Restless On A Road Trip: A Lesbian Romance

by Nicolette Dane

  www.nicolettedane.com

  Chef Cutegirl

  A Lesbian Romance

  Emily Gold, head chef for one of Chicago’s most acclaimed French restaurants, is about to have her life turned upside down. She’s been picked to compete on the hit reality TV show Hot Chef! Everything has been falling into place for Emily in regards to her career as a budding culinary mastermind. But when you dedicate as much of your life to your work as Emily has, some things are bound to slip away from you… like your love life.

  All of that is about to change for Emily, however, when she’s introduced to one of her fellow competitors. Raina appears to be introverted and sweet on the outside, but inside of her burns a flame of culinary talent that instantly draws Emily in. The two become fast friends and as the heat in the kitchen grows, so does the heat in their relationship. But reality TV is never drama free, as both Emily and Raina soon discover.

  Will the desire Emily feels for her beautiful competitor overcome her desire to win Hot Chef? Or will this behind the scenes romance come out of the oven undercooked? Emily is determined to have it all, a great career and a partner to share it with, but the realities of unscripted television might just be writing a different script for this driven young chef.

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  Sweetheart Starlet

  A Lesbian Romance

  Tabitha Bloom has a pretty frenetic life. As head writer for the venerated live sketch comedy show This Saturday, her job is to make people laugh. But she’s spent so much of her time with her head down, her life buried in work, that she hasn’t stopped for a moment to see how far she’s come and what she’s achieved. No time for self-reflection when you have a live show to put together. And, of course, no time for a relationship either.

  But when Corinne Holmstrom guest hosts the show, Tab can’t help but be starstruck over the mega celebrity actress. Who could blame her? Corinne is beautiful, famous, successful and… is she coming on to Tab? There’s no way that Corinne is a lesbian, she always dates the hunkiest Hollywood actors. Best to just forget about her. Move on. Get back to work. Still, there’s something about Corinne that Tab can’t shake and this sweetheart starlet is too special to ignore.

  Will Tab find the romance she’s been seeking in this young Hollywood actress? Or will the pressures that fame has put on Corinne cause this romantic comedy to bomb? With the public watching your every move, it’s no wonder Hollywood’s elite are so secretive… something Tab is about to learn first hand.

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  Salacious Stand Up

  A Lesbian Romance

  Despite tragedy in her past, Macy Maxwell has been able to keep a smile on her face and a joke in her heart. In fact, her heart is full of jokes, most of them disgustingly off-color, as she navigates life in Chicago’s stand up comedy world. She’s built a great character for herself on stage, falling into the role of raunchy sex comic talking about all the guys she’s dated… there’s just one small problem: Macy’s a lesbian!

  Things aren’t much easier off stage either. Macy has an admitted attraction to bad girls, the kind of chicks she knows are no good for her. And George, the super sexy hipster butch writer, is no exception. But on the other side of the coin is Macy’s best friend and stand up partner Petra, ever the good girl, kinda mopey, though certainly Macy’s biggest fan. George is undeniably hot and mysterious but Petra actually gives a damn about her friend. Choices, choices…

  Will Macy finally be true to herself on stage as her career begins to take off? Can she stop repeating the same mistakes, always expecting different results, and still find the love she needs to continue on to success? Who will win her heart in this romantic comedy, the good girl or the bad girl? Life can be funny… and Macy is about to find out just how absurd it can get.

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  Dormitory Dearest

  A Lesbian Romance

  Having just started her freshman year at college, Natasha Blake has a lot of issues to deal with. She’s a bit of a geek, an outcast, a ball of nerves. Oh, and she’s got this feeling mounting deep inside of her — a feeling that’s been there for a lot longer than she might let on — that maybe, just maybe, she prefers girls over boys. Okay, no maybes about it… but that still doesn’t make it easy to accept who she is, having come from a somewhat conservative Irish Catholic family life. Why did it have to be so hard?

  Enter Hosannah. Bright, funny, really pretty, a junior living in Natasha’s dorm. Hosannah was like a liberated version of Natasha, a girl who knew who she was and what she wanted. But having been burned in the past, Hosannah had no time for girls who couldn’t admit their personal truths. Natasha knew that Hosannah could help her come out of her shell, but would she be able to take the first step alone?

  Can this college romance blossom into a wonderful coming out for Natasha? Or will Hosannah’s patience for her uncertainty run thin? Coming-of-age indecision peppered with a dash of anxiety can really throw a girl for a loop. Lucky for Natasha the answer lives just two floors up.

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  An Excerpt From: Full Bodied In The Vineyard

  A Lesbian Romance

  This is not how I thought my life would go when I was younger. Never did I dream that I would approach my 40th birthday as a single woman. Not that there should be anything wrong with that, of course, but I really thought I’d be married by now. Perhaps even have a child. A nice house, maybe a quaint split level in some sleepy suburb, working through a career in marketing, a loving woman at my side, passion still roaring in our relationship as a little son or daughter ran through the house barefoot with peanut butter and jelly smeared all over their face.

