by Harper Bliss
“Are you saying that I’m not capable of taking into account the subtleties of a woman’s psyche?” Lewis sounded mock-offended.
Ash sighed. She wasn’t feeling the banter tonight. She drank again. She couldn’t get Gloria out of her head. Taking the train back to London had been but a symbolic gesture. The desire to take that train right back and knock on Gloria’s door seemed to only grow stronger.
“Okay, listen to me.” Lewis drummed on the table with his fingertips. “You want what you can’t have. It’s human nature. At least, don’t beat yourself up over that.”
Ash nodded. It was a surprising statement from Lewis. Yet, she still believed that what he was going to suggest next was that she have a one-night stand. While Ash had no moral objections against spending one night with someone, and she firmly believed that everyone should just do what they wanted, she wasn’t a one-night stand kind of girl. Neither was she the kind to kiss someone she barely knew. Although she had kissed Gloria. But it didn’t feel as though she barely knew her. That was the problem.
“Okay. I won’t.” Ash smiled at her friend, hoping that the smile on her lips would make something inside her smile as well.
“Taking that into account, in order to no longer want what you can’t have, maybe you should just have it.”
“What?” Ash knotted her brows together. They had made sure they’d eaten a decent meal before going out for drinks, but Lewis wasn’t making much sense right now.
“One night, darling.” Lewis shot her a triumphant smile. “To get it all out of your system.”
“One night with Gloria?” Ash nearly spit out the words, so ridiculous did they sound.
“Yes,” Lewis confirmed, as though he’d just made the most lucrative business deal.
“Out of the question.” Ash drank some more, because when Lewis put it so adamantly, it sounded quite alluring. She needed to squash the images his suggestion created in her brain instantly, before she allowed them to take some sort of hold on her. “That is a truly bad idea.”
“I don’t think it is.” Of course Lewis thought it a good idea. He had come up with it. No guy could be so in love with his own ideas as Lewis. Over the years they’d worked together, Ash had become the person to shoot down his most out-there ones—to be the voice of reason in the crazy town that Lewis’s brain sometimes inhabited. “Purely from a psychological viewpoint, you can’t fault it.” He remained adamant.
“Maybe in theory, but this is real life. We are real people, with real emotions.”
“What’s the alternative, though?” Lewis asked. “You’ve met someone you like. You want more. Are you really going to deny yourself that?”
“It’s not a question of denying myself.” Even though Ash really wanted him to be wrong, Lewis was right on some level. Ash couldn’t decide. She wanted him to be both wrong and right. She didn’t know what she wanted. She was all over the place. “It’s a question of nipping it all in the bud before it can become anything.”
“Maybe you’re looking at this all wrong.” Lewis leaned over the small table. “Maybe you need to take off your romantic girl-goggles.” He held up his hand, as though he already knew that Ash would protest. “You may think that if you and Gloria start some sort of torrid affair, you’ll fall in love and want to be together forever. But do you know that the possibility of that occurring is actually quite rare? I’m not saying that it will never happen to you again, darling, because I’m sure that it will. But not with Gloria. Statistically, it’s highly unlikely. So, for now, why don’t you just let it be what it wants to be? Just go for it, enjoy it, let it peter out, and then move on.” Lewis knocked back the last of his drink.
“Make her my transitional person?” Ash followed his example and downed her drink.
Lewis nodded and, without saying anything further, headed for the bar. This was going to be one of those nights.
While she waited for him to come back, Ash considered his words. They could make sense. For Ash to fall in love with someone again, a number of requirements would need to be met. She liked Gloria, but it wasn’t very probable that she would fall head over heels in love with her. She had utterly enjoyed kissing her, and she did want more, but that didn’t mean she’d be wanting to marry Gloria in a few years’ time.
“Here you go.” Lewis returned with two fresh gin and tonics. “What say you?”
“I say I’ve had too much to drink already.” Ash sipped from her drink.
