Lost for Words

by Andrea Bramhall

  Jac shrugged and tore open the bag to her new yorker club sandwich on rye. My favourite. “Someone was always going to try and make a power play. They always do. And as the newcomer who’s supposedly dragged our arses out of the fire, it was always going to be Vanessa.”

  “I don’t know how you do it,” Mags said around a mouthful of her lunch. “The thought of working with any of my exes scares the living shit out of me. And let’s not even think about how Julie would react.”

  “Well,” Jac began, “Julie’s always been a little on the, erm, possessive side. Hasn’t she, hon?”

  Mags wrinkled her nose. “It’s all part of her fiery nature.”

  Sophie laughed. “Is that what you call it?” She turned to Sasha. “You’ll meet Julie before long. She always turns up at some point early in the filming to make sure Mags isn’t eyeing up any of the totty that’s around.”

  “Totty?” Jac sniggered. “That’s so degrading, Soph.”

  “Would you rather I call the girls you date eye candy instead?”

  Mags cackled loudly. “One–nil.” She scored a finger in the air and pointed to Sophie.

  “I’d rather you call them women.” She flashed a glance at Sasha to see how she was reacting to the conversation.

  “I’m not sure they’re old enough to be called women,” Sophie said.

  “Two–nil,” Mags interjected.

  Sasha was merely smiling softly as she ate, shaking her head a little as she watched the three of them bantering.

  “Fine, whatever. Anyway, you said you had some notes on the script, Sasha.”

  With a nod, Sasha slid her copy across the desk to Jac. She covered her mouth with her hand as she finished the mouthful she was eating before reaching for her bottle of water and taking a sip.

  “Not a lot, to be fair, just a few things. Mostly for Vanessa, actually. She was already going over the top before she tried her melodrama.”

  “Agreed.” Jac glanced over the neat handwriting in the margins. “This is pretty much the same as what I had to feedback. Good.” She nodded and smiled happily at Sasha as she slid the pages back to her. “Excellent.”

  Jac couldn’t tear her gaze from Sasha. She wanted to reach across the table and kiss her again. Kiss her and not stop until Sasha was begging her for more. Sasha’s cheeks were flushed, and the pink tinge to her olive complexion made her lips stand out more. Jac found herself licking her own lips as Sasha pulled that bottom lip between her teeth.

  Somewhere in the room a phone rang and Mags said, “Sorry, need to take this or Julie’ll be down here before we know it.”

  From somewhere, Jac managed to find the strength to look away from Sasha and sniggered at Mags scurrying out of the room, the soft “hey, babe” just barely audible as the door closed behind her. When Jac looked back, Sasha was bent over her script, seemingly determined not to look at Jac again. She quickly finished the last of her sandwich and stood.

  “I could do with checking in with my mother. She had a doctor’s appointment this morning.”

  “Everything okay?” Sophie asked.

  “I think so. She just has to go for check-ups every so often because she’s had cancer. Just to make sure everything’s still as it should be.”

  “Well, give her my best, if you would. I’ve heard a lot about her, and I’m dying to meet her. She sounds like a real scream.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” She pushed open the door. “See you both back on set in a few.”

  Then she was gone.

  And Sophie was staring right at her with that…that look on her face. The one that said, ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking, Jac Kensington, so don’t even think about trying to lie to me.’ That look.

  “Something you want to tell me, Pan-pan?”

  Want to tell you? “Nope?”

  “Let me rephrase, then: what’s going on between you and the lovely Sasha?”

  Jac swallowed and twisted the napkin between her fingers. “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Really.”

  “Jac, I might be the baby of this particular trio, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I saw those looks between the two of you. You’re still blushing now. You, Jac Kensington, are blushing. You never blush. So spill.”

  Jac sat quietly, debating what to say.

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  Jac’s head whipped up. “What? No.”

  Sophie’s expression softened a little. “But you want to?”

  “Have you seen her? Who wouldn’t?”

  Sophie folded her arms across her chest and waited.

  Sneaky tactic. Sophie knew damn well Jac hated when she employed this particular method of interrogation. She sighed heavily. “Fine. Fine. We kissed after she made me dinner on Friday night, then she stayed at my place…”

  “And?” Sophie asked.

  “And what?”

  “And what are you going to do now? When are you seeing her again?”

  Jac glanced at the clock on the wall. “In about five minutes.”

  “No, outside of work. When are you taking her out?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t spoken about it or about anything, really. She said she didn’t expect anything like that.” And Jac still couldn’t help but feel a little rejected.

  “And you call yourself some sort of expert on women.” Sophie shook her head.

  “No, I never said that.”

  “Look, Casanova, it’s simple. I don’t know Sasha nearly as well as you do yet, but it’s easy to see she’s a grown-up. And I don’t mean that in terms of age or anything like that. I mean she’s a mature, responsible, sensible woman who isn’t given to rash actions or flights of fancy. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” Jac agreed with a growl. Damn it, why does Sophie always have to be right?

