So wrong; so wrong, so wrong. The words flashed like bright pink neon in Jill’s brain. She was a doctor so she knew it was impossible, yet she was convinced that if she had a brain scan right now, the words might actually light up on the screen. At the same time, this scan would probably show how right Jill thought things to be. How right that in a few minutes, after Amelia had said her goodbyes at the Pink Bean, she would ring the bell she’d rung only three times before. How right that Jill would buzz her in even though it was long after office hours.
It could not possibly be wrong to feel the way Jill felt when she saw Amelia’s porcelain skin and her dark, brooding eyes. When she heard Amelia’s voice, so low Jill could almost sense its vibrations on her skin.
Jill switched on her desk lamp and the trendy floor lamp she’d bought when she’d moved into her new office six months ago, then turned off the ceiling lights. This off-the-clock occasion didn’t require daytime lighting.
She went into the kitchen, hoping Patrick might have left something good in the fridge to drink, but she found only water. She hadn’t invited Amelia for a drink and she could always offer her coffee or tea.
And what else? Why had she invited Amelia here? Because it was quieter than the Pink Bean, sure. But also because Jill hadn’t been able to stop herself from flirting with Amelia, and Amelia had most definitely flirted back. This was how the cards had been shuffled tonight. Sheryl had ushered Jill into the Pink Bean. Amelia had been there. Amelia had asked her to have another chat after the choir had finished. Jill had asked Amelia to continue their chat in the much more subdued environment of her office. Cause and consequence. This was simply how life went at times.
In some way, it reminded Jill of the events that had preceded Rasmus leaving. The run-up to it had been littered by a score of unexpected occurrences, yet, in hindsight, they seemed nothing but entirely logical.
Jill paced from her office to the kitchen, her ears perked up for the buzzer. It was a discreet sound because, even though Jill left fifteen minutes between appointments, sometimes a client arrived when the previous one was still in session. But no matter how discreet, and even if Jill were to suddenly go deaf, she’d somehow still be able to hear Amelia announce her arrival tonight. She could probably sense the shift in energy just from Amelia standing on the other side of the door. She could—
Buzzzzz.
There she was. Jill pressed the automatic door release to let Amelia in and waited for her, leaning against the frame of her open office door. Even though she’d just spent time with her at the Pink Bean, Jill’s body reacted as though she hadn’t seen Amelia in weeks. Something started up in her stomach. Her lips puckered as though they were suddenly on cheek-kissing terms. Of course, they weren’t. But Jill could hardly blame her lips for that. For wanting more. She already had much more than she could ever have dreamed of—definitely more than the quiet night at home that had been waiting for her before Sheryl accosted her in the street.
“It took a while to get rid of Sophia. She wanted to go to the pub around the corner for a beer. A few of the team went with her.” Amelia shook her head. “The look on her face when I said I wasn’t going. You’d think I’d just punched her in the gut.”
“I take it you haven’t talked to her yet?” While Jill felt for Sophia, she didn’t want to talk about her.
“I will. Soon. It’s not fair. Even—” Amelia stopped talking. “Let’s maybe not discuss Sophia.” She looked around Jill’s office as though it was the first time she’d set foot in it. “It looks different in here,” Amelia said.
“Because it’s late.” Out of habit, Jill walked to her chair. Once there, she wasn’t sure whether she should sit. It would make it all feel too much like a therapy session. So she headed for the three-seater against the far wall. “We can sit here, if you like. Or we can go into the kitchen. Can I get you some coffee, tea, or water? I have decaf in case you’re sensitive to caffeine at night.”
“Do you live in the building?” Amelia asked, ignoring Jill’s questions, as she strode to the couch. God, those legs. Jill should check the Darlinghurst Darlings’ Facebook page to know when they played next. She wanted to see those gorgeously long legs in a pair of shorts. She dismissed the thought. Amelia had asked her a question.
“No. I live nearby, though. On the next block.”
