“I wouldn’t go that far. But I do love singing.”
“Me too. I miss it.” Emily sighed. “I haven’t sung much since high school.”
“Why not?”
“Life gets in the way, you know? I’m not a real singer anyway. I only joined glee club because my parents insisted I do some after-school activity and I hated running. I figured no one would make me run the track in glee club.”
“Seriously?”
Emily nodded. “Fortunately I fell in love with glee club.”
“What about it did you love?”
“The dancing…the singing…being up on stage. All of it. Now I can’t imagine doing anything like that.” It wasn’t only the being on stage part. Aside from busting moves solo in the kitchen while she cooked, she hadn’t danced for almost as long as she hadn’t sung. The two were definitely linked.
“Why can’t you imagine it? You’re really good.”
“Well, there’s not exactly adult glee clubs.”
“You could join a choir. Or sing in a band.”
Emily shook her head. In fact, she had been in a band in college, but all of that was years ago and they’d never been good enough to do more than practice in the garage of the guy with the drum set. She’d joined a community choir, too, but quit a few months in because Cass liked to spend evenings together.
“You’ve got a look on your face like maybe I said the wrong thing…”
“I was thinking about things I should do more often.”
“Any chance eating pie is on that list?”
“Pie?” Emily narrowed her eyes at Alex. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a little quirky?”
“No. Never. Weird, yes. But I prefer different.”
“Well, you are different.” That was an understatement but actually more accurate.
“There’s a little café about a half hour up the road with amazing pies. I was thinking maybe we could take a lunch break there? The café is right before we cut off the main highway. When we get on the mountain roads, there won’t be many chances to pee.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Good. It’s hard to get pie in Japan. I called this bakery one time to see if they’d ship to Tokyo.”
“They said no?”
“Yeah, can you believe it?”
Emily smiled at Alex’s mock indignation. She stopped herself from saying Alex should call her next time she had the craving. It was ridiculous to entertain the idea of someday making her a pie considering they’d have to say goodbye as soon as they got to Aspen, but she wanted to anyway. And she was confident enough in her pies to promise she wouldn’t disappoint. “What’s your favorite pie?”
“Apple. Pecan’s a close second. Then strawberry rhubarb.” Alex clicked her tongue. “And now I really want pie.”
“I make a damn good strawberry rhubarb pie,” Emily said. “In fact, I won a blue ribbon at the state fair when I was fourteen for that particular pie.”
“I’ve got it.” Alex smacked the steering wheel. “You’re coming to Aspen for a pie contest.”
Emily laughed. “Keep guessing.”
* * *
The bell over the door chimed as they entered the little café. An older woman with a gray bun and a red apron tied at her waist looked up from her book. She waved them in. “Have a seat anywhere you like. The storm’s kept most sane people home.”
“Good thing we’re not sane,” Alex murmured.
The woman heard and laughed. “Good thing indeed. Coffee?”
Alex glanced at Emily, and when she nodded, said, “Yes, please. Two.”
“Two coffees coming up.”
They settled into a booth with a window view out to the parking lot. Aside from their rental, only two other cars were in the lot and both had windshields covered in snow. Fortunately, most of the snow falling on the roads was melting fast.
Emily picked up one of the menus. “I’m not sure if I should order breakfast or lunch.”
“I’m going with pie,” Alex said.
“That’s all?”
“And an order of fries.”
“No fries in Tokyo either?”
“Oh, you can find them, but they aren’t home fries like you get here.” Maybe a chef wouldn’t be impressed with the food, but Alex’s mouth was already watering.
“Home fries and apple pie do sound good…but that’s a lot of time in the gym.”
“Calories drop right off at this elevation,” Alex promised.
“I don’t believe you.”
“You shouldn’t.” Alex winked. “But come to the dark side with me anyway?”
Emily shook her head but set the menu back in the holder. “I’ll worry about calories on Tuesday. After this, do you want me to drive for a while?”
“This is only the beginning. There’s gonna be a lot more snow up ahead. And when the temperatures drop it’ll be sticking to the road more.”
“I’m good at driving in snow.”
Before Alex could ask how Emily had gotten that experience, the waitress arrived with their coffees. She took the order for a shared plate of fries and two slices of apple pie, then convinced them to add a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Alex’s taste buds salivated the moment she promised to warm up the pie.
“I’m guessing you’re not originally from San Francisco,” Alex said. “Not if you’re good at driving in snow.”
“Not originally, no.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Northern Minnesooota, don’t-cha-know.”
The sudden Minnesota accent was adorable. “Can you keep talking that way?”
Emily laughed. “Not on your life.”
“Minnesota’s a long way from San Francisco.”
“In a lot of ways.” Emily bit her lip. She was quiet for a moment, and Alex wondered what she’d left behind.
After a moment, Emily continued. “I figured out I was gay in high school. That didn’t go over so well in my little town and I knew I couldn’t stay. Fortunately, I got a scholarship to a college in California.”
“I bet there’s a lot more to that story.”
“There is. But that’s all I’m up for talking about.” Emily sipped her coffee, then kept her hands wrapped around the mug as she looked over it at Alex. “Where’d you grow up?”
