Chapter Twenty-Three

Kit

After one more quick check in the mirror to make sure I look dewy, sun-kissed, and not deranged from all the sand and water that got stuck in my hair out at Bachelor Town, I remove the bottle of rosé from the fridge, uncorking it and placing it on the table with two wineglasses. I am one hundred percent certain I want to see where this kissing thing might lead, but I am also nervous as hell. Rosé all day , not so much, but a little definitely can't hurt. As someone with all the feelings, sometimes all zooming to the surface at the same time, it can't hurt to have a little depressant in my veins when I'm in a high-stimulation situation.

I pour a glass and take a gulp. I need to stop spiraling over the word stimulation and the way it immediately brings Julia's hands into sharp focus in my imagination. Since high school, there have been so many times I've wanted to just kiss the girl , but I've always chickened out because kissing leads to questions of meaning, it opens up doors to closed closets, and then it leads to more .

There's nothing linear about going from best friends to kissing. I don't know exactly when it became clear to me that I wanted to, and I never got to ask Julia how long she'd been wishing things would change.

They just did, slowly, and then all at once.

I knew, and so did she. And all those sensations and feelings and new, ferocious wants exploded all over my body, firing all through my brain. Then it wasn't just kissing, and what that meant wasn't a question we could leave unanswered. And all those feelings merged into a single, overwhelming one.

Fear.

I don't know how to do this coming out thing. I don't know what it will feel like when other people are let in on that secret. I don't know how to say it out loud.

I don't know who I will become on the other side of it.

I just know that I'm ready to know .

My phone starts to buzz in the back pocket of my jean shorts, and I yank it out, but my smile fades fast when I see who's calling.

Mom. Big white FaceTime letters.

I've been trying to ignore her texts, since, so far, all of them have been about packing up my childhood bedroom, or thinly veiled attempts to get me to talk to her about her new romance. I know it isn't fair to give her the cold shoulder while I talk Dad down from his merlot ledge, but I don't feel ready to face her yet.

She's bi, and she's further along in her coming out than I am.

But she's also my mom, who always preached the Ideal Rom-Com Life Path. She's also my mom, who used to be desperately in love with my dad. And even though I know she'd understand my fears about coming out, she still cheated on Dad.

And I'm not ready to let her off the hook for that just yet.

I feel around inside my body. My heart and emotions, my instincts and gut feelings. The compass that spins, spins, spins, and the true north I'm not sure I've ever actually found.

A thought sharpens into focus.

I don't want to waste my chance.

No matter how happy Mom was at times. No matter how much she loved Dad. She was still playing a role, one I understand playing, one I can even understand her keeping from me when I was a kid, but I haven't been a kid for a long time. I can't help but wonder, if Mom had let me in on her journey, would it have helped me with mine? Could her honesty have been a push to propel me here sooner, with so much less yearning and time wasted hiding?

I want to blame her, blame Dad, for how long I've stubbornly barreled forward on the Ideal Rom-Com Life Path. Always looking for the end with boyfriends, keeping my career in motion but not really knowing where I hope that motion leads; short-term rentals, suitcases of belongings, daydreams of a time when I'll feel secure in myself, when I'll be fulfilled, when I'll actually be the ideal .

Mom coming out to me lifted the curtain, showed me the Wizard. My compass has been spinning out because I was chasing a phantom destination. The ideal of my perfect Nancy Meyers parents and the ingenue I was playing weren't real.

In the Larson family we all have our roles, and we're all really good at them.

Until we aren't.

My heart rate blasts off, a rocket on a crash course. I search the room for my cards, finding them on the nightstand. I grab up the deck in my left hand, gulping the last of the little bit of wine I poured myself, setting the glass down on the table.

I exhale a sharp breath, close my eyes, and shuffle.

Swish swish swish. The cards' weight grounds me and I open my eyes again, watching the shuffle. I feel rooted, secure in my body, every feeling coursing through me but not shaking me up. After another few swishes I don't feel so lightheaded. I don't feel so much like I want to pummel my parents with one of their vinyl records. I don't feel so much like screaming at myself in the mirror. I don't feel like I have to run away, even though it would definitely make all of these revelations stop revealing themselves.

I cut the deck just as there's a knock on the door.

Julia.

The whirring inside my heart stops.

Cards still in hand, I walk over to open the door. She's standing on the step. She's taken her hair out of her ponytail. The hair tie is around her wrist like a bracelet.

