“Okay,” her best friend Jade said from behind the camera. Well, technically, Jade’s cracked iPhone was what she was using to shoot the video. “Try to be… I don’t know… like sparkly or something.”
Birdie blinked into the borrowed ring light. “Sparkly?” She didn’t even know what that meant.
“Yes,” Jade replied, tossing her auburn hair back over her shoulder. “Make them fall in love with you. Remember, you’re competing with thousands of women. You can’t just sit there looking like you’re about to read a page from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.”She gestured vaguely.
“That’s not what I looked like. Okay, fine, you’re right. That’s fair.” Birdie pushed her bangs out of her face. Earlier this morning she’d tried styling them into something glamorous, but they were aggressively resisting. A few strands faced the opposite way, and no matter what she did, she just couldn’t get them to obey.
“Leave your hair,” Jade instructed, shaking her head impatiently. “And smile. But not too big. Like in between. You know what I mean, right? Sensual. Be sensual.”
Birdie sat up straighter and smiled softly, yet enthusiastically, at the camera. She ignored Jade’s wince as she said the words she had rehearsed a million times that morning. “Hi, I’m Birdie Sinclair. I run a bookstore in Portland, which is definitely not a euphemism for being boring.” She paused for dramatic effect, which got a thumbs up from Jade, and then continued. “I’m twenty-nine years old and I believe in love. Like, embarrassingly so. I know that makes me sound like someone who owns too many mugs with quotes about soulmates, but I promise I only own three.”
Jade made frantic hand gestures behind the phone. They’d agreed on Birdie admitting to only two mugs, but that would be lying, wouldn’t it? It would be stretching the truth a little too far, considering she actually hadsevenmugs with romance quotes emblazoned on them. Birdie ignored her friend.
“I’ve had my heart broken more times than I’d like to admit,” she went on. “But I still think it’s worth the risk. And, well, ifThe Sapphic Matchwants someone who cries at YouTubevideos about dogs being reunited with their owners, then… hi.” She gave a small wave, feeling incredibly stupid. “That’s me.”
Jade lowered the phone, grinning. “Perfect. That was totally sparkly,”she said.
Birdie groaned and stood up to head over to the sofa. She stepped over Sebastian’s cat bed and flopped into the cushions. “I can’t believe you talked me into signing up for a reality dating show.” She stared at the ceiling, where one of her houseplants crowded the sills and shelves as it dangled precariously from a macramé hanger. She should be in the bookstore right now, shelving the newly arrived box of books by queer authors, not auditioning for a reality show she barely watched. In fact, she barely even believed in it.
“You need this,” Jade said, plopping down onto the mottled green ottoman beside the sofa. “The last time you did anything brave like this was ages ago.”
“Not ages,” Birdie pointed out, remembering Lexi, the woman from the bar, the one who was undoubtedly beautiful and devastatingly self-possessed in a way Birdie would never be.
Birdie had accidentally, or maybe on purpose, bumped into her despite feeling a little shy in the way-too-revealing outfit Jade had forced her to wear. She just never expected things to move that fast. One minute she was apologizing, and the next Lexi was leading her out of the club to a room in a hotel just a few blocks down the road. There was barely any talking. Just sex. And then nothing. Lexi had left before things even got started, and that was it.
Jade frowned and then, as if a lightbulb had flicked on above her head, she snapped her ring-clad fingers. “Oh yes. The woman fromNinety-Two. The one who took you to a hotel room instead of to her house and left right after.” She scissored her fingers. “You two did it.Thatwas very brave of you.”
Birdie rolled over and muffled her face in a throw pillow. “Yes,” she mumbled into the soft velvet fabric. “That’s the one.” She risked a glance upward and found Jade watching her with a terribly concerned expression on her face.
Jade’s eyes were wide, her thick, tattooed brows drawn together. Understandable, really, since Birdie had almost fallen apart two days after it happened. Almost. She just wasn’t the type of person to do a one-night stand, which was why when she handed over her contact details to Lexi, she’d assumed the woman would call or email. Or at least she hoped the woman would. But then she hadn’t, and Birdie had spent a better part of her weekend wondering what the hell she’d done wrong.
“You know that was like three weeks ago, right?” Jade said, changing her expression from worried best friend to entirely impatient best friend.
Birdie scowled. “You make it sound like I’ve done nothing but mope around.”
“And have you?” Jade asked, both eyebrows raised. “Moped around all day, every day?”
“No, I’m busy. I run a bookstore,” Birdie said, as if that explained everything. Which, to her, it did. She kept herself busy. She shelved and organized stacks of books into neat displays. She made tea for the regulars, who sat on the set of leather sofas in the back of the store. She reconciled invoices and managed inventory, balancing the necessary paperwork that came with owning a business. Birdie didn’t have time for moping because she was too busy running a business.
“You know you have to stop using your bookstore as an excuse for everything.”
“I don’t.” Birdie snapped back.
“You’re a gorgeous woman who needs to let her hair down a little.”
Birdie felt her cheeks warm at the compliment. “I did let my hair down,” she said, rememberingNinety-Twowith the loud bass rattling her ribcage, the strangers brushing past her in sweaty waves, and Lexi’s hand around hers. “And look where that got me.”
“Well, I’m proud of you anyway. You went to a lesbian bar with actual music and sweaty strangers. That’s progress,” Jade said, suddenly softening.
Birdie groaned. “Don’t make such a big deal about it.”
“Itisa big deal,” Jade said, grinning. “You left your fortress of solitude. You put yourself in a situation you weren’t comfortable with. Just like you’re doing now with entering your name forThe Sapphic Match. I’m seriously proud of you.”
Birdie pulled at a loose thread on the throw pillow. “It doesn’t even matter. I probably won’t even get onto the show.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m not the kind of person they’re looking for,” Birdie said.
