2. Claude

TWO

Claude

P ersonally, I blamed Ben. Julian, too—but that was just because it annoyed him, and annoying him was fun. The thing was, we were FaceTiming yesterday, and Ben had just come back from a meet with fans. He’d been charged up, going on about how he didn’t understand how I didn’t miss meets.

And… I did. Obviously, I didn’t tell him, but I did. It had been our thing, too.

We’d meet up at a diner or an overpriced café with a few select fans. It was cool. They were chill for the most part. Sure, I didn’t come across as the friendliest, and I had to set boundaries a time or two, but…

Maybe it was an ego thing, but it was nice to be around someone who was so invested in seeing you thrive. Someone who was so happy that you were living your best, out life in the open. I didn’t get that anywhere else, so the meets had had a healing factor attached to them.

Meets were not the same as one-on-ones, though. Arlene wasn’t the only one who functioned best when she had a clutch. Well, I knew how to turn on a persona and act approachable. It was exhausting, though, and I was out of practice.

Arlene was intriguing, though. I’d seen her at Randy’s before. The PR agency I was working at wasn’t too far from here, and I’d quickly become a regular. The food—I was biased to their cheesy fries—was amazing, they had a good, queer-friendly crowd, and they hosted community events, too. I’d made a promise to myself that if they hired me here and I relocated, I was going to make an effort to build a network.

Randy’s was the best way to do that.

“So, what do you do when you’re not telling people they can’t have avocado toast for breakfast?”

Arlene spluttered for a second. It was cute.

“I don’t tell people that,” she protested. Cute. “But, uh, I like baking? I mean, I like it a lot. It’s my way to decompress, basically.”

“What’s your best dessert?”

“What do you mean?” Her head tilted to the side as she spoke.

“Like…” I licked my lips. Man, I was hungry, too. I couldn’t wait to get my fries. “If you were to bake something to impress a date, what would you do?”

“Oh.” Heat reddened her cheeks, spreading down her neck. “I mean, it depends. On what they like, I mean.”

“Right.” Should I take pity on her? I bet most people would say I should. I was curious, though. I’d once read a book where a character said they tested people by seeing how they reacted under pressure or when their anxiety ran high. I supposed I internalized some of that mentality. “I like cheese. All kinds. And chocolate. And berries. No coconut, though. Well, I like the flavor of coconut oil, but the texture is icky.”

I assumed she was going to say cheesecake with something. It was the unknown something that had me salivating. Man, back home, there was this small bakery that delivered to my place…

I missed it.

“I’d probably go for cheesecake bars.” Arlene swallowed, maybe self-conscious about the confidence in her tone. It was hot as fuck and definitely grabbed my attention. “I haven’t fucked those up in years.”

“What are those?”

“Basically a cheesecake, but the base is cereal, or Oreo cookies, and marshmallow fluff or honey. I go with one or the other depending on what I add to the cheese batter.”

Ohh.

Ohh, I wanted those.

“And what does a person have to do to inspire you to… bake things for them?”

Maybe I batted my eyelashes. Whatever. I was very easily bought with food. I was aware of that fact. It had to count for something.

I was also acutely aware of the way Arlene flushed as if I’d just asked for the most salacious thing. It was endearing, in a way, but it had me curious, too.

“Just ask?” Her voice was an octave higher, a fact that just made the pink hue in her cheeks darken. “I mean, I bake all the time. It’s a good thing I have a roommate, or it would all go to waste.” Before I could say anything, she scrunched up her nose. “Well, that’s not true. I mean, I’m environmentally aware. I don’t throw out food. If I think something’s gonna go bad and there’s no one I can give it to, I take it to a food bank next to my place. The kids love the surprise treats.”

Damn.

Who on Earth didn’t have a soft spot for someone who baked desserts for kids dependent on food banks?

Yeah, I was one hundred percent going to blame Ben for any choice I made moving forward that involved Arlene.

“Should I feel bad I’d be taking food from kids?”

The half-genuine, half-teasing question made Arlene chuckle.

Good. I wanted to hear the sound more. She had a nice laugh. Soft. It matched her vibe with the frilly dresses. I saw her once in a suit. She’d added a pin with her pronouns to the lapel. She’d looked hot, but there was something about the vintage dresses I didn’t see anyone else wearing.

She actually reminded me a bit of an English YouTuber. I’d met her once in a convention and could not believe it was not a costume.

Arlene wore the dresses better.

“Nah.” It was good she brought me back to the conversation. I could get deep in my head and have a million conversations while the world revolved around me. “I mean, I should probably let you think that so you don’t realize how serious my baking addiction is.”

Why didn’t I get roommates with a baking addiction? Whenever I’d shared, it was either online shoppers, vape smokers, or gym rats.

Someone who kept the house smelling like freshly baked goods was goals.

“That’s fine.”

Arlene just looked away. She was shyer than I’d already assumed. It was fine, though. César came in with my order of fries right then. They had loads of cheese and chives, and they were my guilty pleasure.

