“Hey.” Vanessa stepped out of the building. “Shit, I’m sorry. I forgot that we had a huge concert in town tonight. People are everywhere.”
Vanessa seemed to be trying to shield her from anyone seeing her. “It’s okay. Hell, I should have known.” She smiled. “I was actually at said concert.”
“You were?” Vanessa said playfully.
“I was. Had great seats. Next time maybe I can get you tickets. I don’t want to brag, but I know people.”
“That would be nice.” Vanessa looked back toward the building. “I can order us a cup to go. There’s a park across the street that’s very well lit, and we can just—” Vanessa stopped. “God, that’s a stupid idea with someone as well-known as you.”
Lochlan took her by the arm. “Jacob, give me a second.” Lochlan led them back toward her car. “It’s a nice gesture, but maybe I should just go.”
“I understand.”
“I know we have Jacob here, but I’m not sure that us walking around in the middle of the night is a good idea.” Lochlan was saying all the things she needed to say. She didn’t want to leave. “I really would have liked to stay. I don’t feel comfortable around a lot of people, but you’ve done nothing but make me feel at ease, and that isn’t an easy task, even for people who know me well.”
“I just know that if I were in your position I would want some normalcy to my life.”
“There are very few things about my life that will ever be normal again.” She chuckled and extended her hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Vanessa.”
Vanessa took the hand. “You too.” They looked at each other, still hand in hand. “Oh my God.” Vanessa started digging through her bag. “I have got to at least have a picture with you—for my best friend, Mia.”
“I can take the picture,” she said, taking her phone out and adjusting it in front of them. They came cheek to cheek and smiled. “There. By morning your friend will see it, I assure you.”
Vanessa smiled. “Should that scare me?”
“Maybe I’m the one that should be scared.”
“I’m harmless, I promise,” Vanessa said sincerely.
Lochlan stared at her for another moment too long before she took in a breath. “I should go.”
“Okay. It was nice meeting you.”
“You too.” Lochlan smiled and stepped into the vehicle as Jacob closed the door behind her. As they drove away from Vanessa, she waved once more. Lochlan wondered in that moment what it would be like to be able to act on a connection with another woman. For all she knew Vanessa wasn’t even gay. It was ridiculous to hope that she was. She looked at the picture of them and wondered if she could ever stop this charade of a life that she lived.
✥ ✥ ✥
Vanessa was sound asleep when someone began pounding at her bedroom door. Nothing like being awakened by the heart-stopping fear of impending death by robber. Wait, robbers don’t knock before entering.
“What the hell?” Vanessa groaned as she threw the blanket back and sat up. “Come in!”
Vanessa was still rubbing her eyes when Mia opened the door with her second-best friend, Ty, in tow. “Where in the hell have you been?”
Vanessa looked at the clock on her desk. “It’s nine thirty in the morning. I’m pre-med with a huge paper due on Monday. I was up half the night studying. Where do you think I’ve been? I’ve been in bed.”
“Bed my ass! Explain this!” Mia held out her phone.
“What?” Vanessa took the device and reached over to the nightstand for her glasses. She slid them on, and her heart stopped when she saw what had caused the commotion. It was a picture posted to Lochlan Paige’s Twitter account.
“It’s posted to Instagram as well. Just in case you were wondering,” Ty said.
The picture was of her and Lochlan, cheek to cheek with the caption, Told you they would know by morning. Thanks for trying to help me stay hidden. It was nice meeting you and tell Mia I said hi.—Loc.
“You actually met her last night?” Ty shouted. “And we, your best friends, hear about it on Twitter?” Vanessa smiled. “And where the hell is my ‘hi’ from Lochlan Paige?”
“Ty, you are a gay man who hates country music. I didn’t realize that you would need one.” Vanessa handed the phone back to Mia and climbed out of bed.
“We’ve been calling you for hours,” Mia said.
“I’m sorry. It was four when I got in and I guess I just crashed.”