I'm overcome with how beautiful she is.

Her snatched waist, the sleek line of her collarbone, her curvy hips and plump apple bottom fitted in her jeans. The way the corners of her mouth tick up even when she isn't smiling. The three little freckles on her neck in the shape of a triangle.

I'm overcome with how very, very certain I am that I want her.

She moves up to the next step, but not inside. I could lose myself in her eyes, like they're the real sea and I am a sailor following a siren's call.

"Hey," she says, smirking.

"Hey," I reply, moving out of the doorway to let her inside. She steps up, kicking off her sneakers before walking farther into the trailer.

"This is such a vibe." It's clear she's impersonating me, or Millie, or some other LA influencer hot girl.

"It totally is," I say, exaggerating my voice and sticking my tongue out at her. She laughs and I am sure it's my favorite sound in the world.

I spin back to the table to pour her a glass of wine, setting the cards down so I can have both hands free. She unclips her walkie-talkie from the waistband of her jeans and sets it on the table before lifting my empty glass in the air, watching the remnant of liquid swirl.

"You caught me," I say, handing over her drink. Her fingertips graze mine when she gives back my glass for me to refill. Even this tiny touch is electric. "I was freaking out," I continue. "I started early." I tip some more pink liquid into the glass.

"Did it help?" She sips.

"You don't see a Kit-shaped hole in the side of this trailer, do you?" I take a drink that is decidedly larger than a sip.

"So what you're saying is, if you'd had some wine back then you might not have run off?"

I nibble my lip, catching her eyes with mine.

"I think I still would have," I say, walking over to the bed and dropping down to sit on the edge. She takes a drink, but otherwise looks like she's afraid to move. "What do we do now?"

"It's like you said: A lot has changed in ten years. So we get to know each other again," she says. She gives the spot next to me a pointed look.

"All yours," I reply, taking another sip of wine to quell the quiver of nerves fluttering around in my stomach.

"It's been a while," she says, sitting beside me. She smells like citrus soap and the sunny outdoors. Her denim-covered knee brushes against my bare one. My thoughts keep time with my heartbeat. This is it, this is it. "I'm Julia. Wedding planner, control freak."

"Is that what all the buttons are about?" I ask, motioning to her minty-green blouse and letting my eyes linger for a second on the mound of her breasts in the fitted fabric.

"You should see me on weekends," she says, grinning. "I roll up the sleeves."

I giggle at the image. She extends her hand for me to shake, clearly taking this whole introducing herself thing quite seriously. I fit my hand in hers and a new feeling, like a lump of hot coal in my stomach, threatens to make me squirm.

Loving her will be the most dangerously wonderful adventure of my life so far.

"Kit." I whisper my own name. She doesn't let go of my hand right away. "Tarot mystic. High-end party entertainment." I pause to force myself to breathe. "Panic attacks."

"Medicated?"

"Therapy and hypnotherapy."

She takes a sip, releasing my hand. Hers drops down to rest on her thigh, the edges of her fingers tantalizingly close to my bare knee. "Still a rom-com fan?"

"Die-hard," I reply.

"That's a Christmas movie."

I roll my eyes. "What about you?"

"I haven't seen one in a while." She doesn't say it, but I can deduce that it's because of me. Of what happened with me. Julia and I watched so many rom-coms together in the course of our friendship. She went right along with my movie-obsessed family, fit right in on Friday Movie Nights. She went to opening days and she could recite dialog back to me almost as well as Dad.

"I'll have to catch you up," I say. "Some people would say we are in a new golden era of rom-coms. There's even some queer ones." I've seen them all. "We should start with one of those."

She lifts her brows, shifts her glass toward mine and clinks. "It's a date."

It occurs to me suddenly that it really could be. "And dinner."

"At a restaurant with fabric napkins." She smiles, and it doesn't look sad. The memory may never totally stop stinging, but we can—and will—make new ones.

Together.

I'm hit with the urge to hold her close. I don't fight it. I skate my hand over her jawline, to the nape of her neck. There's no resistance as I tug her in for a kiss. My eyes close as she deepens the kiss, her lashes fluttering against my cheek as her tongue slips into my mouth.

It's almost wild how right it feels to get all tangled up in her.

When I pull back after a few intense seconds, I see that she's searching my face with her eyes.

