Freestyle Flirting: A Sweet Lesbian Romance

by Nicolette Dane

  “Hi Jake,” I said, straightening up in my chair. I had on a white polo shirt and tan pants, the same uniform I wore every work day here at the Hotel Champlain.

  “Give me a little more enthusiasm,” he said with joy in his eyes. I was taken aback by this positivity. It had become quite rare.

  “What are you talking about?” I said with a small laugh, a smile coming over my lips. Jake’s attitude was infectious.

  “I’m gonna need a little more enthusiasm out of you,” said Jake slyly. “Because of the guests we’re about to have.”

  “Are more ghosts checking in?” I said with some teasing snark.

  “Better,” he said. “I’ve been in talks with someone, and I kept this from you because I didn’t want to jinx it.” I could tell Jake was getting excited. “It turns out that because of some preferable tax credits, a Hollywood production is coming to Champlain to film a movie and most of the cast and crew are going to be staying right here at the hotel.”

  “What?!” I intoned, standing up from my chair and pounding the desk. “Are you for real?”

  “For real,” said Jake with a satisfied smile.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Jake, congratulations! That’s amazing!”

  “Exciting, right?” he said. “Don’t you love movies?”

  “No,” I said with an enthused grin. “No, I find most movies to be shallow and poorly written. But I like when the hotel can make money!”

  “Let’s keep that positive attitude,” said Jake, wagging his finger at me. “And don’t let on that you’re not a fan of what these people do.”

  “Will do, boss,” I said.

  “So I’ve contracted with a local maid service to help us out for the six weeks that the movie is in town,” said Jake.

  “Wow,” I mused. “Six weeks?”

  “Six weeks,” he affirmed. “I’m going to get a couple of temp workers in here to help out. Miguel has a few buddies who can come in and help in the kitchen. I mean, we’re actually going to turn this place into a functioning hotel.”

  “It’ll be great to see it thrive,” I admitted.

  “And we’re going to have a real movie star here,” said Jake. “A couple, really, but one in particular that’s pretty hot right now. Have you heard of Kelsie Kent?”

  “The name is vaguely familiar,” I said. “But I don’t really follow that world. I’m more of a reader.”

  “Right,” he said. “Well, Kelsie Kent — you know, reddish hair, slim, hippie vibe?” said Jake, motioning to his own head when he described her hair color.

  “I really don’t,” I said. “I mean, I’ve heard the name but I couldn’t tell you what she looks like.”

  “Okay,” Jake acquiesced. “Well, she’s around your age, I believe, and she’s become a pretty big deal. My wife is a fan.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll be pleasant and accommodating to her and everybody else who walks through those doors.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “Oh Audra, I’m so thrilled about this. You have no idea. It’s been a rough couple of years. I’ve really thought about selling the hotel but, honestly, I don’t know who would buy it.”

  “Hopefully this turns things around,” I said. “Maybe this won’t be the last movie production to come through here with all these tax credits and such going on.”

  “Let’s hope so,” he said. After a beat, Jake slapped the desk. “Okay, I’m going to continue preparing. Thanks for sticking with me, Audra. I think we’re going to have a really exciting six weeks.”

  “I’m on board,” I said, smiling back at Jake. I really wanted him to succeed. Even though I felt pretty beaten down inside, desperate to figure out how to get out of this hotel and this town, I still wanted Jake’s business to bustle. A hotel is really lonely without guests.

  “Great,” said Jake. “Thanks Audra. Let’s do this!”

  With that Jake gave me one more smile and walked off from the front desk.

  When the movie production came to town, it was a bit crazy. People came out to watch all the trucks roll up and take over Main Street. It was unlike anything they’d ever seen before. Large semi-trucks lined the street, big white moving trucks not far behind. I mean, they had brought everything they needed. Champlain was like a blank canvas for them and they knew exactly how to paint it. Although the attitude around town was excited and starstruck, I didn’t feel the same way. I was just interested in doing my job, helping out Jake, and getting to the Lake whenever I could. Same as always.

  The lobby was filled with people milling about, the din of excited chatter throughout. The production had completely taken over the hotel, so only people who were involved with the movie were allowed in. Everybody was waiting to get their room assignments and the person in charge of that, a young woman, scurried up to the desk and looked on to me with a smile.

  “I’m Jennifer,” she said with bubbly verve. She reached across the desk and shook my hand. “I’ve been in contact with Jake. He told me outside that you should have anything ready for us?”