Her eyes darted up when the food arrived.

“Have at it.”

César had added a second set of utensils, so we were good. My mouth was salivating already.

“Thanks.”

I nodded and tried to smile, but if I was honest, I was too focused on getting all that greasy goodness in my mouth. I should probably try to get a financial advisor or something here, too. My salary wasn’t the highest, and just because Boston was cheaper than LA didn’t mean I shouldn’t try to budget better. Right now, my budget was just… Vibes.

It did not exist.

“So are you a freelancer, or do you work for a company?”

One big lesson that I learned from the meets with Ben: conversations flowed much better when we shifted the focus to the fans. After talking about themselves for a while, they kind of… Well, they didn’t forget who we were, but they didn’t hyperventilate every time we looked their way.

“I work for my father,” she said. “He has an investment company downtown.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for the investment type.”

“I know.” Arlene groaned, head hanging down. “I used to volunteer at a center when I was studying, helping people get out of debt and stuff. But they weren’t looking to add any paid positions, and I wasn’t getting through the selection processes, so…”

I nodded. I didn’t want to assume too much, but there was something in her body language that said I’d probably be right about why they weren’t hiring her. The job market was brutal for us trans folks. I didn’t invite her to have fries with me to sour the mood, though.

“It’s nice that your father hired you, though.”

“Yeah.” Arlene smiled then. Her smile lit up her whole face, even when she tried to dim it as if it was something to feel self-conscious about. “He’s pretty great. He’s even looking into expanding to do some pro-bono stuff.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

It was. Bio families were a complicated subject for me. When someone—someone trans, especially—had a supportive family? I was sucked in, hard.

“Yeah,” Arlene agreed easily between bites of her food. She took tiny bites, I noticed. “I kind of feel guilty sometimes, that I’m basically a nepo baby, but…”

“We gotta do what we gotta do. I get it.”

I wasn’t a fan of all the content I’d put out online, either, or all the brand deals I’d signed. Thankfully, none of those had been the problematic kind, just the cringe kind, but it didn’t make it much better. Some people could look past it, but a part of me never managed. I supposed that was why I never made it big, either.

“Yeah.” Arlene chuckled. “Fuck capitalism, right?”

“I didn’t know financial advisors could say that, but… Fuck yeah.”

I would toast to it if I had anything other than lemonade. And if she had a drink.

Shit. I should ask if she wanted something to drink.

Maybe Julian had a point every time he said I was a terrible host. Well, not really—he just said it because I let the two of them fetch for themselves, in a house they’d been at a million times . But whatever.

“Is it bad that…” The woman was blushing before she’d even asked the question. Not that I needed her to. “I kind of want to ask about that video?”

Yeah, she didn’t need to specify more than that. I winced. I’d had years to think about it now, to reflect, and have the perfect response at hand.

I still didn’t like it. “It was a combination of a million different things and the worst possible timing.”

That was an understatement.

“I never got involved with the comments or any of that.” She definitely didn’t look the type, so I hadn’t even considered it. “But, yeah, it felt… messy.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” I scoffed. “I just… I definitely went about it wrong, in more ways than one, but I do believe it would’ve always had a negative reaction no matter what, and… it sucks.”

It sucked because clickbait and strategies aside—I’d beat myself over that Am I still asexual? title for years—that video was still one of the most honest things I’d posted online.

“What do you mean?” Arlene frowned. She must’ve noticed the reticence in my face. “I mean, sorry, you don’t have to answer.”

I didn’t precisely love going into detail about it. I was still getting the hang of being vulnerable around people. Playing a persona where I was nice and approachable and witty was easy enough. By now, it almost felt real. With some people, it really was. Being vulnerable was another matter altogether.

“No, I get it.” It was all people wanted to talk about. I… did not. Then again… “Maybe ask me again when there are some of those cheesecake bars in front of me?”

I did have a sweet tooth.

“Really?” Her eyes glistened when she asked.

…Yeah, I’d just technically asked her on a date. Or something.

Was this what people meant about sapphic dating being messy?

I wasn’t usually the one who took charge. Then again, my experience in LA was all but nonexistent, and here… I’d tried a few apps, thinking I was safe, and I might as well experiment and explore those parts of myself I was coming to terms with.

The theory had sounded good.

The practice? Not that great.

No horror stories to tell—which, yeah, I knew I was lucky—but I wasn’t sure that was an achievement per se, if there weren’t any outstanding stories, either.

So far, it all had been very take it or leave it.

Right until now, though, no one had sparked my curiosity the way Arlene did. Maybe that meant following my gut could be worth it.

Maybe.

It was a possibility.

“Yeah.” I forced myself to smile, but my heart was thrumming irrationally fast. “Tell me when and where.”

Uh, actually, this was going to be a disaster.

Well, I could always run back here after and eat my weight in cheese fries.

Yeah, nothing wrong with that plan.