"Piper's my ex," she blurts. "Full transparency."

"I know," I reply. I brush my thumb over her jaw before letting my hand drop back to my lap.

"Did she tell you?" She's gearing up to get pissed. "That would be so like her—"

"The cards—her reading last night indicated a breakup and feelings about it. Plus just every interaction I've observed between you two. It was easy to connect the dots." I brush her fingers with mine, gentle, what I hope is also reassuring.

"She knows about us." Julia sighs.

"Fuck." I exhale, blinking. "How?"

Julia scrubs her hands over her face anxiously. "I told her about you when we were dating and she'd pieced together your identity when she met you here." She looks at me, clearly nervous. "I'm sorry, Kit."

"It actually tracks that she'd figure it out. She's certainly cunning." I keep my voice light, trying to assuage her concern. I cup her hand in mine, rubbing my thumb along the knuckles. "I'm not intimidated by her. I can handle her death glares and shit talk." But there's more weighing on her than just this bombshell, I can see it tugging her shoulders down. "Her reading yesterday—she wants you back, doesn't she?"

"She does—not that it'll ever happen." Her eyes drop to my hand over hers. "Being with her changed me. It was subtle at first, just critiques, little tweaks of my every move and thought. Then way less subtle, glaring, suffocating. But I probably would have endured it forever if she'd been willing to be come out, especially to her family." She shakes her head, letting her eyes float back up to focus on mine. "I don't know what's happening here, but I don't want to be a secret just to have you."

Here it is. Don't back away. Don't retreat.

"I don't know what this is either. I'm not out," I say. She starts to pull her hand away. I clutch it, can't let it go. "I want to be." I fit my fingers through hers. "I might need some help from my friend."

She closes her hand, twining our fingers in unbreakable knots. Something like trust—that soft, safe, sure warmth in the pit of your stomach when you know, no question, you're right where you need to be—passes between us.

"About that," she continues. "Coco saw you leave Homebase earlier. She also noticed this." She reaches up to point at her collar. It takes me a second to figure out what the smudge is.

"Oh my God," I say, a laugh caught in my throat. "My lip gloss is that color."

"She also connected some dots ." Julia doesn't look as amused as I feel. "I didn't confirm, but she's…"

"A force to be reckoned with," I fill in for her.

"Exactly." She holds my gaze, hope mixing with fear in her eyes. I brush my finger over her knuckles again to reassure her that I'm okay. This is okay . Coco knowing something happened between us is okay .

Julia looks away after another beat, a blush forming on the apples of her cheeks. Her eyes land on the table.

"Those cards are different." She's looking at my tarot deck. "From the ones I saw yesterday." I take another sip of wine, untangling my fingers to retrieve the deck.

"I have this superstition about my decks," I say, setting my glass down before coming back to sit beside her with the cards. "The ones I use for clients, or to film YouTube videos, are only used for that purpose. And then I have my personal collection." I lift the deck in my hands, letting her get a good look. "This one, and an oracle deck that I don't have with me right now. I don't let clients pull from those."

Her eyes drop to the top of the deck.

"Not even me?" she asks. When she looks back at me, I hear that siren call to lose myself in her ocean eyes and I can't, don't want to, won't resist.

"Break the deck with your left hand."

This is how it all started.

With one card, then another, then a promise that we would always find each other.

She breaks the deck into two piles, handing the cards back to me.

"Which pile?" I ask. We're so close that I can feel her breath on my cheek; it smells of the wine, fruity and herbal and bright.

"Don't you have a thing you do?" She hovers her hand over the piles, mimicking what she must have noticed me do when I appeased Healer Arynne's meltdown.

"I can do that, or we can choose together." I take my lower lip between my teeth for a nibble.

She drops her eyes back to the two stacks in my hands.

"Okay. Together."

"On the count of three?" I ask. She nods. "One, two, three."

"Left hand," she says.

"My left," I say.

We grin up at each other.

I reintegrate the stack, putting the one in my right hand below the left. I wiggle my body, pushing my shoulders back to sit up straighter. I notice her glance at my neckline clinging to the edge of my bra.

"You're totally checking out my boobs while I'm trying to be a serious tarot reader," I scold, but it's flirtatious, playful.

"Sorry not sorry," she says, looking back at the card.

I brush my fingers around the edge before flipping it toward her.

My gasp hangs in my throat.