“Right here. Or close enough.” Alex took a sip of her coffee, then mirrored Emily’s over-the-mug stare. “Any other questions?”
“Several.” Emily’s eyes narrowed. “I’m deciding which ones to ask based on what I want to answer in return. I don’t think you’ll let me off only asking you.”
“You’re entirely right. Choose wisely.”
Alex wondered if Emily could sense how much she loved a challenge. It had been a long time since she’d met someone who turned on her head as much as the rest of her, but the likelihood of anything happening between them was practically nonexistent. She had to keep a handle on her libido.
Forcing her body to focus on something other than what Emily’s lips would feel like against hers, she took a slow sip of her coffee. “While you think of your questions, I’ll answer your earlier one. Yes, you can drive for a bit. I could probably use a break—I’m still on Tokyo time. But mountain roads can be tricky.”
“There aren’t many mountains in Minnesota,” Emily said, apparently not taking any offense at Alex’s warning. “If I get nervous, I’ll let you take back over. I know when to say I need someone else to be in charge.”
Emily’s tone wasn’t suggestive, but the look in her eyes struck a chord that reverberated. Arousal jetted through Alex’s body. She swallowed, reminding her body that this wasn’t a hookup. Time to scale back the flirting. “Hopefully I’ll be as good a DJ as you were.”
“I have no doubt you’ll be perfect.”
Was there a hidden innuendo in Emily’s words? While Alex was debating a response, the fries came, perfectly crisp and still hot from the oil. Then came the pie—warm as promised and with vanilla ice cream m
elting on the golden crust.
“Oh, this smells amazing,” Emily said.
Alex unrolled her silverware from the paper napkin. “Just wait. It’s gonna taste even better.” She forked a bite into her mouth, then closed her eyes and moaned. The cool smoothness of the vanilla ice cream warred with the flaky buttery crust, and the warm cinnamon apple filling tied everything together.
“That good, huh?” Emily smiled. She took a bite herself and made a very similar sound. “Okay, you’re right.” She took another bite. “I make good pies, but this might be better than mine.”
“I wouldn’t mind judging that contest.”
Emily’s eyes sparkled. She seemed about to say something in response, but the waitress reappeared at their table.
“Anything else I can get for you two lovebirds?”
Emily’s mouth dropped open. Alex scrambled for what to say. “Uh, no. Thanks. We’re good.”
The waitress looked from Alex to Emily. After a too-long beat, she said, “I’m so sorry. I’m usually good at knowing who’s coming in as a couple, but…”
“It’s fine,” Alex said quickly.
“Completely fine,” Emily agreed.
The waitress clicked her tongue, murmuring another apology as she set the bill on the table. “If you need anything else, holler. I’ll be in the back cleaning up.”
As soon as she’d gone, Alex said, “Sorry. That was awkward.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Well, I get read as gay all the time. And obviously I am. So if a woman’s with me, I mean, not that you are with me with me, but maybe she can tell I like y—” Alex clamped her mouth shut. Shit. If she’d been trying to make the situation more awkward, she was succeeding. Royally. “What I was trying to say is I’m not sure you’re used to people assuming that you are, and if you’re not—”
“Okay, stop.” Emily reached across the table and touched the back of Alex’s hand. The contact sent a warm current through Alex’s body.
Emily’s lips turned up in a little smile. “You’re cute when you’re nervous.”
Alex’s heart raced. She barely resisted turning her palm up to clasp Emily’s hand and had to remind herself to breathe.
“I may not be as obvious as you,” Emily continued, “but I’d rather be misread as your date than misread as straight.”
Emily pulled her hand back, breaking the contact and leaving Alex unsteady. Emily’s words repeated in her head: “You’re cute when you’re nervous.” Sure, they’d been flirting, but plenty of people flirted only for the game of it—even if they weren’t available. But now, after that comment, at least she could be reasonably sure that Emily was into her.
“Are you single?”
Emily touched her left ring finger as if in the habit of checking that her ring was still on. The move was quick, maybe even unconscious, but when Alex’s gaze followed her move, she seemed to realize what she’d done. “I just broke up with someone.”
“Someone whose ring you used to wear?”
Emily nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was my decision.”
Alex hesitated, realizing how little she knew about Emily. She’d been either married or engaged and had broken things off. But what had happened? And how recent had it been?
“Sometimes being the one to end things makes the breakup even harder.”
Emily again touched her ring finger. “You’re right. There’s more guilt, anyway. Most of my friends congratulated me when I told them, like they were impressed I’d finally done something they knew should have happened ages ago. It only made me feel worse.”
“How’d your ex take the breakup?”
“Well, when I first told her I was done, she started screaming that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. Then the next day she asked me to apologize. Everything was turned upside down, and I did feel terrible, so I said sorry. Which she took to mean we weren’t breaking up. So then I had to do it all over again a week later. She kicked me out of the house, froze our bank accounts, and then called everyone we knew to tell them I’d broken her heart.”
“Sounds like she took it well.”
Emily tilted her head as if unsure whether Alex was being sarcastic. Then a smile edged her lips. “Exactly. It was total mess.”