Amelia sat and slung one leg over the other. She was wearing jeans, which was the only kind of pants Jill had seen her in. “Thanks, I’m okay for drinks,” she finally said. She nestled herself in the corner of the couch, her body half turned toward Jill. “You know, earlier, as I approached the Pink Bean and your office, I did wonder if you might be there tonight.”
“At the risk of sounding like a therapist,” Jill reckoned she could get away with a lame joke, “how did that make you feel?”
Amelia chuckled and it truly was a sight for sore eyes. Her face lit up. Her lips, which weren’t plump exactly, just sensual to the extreme, curled. Most of all, her body relaxed. It felt as though Jill was offered a tiny glimpse of her true self—of the person she had been before she’d burned out.
“Seriously?” A smile lingering on her lips, Amelia shook her head. “We’re not doing that tonight, Jill. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Why are you here?”
“Most certainly not to reply to any more of your questions. I’m here to ask you some of my own.”
“Fair enough.” Jill leaned back into the couch a bit more and stretched her legs out in front of her, one ankle over the other. An informal pose for an informal time. It was probably much harder for her to shake the professional vibe that hung in her office than it was for Amelia. Jill spent the better part of her day between these four walls, listening to clients. “Fire away.”
“I didn’t come prepared.” Amelia shifted her body around a bit. “Let me think.” She narrowed her eyes. “I assume you’re single?” she asked.
Jill couldn’t help a silly giggle from escaping her throat. “Very much so. Yes.”
“You never know. Dawn has the hots for Sophia and she’s married to Cindy, so….”
“Wait, wait, wait. Your best friend Dawn has the hots for Sophia, while Sophia has the hots for you?”
“Oh, yes. Put a bunch of lesbians together and that’s how it will always shake out.” The skin around her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “As the cliché goes.”
Jill thought of the group of lesbians she’d been sitting amongst at Liz and Jessica’s house a few weeks ago. She thought of the women who frequented the Pink Bean. Was it like that for them? “That’s a new one for me,” Jill admitted.
“Have you been single a long time?” Amelia asked.
“About a year.”
Amelia nodded, as though parsing the information she was receiving before fitting it into a larger pattern. She was putting the pieces of Jill’s life together. “How long were you and your ex together?”
“Almost eleven years.” Had it really been that long?
Amelia whistled through her teeth. “That’s a lot of years.”
Jill nodded. A silence fell during which she wondered what Rasmus was up to and how his mother was doing. Had he found someone new? A strong, tall Swedish woman with a high, blonde ponytail who looked the opposite of Jill?
“Forgive my curiosity, but… well, my own track record with long-term relationships isn’t that stellar. Although I have seen a lot of friends go through breakups.” Amelia sounded as though she was musing more than asking. “Why did you split after such a long time?”
“For the longest time, we both believed we wanted the same things. Turns out that wasn’t true at all.”
Amelia scrunched up her eyebrows. Jill knew her reply was vague and unsatisfactory.
“Are you still in touch? Did you do that other cliché ultra-lesbian thing and remain friends? Although, for the record, I have personally never remained friends with my exes. It’s not a thing for me, but I have witnessed it far too often to not believe the stereotype where others are concerned.”
“That’s interesting, that you never befriended your exes. If I was still your therapist, I would inquire further about that.”
“But you’re not.” There was that smile again—the one Jill was jonesing for. Jill was also stalling. But she had to set the record straight. Amelia’s response to what she was about to say next could make or break the rest of the evening—just as it could decide whether they would ever see each other again.
“My ex is a man—Rasmus.” Jill kept her voice level, decades of experience at doing so came in handy. “For that reason, not many lesbian clichés were perpetuated.”
A frown appeared on Amelia’s forehead. “Oh.” She gave a slight shake of the head. “Gosh, I’m sorry, Jill. How utterly ignorant of me. I just… assumed, you know.”
“Please, don’t apologize. There’s really no need.” Jill let out a small sigh of relief.
“There is.” Amelia lifted her shoulder, then let it drop again. “In my defense, cognitive decline has been scientifically linked to people who have suffered a burnout.” She grimaced.
Jill deflated whatever was left of the tension with the widest smile she could muster. “You tell me you’re gay. I confess to having feelings for you. You drew the most logical conclusion. It’s really fine.”
