“Exactly.” Marin pointed a finger at her. “You’ll never know how close I came to telling you not to even bother. I was mostly humoring you to be polite, but then you read out the most eerily prophetic thing. It was like you’d peeked inside my brain and seen my most private thoughts and desires.” There was that guarded look again.
Charlotte would have given anything to know what Marin wasn’t saying. “Really? I honestly don’t remember anything about the horoscope I read you.”
“I do,” Marin said quietly. “I remember every word.”
Now Charlotte was desperate to remember what that horoscope had said.
“So,” Marin said, one corner of her mouth quirking upward. “If you ever want to read my horoscope again sometime ...”
“Would you believe I deleted my horoscope app a few months ago?”
Marin gaped at her. “What? Why?”
She sighed. “I got disillusioned with them. I spent two years after you died—god, I’ve got to stop saying that. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re alive. But I spent two years trying to find purpose in what happened. I chased after all these things I thought I wanted, but none of them panned out. They were all mistakes.”
Marin reached across the table, touching her fingers briefly to the back of Charlotte’s hand. “This doesn’t feel like a mistake.”
Marin swiped a gloved hand over her car’s windshield with a frown. A light snow had begun to fall while they were in the coffee shop, and now her car was dusted in white. Having lived her whole life in the city, she was unaccustomed to driving. She’d always had a driver’s license, but she had mostly depended on public transportation.
She’d been intimidated by cars even before she’d been hit by one, but this year was all about conquering her fears, and that included becoming a more confident driver. So she brushed off her windshield and slid into the driver’s seat, wincing at the fiery bolt of pain that shot down her right leg, making her toes tingle. Nerve pain, her new best friend.
Marin started the engine and connected her phone to the stereo. This was one thing she liked about driving, being able to blast her own music. Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” started to play as Marin pulled out of the parking spot. Maybe she was too old to be listening to Chappell Roan, but she refused to apologize for indulging in whatever her heart desired this year. She liked catchy pop tunes, and it thrilled her that there were so many young artists these days who were out and proud.
If Chappell’s music had been around when Marin was a teen ...
But there was no sense lamenting things she couldn’t change. She’d made it here in her own time. Well, she hadn’t actually come out yet. She hadn’t gotten past practicing the words in her head, but shewould. Soon. She’d been stuck in her private fantasies, waiting for this moment for years. Fordecades.
Now that her divorce from Andrew was finalized, it was time. Vermont was her blank slate, the opportunity to introduce herself authentically. There would be no preconceived notions. She was finally free to be herself.
Her pulse raced just thinking about it.
Marin tightened her grip on the steering wheel, grateful that her apartment was only a few miles from the coffee shop. Tomorrow was the first day of classes, so she’d be spending more time on campus, but she should make time each day to just drive. She needed to get more comfortable behind the wheel, and she needed to get more familiar with her new hometown, so daily scenic drives seemed like a win-win.
Five minutes later, she pulled into an available parking spot near her new apartment. She was renting the first floor of a three-story building, an old house that had been divided into apartments. It was small and outdated, but it worked for now. It had been unexpectedly difficult to find a first floor unit, but stairs were sometimes hard for her on days when her nerve pain flared up. A first floor master bedroom was a must for her future house as well.
Marin grabbed her purse, locked the car, and made her way inside. The sun was low in the sky, casting her east-facing apartment in shadow, so she flipped on lights as she walked. She hung her coat in the closet and set her purse on the coffee table.
She’d had coffee with Charlotte today.Charlotte.Such a beautiful name for an equally beautiful woman. Marin pressed a hand to her heart, feeling it race. She’d been so shocked, sothrilledto see her and finally learn her name, she hadn’t fully processed the ramifications of having Charlotte in her life now.
“You have my number already, as your Realtor,” Charlotte had said before they left the café. “But feel free to reach out as a friend too. I’d really like to keep in touch.”
Marin had promised she would. She needed friends here in Vermont, and she wanted to get to know Charlotte better. It was just ... Marin had allowed her fantasies to run a bit wild over the last two years. She’d been immediately drawn to Charlotte that morning on the bus, had felt a little ping in her belly reminding her that, yes, she was a lesbian. A very,veryrepressed one.
As she’d rebuilt her life over the last two years, she’d spent a lot of time caught up in fantasies that often involved a certain nameless blond from the bus. So, seeing her today, learning her name, and laying the foundation for a friendship with her? That was confusing, to say the least. It had taken time for Marin to get past the shock of their run-in, but by the time they were having coffee together, that spark had rekindled.
Marin was attracted to her, no doubt about it, and the feeling only seemed to have intensified since the last time she saw her, probably because she’d spent so many hours thinking about her. She’d thought she was safe in her fantasies since she’d never see the woman from the bus again.
Fate had a funny sense of humor where Marin was concerned ... if she believed in such a thing. Maybe, especially after today, shedidbelieve in fate. At the very least, she was intrigued by the idea.
She walked to the fridge for a glass of water, idly wishing she had someone to talk to. She felt an unexpected tug of loneliness. Ordinarily, she’d call one of her siblings to chat, but she couldn’t talk to them about this particular dilemma, at least, not until she’d come out to them.
A thump from upstairs indicated one of her neighbors was home. As far as she could tell, all the other occupants of this building were students at the university, which was yet another reason to find a house, and soon.
Marin was too old to be living with students, especially now that she was a professor. If any of them was in one of her classes, it might be awkward. She headed to her bedroom to change into more comfortableclothes. Yes, she knew it was only four thirty in the afternoon, but she was in for the day, and she’d fought hard for the freedom to make her own decisions.
Right now, she wanted to spend a few hours reading in comfort. Sapphic fiction—sapphic romance in particular—had gotten her through long years stuck in a loveless marriage. In those books, she saw women like herself living happily, loving each other ...thriving.
It helped her to understand her sexuality, to accept herself for who she was, to know what she wanted in life. And the sex scenes? Suffice it to say, Marin had spent many an evening reading steamy books before indulging in some self-care with her vibrator, which was a million times hotter than anything she’d ever experienced with her husband.