“You and me both, darling, but aren’t we allowed to indulge once in a while? I spent all of Sunday listening to all the changes my mother-in-law suggested we make to the house… and you kissed your mother’s friend.” He winked at Ash. “We’re allowed to take a load off.”
“Have I told you that Gloria doesn’t drink?” Ash said.
Lewis made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Then it’s a done deal. You will never fall for this woman, Ash. Just sleep with her already.”
Ash shook her head at Lewis’s ignorant remark. As if she drank so much it was inconceivable that she could be with a recovering alcoholic. But this was not the time to confront Lewis about that. This was, however, the time to consider the very last bit of what he’d just said.
Just sleep with her already.
Ash might not be a one-night stand kind of girl, but there was no use fooling herself. After that kiss, all she wanted was to sleep with Gloria. There was, however, one fatal flaw in Lewis’s plan.
“You’re just assuming she’ll want to sleep with me as well.”
“Of course I am, darling.” The more cocktails he ingested, the more Lewis called Ash ‘darling’. “Why wouldn’t she?”
This sounded so ridiculous to Ash that she started giggling like a schoolgirl. “So many reasons, darling,” Ash said.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Lewis tried to straighten his posture, but failed miserably. This was that one last drink too many. “Ask her.”
“Sure,” Ash played along. “I’ll just text her here and now and ask if she wants to come over to spend the night with me some time soon.”
Lewis nodded vigorously. “That’s exactly what you should do.”
Ash tried to shake her head just as vehemently. This was the worst plan ever conceived. If she ever had the great fortune of sleeping with Gloria, it would not happen after Ash had drunk-texted her. Ash wouldn’t want it to happen that way; Gloria wouldn’t stand for it.
“No, darling. But here’s what I will do.” Ash took out her phone. “I’m getting us an Uber so we can go home and sleep this off.”
Chapter Twenty
“Did you swap shifts this weekend?” Sindhu asked as she poured herself a glass of wine.
“No.” Once in a while, the craving for a nice glass of wine utterly overwhelmed Gloria. Tonight was one of those nights.
“You didn’t reply to my text,” Sindhu said matter-of-factly. “That usually only happens when you’re working.”
Gloria remembered the text message she’d only seen late Sunday evening, after Ash had left, when she’d been toying with her phone—and the idea of texting Ash. Gloria poured herself another glass of sparkling water.
“What did you get up to this weekend then?”
For the life of her, Gloria couldn’t keep her eyes off the wine being tipped into Sindhu’s mouth.
“This and that.” She swallowed hard.
“Are you all right?” Sindhu looked at the wine glass in her hand. “Are you no longer okay with me drinking in your house? Because I don’t have to.”
“It’s difficult today,” Gloria admitted, because if she couldn’t tell her best friend it was hard, then who could she tell?
“Okay.” Sindhu got up and went into the kitchen with the bottle and her glass. She came back with an empty glass and filled it with sparkling water. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologise, please. Clearly, it’s not you. It’s me.”
“That old chestnut.” Sindhu sent her an encouraging sm
ile. “Did something happen? Why are you having such a hard time?”
“Something did happen.” Gloria took a deep breath. “Ash… um.” She flicked an imaginary piece of dust from the armrest of the sofa. “Ash came over yesterday and…” Gloria shook her head, as though she herself couldn’t believe it either. “We kissed. She kissed me. I kissed her. I don’t even know. But we kissed.” She pointed at the spot next to the dining table. “Right there, and…” The words died in her throat.
“Wow.” Sindhu shuffled her feet. “Okay… back up a bit. Last week, you went to London and had dinner with her. This weekend, she came here? And you kissed? You’re going to have to catch me up because I think I missed some of what happened in between.”
Gloria told her friend about the flirting and the confusion and the impromptu dinner that had ultimately led to the kiss.
“My gosh.” Sindhu sipped from her glass of water.
Gloria felt guilty for Sindhu having to put the wine away. It was easier than succumbing to all the other feelings of guilt running through her.
