The Thanksgiving holiday was in full swing in Lake Tahoe. All of the area ski resorts were open and there’d been a total of two feet fresh snow that had fallen in the previous few days. The sky was deep blue and the sun shining on the pristine powder made the snow crystals blink like a million diamonds. Ray’s Diner was bustling with locals and tourists, fueling their bodies prior to hitting the slopes. All in all, it should’ve been the perfect day, yet Shawn was miserable.
It had been two weeks since she’d talked to Morgan. Well, not exactly talked. Morgan yelled at Shawn with the misunderstanding that Shawn had replaced her so quickly. As if that was possible. She couldn’t even text or call her because while she replaced her broken phone, there had been some sort of glitch where she lost a lot of her contacts. Not all, but a lot, including Morgan’s. That had effectively ended Shawn’s chance of trying to explain to Morgan that she hadn’t replaced her and didn’t think that would ever happen. Without the remote possibility of Morgan actually coming to see Shawn, she was stuck wondering what could have been.
By the end of the first week after Morgan left, Shawn had been shuffling around the diner, struggling to put on a happy face for her customers. Her breaking point had come when Jack paid a house call one afternoon.
“Shawny, what’s going on? You’ve been moping around like someone kidnapped your puppy. Are you missing Morgan that much?”
Her lip quivering and tears stinging her eyes, Shawn told Jack what happened and why she thought it happened.
“I don’t know what to do, Jack. I don’t have her number, I don’t have her address. If I did, I’d drive to Sacramento and bang on her door until she talked to me.”
“Google her, Shawny.”
Shawn laughed as she rubbed her eyes. “I did. I couldn’t find anything on her. She’s not on social media. It’s like she’s a ghost. She’s not, though, right? You saw her? You talked to her?”
“Listen to me, honey. That girl loves you. Maybe she just needs some time to figure things out.”
“If she loved me, she wouldn’t have left. If she thought we had something special, she would’ve stayed and talked to me.”
Jack hugged her and rubbed her back as her own grandfather had done when she was younger going through some sort of heartache.
“Keep the faith, honey. She’ll come back when she’s ready. In the meantime, we all love you and we’re here for you.”
It had been a few days since Jack’s pep talk, and it made Shawn feel a teeny bit better knowing she had such wonderful friends that would help her get through losing Morgan. But Shawn knew she’d never get over losing Morgan.
Her ankle had been healing, but she was still in her walking boot. The holiday weekend crowd meant she’d been on her feet all day, and her ankle was now throbbing. Toward the end of the lunch rush, she’d gone back to her office with a bag of ice, removed her boot, and elevated her leg with the ice wrapped around her ankle. After twenty minutes, she’d taken the ice off and was strapping the boot when Kerrie knocked on her door.
“Hey, boss. There are a couple of women at table three that asked to speak to you. Want me to tell them you left?” Kerrie and her other employees had been walking on eggshells around her since finding out Morgan left, doing anything to avoid her short temper.
“No, I’ll be right out.” Shawn hoped those women wanted to tell them how great her diner was and not to complain. She just didn’t have the energy to deal with any bullshit right now. She saw the two women sitting close together, sipping on iced tea. They looked happy yet nervous.
“Good afternoon, ladies. I’m Shawn Evans. You wanted to speak to me?” Shawn plastered her best smile to her face even though she hadn’t had much to be happy about lately.
“Hi, Shawn. It’s so nice to meet you officially. I’m Jane and this is my wife, Annie.”
Shawn thought they looked a little familiar and she somehow knew the names.
“We’re Morgan’s best friends.”
Shawn felt her heart drop into her stomach and her heart race. Morgan’s best friends. Here. In her diner.
“Would you be able to join us for a moment? We won’t take much of your time.”
Shawn plopped down into her chair, the strength in her leg muscles weakening as she heard Morgan’s name.
“Is she…how…is she all right?”
Jane looked to Annie, and Shawn knew what the answer was by their facial expressions.
“Actually, no. She’s not all right. She’d kill us if she knew we were talking to you, but we felt we needed the whole story, not just her version. You want to fill us in?”
Shawn felt the heat enflame her face and her hackles rise. “No, I don’t. This is between Morgan and me. I’m having a hard enough time without being attacked by her best friends.” Shawn started to stand when the larger of the two, Annie, placed her hand on Shawn’s forearm.
“Attacking you is not why we’re here. Our best friend is miserable, and if there’s any way we can help her not be, we want to try. Please sit down and hear us out.”
Shawn reluctantly sat and crossed her arms over her chest. They did seem earnest, so Shawn felt the least she could do was hear them out. And if they helped her have one last chance at winning Morgan back, then she’d owe them big time.