  “So she isn’t like the kind of girls you’ve been used to over the past God knows how long. Right?”

  “Yes,” Jac said through gritted teeth. She couldn’t deny her past, and she couldn’t deny that Sasha was so different from them all.

  “Do you remember what we talked about at your birthday party? The kind of woman you described?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “I think it was a forty-slash-fifty-something woman with a brain, interested in women, single, and somewhat attractive.” Sophie tapped her chin. “I think that was it. Sound about right?”

  Sounded exactly right to Jac. “Maybe.”

  “Well, let me tell you that Sasha is all that and a hell of a lot more.”

  True.

  “You want her, right?”

  Jac nodded. There was no point denying it with Sophie.

  “Are you sure you want to do this again?”

  “Do what?”

  “Repeat the same pattern.”

  “How am I repeating a pattern? You’ve just gone over all the ways Sasha’s different from the women…” Sophie gave her the look again. “…okay, from the girls I usually get involved with. I’m breaking the pattern here.”

  “You work with her.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “You worked with Vanessa.”

  Jac rolled her eyes. “And?”

  “And while you didn’t work with any of your other groupie girlfriends, you met them all through work.”

  “And?”

  “And where did you meet Sasha again?”

  Jac grinned. “At Velvet.”

  “Funny. You know what I mean. This is the pattern I’m talking about.”

  “Okay, okay. I know what you’re saying, but this is different, Soph. I mean, she’s different, and I’m different around her.”

  Sophie stared at her a for a long time. “Are you sure? She isn’t like Vanessa. If this goes wrong, she won’t work with you again. You
were keen—”

  “I’m still keen to work with her in the future. She’s so talented, Soph. It would be an absolute crime not to work with her again. But I like her. I really like her.” She swallowed hard, trying not to think about the feel of Sasha’s lips against hers, the press of her body as she’d wrapped her arms about Sasha’s shoulders. She failed. But she tried.

  “On your head be it, then,” Sophie said with a sigh.

  Jac grinned.

  “You know your usual tactics aren’t going to work with her, right?”

  “I don’t have usual tactics.”

  “Sure you do. You wait for someone to approach you and throw themselves at you because they want something from you and are willing to prostitute themselves for it.”

  “Wow, that was cynical.”

  “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “I can’t. Doesn’t mean I think ‘prostituting themselves’ is a bit harsh.”

  Sophie shrugged, totally unrepentantly. “If the whore fits.”

  “Again with the cynical.”

  “Sasha won’t throw herself at you. She has too much self-respect to even contemplate sleeping her way to the top. And besides, you’ve already signed the contract with her.”

  “You know, you’re a wonder for my ego.”

  “Grow up. She likes you. She wouldn’t have kissed you if she didn’t. So now all you’ve got to do is convince her you’d make the perfect partner for her.”

  “I think she already knows we’d be great together. That kiss was…well, I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  “Great. But I meant out of bed as well as in it. Sasha’s the kind of woman who needs a partner, not just a good fuck.”

  Jac spluttered.

  “And quite frankly, so do you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just telling it like it is. You’ve been getting laid forever, but you still haven’t been happy.”

  “So what’s your master plan?”

  Sophie tutted. “Ask her out on a date, stupid.”

  “That’s it? That’s your master plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just walk up to her and ask her on a date?”

  “Yes.”

  Frowning, Jac said quietly, “I’ve never done that before.”

  “Seriously?” Sophie asked incredulously.

  “Nope.” Jac threaded her fingers together, wishing she had a cigarette to ease the edge to her nerves. “I mean, I’ve asked them out again, after the first one, but not for the first time.”

  Sophie lifted her eyebrows.

  “Wow, I really did wait for women to throw themselves at me.”

  “Yup. Time to change tactics.”

  Jac’s palms were sweating and her heart raced. Was this what she wanted? No, wrong question. She wanted it. She wanted Sasha, and not just for a moment. She wanted everything she’d seen Sophie and Lauren live over the past decade. She even sort of wanted what Mags and Julie had. Jac had never experienced jealousy, but when she thought of Sasha with her ex…her gut twisted uncomfortably and she recognised it for what it was. No, the question wasn’t did she want this. What she needed to ask herself was, am I ready for this?

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Soph.”

  “Do what?” Sophie asked softly, empathy and compassion radiating in her eyes.

  “How do I— I never worried if it didn’t work out before. With Vanessa or any of the others, if it didn’t work out, if they left, I knew I’d be okay. I knew.”

  Sophie reached for her hand. “And now?”

  “It already feels different. I feel different.”

  “How?”

  “For years I’ve watched you and Lauren, and I’ve wanted that. I’ve wanted what you two have. You complete each other.”

  Sophie smiled the smile she always did when she thought of her wife. It was soft and sweet, yet spoke of all the intimacies and secrets they shared.

