Just Tell Her

by Nicole Pyland

  “I was wrong. My apologies. I’ll just-”

  “No, you weren’t wrong,” Charlie returned. “I am,” she stated. Everyone in the office knew she was gay, so she wasn’t worried about being outed unexpectedly. “I just don’t date clients.”

  “We’re not clients yet.” She smiled and then lowered her head for a moment. She had been so unmoved in the meeting. This was a different side to her, a lighter side. “And it’s not your project even if we become clients, right?”

  “That’s true, but-”

  “I understand. I thought I felt something in there, but I’m still getting used to this whole thing. I’ll see myself out.” She turned and began walking toward the hall.

  Charlie followed behind until she caught up to her.

  “New to this stuff?” Charlie asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Lena provided and continued walking but slowed her pace. “You’re technically the first woman I’ve ever asked out, and that went really well.”

  “Really?”

  “Late bloomer, I guess,” Lena told her. “I only came out a year ago.” She paused. “You don’t need to hear this. I, uh, sorry for all this.”

  “We’re here.” Charlie pointed at the door to the women’s bathroom and stopped.

  “Oh, I didn’t need to go. I just needed an excuse to talk you. Oliver’s waiting with the car,” she explained and moved to stand in front of Charlie. “Sorry, again.”

  Charlie noticed her soft expression and decided she liked it. She also liked the strong assertive expression she’d had in the meeting just moments ago.

  “Let’s get that drink,” Charlie suggested.

  “You’re pitying me because I told you the thing about-”

  “I’m not pitying you,” Charlie interjected. “I want to get a drink with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I felt that thing too earlier,” she admitted and felt her cheeks blush slightly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, so let’s get a drink.”

  “Tomorrow night?” Lena proposed.

  “I’m free tomorrow night,” Charlie returned.

  Lena reached into her bag and pulled out a business card.

  “My number is on that. Call me later, and we can arrange it?”

  “Sure.” Charlie smiled and took the card.

  “I have to go. Oliver’s waiting.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Charlie said, and Lena smiled again, turned and left.

  Charlie had a date. She had a date with an attractive, successful woman. She’d been on many dates in her time. None of them had worked out in the long-term. She shouldn’t be excited yet, but she was. She’d felt something when she shook Lena’s hand. She wasn’t sure what it was at first, but as her eyes kept trying to find her on their own, she’d pieced it together. She’d glanced at her legs under the table and then at her hand, trying to see if there was a ring. She never thought about asking her out though, and she never expected Lena to do the asking.

  ◆◆◆

  Charlie arrived home from work on Friday, walked Eddie, and then went about readying herself for her date. They were meeting at Windy’s because Charlie knew Windy’s like the back of her hand. She was comfortable there. Charlie couldn’t wait to get ready, so she picked out her clothes, laid them on the bed, and then heard the front door unlock and open. She walked out to see that Hailey had let herself in with her key.

  “Hey, I need your help,” she said immediately after seeing Charlie. “Hey, buddy,” she greeted Eddie, who was sniffing the garment bags she held.

  “What’s wrong?” Charlie questioned, but remained near her bedroom door.

  “I need your help,” Hailey repeated and hung the garment bags over the couch so that she could remove her coat.

  “You said that already, Hails. I need new information now.”

  “I need you to help me pick out what I’m wearing tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night?” Charlie walked into the living room.

  “My date with Emma.”

  “Oh.” Charlie lowered her head. “I can’t right now, Hailey. Can you ask Ember?”

  “What? No, she’s out with Eva, Zack and Grace tonight. Double date with the brother and sister-in-law. Why can’t you help me?” Hailey sat on the couch.

  “Because I have to get ready myself.”

  “For what?”

  “Hailey, it’s Friday night. I have plans.” Charlie grew frustrated.

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “How could I ask? You’ve been avoiding me, Charlie. You practically ran out of coffee yesterday. I thought we could hang out tonight.”

  “You should have called. I have a date.” She met Hailey’s green eyes.

  “You have a date?” Hailey seemed surprised.

  “Yes, Hailey. I have a date. I do date.”

  “I know you date,” Hailey replied softly. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t know you were dating someone.”

  “It’s a first date, actually,” Charlie shared. “And I need to start getting ready.”

  “So, you want me to go?” Hailey checked and seemed hurt. “I can help you get ready tonight and you can-”

  “Hails, I just-” she stopped herself. “I need a break.”

  Hailey stood and walked toward her.

  “A break? From what? From me?”

  “From all of this, yeah.” She motioned a finger between the two of them and hated herself for it.

  “From our friendship? From our near twelve-year long friendship?” Hailey was definitely hurt now.

  “It’s not like that, Hails. I’m going through some stuff. I think I need to be on my own to do it and-”

  “Are you asking Ember for a break from your friendship with her too?” Hailey’s voice grew louder.

  “I haven’t talked to her about it.”

  “But you will? Or is it just me you need a break from?”

  “Hailey, you’re my best friend.”

  “I am your best friend. So, why can’t you go through whatever it is with me?” Hailey’s voice grew soft again as she stood in front of Charlie. “Let me help you.”

