by Harper Bliss
“Many things,” Maya said. “But not tonight.”
Chapter 35
“I told Tommy I ran into you,” Maya said. Despite coming home to her own bed, she hadn’t slept nearly enough. Not because the bed was too small, but because of the irresistible woman lying next to her.
“What did he say?” Quinn was scrolling through Instagram on her phone and barely looked up.
“I told him we’ve been sleeping together and I’ve been having the time of my life.”
That got Quinn’s full attention. She put her phone away and looked at Maya wide-eyed.
“I was led to believe you’d missed me terribly all week long.” Maya did her best to sound as faux-petulant as possible even though it wasn’t really her style.
“Sorry. Griff’s write-up on my exhibition went online and I got a ton of new Insta followers.” Quinn looked into Maya’s eyes. “But none of that means anything to me if I can’t be with you.” She batted her lashes ostentatiously.
“Obviously, I didn’t tell Tommy about, um, us like that, but I did tell him about the photo shoot. I showed him the portrait you did for Acton. He asked if he could get a high-res version to have printed and framed for his living room wall.”
“My work in Beth Robbins’ house. Griff will be green with envy.”
“I just wanted him to be aware of you, if that makes sense.” Maya sipped her coffee. She needed all the caffeine she could get. Fun as it was, dancing the night away might not be something she could do every single week any longer. Not if she wanted to have energy left for being an involved grandmother and teacher. And lover.
“It makes perfect sense.” Quinn sucked her lips into her mouth and looked away. “My dad came to the city earlier this week. We had dinner.”
“How’s Bill?” Maya asked.
“Dad’s fine, but…” Quinn rubbed her palm with her opposite thumb. “I might have told him about us. About… everything.”
Maya was glad she had two hands wrapped around her mug otherwise she would have dropped it to the floor.
“He kept prodding, and in the end I relented. I just told him.”
Maya swallowed hard. “How did he react?”
“He was quite shocked, as you can imagine.” Quinn chuckled nervously. “He promised not to tell Mom.”
Maya put her coffee down because she feared she might still drop it. “Jesus. I’m not sure how I feel about Bill knowing.” She rested her gaze on Quinn. “How do you feel?”
“I feel like…” Quinn looked as though she was carefully weighing what to say next. “Telling my dad was not the end of the world. It wasn’t easy and it didn’t exactly make him jump for joy, but he’s my father and he said that all he really wants is for me to be happy.”
“He would say that.” It sounded like something a responsible and understanding parent might say. Maya knew how much Bill worshipped his daughter. As a parent, she suspected that the words he had spoken to his child might not have conveyed how he truly felt about Quinn and Maya.
“What’s the difference? Even if he only said it to not upset me at the time, isn’t it his actual reaction that counts?” Quinn sighed. “I don’t exist to fulfill my parents’ dreams and aspirations. My mom might not entirely agree with that, but that’s what my dad has always told me.”
Maya huffed out some air. “God, I don’t know, Quinn.”
“He even said that next time he came to the city, I should invite you to come to dinner with us.”
Maya burst into a chuckle. “That’ll be the day.”
“Why not?” Quinn drummed her fingertips on the countertop. “If we… keep going out, it’s bound to happen at some point.”
Before Maya had moved to the city, but after she’d already made the decision to do so, she’d often envisioned what her coming out would be like. She imagined falling in love with a suave New Yorker who could charm the pants off her son whether he wanted her to or not. Maya had been convinced that a woman her son could easily accept was the only kind of woman she could really fall for. Unfortunately, reality had different plans in store for her. “I can’t believe Bill knows.” She glanced at her phone as if Bill would call demanding to know what the hell Maya was doing with his daughter. “Truth be told, I have no idea how to deal with this part,” she admitted. “With the whole telling-the-family thing while keeping my dignity intact.”