“It’s still more than a little ignorant,” Amelia said. “But hey, if you haven’t gone off me.”
Gone off her? What was Amelia even talking about? If anything, Jill had just done the opposite of that, and she was already so smitten. Oh, wait. Was Amelia flirting again? And was Jill off the hook from having to recount her breakup story?
“Not much chance of that,” Jill said, just to set the record straight.
“When, um, did you first feel something for me?” Amelia drew up her knee onto the couch. From the outside, they could probably easily be mistaken for two friends chatting. But whoever looked on from the outside couldn’t see inside of Jill. They couldn’t see how the fire simmering inside her was slowly fanning more and more out of control.
“Honestly?” It was a silly question, but it was also a way for Jill to make herself look a touch less foolish.
“Of course.” Amelia’s voice set something else off in her. Like someone had just poured a vat of oil onto the flames licking her insides.
“About two seconds after you sat in that chair for the first time.” Jill pointed at said chair.
“Really? Like an at first sight kind of situation?”
Eyes averted, Jill nodded. She couldn’t even begin to explain what it had really felt like. The shift of energy in the room, which she had first attributed to receiving a brand-new client. The knowledge had settled inside her, immovably: that the woman sitting in front of her, was so much more than a client, even though Jill had no power to do anything about it.
“I never even knew that really existed. I always believed it was another clever invention by some marketing department of a movie studio or a publishing house.” Despite her rather cynical words, Amelia’s tone was full of delight. Maybe she’d never been the desired person in a love at first sight kind of situation.
“And I’ve always believed I’m not that gullible, yet here I am. On the cusp of fifty, with decades of experience in the human psyche under my belt, crazy as fuck about you.” Damn, it felt great to say it out loud. At the same time, it was utterly nerve-racking.
“Crazy as fuck?” Amelia huffed out some air.
Was it a chuckle? Jill couldn’t be sure. “It’s really the only way I can put it into words right now.”
“I probably didn’t help, what with asking you to stay and coming here with you.” Amelia’s voice was so low, the cadence of her words so slow, Jill thought the fire raging inside her might melt her before she could say anything back.
“All I can say…” Jill had to clear something out of her throat before she could continue, “is that, sometimes, you meet someone, and something changes inside of you. Something you never want to be unchanged again, despite knowing better.”
Amelia leaned forward a bit. “Sometimes you say things that I find very hard to understand. I hear the words, but I don’t really know what they mean.”
“I’m just babbling…” Jill looked at her hand. Should she extend it? No. It was too soon. Either way, it wasn’t because she was confessing to her crush, again, that Amelia had any obligation to respond. But she was here. They had flirted on and off all evening. But still, Jill shouldn’t instigate anything. She had to wait, even if that meant that nothing would ever happen.
“I, um, really admire your honesty, Jill,” Amelia said. “And your courage. These have always been important values to me, even though I kind of lost sight of them lately.”
Jill bit her lip. She shouldn’t be hoping for anything with Amelia right now. This was why, earlier, the word ‘wrong’ had flashed so angrily in her brain. But Jill had failed to listen—again.
“I know. You’re going through so much. And I’m just piling on more stuff to deal with.”
“This…” Amelia waved her hand toward Jill. “I don’t mind dealing with at all.” She flashed a quick smile. “I do like you, Jill, but we both know that I’m not ready for anything. I do want to start dating again, but this… If we were to go out, it wouldn’t feel like merely dating anymore. It feels like something else because we’re not starting from scratch. Which, in a way, might actually be easier, but I just don’t know. I’m not there yet. I don’t trust myself to not fuck it up the first chance I get. I—”
“Hey.” Jill clasped her hands firmly together so they couldn’t reach out to Amelia of their own accord—she wouldn’t put it past the desire burning inside of her to play a trick on her. “If anyone understands this, it’s me. It’s okay. I’m glad I had tonight. It was more than I could ever have hoped for.”
Amelia let her knee drop off the couch and sat up straight. “On that note, maybe it’s time for me to go home.”