“Shawn, I spoke with Morgan a couple of times while she’d been here, and she seemed so happy. She sounded like a different person, in touch with herself and her feelings. She sounded lighter, almost giddy, since the two of you started hanging out, becoming friends then lovers.”
Shawn felt her ears warm and her body flush at the memories of her and Morgan having sex, making love. The last night they’d been together, she’d felt a shift in her heart when they’d made love. Shawn had dared to dream of a future together.
“Then she returned home three days early, not talking to us and trying to shut us out. She told us that she overheard your best friend and your ex say how you only want to bed tourists, and you move from one to the next. Is there any truth to that?”
So, Marcy was right. Morgan did overhear them. She had the sudden urge to go find Paige and…and…she didn’t know what. She wasn’t a violent person, and it was Shawn’s fault for getting involved with her in the first place, then letting the relationship go on as long as it did. She realized the night she broke up with Paige that she had feelings that Shawn didn’t share, and she had a feeling Paige wasn’t going to take the breakup well. She’d been expecting the other shoe to drop with Paige, and the hell if she hadn’t just dropped the shoe but threw it at Shawn’s head.
“To be honest, that’s how I had lived my life since moving here. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in having a girlfriend, but there aren’t many local lesbians here that I could date. But I’m not that person anymore.” Shawn paused, not knowing if she could trust these women, Morgan’s friends, to keep an open mind, but what the hell did she have to lose? She’d already lost Morgan. “Before Morgan came up here, I’d been dating Paige. I knew from the beginning that she wasn’t the one, but a few of my friends talked me into giving it a chance. She and I were dating when Morgan arrived. We had just started becoming friends when I finally broke up with Paige.”
“Did you have feelings for Morgan?” Shawn saw Annie squeeze Jane’s hand when she’d asked that question.
“More than I’ve felt for anyone in a very long time. Even though I was attracted to Morgan, I didn’t push her into anything because of what she went through with her ex. I figured, if all we could be was friends, I’d be a lucky son of a bitch to have Morgan in my life. She’s an incredible woman, but I’m sure you know that.”
Shawn took a deep breath and looked out the window to the lake to give her a moment to collect her thoughts. What she said next could make or break her in the eyes of Jane and Annie.
“My time spent with Morgan was nothing short of spectacular. I’m not going to go into detail about our sex life because what I feel for her has nothing to do with sex if I’m being honest. It seemed without trying, Morgan wound her way into my life, and into my heart. I was so happy every minute I got to spend with her, and I wanted to spend every minute with her. I loved how she interacted with my friends, how she seamlessly made her own friendships with them. She made me feel special, and all I wanted was to make her happy, to give us a chance at a possible future together.”
Shawn saw Jane and Annie smile at each other, then Jane frowned at Shawn.
“She called you almost a couple of weeks ago after we convinced her to talk to you. She told us she heard another woman in the background saying some suggestive things.” Annie’s eyebrow raised, challenging Shawn to explain that.
Shawn pointed to the walking boot. “I was out running and I sprained my ankle. My best friend picked me up, took me to the ER, then brought me home. She’d been taking care of me, getting me dinner, when Morgan called. I’ll admit that Marcy and I dated years ago, but we were better off as friends. She’s been my best friend, and I don’t have any romantic feelings for her at all. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t imagine being with anyone except Morgan.”
Jane’s eyes rolled up and she shook her head. “I swear, I love Morgan with all my heart, but that one has the worst habit of jumping to conclusions. Listen, Shawn, you need to fix this with her. She’s been miserable so I know she has feelings for you.”
“I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I threw my phone that night after Morgan hung up on me. I lost her number. I don’t know her address or who she works for. I was ready to drive to Sacramento to scour the town looking for her, but it’s a big city. I didn’t know where to start.”
The smile that lit Jane’s face was brighter than the sun shining over the lake.
“Well, hell, woman. Let me give you her number and address. Show up at her front door if you have to, but for God’s sake, don’t give up on her. If you’re able to get her to see your side of things, I can promise that she’ll be all you ever need in this life.”
For the first time since Morgan left, Shawn felt a sliver of hope make its way into her heart.
“So, you guys believe me?”
“Is there any reason not to?”
Shawn laughed. “Hell, no. Morgan means the world to me, and if I can get her to talk to me, I’ll make her sure of that.” Shawn called Kerrie over and handed over a pen and order pad to Jane.
“Kerrie, this is Jane and Annie, Morgan’s best friends. They’re encouraging me to go after Morgan.”
Kerrie wiped her brow in an exaggerated fashion. “Thank Goddess. Shawn’s been miserable since Morgan left. Anything I can do to bring these two lovebirds back together, I’ll do it.”
Jane and Annie laughed as Jane wrote down Morgan’s phone number and address. For the first time in two weeks, Shawn felt hopeful.