Adele pulled ayikesface. “Okay, fair, but a date might help. You know, make her a little jealous. Maybe it’ll make her want to talk to you more.”
“The only way I’m getting a date with this”—she motioned around the mess of her mascara-smeared face and tangled hair—“is if it’s fake.”
Adele’s eyes brightened. “Fake date me. Then maybe my mom will let me out of Two Turtledoves.”
Brighton rolled her eyes. “Okay, sure. We walk into yourbedroom platonic friends and walk out an hour later all moony-eyed for each other? No one would buy it.”
Adele laughed, but Brighton sat up, tilted her head.
“You don’t want to actually try and find someone?” she asked Adele.
“In this town? Nah.”
“Why not?”
Adele took a sip of her bourbon, then handed it to Brighton, who tipped the drink into her mouth. It burned all the way down but in a good way. Like a cleansing.
“I’m not interested in hookups with people I went to middle school with,” Adele said, taking back the glass.
“What about more than a hookup?” Brighton asked, releasing her words carefully. She didn’t want Adele to think she was shaming her love life. But she was curious about her friend’s lack of girlfriends. Adele was a damn catch. Charming, sexy, funny, smart. Brighton and Adele had even kissed once, way back when they first met a few years ago, at a Katies show at Ampersand.
It was like kissing a sister.
They’d both laughed but exchanged numbers because they liked each other’s company anyway, and then Adele had promptly taken another girl home.
Now Adele sighed, looked down at her hands. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. And I think I might be…I think I might be aro?”
She said it like a question, peered at Brighton with her nose scrunched up.
“Yeah?” Brighton said, and Adele shrugged. Brighton reached out and took Adele’s hand. “You know that’s okay, right?”
“No, I know, I just…” She shrugged again. “Romance is a hell of a drug, you know? It’s hard to get out from under it sometimes.That feeling that Ishouldbe a certain way, want a certain kind of life. And, like, I get it. I like rom-coms, and I like seeing my friends in love, want everyone I love to have that if they want it. I just don’t thinkIwant it. I never really did. Never got all moony-eyed, as you say, over a girl, even in middle and high school. I knew I was gay because I liked the way Vivian Manzoli filled out her tank top in ninth grade.”
Brighton laughed.
“But I never wanted to hold her hand in a romantic way,” Adele said. “I want friends, close ones. I want intimate relationships. I want sex and lots of it. And I think maybe, someday, Idowant a partner. But I’m not sure what kind of partner I want or what that looks like exactly. Thehowof it all, I guess.”
“I think that’s great, Adele,” Brighton said, squeezing her hand tighter. “You get to want whatever you want.”
Adele nodded. “Just takes a while to figure that out sometimes, you know? I’m still working on that. The figuring it out part.”
“Yeah. Wait”—Brighton leaned closer to Adele—“am I the first person you’ve told this to?”
Adele blew out a breath and laughed. “Shit, you are.”
“I’m honored,” Brighton said. “Really. And god, congrats. How do you feel?”
Adele took another sip of bourbon. “Good. Feels good. Feels right.”
“Good. You deserve that.”
“Thanks, baby girl.”
They sat there like that for a while, holding hands, their secrets not so secret anymore, a tether pulling them closer together. Brighton let herself feel it, even as a tiny part of her bristled at it all, at letting someone so close again.
Still, Adele was right—it did feel good. To trust someone again. Not even Alice and Emily had known about Lola. And she was glad she could give that to Adele too, that beauty of being known.
And not only known…but loved.
