vows and rings, for better or worse, till death do them part.
Or not.
Astrid fixed her eyes straight ahead, her throat suddenly swelling. She took another sip of her drink, and her head went a bit fuzzy as she sucked a piece of ice into her mouth. She rather liked the feeling. Astrid hardly ever drank past a slight buzz, but right now, she sure as hell needed something.
She shoved yet another fistful of popcorn in her mouth while the velvet curtain pulled back from the stage, revealing a pair of golden cherubs, flowers, and birds bordering the movie screen. The opening credits started to roll, andCity Lightsflashed across the screen.
“Hey,” Jordan asked, holding up her bourbon. There was an impish gleam in her eye that, for some reason, made Astrid want to exhale in relief. Jordan nodded toward the screen and then held up her drink. “You in?”
Astrid barely hesitated before clinking her glass with Jordan’s. “I’m in.”
Chapter Fifteen
AS IT TURNEDout, Astrid was a very fun drunk. Jordan worried a silent movie wouldn’t hold her attention, but the woman was like a tiger hunting an antelope, catching every over-the-top facial expression any actor exhibited ever. The result was two very tipsy women by ten o’clock, when they spilled out of the theater and into the warm April night.
Jordan knew she should’ve cut herself off after two drinks so they could drive home, but dammit, she just hadn’t wanted to. It had been so long since she’d been with another human like this. After Meredith left, the friends Jordan and her wife once shared tried to include her, but Jordan’s heart hadn’t been in it.
Her heart hadn’t been in anything.
And still wasn’t,she told herself, a default message that didn’t sit right in her spinning brain right now. Goddamn bourbon. She never made great decisions when she drank bourbon. Hence spilling her guts about Meredith leaving her—and not even for someone else, just flat-out leaving—to a person who was essentially her enemy.
But as Astrid spread her arms wide under the Andromeda’s glowingmarquee, the lights painting her skin pink and gold, she didn’t feel like Jordan’s enemy. Not one bit. This was certainly a different woman than the one who’d ripped into Jordan over some spilled coffee a week ago, but not so different than the one from earlier tonight, or even the one who swung the sledgehammer a week ago. No, this Astrid was just a little softer, that stiff outer shell she wore cracked ever so slightly.
Jordan wondered if her own shell was cracked too.
“Ready to go?” she called to Astrid, who was still spinning like an ice skater while other moviegoers angled around her, amused expressions on their faces.
Astrid stopped, out of breath, eyes sparkling from the fluorescents as she blinked at Jordan. “Not even a little.”
Jordan laughed. “Well, good, because there’s no way either of us can drive yet. I guess we could call a Lyft.”
“And then you’d have to come all the way back out here to get your truck tomorrow.”
“A trip you’d most certainly take with me, Mistress Let’s-Have-Another.”
Astrid giggled—legitgiggled—and spun around a few more times. She was making Jordan nauseous just watching her twirl.
“You’re not one of those awful people who never gets hangovers, are you?” Jordan asked.