  Absolutely none of that happened for me. Although I had been in plenty of long-term relationships over the past two decades, none of them seemed to pan out. And the most recent one, the one I thought was going to make it, the one with my beautiful now-ex Deirdre, could be added to the fizzled out, “well, that didn’t work” list of failures. Deirdre was about 5 years younger than me, a serious professional mortgage banker with a lacking sense of humor but possessing a tight body from her gym obsession, a type-A if ever there was one. She brought it to my attention that I just wasn’t doing it for her. Sure, things were all right in the bedroom, if not becoming a bit infrequent. But she didn’t think I was serious enough about my career, about building some joint life, and she needed to find someone more like herself.

  I can see that. I wasn’t like her at all. I was much more laid back, especially with my career. I had transitioned from working marketing at a dying newspaper, to doing social media marketing for a small Detroit firm, to breaking off on my own to start a boutique social media marketing agency, all the while not really caring about the money or the stability. I mean, anyone who’s going to break off and start their own business, take risks, well, sometimes they have to look those scary bills in the face and say, “you can wait another two weeks.”

  Not for Deirdre. She had enough of that mentality. I tried to protest. I’m not a flake. I’m not irresponsible. I was just trying to be an entrepreneur. I was trying to carve my own way. But Deirdre was cut from a different cloth. She was comfortable in the corporate atmosphere, feeling safe and stable at her fancy desk in a nice modern office. And there’s no way she would have gone for that quaint split level. Deirdre wanted a mansion in Bloomfield Hills.

  Suffice it say I found myself single again, out on my own, wondering where the hell I was going to go next. The condo we had been living in belonged to Deirdre, of course, so I had to find a new place to live. My agency wasn’t doing too hot either. I mean, I had a handful of clients but they weren’t big spenders. They were all small business themselves. Like this handmade soap company trying to figure out how to leverage Facebook to get their name out. Handmade soap may sell, but it doesn’t earn you a
lot of money. And these types of clients earned me even less.

  I’ve got to tell you, I was floundering. Almost 40, my business feeling as though it were sinking, dumped by my girlfriend and out on my ass. I kept it together, I didn’t cry too much, but I knew that I needed a change. I needed to get out of southeast Michigan, get out of the Detroit area and just get a different perspective on things. I needed an adventure.

  One night while cruising Facebook, trying to do my job of placing ads for the aforementioned soap company, I found myself instead photo-gazing on the seemingly fabulous lives of some of my more adventurous “friends.” I use that term loosely, of course, because these are really just old acquaintances who played some role in our past lives. You know the people. Like that woman who always seems to be traveling, taking selfies and looking wonderful at all the various “must see” tourist attractions around the globe. As I sorted through all these pictures dominating my feed, I landed on one picture in particular that caught me unaware.

  It was a picture of my old friend Alina Quint. We had gone to college together and remained friends for a few years after. However, sometimes life gets in the way and we drifted apart. She was always more free-spirited than me. Alina did a lot of stuff I had never been willing to do. She moved to Hawaii for a couple years to follow her dream of learning to surf. She backpacked through Ecuador. She lived in Thailand on the cheap while getting certified as a yoga instructor. And she was absolutely gorgeous. I mean, of course she was. Aren’t they always?

  As I sipped from my wine glass, I lurked on Alina’s profile and wandered through her photo albums. She had done so much in her life and it made me feel like I had done so little. How do you reach 40 and have nothing to show for it? Alina, at my same age, had lived the life of a wanderlust, was in great shape, had a nice tan, perfect white teeth behind such a joyous smile. It was like nothing ever bothered her. I knew that usually these pictures on Facebook were curated by those they belonged to. People only want to show the best parts of their life and bury the bad. But Alina seemed different. These pictures didn’t appear curated. It was just a photo stream of magic and fun and happiness.

  I remembered how much fun I had hanging out with Alina when we were young. She was always a pleasure, always looking to get into a little bit of trouble, always looking for a good time. And one time, after a few too many gin and tonics (our shared drink at the time), we ended up in bed together for a wild night. I couldn’t believe it. I was always so infatuated with her, even though we were just friends on the surface. Alina was one of these “free love” chicks and although we could both admit we had a blast fooling around, nothing ever came from it. I think it was after that we slowly went our separate ways in life.

  But sitting there on the couch of my friend Mary’s apartment, laptop on my thighs, wine glass in my hand, starring down into the bright blue screen, I felt a roar of emotion build up in me as I looked upon Alina’s beautiful face. She was so happy and bright and she had a feeling I longed to feel inside of myself.

  Clicking my way back to Alina’s profile main page, I noticed that she had just submitted a new post only a minute or two prior. I read it with wide eyes.

  “Does anybody want to work with me?” it said. “The winery I work at in Traverse City has an opening in the tasting room and we need someone for the busy season right away!”

  I didn’t even think about it too hard. My subconscious must have just been aware of how much a mess my life had become and how I longed for something different. Before I could stop myself, my fingers quickly typed a response to Alina’s post into the computer with those familiar clacking sounds of the keyboard.

  “Me!” I wrote. “I want to do that!”