“Okay.” Sindhu shifted her feet again. “I wasn’t expecting that, so you have to give me a minute.”
“Take all the time you need.” Gloria was still processing all the events herself.
“You kissed Mary’s daughter,” Sindhu said next, making Gloria want to bury her head in her hands. “How old is she?”
“Forty-two,” Gloria was quick to say.
“Hardly an impressionable young woman you could be seen as taking advantage of,” Sindhu said in her matter-of-fact way.
“Hardly.” More the other way around, Gloria thought. In Ash’s presence, she was the one who felt so much younger and up for anything. Completely under Ash’s spell.
“And you decided to not see each other again?” Sindhu’s demeanour relaxed a bit again. She stretched her legs and crossed her ankles. “Why?”
“Because she’s Mary and Alan’s daughter,” Gloria blurted out. “And because she’s a woman.” She didn’t know why Ash being a woman was of less importance to her. “Last I checked, I wasn’t really into women in that way.”
“When did you last check?” Sindhu even managed a smile now.
Gloria chuckled. “Last night, I guess. The result was not what I expected it to be.”
“What was it like?” Sindhu’s eyes narrowed.
Gloria sighed. “I’m trying not to think about that any longer.”
“That good, eh?”
Gloria just nodded.
“Then you’d be a fool to end it before it’s begun.”
“No. I have to disagree with that.” She wasn’t only trying to convince Sindhu. Gloria needed some convincing herself. When she’d let Ash leave, it had immediately felt like the wrong decision. “I’ve lived in Murraywood all my life. I don’t want to become that person in this town.”
“What person?” Sindhu shrugged. It was easy for her to shrug it off. Her husband was still alive and she could go home to him after leaving here and return to her heteronormative, perfectly acceptable life.
“The one who runs off with her friends’ child.”
“Ash is not a child. She’s in her forties. She’s old enough to be divorced, for crying out loud. And she doesn’t even live here.” Why was Sindhu getting so worked up, anyway? What skin did she have in this game?
“I live here. I work here,” Gloria said. “My girls come home here.” When she said it out loud like that, it all made sense to Gloria again. The kiss would just have to remain that. Her life as she knew it was on the line. She’d worked so hard to put herself back together, to make herself strong again. She wasn’t going to throw all that stability out of the window for a fling with another woman.
“I understand it’s difficult, but there are other things to take into consideration.” Sindhu’s body tensed again. Was she about to give a speech? “What about your happiness? I’m not talking about the sense of normalcy you’ve managed to reach again after George died. The cruise control you operate on.” She straightened her posture and looked into Gloria’s eyes. “Don’t you think you deserve a little more than that?”
“It’s not a matter of deserving it or not.” Something gnawed at Gloria as she said the words, even though they were sensible and reasonable—they were the embodiment of what she was trying to be. “Of course I deserve to fall in love again, but if I do, I don’t want it to be complicated like this.”
“Wow,” Sindhu said on a chuckle. “I never said anything about falling in love.”
Gloria shook off the comment. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do. But I would be a bad friend if I told you that you’re right, Gloria. It’s my duty to tell you that this is worth pursuing.”
“That’s easy for you to say, though.”
“Granted. Although not as easy as it would be to agree with you.” She tilted her head. “Good thing Fiona’s not here, because she would be saying all the things that you want to hear right now. But I won’t do that.”
Gloria had to agree about Fiona’s expected stance on the whole thing. “Why are you so adamant about this?”
“Because… in every single person’s life, there comes a time like this. A defining point. A time when you have to make a decision that can change the course of your life. This is it for you. Or not. I don’t know because I don’t have a crystal ball.” She heaved a big sigh. “A few years ago…” Sindhu reached for her glass of water, but she didn’t drink from it. “We had this consultant in at work.” She briefly met Gloria’s gaze. “I didn’t tell you about it, because… I don’t know why. Maybe I should have. But I felt like I already knew what you were going to say.”