Mia gasped. “You were with Lochlan Paige until four a.m.?”
“No, Mia. I just bumped into her last night.” She made her way to the common area of the apartment.
Mia and Ty were on her heels. “I got three phone calls this morning from people asking where you were and if I had talked to you,” Mia said.
“Well, now you have.” Vanessa picked up the coffee pot. “And apparently, I’m up.”
“I’m gonna need for you to go on both Instagram and Twitter and address this.”
“This? There is no this,” she said, looking through the cabinet. “Where did you hide my coffee?”
“Only you would be worried about coffee right now,” Mia said.
“I was in the library last night and she was there, apparently writing a song or something.”
Ty spoke up. “What was she like?”
“Nice. Sweet.” Vanessa smiled. “She is so much prettier in person.”
“Okay, now you’re just rubbing it in.” Mia groaned.
Vanessa chuckled. “Sorry. She wanted to be left alone last night, so I tried to do that. I didn’t call you because I know that you would have brought fifteen other people.”
“I would not—” Mia began, but Vanessa looked at her skeptically as she tilted her head in disbelief. “Okay, maybe I would have, but just a couple.”
“She didn’t want a couple.”
“I’m gonna need for you to be a little less protective of her and worry about your best friend’s needs a little more.”
Vanessa hugged her. “Awwww. I love you, but this time I selfishly thought of me. I had Lochlan Paige all to myself.”
“Oh my God, I knew it!” Mia gasped. “You were hogging the hot celebrity hoping to have a steamy tryst with her.”
“A tryst? My God, you are reaching here. That only happens in movies and romance novels. Besides, Loc is straight.”
“Loc? Did you just refer to Lochlan Paige as ‘Loc,’ the name that only other celebs and her friends call her?”
Vanessa laughed. “She told me to call her Loc. It just came out.”
Mia walked quickly, and overdramatically, to the computer and turned it on. “Tweet her back!”
“Why?”
“Lochlan Paige has told you to call her by a name that is reserved for only certain people.”
“And?” Vanessa asked as she returned to searching the cabinet. “Aha, there’s the coffee.”
“What really happened last night?” Ty asked.
“I told you. We were both there and she was humming all loud and I asked her to please be quiet.”
“You what?” they both screamed in unison.
“I was trying to study.”
“So, you told Lochlan Paige to what? Hush?” Ty laughed in shock.
Vanessa laughed at the horrified looks on their faces. “No. The word hush was never used.”
“So, you politely told her to shut the hell up?” Ty glared at Mia. “This is your fault.”
“My fault?” Mia gasped.
“Yes. She’s a lesbian, so her interaction with other women is solely on you. My job is to call you a bitch when she needs me to and help her decorate this dungeon of a room.”
Mia whipped her head to Vanessa. “You call me a bitch?”
“No!” Vanessa defended herself. “I have never, damn it, Ty.”
“What?” he said defensively.
“And my room is not a dungeon.”
“It is very plain, Nessa.” Mia scanned the room.
Vanessa huffed loudly. “Okay.” She went to the computer and sat down. She pulled up the account and then Lochlan’s page. She couldn’t help smiling at the picture. It was a really good photo of both of them.
Ty smiled. “I have to say, you two look—”
“Amazing together.” Mia finished his thought in a dreamy voice.
“Yeah,” he replied. “That.”
Vanessa clicked on the picture and typed a reply.
Love the pic and meeting you, too. Mia says hi back. Also, my other BFF, Ty, feels left out and also says hello.
She clicked on the follow button and turned away from the computer. “There. Happy? She will probably never see it in the sea of tweets—” She stopped at the “ding” noise from the computer.
“Sweet Lord. Is that…?” Ty said as he and Mia rushed back to the computer.
“It’s her!” Mia said giddily.
“It’s her, what?” Vanessa asked. Then there was another beep.
“She followed you, faved the tweet, and retweeted it.”
“Okay, the coffee is ready. Anyone want some?” Vanessa felt the increase of her heart rate with the unexpected turn her night had taken but refused to let anyone know.
