In addition, Janinehadbeen let go at work, and she had asked Larissa out again. Well, not on a date this time; more asa friend hangout now that they wouldn’t be working together anymore. While Larissa liked Janine as a person, she wasn’t interested in anything romantic with her, so she’d told her that they could hang out this weekend, but made sure to tell her that it would only be as friends. Janine had been okay with that, and Larissa had hated to see her go. The other two part-time employees would continue to work with her, but everyone would have their hours cut, which wasn’t great because, even though she didn’t have many bills to pay, thanks to her parents taking care of school and the house she lived in being paid off, she still had some, and her parents didn’t pay for anything else.
She’d had to run some numbers in her car after leaving the bookstore, and with the cut to her hours, she had figured she might need to start supplementing that income or find something else altogether until the next semester started and she could teach again. She wouldn’t go totally broke in the meantime, but she really didn’t want to tap into the very small amount she had for emergencies, and these interviews were already costing her more money than she’d initially budgeted.
She had planned on offering only a hundred bucks per hour, per couple, but when she and Harlow had been talking about it, Harlow had thought she’d meant per person. Larissa hadn’t wanted to tell her that she probably couldn’t afford to do that if they did all the interviews she was hoping for, so she’d gone with it and had decided to only pay the in-person people the one hundred per person and no one else. She hadn’t conducted any video interviews yet, but those would come later, and she hoped people would still want to tell their love stories without the promise of cash. If not, she’d figure something out.
She could get a roommate. If Harlow didn’t want the room and wasn’t moving in with a girlfriend, there was less chance she’d need it for the next year, so getting a roommate was a possible option to supplement her income. All of those thoughtshad taken her into the building, where she’d found Harlow smiling and laughing with her ex-girlfriend, as well as filling out leasing paperwork to move out of Larissa’s place. It had hit her like a ton of bricks then: Harlow was leaving. It was a done deal. On top of that, Harlow was making it all happen the day they’d woken up holding on to one another. Larissa’s rational brain kept telling her that it was just a coincidence and timing thing, but it still hurt and felt like Harlow was trying to run away from her.
“So, tell me about the feelings you had that first night. I don’t think we’ve talked a lot about that. We sort of glossed over it and went straight to you two living together,” Larissa said, trying to pull herself back into the present moment.
“Well, I was thirty-nine at the time, while she was only twenty-six, so I wasn’t expecting her to want to go to my room with me, but we’d been sat at the same table for the reception, and we’d both gone to the wedding alone,” Sandi said.
“I’d just gotten out of a relationship, which was why I later needed a place to live, and Sandi let me stay with her,” Anber added.
Harlow cleared her throat then, and Larissa looked over to check that she was okay. She handed Harlow the bottle of water she’d bought for herself, and Harlow took it from her, but she didn’t take a drink. She set it back down on the table between them, and Larissa returned her attention to the two women in front of her.
“When I first saw her sit down at the table, I had to turn away.” Sandi chuckled. “She was so beautiful in her dress, and I felt a little like a pervert, looking at her. I’m not really old enough to be her mother, but not far off, either, so I felt like I shouldn’t be staring at her.”
“I’ve always had a thing for older women, so I didn’t mind,” Amber said with a smirk.
“So, you noticed her looking at you?” Harlow asked.
“Oh, yeah. She was obvious about it.”
“And how did you feel about it?” Larissa asked. “Specifically.”
“She made me feel beautiful,” Amber replied with a soft smile this time. “I’d just been cheated on and dumped like a week before this wedding. I didn’t want to go because I was supposed to go with my ex, but I decided to go stag instead, and I saw Sandi staring a few times. She had this sweet smile, and it made me feel – I don’t know – like I was in the right place at the right time, maybe.”
“And I was over inmychair, thinking I needed to leave the table, or she was going to call me on the staring,” Sandi said with a laugh. “But she didn’t. She moved chairs after the dancing started, and we talked. It was unexpected, but so nice. I’d never gone for a younger woman before, but there was something mature about her, so when she asked me to dance, I said yes.”
“You danced?” Harlow asked.
Larissa looked over at her again, noticing that she was paying more attention now, but she still didn’t seem like herself. Her face wasn’t stone, exactly, but it wasn’t as expressive as it usually was. She looked tired, too. Larissa hadn’t looked great to her sister earlier, either, but that had been primarily due to her being worried over holding Harlow all night. She had actually gotten really good sleep, even though she would never admit that to Aggie or, likely, to Harlow. Hell, Larissa had been lying to herself about that fact until this moment, when she realized that while she hadn’t gotten many hours of sleep because they’d stayed up watching a movie, shehadgotten quality sleep.
“We danced to several songs,” Sandi replied.
“She’s a great dancer,” Amber noted.
“I took ballet for fifteen years, but I cannotdance like her.”
“Different kind of dancing, babe,” Amber said. “And you were great. You were so great that when the DJ played that slow song, I just had to pull you in against me and keep dancing with you.”
“Were you scared?” Larissa asked, surprising herself by asking the question.
“Scared?” Amber asked back, confused.
“I mean… Were you scared to go from dancing up to her room?”
“Oh. I guess, yeah. I had some baggage from my ex. I mean, we’d been together for over a year, had just moved in together, and I’d found out that she’d been cheating on me for months, so I felt like crap about myself and my faith in women, too. When Sandi asked me to go to her room at the end of the night, though, I had this calm wash over me after the initial doubt and fear.”
“Can you describe that?”
“It just felt like even if I said no, it would still be okay. If I said yes, we could talk and get to know each other, or we could do more, but that everything would be okay. She’s always made me feel that way: like everything will be okay, no matter what.”
Larissa looked over at her best friend and knew she felt the same way about Harlow. She swallowed and looked away just as Harlow was turning toward her.
“When we got up there, though, I knew I wanted more. I wasn’t into talking. I wanted to touch her. All that dancing had me turned on, and we did very little talking after that.”
“Sorry if you answered this earlier, but what happened the next morning?” Harlow asked. “You two woke up in bed and…”