Sindhu had Gloria on the edge of her seat now. Was she trying to say that she had fallen for another man?
“His name was Brian and we really hit it off. He was quite a few years younger than me. Single. Not afraid to show how he felt about me.” She gave a nervous chuckle. “Nothing happened in the end, but I still wonder to this day… you know?”
“Oh my God, Sindhu, why didn’t you confide in me? This is the sort of stuff you bring to your best friends.” Gloria tried to hide the disappointment in her voice.
“I was… embarrassed, perhaps? I don’t know. It was on the tip of my tongue many times, but I could never really say the words. It felt as though if I actually spoke to someone about it, it would become too real. I mean, I love Martin. We have a great life together. We have our children. We’ll be grandparents soon. It was just a flare of passion. An escapist sort of fantasy that I only allowed myself to indulge in theoretically. But you don’t have any of that standing in your way, Gloria.”
“How many years ago was this?” Gloria wasn’t going to let this go so easily.
“About eight,” Sindhu said. “You’d just joined AA and Sally was going through a difficult time. You really didn’t need your best friend confessing to a silly crush on a co-worker.”
Gloria shook her head. “Christ. Where’s Brian now?” Of course Gloria would have listened to her friend. She would have been there for her.
“He woefully overcharged us and left, as consultants do.” Sindhu could heartily laugh about it now. Gloria laughed with her until a silence fell.
“How long have we known each other?” Sindhu asked after a while.
“How long have we not known each other?” Sindhu and Gloria had been friends since they’d gone to Murraywood’s secondary school together.
“Exactly my point.” Sindhu drank and then pushed the water glass away from her, as though disgusted with it. “Go for what makes you feel alive inside, Gloria. Really. You will always be able to come up with a bunch of reasons not to, but if they pale in comparison to the reasons why you should, then what are we even debating?”
“I’m not sure that’s the case.” Gloria’s pulse picked up speed. Maybe permission from a friend was all she needed to pluck up the courage to see Ash again. Or maybe what felt like permission was actually just foolishness
multiplied by two. Maybe she was getting too caught up in Sindhu’s enthusiasm and she shouldn’t make her friend any promises tonight.
“Of course you’re not sure, but you know what will pain the hell out of me when I go home later?” Sindhu rested her dark gaze on Gloria. “That you’ll be sitting here, alone in your house, pining for Ash, too scared to go after something that could potentially bring you so much joy.”
“Potentially…” Gloria repeated, because wasn’t that the key word here?
“Text her,” Sindhu said. “Tell her you want to see her again.”
“What?” Gloria shook her head. “No.”
“Then give me your phone so I can do it for you. I’m serious, Gloria. I’m not leaving here until you’ve texted Ash.”
“You’re very welcome to sleep in one of the girls’ rooms. There’s plenty of space.” Gloria arched up her eyebrows. The thought of texting Ash, of the tiny sliver of contact with her, made her heart pound in her throat.
“I have no intention of sleeping. I’ll just be nagging you the entire time.” Sindhu tried a smile now. “Just do it. You think you have so much to lose, but you really don’t.”
“I’m not sure what that says about how you see me and my life.”
“I think you’re perfectly content. I think you could go on like this forever and just keep sailing life’s inevitable ebbs and flows until the day you die. But what if there’s something more out there? I know you’re scared more than anything, after what happened to George. I completely and utterly understand that. Which is another reason why I stand by my advice. This is exactly why you need your friends in times like these. To take away some of that fear. Because no matter what happens, I will always be here, Gloria. I will always be your friend.” She gave a small nod. “Tell me honestly… what’s the worst that can happen after what has already happened to you?”
When did Sindhu become so philosophical? Was it reminiscing about her mid-life infatuation with Brian that had brought it about? One thing Gloria knew for sure; Sindhu would always be there for her. She had all the proof of that she needed. Should she trust her friend on this?