“Forget about the damned coffee!” Ty said.
“Why? She just liked the post. It’s not like she’s trying to have a convers—”
The computer dinged again.
“You have a direct message.” Mia said.
“Oh my God, they’re falling in love before our very eyes. Hashtag blessed,” Ty said.
“Good Lord, you’re acting like children. No one is falling in love.” She clicked on the direct message symbol.
Wallace, huh? I was kicking myself for not getting a last name. Does Mia like the pic? I think it’s good. Oh, and tell Ty hello.
“This is not happening. Is this really happening to us right now?” Ty said as he fanned himself. “One day when she writes her tell-all memoir, we—Mia, you, and I—will be part of it.”
Vanessa laughed at him as she typed back.
You’re going to make Ty have some sort of breakdown at any moment. Yes, they liked the picture. Why wouldn’t they? It’s a great photo.
The computer sounded again.
Good. I’m just about to board the plane home. Glad you all like it. Good luck with the paper.
Vanessa didn’t pay attention to the chaos and hyena volume of screeching that was going on behind her. She wondered, as she had last night, if a seemingly straight and very famous celebrity was flirting with her.
Thanks, and good luck on the song.
Thank you. Turning phone off. Airline bitches. LOL Talk to you soon—I hope. Bye, Mia & Ty.
That was the last time the computer sounded. “What happened last night?” Ty asked.
“I-I’m not really sure, and now I’m even less sure. Is she—is she flirting with me? Isn’t she straight?”
“Honey, it’s country music. They’re all straight until they aren’t.”
✥ ✥ ✥
Lochlan saw two familiar smiles as she and Jacob headed to baggage claim. “What are you doing here?” she said as she hugged Jamie’s husband, Eli.
“Jamie didn’t want you hailing a taxi or using Uber. So here we are.” He saw Jacob and the guys exchanged hellos. “We got her from here.”
“All right,” Jacob said as he tugged Lochlan’s baggage off the belt, along with his. “I’ll just leave you all to it, then.” He hugged Lochlan. “Let me know when you need me.”
“Always do.” She returned his hug, then waved as he left. She turned around to almost bump into Jamie. “What?”
“Who’s the girl?” Jamie furrowed her brows.
“What girl?”
“Twitter girl. Instagram girl. Your notifications are exploding girl.”
“She is a dateless, bookworm nerd that I met at the library.”
“That beautiful woman is not a nerd. If she is, thank God nerds didn’t look like that when we were in school. Us mediocre people would have been totally screwed.”
Lochlan laughed. “She was hot, right?”
“Yes,” Eli and Jamie answered in unison.
Lochlan smiled. “She was!” She looked more at Eli. “Did you see those eyes?”
“I did. Those things were—”
“Loc—” Jamie interrupted him.
“Let’s just stop there. I already know what you’re going to say next,” Lochlan said.
“I’m sure that you do. That you cannot start acting on feelings that you have for women.”
“I can’t live in this bubble for the rest of my life. Hell, I’m nearly twenty-six years old and have had virtually no real relationships.” Everything in Lochlan knew that Jamie was right, but no matter who was right or wrong, the reality of the situation had her upset.
“Loc, you met this girl last night in a library. This isn’t something to derail your entire career over.”
“This isn’t about Vanessa.”
“Oh, that’s her name? Good to know, because somehow I think that I’m gonna be familiar with it.”
“What’s the deal?” Lochlan asked as she headed for the passenger seat of the car.
“The deal is that you are still very much a closeted star. If you are going to make a move, I need to know.”
“I just met her last night, so don’t marry us off yet.”
“You’ve met a lot of people who didn’t end up plastered all over the internet.”
“She isn’t fucking plastered, Jamie. It was one damn picture.”
“One picture that has been retweeted fourteen thousand times in twelve hours.”
“It was innocent!” Lochlan got into the car and slammed the door, leaving Jamie and Eli still standing outside.