Maya waved a hand, a little embarrassed but also flattered. “No worries. You’re a big girl. You’ll be fine.”
Maya giggled inwardly from embarrassment when she noticed Julie and Eddie exchanging a look and rolling their eyes. She wanted to hide. She’d never had difficulty flirting, so she was irritated that she felt flustered. It had to be because of the peanut gallery. She couldn’t recall a time when she had been so closely observed while trying to flirt.
Steve said, “You know, if something does come up, you can always contact Maya again.”
“Okay, yeah,” Lily stammered.
“At least now you’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep and have some peace and quiet during the day,” said Julie.
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s weird. It can get too quiet. I’ll kinda miss all the activity and getting to know you.”
When Lily said that, Maya felt her eyes on her, as if Lily was only looking at her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Resolution: One week later
Maya’s arms, legs, and feet ached, but she decided it was a good ache. She sat back in her chair, letting her limbs go a bit slack. It had been an unusual first date thus far. Lily had suggested they go climbing at an indoor “rock” climbing gym. Maya wasn’t aware that such a place existed until Lily reassured her that it did. Maya didn’t believe it until she met Lily there. Of course, Lily knew all about it, despite not living in the area for very long, because she loved climbing. She was a good teacher, and Maya had felt safe while climbing with her. She just had to keep telling herself not to look down.
After climbing, they’d stopped in at a bubble tea place a few doors down from the gym. The past few days had been unseasonably warm, but the temperatures had plunged below freezing once again.
“It’s like the ghosts are back,” Maya had joked.
Despite the weather, both of them opted for cold bubble teas instead of hot tea or coffee. Lily returned from the front counter with their drinks and set them on the table. Maya pushed her straw into her lychee milk tea and took a sip. Fantastic.
“You were saying that things have been quiet lately,” Maya said. She stretched her fingers back and forth, in part out of nervous habit but also because climbing was tough on your hands.
Lily nodded. Her long auburn hair tied back in a ponytail bounced as she moved her head. “Very quiet. It’s a bit boring actually. Things always stay where I put them. No one is brushing her hair on my bed. My aunt and her boy toy Owen are coming back next week. That’s when we’ll start the real work of getting the place ready to sell.”
“So you miss them?”
“Madeleine and her sisters? Yeah, I kinda do. Obviously, it was really scary when they first started showing up, but once we got to know them, Maddie especially… I don’t know.”
“You felt like you knew her. You felt like you could have been friends with her,” Maya said.
“Yeah.” Lily drank some of her tea. “I’m really glad we were able to help her and Allegra and the others.”
“Me, too. That’s what we do, though. I’m glad we were able to help you,” Maya said and added, “and your aunt.”
“I told her what happened and she freaked out, but she was really fascinated, too. She wants to meet you.”
Just me, Maya wondered. “That’d be great. I’d like to meet her. Would she like to meet Julie and Steve and the others? I mean, it wasn’t just me who helped straighten things out.”
“Oh, she knows that.” Lily twirled around her finger the paper her straw had been wrapped in. “I think she said she wants to meet you in particular because I’ve talked about you a lot with her.”
“Have you? Of course, you have. How could you not, talking about the ghost hunting thing?”
“Yeah. Where do you think they are?”
Maya was caught off guard. “Where do I think who are?”
“Allegra and Madeleine and her sisters. I mean, where did they really go?”
Maya assumed this was something that Lily had been thinking about a lot and not something she’d just decided to bring up to get out of talking about how they felt about each other. She shrugged.
“I really don’t know. Another dimension. Heaven. Who really knows? I certainly don’t.”
Lily took a few more sips of her drink. Maya couldn’t tell if her response had satisfied her or not.
“Do you have any plans for later today?” Lily asked.
“No, not really. We don’t have another case yet. Why?”
“I just thought that if you were free that maybe we could spend some more time together.” Lily took Maya’s hand in hers.
Maya loved the feel of Lily’s fingers gently kneading the palm of her hand. “I’d like that,” she said.
####
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About the author:
Elizabeth Andre writes supernatural suspense, lesbian romance, science fiction, and young adult stories. She is a lesbian in an interracial same-sex marriage living in the Midwest. She hopes you enjoy her stories. She certainly loves writing them.