“I gathered.” Quinn slid off the stool she’d been perched on and walked around the kitchen island. “I wish you’d leave your dignity out of it, though.” She curled her arms around Maya’s waist and hugged her from behind. “It has nothing to do with it.”
“It’s different for me.” Maya folded her hands over Quinn’s. “I’m the older woman in this affair. Not only should I be the wiser one, which I’m clearly not. I also look like the biggest perv, what with you being so much younger.”
Maya could feel Quinn shaking her head against her back. “Do you know how many men in their fifties and sixties strike up relationships with women a lot younger than me? They don’t think about it twice. In fact, it’s what they want. It’s what they actively search for. Do you consider them pervs?”
“I consider them clichés more than anything,” Maya said. She pushed herself backward in order to get the most out of Quinn’s hug.
“You are nothing like them.” Quinn kissed Maya’s neck. “In case you need reassurance, I’m not a gold digger, although I am very fond of your apartment and your doorman and your marble countertops and the heated floors.” Quinn slid a hand upward from Maya’s belly to her chest. “I’m really only after your body.” She kissed Maya’s neck again.
“You say that now.” Maya closed her eyes. “My body’s exhausted after last night.” She turned around in Quinn’s embrace so she could look her in the eye. “In the future, you’re going to have to choose: either dancing all night long or making love. I’m too old for both in one night.”
“I won’t make any demands on your body for a few hours. I promise.” Quinn’s phone, which had been buzzing with notifications throughout their conversation, lit up again.
“Sounds like you’re too busy for any of that, anyway.”
“My show opens in ten days. It’s going to be like that until then.”
“I take it Bill and Brooke will be there?”
“They’d better be,” Quinn said.
“You know what that means?” Maya looked into Quinn’s eyes. “Assuming that you want me there?”
“I’d call the whole thing off if I knew you couldn’t make it.” Quinn shot her a seductive smile. “But, seriously, Maya, no pressure. You don’t have to be there as… my girlfriend. If that would make you uncomfortable, with my parents being there.”
“In what capacity would I be there then?”
“As my friend. My old neighbor.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve also been meaning to ask if I could include your portrait in my show.”
“Which one?”
“Good question,” Quinn said.
“The Acton one, surely.” The other work Quinn had made would have to remain strictly between them forever. “Don’t you have to check with Indira about that?”
“I own the images I create, it’s in my agreement with Acton, so I can display them wherever I want. But I would need your approval.”
“I can’t possibly imagine a picture of me in a trendy Brooklyn art gallery.”
“That’s what happens when you date people so much younger than yourself.”
“Are you saying it keeps me youthful?”
“It’s hardly going to have the opposite effect,” Quinn said. “Come to think of it, if there’s a portrait of you in my show it would be the perfect excuse for you to be there without making my mom suspicious.”
Maya felt sorry for Brooke now because she was deliberately being kept in the dark about her daughter’s personal life. “Isn’t she going to be even more furious later if she finds out that Bill knew all along?”
“There’s a good
chance of that, but it’s too soon to tell her, don’t you think?”
“She’s your mom, Quinn.”
“I can always be vague with the timing.”
“You’d be surprised what mothers can intuit about their children.”
“Not mine.”
“Trust me on this,” Maya said. “Half the things you think she has no clue about, she knows. She might just choose not to bring them up to avoid conflict.” Maya had used this particular parenting skill since Tommy had become a teenager. Sometimes, it was simply better not to have the conversation and let whatever it was pass.
“My mom and I.” Quinn loosened her grip on Maya. “It’s complicated.”
“Of course.”
“She’s not like my dad. She can’t just let things go and simply be proud of me. Dad and I used to joke about it and call it Stepford syndrome.”
“That’s not very nice.” They broke from their hug. “I’m sure all Brooke has ever tried to do is her very best. But mothers, like all humans, are deeply flawed.”
“I bet Tommy doesn’t feel that way about you.”
Maya rolled her eyes. “Try divorcing your son’s father when he’s thirteen years old.”
