Shay straightened as if she was preparing to attack. “You’re surprised because I’m?—”
“Because you were a soldier, and now you’re a mechanic. I didn’t think you needed a degree for either of those professions, especially one from such a prestigious university.”
Rosie frowned when Shay seemed to relax her shoulders. She tried to figure out what had just happened, and then the penny dropped. “Oh God, you thought I was surprised because you’re Black, didn’t you?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a woman—anyone—had that reaction.”
Rosie couldn’t be hurt that Shay had thought she was capable of coming to that conclusion. She couldn’t imagine the number of times Shay had encountered that kind of racism, and Shay didn’t know her well enough to assess her prejudices or lack of. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t sound patronizing or condescending, so instead she asked, “What did you study?”
“Applied mathematics, but we’re straying off-topic.” Shay tapped her nails on her wine glass. “Your mom. Her history with men.”
Rosie fought the deep sense of shame she carried, which was currently trying to convince her to lie about her background. What if Shay did judge her? How could she not? Rosie was still judging herself even after all the years of therapy. She’d thought becoming a therapist would fix it all, but that hadn’t happened either.
But this wasn’t a first date where she was about to scare Shay off with way too much personal information, and Shay wasn’t someone she was trying to impress or hang onto by being economical with the amount of crazy in her life. They’d been honest from the beginning. Why would she lie now?
“Rosie? You really don’t have to censor anything. We’re just two friends getting to know each other better; you’re not preparing me for nightmare in-laws.”
Rosie laughed to disguise the sting Shay didn’t know she’d caused. Her mom had always been a source of shame in her intimate relationships. “I don’t think there’s any way to prepare someone for my mom. I’ve introduced three women to her, and they hated her within five minutes of them meeting.”
“Three random women?”
Rosie frowned. “Of course not. They were vaguely serious. Or that’s what I thought. I’m hanging on to the idea that Mom was the deciding factor in them fleeing, otherwise I have to consider than it might have been me.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I don’t want to go there.”
“Nor should you… You’ve had three serious relationships?” Shay smirked. “That’s three more than me.”
“You’ve never been serious about anyone? I thought you might’ve gotten burned a couple of times before deciding you were a lifelong bachelorette.”
Shay shook her head. “Nope. It’s far less complicated than that. With my family, I just don’t have the time or the emotional bandwidth for that kind of relationship.”
Rosie rotated her glass by the stem, contemplating whether she truly wanted to know the answer to the question on her lips. She quickly decided she didn’t want to know how many women Shay had been with, though she suspected there was no bedpost in the world big enough for the number of notches Shay could probably etch.
“We’ve somehow managed to digress again. I was trying to convince you that you didn’t need to censor yourself.”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “I already have a best friend with an insanely good memory. I’m not sure I can cope with another one.” The way Shay looked at her made it clear she wasn’t about to give up. “She’s always been that way. So much so that I don’t know who my real father is.” She focused beyond Shay into the depths of the bar, unable to maintain eye contact. “Three candidates covered that period.” And she hadn’t met a single one of them because they were long gone by the time Rosie entered the world. Funny how her mom had no shortage of lovers, but none stuck around or came back. Maybe she was more like her mom than she wanted to admit.
“Has she done anything like this before?”
Rosie didn’t answer immediately. She was busy processingthe complete lack of judgment in Shay’s expression and words. Eventually, she nodded. “She disappeared on me a lot when I was a kid. She’d be gone for days, and I’d take myself to school, fix my meals, put myself to bed.” She swallowed hard. She hadn’t talked about this stuff since she’d shared it with Lori a long time ago, and her therapist well before that. These were things she hadn’t even told the serious partners. “And she’s gone dark on me a few times since I’ve been an adult. I didn’t hear from her at all between 2020 and 2022. She had me thinking that she’d died of COVID. And then there was five months in 2017…” She shook her head, acknowledging the old realization that her mom was just repeating her usual patterns and that Rosie shouldn’t waste her emotional energy worrying about her.
“So it’s likely she’ll reappear.”
“You’re probably right,” Rosie said. “She’s used health issues before, so this is nothing new. I just suppose that, regardless of what she’s put me through, I can’t fully close the door on her, on our relationship. For my own piece of mind, I want to know that I did everything I could every time there’s a drama, because one day, it’ll be real.”
Shay blew out a breath and nodded slowly. “I know that feeling.”
“You do?”
“Kind of, though it’s nowhere near as difficult as you have it with your mom,” Shay said after she’d taken a long drink of wine that emptied her glass. “I’ll get another round.”
Rosie watched Shay walk to the bar and saw the numerous women follow her progress too. She didn’t blame them, and she also had no right to be jealous since she had no claim on Shay. And they could look all they wanted; Shay was coming home with her, at least for tonight. The butch bartender nearly fell over herself in her hurry to serve Shay before her colleague. When Shay left the bar with her drinks, she literally fanned herself with a bar towel, and Rosie didn’t stifle her amusement.
“What’re you laughing at?” Shay placed the glasses on thetable and retook her seat.
Rosie gestured toward the bartender, who was still staring unabashed. “You made quite an impression on her, and I think she’s misreading the nature of our situationship.”
Shay looked over her shoulder briefly. “Maybe she thinks she’d made a nice butch sandwich.”
They hadn’t talked about their preferences. Oh, no. That couldn’t be where Shay’s thought process was heading. She had to cut that off before it got any steam. “Not with this slice of bread,” Rosie said. “She does nothing for me at all. I like my women…exactly like you, actually.”