Connect with Elizabeth Andre:
Elizabeth Andre’s website: https://elizabethandre.wordpress.com/
Amazon page: author.to/elizabethandre
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/elizabeth-andre
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Elizabeth-Andre/426776437464871
Twitter: https://twitter.com/elizalesbian
Other titles by Elizabeth Andre:
The Curse of the Old Woods (Paranormal Grievance Committee Chronicles, Book 1)
Two rival lesbian paranormal investigators. A dangerous cursed entity. Long dark nights in the old woods.
Maya Nicholas doesn’t need any help finding ghosts. They find her and talk to her all the time.
Julie Sussman doesn’t need any help either. She solves plenty of cases, both normal and paranormal, without any special abilities.
When they learn that both of them have been hired to find a teenager, lost decades ago in the haunted Promontory Woods, they are not happy. But when they find the teenager’s ghost and discover that she, along with many other spirits, are being held captive by an evil entity, they have to figure out a way to work together.
Or they, along with many others, will never leave the woods again.
The Time Slip Girl
What if the woman you loved was more than a century away? Dara, a computer programmer from Chicago, is visiting London when she opens a door in an Edwardian house and slips into Edwardian England. Agnes, a beautiful London shop girl, takes in the bewildered 21st century American lesbian, but, as Dara begins to accept that she is stuck in 1908, she also begins to accept that she has feelings for Agnes that go beyond gratitude. And the longer Dara stays, the harder Agnes finds it to hide her growing love for the accidental time traveler from the future. Will they overcome grief and prejudice to acknowledge their true feelings for one another? Or will Dara be snatched back to the 21st century before they can express their love.
Taijiku
Angela’s past is more than a little rocky, and that rocky path has led her to finish up her juvenile detention sentence on the Yemaya, an alien underwater ship devoted to observation and research. Part of its maintenance crew, at the bottom rung of the status ladder, Angela doesn’t see much excitement forthcoming.
But that was before encountering the fearsome Taijiku or meeting her crew mate Stella, leaving Angela with a completely different problem and unable to say which is the greater challenge: giant sea monsters or falling in love.
Lesbian Light Reads Volumes 1-6 Boxed Set by Elizabeth Andre and Jade Astor
Six stories of lesbians meeting the women of their dreams, having sex, falling in love and having sex again.
Each story is also available individually on Amazon, and each book can stand alone. These lesbian c
ontemporary love stories include graphic sex and are for adults only.
Lesbian Light Reads Volumes 7-12 Boxed Set
Six more stories of lesbians meeting the women of their dreams, having sex, falling in love and having sex again.
Each story is also available individually on Amazon, and each book can stand alone. These lesbian contemporary love stories include graphic sex and are for adults only.
Learning to Kiss Girls
It’s 1984, and there are lots of things the family of Helen Blumenstein, age 14, doesn’t talk about. Her cousin is gay. Helen’s best female friend may have a crush on her. Helen wants to learn about kissing girls, but she’s scared of being different. Helen will have to find her own voice and decide if she is brave enough to be exactly who she is supposed to be, even if that means being a little bit queer.
Tested: Sex, love, and friendship in the shadow of HIV
The year is 1993, and those in the gay community are dying of AIDS, caring for people with AIDS, infected with HIV or terrified of catching the virus. Edwin, Julio, Anastasia, and Jennifer are four 20-something friends who decide to spend a sunny Saturday doing the right thing: getting an HIV test at one of Chicago’s public health clinics.
After, of course, they shop, have lunch, have coffee, gossip about what that person is wearing, talk about sex, lie about their sexual past, and waste as much time as they can in hopes they won’t make it to the clinic before it closes for the day. They know they should get tested but don’t want to.
Edwin insists that he always has safe sex with men, if he’s had any sex at all, but the truth is far more complicated. Julio hardly eats, but he’s so proud of his numerous sexual conquests that he gives his boyfriends both names and numbers. Anastasia’s lesbian sexual history involves blood. Jennifer has boyfriends who don’t always take no for an answer.
Together they learn that fear can tear people apart as much as it brings them closer, and that their blood, along with their hearts and spirits, will be tested in ways they can’t even imagine.
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