  “You can’t, Hails. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

  “Are you sick or something?”

  “What? No, I’m not sick.”

  “Then, what is going on?” Hailey pressed.

  “Can you just give me some time, please? We can laugh about this sometime in the future, but right now, I just need some time.”

  Hailey turned and walked in a huff back toward the couch where she put her coat back on and then grabbed her bags.

  “Fine,” she paused. “I don’t know what is going on with you, but I do love you, and I hope you’re okay. I’m a little upset right now and will likely go cry my eyes out because my best friend in the world can’t talk to me about something that is clearly wrong or important or, maybe, both. I don’t know. Just call me when you figure it out.” She avoided Eddie’s attempts to play and left the apartment.

  Charlie stood worrying that maybe she’d made a mistake.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Hey there,” Emma greeted Hailey’s call.

  “Hey, I’m sorry to call you. I know you’re traveling. I just needed to talk to someone, and Ember’s busy and-”

  “It’s fine. I just landed back in Chicago, like ten minutes ago. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “You’re here?”

  “I took an earlier flight. The conference wrapped. I headed to the airport and got on standby. I was going to call you when I got home to firm up plans for tomorrow, but what’s wrong, Hails?”

  “I had a bad fight with Charlie, or maybe it wasn’t even a fight. I don’t know.”

  “Let me get my bag, and then I can meet you somewhere.”

  “No, you don’t have to do that. I’m fine,” she said.

  “I can meet you at your place if you want. I can be
there in an hour.”

  “You haven’t been home all week, Emma.”

  “So? I don’t care,” Emma returned, and Hailey heard the background noise of an airport. “Are you hungry? I haven’t eaten. I can stop by and get us something.”

  “Em, that’s too much.”

  “No, it’s not, Hails. I’ll be there in an hour, okay?”

  “Okay,” Hailey relented.

  The strangest part of that conversation wasn’t that she’d had it with her first love. It was that she normally had conversations about her problems with Charlie. She realized, as she stared down at her phone, that this was the first time she’d had to have a conversation with someone else about a problem with Charlie.

  ◆◆◆

  An hour later, Emma was standing at her door, holding up a bag of take-out with her luggage beside her.

  “You really didn’t have to come over,” Hailey greeted her.

  She opened the door wide, grabbed her bag handle and rolled it in. Emma walked past her and stood still while Hailey closed the door behind her. Hailey smiled at her, took one of the bags she was carrying from her, and walked toward her small kitchen.

  “I wanted to see you anyway, so it’s win-win.”

  “You’re seeing me tomorrow.”

  “I can’t see you two days in a row?” Emma replied and sat the other bag on the counter next to where Hailey placed the first one. “I got burgers. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s great.”

  “And I got you your favorite,” she added and pulled a large container of ice cream from it.

  “Neapolitan?” Hailey nearly cackled she laughed so hard. “That was only my favorite ice cream because you like the vanilla and I liked the chocolate part.”

  “We split the strawberry; I know. I’m sure your tastes have matured since we were teenagers, but I thought it would be fun to reminisce.”

  Hailey laughed some more as she removed the food from the other bag, grabbed them plates and napkins, and placed the ice cream in her freezer so it wouldn’t melt while they ate. They sat on the couch next to one another and dug into the food. Hailey asked Emma about her conference. Emma asked Hailey about her work week. Both avoided the real topic until they’d finished the burgers and had moved onto their shared ice cream. Hailey placed the carton onto the couch and opened it. She passed Emma a spoon and watched Emma slide it along the top of the vanilla section of the ice cream, and Hailey did the same with the chocolate.

  “Thank you. I needed this.” Hailey took a bite of her chocolate ice cream.

  “You want to talk about what happened?” Emma questioned softly.

  “I went over to Charlie’s place. She was getting ready for a date, I guess. I didn’t know she had a date. But then she said she needed some time alone.”

  “Alone?”

  “Away from me, I think. She said she was going through something and wanted time to deal with it herself. But, Emma, we don’t do that.” She dropped the spoon into the ice cream. “We’ve been friends since college, and we don’t do that. We deal with things together. We help each other figure stuff out.”

  “Maybe it’s something she has to figure out on her own,” Emma suggested.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, but sometimes people have to be alone to get stuff done. Look at me; I took a year to figure some things out. I barely saw the friends I did have up until recently, and I just reached back out to you. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care about them or that I didn’t want them around. It was just something I needed to do.”

  Hailey squinted at her.

  “You’re being logical. I don’t like it.” Hailey tried to keep her squint going, but Emma smiled, and she couldn’t hold it. “I haven’t been without her for my entire adult life. Ember would drift in and out of our friendship, based on her crazy work schedule, or because she has Eva now, but not Charlie. She’s been the one constant in my life.”

  “I’m sorry, Hails.”

  Hailey noticed Emma’s spoon sticking in the ice cream and figured they were both done. She grabbed the spoons, closed the lid, and walked it over to the kitchen. When she returned, she saw Emma facing the TV. She sat beside her and relaxed into her body, resting her head on Emma’s shoulder.

  “Is this okay?” she asked.

  “Sure, but I bet I smell like an airport,” Emma replied.