“Surely Tommy knew that wasn’t only down to you.”
“It’s water under the bridge now.” The last thing Maya wanted to do right now with Quinn was analyze her divorce, which happened fifteen years ago. “I just wish you weren’t so harsh on your mom. I’m not claiming to know Brooke the way you do, but there was a time when we were fairly close. Just as your dad said to you, she has only ever wanted you to be happy. And let’s be honest, you haven’t always made it easy on yourself, at least in the relationship department. Brooke is much more of a realist than Bill. That’s all.”
“I’m very happy now,” Quinn said, sounding like she’d regressed into being a moody teenager. “But if I were to tell Mom that, she wouldn’t be able to accept it without some sort of drama. She doesn’t trust me to make the right decisions for myself. She never has. And of course I’ve made wrong decisions. Who hasn’t? But Mom’s always there with an I-told-you-so and I can’t stand it.”
“You have gone from a relationship with a married woman to one with her former neighbor.” Maya hoped Quinn would be able to see the humor in what she was saying. “Cut the woman some slack.”
“Can we stop talking about my mom, please? I’ll deal with it when I have to.”
“Have you ever had something serious with someone your own age?” Maya was suddenly curious.
“Sure,” Quinn said. “In high school.”
Maya nodded. Maybe Quinn really did have some mommy issues to deal with, but Maya wasn’t going to get into that now either. She had other plans for the day.
“How about I draw us a bath?” she asked.
“I thought you’d never ask.” Quinn took Maya’s hand and dragged her into the hallway. “Have I told you how much I adore your bathroom?”
Chapter 36
The following Wednesday, after she’d spent the morning in Manhattan taking pictures of a glitzy new Mexican-Chinese fusion restaurant, Quinn headed to Maya’s. She could get used to having a pad on the other side of the East River. She wasn’t sure she could live outside of Brooklyn—she never had since she’d moved to the city—but she sure could get used to the luxuries Maya’s condo offered.
When she arrived the doorman was already holding the door for an older man in a very colorful, debonair suit.
Before Quinn could say she was here for Maya Mercer, the doorman held up a finger and said, “Fifth floor. You and Mr. Levison are getting off at the same floor. I’ll ring up to Mrs. Mercer while you’re in the elevator.” So much for doorman discretion.
The elevator doors had barely closed when the man said, “You must be Quinn.”
Maya had mentioned the flamboyant gay living across the hall from her, but Quinn couldn’t remember his name. “And you are?”
“Angus from-across-the-hall.” He held out his hand. “Maya’s friend and… neighbor.” He put a strange kind of emphasis on the word ‘neighbor’—as if he was very much in the know of who Quinn was.
Quinn gave his hand a quick shake. The elevator stopped and Angus let her get out first.
“Maya, dear,” Angus said when he noticed Maya waiting in the front door. “Quinn and I have finally made each other’s acquaintance. About time.”
“Wonderful.” Maya sounded a little different when she spoke to her neighbor, making Quinn wonder again what the old man knew.
Angus didn’t get his keys out. He was clearly waiting to be invited inside Maya’s apartment.
Maya cast her gaze to Quinn. Maybe she’d had other plans for them this afternoon but she gave Angus a nod and apparently it was enough for him to understand that he was in. Again, he let Quinn go first.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Quinn,” Angus said formally. “To be able to put a face to the person Maya can’t shut up about.”
Maya shot him a look. “Coffee?” she asked.
Angus drew his lips into a pout. “I guess it’s a bit early for cocktails.”
Maya went into the kitchen and Angus walked into the living room as though he owned the place. Quinn dropped her equipment in the hallway and followed Angus, who had already taken a seat in the armchair by the window.
“So, Maya can’t shut up about me?” Quinn asked. She sensed that Angus was the type who welcomed a direct question.
“Girl.” He rolled his eyes. “Any fool can see how nuts she is about you. Any fool, but her.”