  After I submitted my affirmation, I felt my stomach sink. Did I really just throw my hat in the ring for a job all the way across the state, way up north, a job that probably didn’t pay much more than minimum wage, because of some weird fiery passion in my heart for an old friend?

  Yeah, I did that.

  “Shannon Laughlin!” was the exclamation that appeared in the text messenger box at the corner of my screen. It was from Alina. All of this was happening so fast. “How are you?!”

  “Great!” I typed. I didn’t feel so great, of course, but you know you always say that when you reconnect with someone you haven’t talked to in years. “How are you? Having a blast as always?”

  “Always,” Alina wrote. “Are you serious about wanting to work at the winery?”

  This question gave me pause. I didn’t really know. I did know that I couldn’t stay on my friend Mary’s couch much longer. She was sweet about it, of course, but she had a small place and I was beginning to overstay my welcome. And it probably bugged her that I always stayed up later than her working on my computer. Though, honestly, I hadn’t had much work for my marketing clients as the summer got into full swing. It was just a lot of screwing around. I was lonely, had time on my hands, and was eager for some change.

  “Yes!” I responded after a moment to Alina, imagining what it might be like to see her again. From her pictures, she hadn’t changed all that much. Of course she had aged in the 15 years since I last saw her, but quite gracefully if I’m being truthful. She was still a knockout at 40. I think that’s what happens when you free yourself from worry and just go with the flow. It shows in your face.

  “OMG!” she wrote, punctuating the acronym with a mess of excited emojis. “YES! I’m so excited, Shan. I’ll talk to my boss if you’re really serious. When can you come up here?”

  I felt like I was almost having an out of body experience. The whole thing was moving a lot faster than I could accurately process. I was moments away from agreeing to do something crazy, go some place I’d never gone before, do something just a handful of minutes ago I never even considered. But there was something inside of me saying, “do it… do it!”

  “Whenever,” I responded. “I’m open to whatever.”

  After that, Alina began to furiously type into the messenger window, telling me about the winery, how amazing Traverse City was, how fun it was to actually live at the winery on the Leelanau Peninsula. She mentioned Sleeping Bear and the amazing dunes. And she told me how excited she was to see my face again after all these years.

  It was like a crazy dream. As I was living it, I half thought it might be a dream. Somehow the carnal desire I felt for my old friend persuaded me to do something that was totally not my kind of thing to do. But it was like my body knew exactly what I needed. My brain had been driving for too long and maybe it was time for my heart to take the wheel. I didn’t know what might happen to me if I moved to Traverse City for the summer and early fall for tourist season, but I almost didn’t care. Maybe it was my turn to throw caution to the wind and see what things were like watching the world through a woman like Alina’s eyes.

  When I woke up the next morning it still felt like some fiction. But it became very real once I received a phone call from Alina’s boss, the owner of the winery, a woman named Mattie Lovejoy. Yes, it became very real after that.

  And before I knew it, my things were packed in my small SUV and I was driving north to Traverse City.

  It was late afternoon when I pulled up the paved driveway of Wild Love Winery & Farms. The area was absolutely stunning. I drove by a vast vineyard of grape vines on one side of the driveway, while a barn and various pens for animals adorned the other side. And it wasn’t difficult to miss the large mansion that was the Wild Love Winery main house and tasting room. It gave off a rustic farmhouse feeling but was immaculately appointed. There was obviously a lot of care, and a lot of money, put into this place. In the late afternoon sun, this place looked like heaven. I could describe it no other way. Angels sung.

  The parking lot for the tasting room held a good number of cars and as I pulled into a spot, I saw groups of people coming from the house, laughing and smiling and talking. The people looked well-to-do. They looked happy and healthy. It was like a postcard, it was like a movi
e. I stepped out of my car and a woman said “hello” to me and offered a smile. I already felt like I was fitting in.

  Wandering up to the door, I noticed there was a small storefront advertising farm-made cheese and smoked fish and I salivated. A young couple that had just left the tasting room made their way into this cheese shop and I envied them. But I knew that I would be eating that cheese, snacking on smoked trout, indulging myself with a glass of wine, all of it would come soon enough. And I smiled. I felt my smile. I felt undeniably happy.

  The inside of the tasting room was wooded and warm, huge exposed beams, all very rustic log cabin styled but beautifully ornate. The far wall to my left was made of glass and displayed a large vat used for cheesemaking. The wall to the back of the tasting room was also glass and behind that there were hundreds of barrels of wine. Soft jazz music played, barely perceptible, and there was a calm din of people conversing as they tasted wine at the large counter in the middle of the room or shopped along the perimeter.

  And then I saw her. Standing behind the counter, serving an old married couple their flight of wine, delicately tanned with full brown hair, colored with the slightest hints of natural auburn and sun-kissed streaks of blonde, was Alina. My heart raced as I saw her, feeling how unbelievable it was to be standing in the same room with her after all this time. She was dressed in a peasant-style blouse, light and airy, and tan khaki tight short shorts. Alina was like a hippie goddess. You could just feel it emanate from her.

  Before seeing her I had felt tired from my long drive. But once the light from Alina entered my eyes, I was reenergized. I felt alive.