  Hailey laughed and burrowed further into her. Emma wrapped her arm around Hailey. Hailey pressed her face into Emma’s neck.

  “You smell like you.”

  “How do I smell?” Emma laughed lightly.

  “Just like Emma, I guess.”

  “Hails, I missed you,” she said. “This week, this past year, this past decade even. I’ve never managed to get beyond you. I tried. When I got back to Rutgers, I tried to stop thinking about you. I couldn’t. I dated, and not one kiss could ever match any of our kisses. When you were at my dad’s funeral, I thought about how much I wanted us to get back together, but I couldn’t then. I was dealing with losing him. When I got back to Chicago permanently, I thought about it. When we’d hang out, I’d think about asking you out, and then I’d worry that you’d say no.” Hailey felt Emma’s free hand take her own and move it to her lap. “I don’t know, Hails. This feels so good right now. Maybe this is how it was supposed to be. We met all those years ago and had to get here later.”

  “I was so nervous that night.”

  “Which night?”

  “That first night by the pond.”

  “So was I.”

  “You didn’t act like it,” Hailey told her. “You seemed so confident.”

  “I wasn’t,” Emma revealed as she laughed. “I’d seen you around school. I thought you were beautiful. I wondered why I was thinking about that. And when I saw you in that bathroom, I got nervous because I was actually talking to you. I thought I’d invite you to the game and we could be friends, but I couldn’t just be friends with you. I actually remember thinking that if I tried to kiss you and you freaked out and told everyone, I’d only have to deal with it until graduation.”

  “You did not,” Hailey exclaimed and lifted her head to look at Emma.

  “I did, I swear.” She placed a hand on Hailey’s cheek. “I felt like I had to kiss you then, Hailey. I think you were always destined to be my first love. Now, I feel like I have to kiss you again.” Emma’s hand slid to her throat and Hailey swallowed.

  She hadn’t kissed this girl in so long. No, Emma wasn’t a girl anymore. Emma was a woman. She was definitely a woman now. Hailey hadn’t kissed her in so many years, but she wanted to kiss her again. She wanted to feel the press of those lips against her own because all of their kisses back then had been so special and felt so important. She leaned in to let Emma know she wanted her to keep going. Emma’s eyes were boring into Hailey’s as if for a second layer of permission. She understood that Hailey wanted this too and leaned in to connect their lips. It took Hailey a moment to register that this was the same Emma Colton she was kissing, but as soon as that hit her, she pressed herself further into the kiss, allowing Emma’s tongue to play with her top lip in the way that she liked and that, apparently, Emma remembered. She felt Emma’s tongue request entrance. She opened her mouth to allow it inside. She moaned audibly, and her hand went to Emma’s cheek and then her neck. She moved her body to straddle Emma on the couch before she pulled her lips away, only so that Emma would attach her lips to Hailey’s neck, which she did. With her arms around Emma’s neck, she pulled her in closer and felt Emma’s hands on the small of her back just resting there.

  “You know what’s different from then to now?” Emma questioned before pressing a light kiss to Hailey’s neck.

  Hailey worried about what Emma might say. Was she a bad kisser now? Did Emma not like her as much as she had when they were younger?

  “What?” she managed.

  “We’re not sneaking around trying to avoid teachers or our parents this time.”

  Hai
ley laughed, and her head went back as she did. Emma’s lips kept reaching for her skin though. They stayed in that position for a long while, sharing soft kisses that turned heated and then soft again, before they finally broke apart.

  “I know this is lame, because we have done this before, but I think we should maybe wait to take this further,” Hailey suggested.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Emma agreed.

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I do. Just because we’ve had sex before, doesn’t mean we should dive right in. I think we should work back up to it. Let’s wait until we’re both ready, like last time.”

  Hailey smiled at her and kissed her again.

  “I missed you,” she shared after a moment.

  Emma kissed her again. A few minutes later, they said their good nights and finalized their plans for their first official date.

  ◆◆◆

  Charlie got to Windy’s a little early and sat at her usual table toward the back. Out of habit, she took the seat she always took nearest the wall, because Hailey sat in the one next to her typically, and Hailey didn’t like the seat next to the wall. She shook herself out of it and felt weird, sitting against the wall when she was alone, so she moved over to Hailey’s normally occupied chair.

  Lena arrived in that moment and approached the table with a smile. Her look was much more relaxed than the first time Charlie had seen her. She was wearing relaxed fit jeans and a collared shirt under a teal cardigan and had already removed her coat, which was hanging over her arm. Her hair was also more relaxed and clearly hadn’t been straightened, so it fell into light natural waves around her face. Her eyes were bright in the dim bar lighting, and she appeared slightly awkward, which Charlie thought was adorable.

  “Hi,” she greeted unconfidently.

  “Hey,” Charlie replied. “Is this place okay?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure.” She hung her coat over the back of the other chair and placed her purse on the seat before sitting down herself. “I’ve never been here.”

  “It’s owned by a friend of mine.” Charlie opted not to try to explain to her that Windy’s was owned by Ember’s sister-in-law’s family, because that just seemed overly complicated.