“I can hear you,” Maya shouted from the kitchen.
“I only ever tell the truth, my dear,” Angus yelled back. “And you can’t hear enough of that!”
Quinn believed she was in for an unexpected afternoon of gaiety. She might learn a thing or two about Maya along the way.
“I’m probably the only person on earth, apart from you two, who knows the full story.” Angus kept his voice low. “The whole shebang from ten years ago included.” He obviously believed this to be very witty because he leaned back, his gaze glued to Quinn, waiting for her reaction.
Quinn took an instant liking to the man and happily gave him an enthusiastic chuckle.
“How about you, Angus?” Quinn asked. “Anyone special in your life?”
Maya walked in with a tray of coffee cups. “Angus much prefers to stick his nose in other people’s business than to reveal his own,” she said.
Angus shook his head. “I’m well and truly over the hill,” contrary to what he’d just said, he sounded rather spritely. “But a lady never gives her age away.” He clasped a hand to his chest dramatically. “Let’s just say that, at my age, it takes a lot of effort to look twenty years younger than you actually are.” He sighed. “If I were to put that kind of effort into finding a man, I might very well succeed, but what would I have to offer him but this old and wrinkled face?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed”—Maya distributed cups—“Angus used to be in theater. Hence the flair for the dramatic.”
Quinn made a mental note to ask Maya if she knew how old Angus actually was. He looked late-sixties, early-seventies perhaps, which, in Quinn’s eyes, would hardly put him over the hill.
“Well,” Angus said, apparently taking Maya’s remark as a point of pride instead of a jibe, “I daresay that if it weren’t for me, you and Quinn might not be sitting here this afternoon having coffee with little old me.” He gave the kind of sharp nod that insinuated, “Just try to contradict me on that.”
“It’s true,” Maya said. “Angus saved me from myself and my many thoughts of doom.”
Quinn couldn’t tell if Maya was being serious or just putting on some sort of elaborate play of quips and banter with her neighbor. Either way, it was amusing. Quinn had never seen Maya interact with any of her friends—the times she’d been over at her parents’ house back in the day notwithstanding.
“I’m glad we’re on the same page about that.” Angus
sipped delicately from his coffee. “I hear you have a fancy exhibition coming up next week,” Angus said to Quinn. “Might one invite oneself to such a glamorous occasion?”
“Of course,” Quinn said. “The more, the merrier. The opening’s next Thursday.” A flash of nerves coursed through her. Quinn had been sharing her work on social media for ages, but seeing people react to it in the flesh would be a very different experience. She’d gotten plenty of negative comments over the years, but, after the harsh sting of the first few, it had gotten easier to shrug them off. She suspected that a bad review of a real-life exhibition might be harder to shake.
“In that case, I’ll be there with bells and whistles on,” Angus said. “I’ve seen your work online. It’s nothing short of spectacular.”
“Despite being over the hill, Angus is all over Instagram,” Maya said.
“The things you see on there.” Angus sounded genuinely in awe. “It’s hard to believe half the time.”
“Better than Grindr,” Maya said, surprising Quinn with her knowledge of the app.
Angus waved her off. “I’m all for making it easy for men to get their rocks off, but I’m way too old school for a virtual meat market like that.” He shrugged. “Or maybe just too old in general.” He shot Quinn an unexpected wink. He downed his coffee and put his cup down. “Now, I’ll leave you ladies to it. I’m sure you have things to get on with.” He pushed himself out of his chair energetically. “I'll see you both very soon.”
Chapter 37
Quinn had been in the tub for almost an hour—she did seem extremely fond of Maya’s bathroom. Maya suspected she was scrolling through Instagram again. Whatever she was doing was distracting enough for her not to notice that the water was getting cold. Maya decided to go and have a look. Upbeat pop music blasted from Quinn’s phone and she was humming along as her thumb scrolled and scrolled. She hadn’t heard Maya walk up to the open door.