  “I want someone to look like that when they think about me,” Jac whispered and pointed to Sophie’s face. “I want to look like that when I think about someone else.”

  Sophie didn’t play coy and ask what look she was talking about. Instead, she spoke just as softly as Jac had and said, “You’ve already started too, Pan-pan.”

  Jac’s heart clenched as the words settled inside it. As the reality of what they meant cracked open like an egg and spilled its contents—messy, and fragile, but at its core life-giving. Nurturing. And fucking terrifying.

  “I barely know her.”

  “Does that matter?”

  Jac shook her head sadly. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “What?”

  She wasn’t sure what she was striving for but couldn’t seem to grasp. So she didn’t say anything, letting the silence of the office wrap itself around them like a thick woollen blanket. As uncomfortable as it was comforting; itching at her skin even as it offered its protection.

  “Trust,” Sophie whispered into the quiet. It wasn’t a question. It was simply a statement of fact. “You don’t know how to trust.”

  And there it was. Right there. That one word that seemed so simple, so innocent, yet it had the power to hold everything together or destroy her completely.

  “I understand, Jac. But you learnt to trust me. You learnt to trust Mags.”

  “I wasn’t as broken then.” Jac’s voice cracked when she remembered those early days of their friendship. Days at university when they’d go out and get drunk and little by little she’d told them her story. The story of a child abandoned. A foundling. A sickly baby who had never been adopted. Grown up in an orphanage, never loved, never cherished, never trusted. And who had learnt only to trust that one day everyone inevitably walked away from her.

  “I beg to differ, hon. I think you were more broken then. It was fresher. You were only just out of the orphanage, really. Now you know there are people out there who love you. You know you are lovable. Because I love you.” Sophie tugged her into a tight hug. “I will always love you. No matter what.” She kissed Jac’s head. “You’re my sister. My family. The family I chose all those years ago. And I will always be here for you. And those things you want, I want them for you too. We all do. Thirty years ago, you took a chance and let me and Mags into that beautiful heart of yours.” She pulled back and put her hand over Jac’s chest. “It paid off, right?”

  Jac smiled and only realised tears were coursing down her cheeks when Sophie reached up to wipe them away.

  “Yeah, can’t get rid of you now.”

  Sophie winked. “Exactly.” Sophie didn’t break eye contact, letting her meaning truly sink in. And it did. If Jac wanted to find the love that Sophie and Lauren had, that Mags and Julie shared, she had to take another chance and be open to the possibility of it. She had to take the leap and trust herself to be vulnerable. To love if she wanted to be loved in return. She had to trust in Sasha.

  Jac thought again of the look in Sasha’s eye after that kiss, the way she’d moved around her kitchen, cooking for Jac, cleaning up afterwards, taking care of her. Jac couldn’t remember the last time a lover or potential lover had tried to do that for her. And she wanted more of it. But more than that, she wanted to do that for Sasha too. And that was really new.

  All she had to do was take a chance. Faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust.

  “So how do I do this?”

  Sophie laughed. “You walk up to her and ask her.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  Jac’s hands shook at the mere thought of it. “What if she says no?”

  “Then you wait a little bit, let her get to know you a bit more, then you ask her again. And again, and again, if you need to. What’s the phrase? Faint heart never won fair lady?”

  Jac nodded.

&nb
sp; “Time to win your lady.”

  Chapter 18

  Sasha looked across the table to see Jac fiddling with her phone again even as she spoke to Vanessa and Becca about the scene they were about to do. She’d been on it all afternoon, and when she wasn’t, she was distracted. But every time Sasha had asked what was wrong, she’d dismissed the question, declaring she was fine and that she was paying attention. She wasn’t. On either score. And the blatant lie was pissing her off. If Jac didn’t want to talk, all she had to do was say so. Not lie to her.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Bobbi squatted beside the chair Sasha sat on as she watched the proceedings. The scowl marring Bobbi’s forehead clearly told Sasha she was well aware of the answer to her own question.

  “Sorry, Bobbi. I was miles away. What were you saying?”

  “I was saying that I’m thinking of throwing a party round at mine on Friday.” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. “You think this lot will be up for it?”

  Sasha frowned a little at her. Bobbi was not usually one to throw parties at her home. Doing so in a shared place was often awkward, so she usually met up with people at the pub or club. “Are your housemates up for it?”

  “If they’re invited too, I’m sure they would be,” Bobbi said as she shrugged. “I thought you could crash over at mine, then. Give your mum the house to herself.”

  Shuddering, Sasha gave an unenthusiastic nod of agreement. It might be nice to spend time with her new colleagues outside of the office-slash-set.

  “Cool beans.” Bobbi’s grin was infectious. “And don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.” She gently squeezed Sasha’s arm. “Later, gator.”

  Bobbi sauntered away just as Jac walked away from the conversation she was having with Vanessa and Becca and took her seat next to Sasha again.