“Total fucking mess.”
“That too.” Emily laughed, and the sound seemed to be half release, half nervous tension. “Honestly, I figured she’d be happy about ending things. We’d grown apart in so many ways.” She shook her head and then held up her hands. “Anyway. Now I’m here. I probably shouldn’t have told you all that, but…oh well.”
“It’s good to talk about things. We hold too much in trying to seem perfect. And I really am sorry. No one deserves to go through that.”
“Thanks.” Emily took another deep breath followed by an even longer exhale. She reached for a fry and wagged it at Alex. “Your turn to not be perfect. Clearly you know how it feels to break up with someone. What’s your worst breakup story?”
Alex instantly thought of Rhonda. She was embarrassed to fess up to her part in their breakup, particularly considering how things had imploded, but she knew she needed to return the favor of honest admissions. “So, this story isn’t going to make me look good, but I’m going to tell you anyway.”
Alex swallowed and forged ahead. “I was dating this woman for a while who had a lot of trust issues. Like, she wanted a key to my place after our first date. She liked to show up randomly. Said it was to surprise me, but I knew she was checking up on me…She’d come to my work for spontaneous lunch dates. Even asked for my passcode for my phone. I’m pretty open, so I didn’t think about it at first, but my friends kept saying it wasn’t right.
“Anyway, we had other problems and the relationship wasn’t going so well. I knew I needed to break up with her, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Tried dropping hints, not returning phone calls, that sort of thing.”
“Uh-oh. I’m getting nervous.”
“Yeah. I should have seen it coming.” If the sex hadn’t rocked her world at the time she probably would have, but she’d only been twenty-three. Not old enough to know she could have sex that good with women who were also sane. Of course, she didn’t need to tell Emily that part. “Anyway, I finally told her it wasn’t working for me. She didn’t respond for a few days and then she showed up at my house with this box.”
“Do I want to know what’s inside?”
Alex wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to tell Emily, but she’d gotten this far in the story. “Turns out, she was convinced I’d been cheating. So…she’d collected all of my sex toys and taken them to get DNA swabbed.”
“You can do DNA tests on sex toys?”
“I don’t know, honestly, but she said she did. And she had plenty of money. Could’ve paid someone for anything she wanted. Mostly I was pissed that she hadn’t asked me. She’d scoured my place while I was at work for every little bottle of lube, every dildo, every vibrator.”
“This lady was off her rocker.”
“Right, but I didn’t know it until that moment.” Admittedly, there had been plenty of red flags and she’d chosen to ignore them. “Anyway, when she confronted me, I told her I hadn’t cheated but it was over. She lost it. Yanked open the sliding glass door on my balcony and started throwing sex toys.”
“No way!”
“Yes way.”
Emily started to laugh. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.”
“It’s fine. Honestly, it was so weird it was funny. I lived on the third floor, and about a minute after she’d emptied the box, my downstairs neighbor started singing ‘It’s Raining Men!’ I went out onto the balcony and looked down and there’s this rainbow array of dildos in the parking lot.”
Emily clapped her hand over her mouth as she laughed. She shook her head, then fell back against the cushions of the booth laughing harder.
“I know. Right?” Alex chuckled too.
“I swear I didn’t cheat.”
“Oh, I believe you. Besides, the evidence cleared you on that one.” Emily wiped tears from her eyes. “I do question your judgment on picking that particular girlfriend.”
“Hey, yours froze your bank accounts. Mine only went after the dildos.”
Emily laughed again. “Okay, maybe we both have terrible judgment.” She sighed, then said, “I needed that laugh. So do you think we learned our lesson?”
“If not, there’s always apple pie.”
Emily held Alex’s gaze, a smile still playing on her lips. “Thank you. For listening. And for having a story that makes me feel better about my disaster.”
“No problem.”
“I’m glad we met.”
“Me too.” Alex scooped up the last of the pie on her plate. “And I’m glad we had pie.” She smiled, then popped the bite into her mouth. She savored it, trying to hold the apple and cinnamon flavor as long as she could. She wanted to do the same with the whole day.
Chapter Five
After their stop at the café, the drive was quiet. Not because Emily didn’t have a hundred things tumbling round in her head but because the roads were worse than she’d expected.
It had been a long time since she’d driven in snow, and hairpin turns on steep roads were a different thing altogether. She had to focus nearly all her attention on simply following the track the cars ahead of them had left—nearly all her attention, since it was impossible to not think about Alex. Or how good it had felt to touch her hand.
For the most part, Alex kept quiet. She sang occasionally but softer now, as if she didn’t want to disturb Emily’s focus on the road. If only she knew it was too late for that. The stop at the café had triggered a whole rampage of thoughts. And feelings.
Emily had more questions than ever for Alex. What foods did she like as much as pie? Had she grown up skiing? What was it like to be a queer kid in Colorado? What was her family like? And how long had she been single? As good-looking as she was and as much as she flirted, Alex couldn’t have gone long without a girlfriend. Unless she liked being single…
“How are you doing?”
One Weekend in Aspen Page 4