  “Yep!” I said. I took a bundle of file folders from the desk, all combined by a single thick rubber band, and set it up on the reception desk ledge. I deftly removed the rubber band and spread the folders out. “So these are in order of floor,” I went on. “The top floor is the nicest and where we’re assuming you want to put the VIPs.”

  “Indeed,” said Jennifer, looking down at the folders and following along. I opened up one of the folders to show her.

  “Each room has a single key,” I said. “But we’ve got a master set of keys up front here and guests can leave their room key with me when they go out, just so they don’t have to take it with them and risk losing it.”

  “Gotcha,” she said.

  “These lists here,” I said, pulling out a list from one of the folders. “Tell you how each room is furnished. Bed size, all that. It should be pretty self-explanatory. And you can see this page has the room numbers and keys attached.”

  “This is perfect,” she said, following along with my finger as I pointed. She looked up and smiled. “And your name is…?”

  “Audra,” I said. “I’m the main receptionist here and you’ll probably be seeing a lot of me. If I’m not around, Jake will probably be behind the desk.”

  “Thank you, Audra,” said Jennifer, collecting the folders in her arms and causing the keys to jingle. “I’m sure we’ll be working a lot together.”

  “If I can do anything for you, don’t hesitate to ask,” I said happily. I always tried to put on a happy face for the guests.

  “Terrific,” said Jennifer. “One more thing. You’re not a, uh, starstruck kinda person are you?”

  “No ma’am,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. “We’ve got a couple notable celebrities on the cast and we like to allow them the space to live like normal people when we come to small towns like this. So if you can help us keep any autograph seekers out, we’d truly appreciate it.”

  “I’m your girl,” I said. “I hate giving autographs just as much as the next person.” Jennifer laughed.

  “Fine,” she said as her laugh subsided. “Thanks a lot, Audra.” Jennifer secured the folders in her arms and wandered off from me, heading over to a table in the lobby to set up her room key distribution.

  My gaze drifted for a moment until it settled on the latest guest to walk through the hotel door. She was slim and elegant, her light reddish auburn hair waving in slight curls, bouncing like she was straight out of a shampoo commercial. This girl wore a simple sundress, easy and breezy, cut to her mid-thigh and showing off her long pale stems. She had big black sunglasses over her eyes and a wide grin on her face and as soon as she entered the lobby, all the people around looked her way and ceased talking for just a split second. This young woman, with alabaster skin and just the slightest hint of freckles on her nose, pulled the attention of everyone around.

  I watched as Jennifer ran up to her and had a quick conversation with her, handed over he
r key and room number, exchanged more words with her, and then pointed her up toward me. I felt frozen as I watched both Jennifer as this girl look in my direction. The girl thanked Jennifer with a smile, clutched her key, and then gracefully walked through the lobby in my direction.

  I took a deep breath. I mean, like I’d said to Jennifer, I wasn’t a starstruck person. But this woman, she was just amazing. There was something glowing about her. Something touched. She had an aura. I felt twinkling.

  “Hi,” she said, daintily removing her sunglasses from her eyes and holding them in her lithe hand. “My name is Kelsie.”

  “I’m Audra,” I said, feeling like I couldn’t move my feet. I must have looked absolutely frightened and intimidated there behind the desk.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Kelsie. “Jennifer tells me you can help me out.”

  “Me?” I said, feeling starstruck. Feeling like I said I wouldn’t feel. “Um, sure! Yeah, I can help.” I really didn’t care that Kelsie was an actress. That hardly crossed my mind as I spoke to her. What really got me was how pretty she was, how regal. I mean, upon meeting her there in that all too familiar hotel lobby, I was totally smitten by this girl. She may have been the most beautiful woman I’d ever met in person and I instantly felt my heart throb.

  “Amazing,” affirmed Kelsie with a smile. “I’ve heard a lot about the beaches around here and I’m looking to find something kind of private. You know, a place where I can go lay out without being noticed or bothered or anything like that.”

  “Yeah,” I said, slowly nodding. “I understand.”

  “I mean, I’m willing to go to public places,” she continued. “But just, maybe, off the beaten path or something, a beach where if I wear a big floppy hat and sunglasses I probably won’t be recognized.”

  “I know of a few places,” I said.

  “Maybe we can go together,” said Kelsie, eyes brightening. “Are you a beach girl?”

  “Well,” I said, feeling shy. “Yeah, I mean, I sorta am. I really do love the Lake.”

  “Great!” said Kelsie. “I’m always down with making new friends.”

  “I’m here a lot during the day, though,” I lamented, feeling all the highs and lows that come along with being invited to hang out with a girl like Kelsie, only to realize that it would be difficult to do so. “I mean, I’m the main person at this desk.”

  “I’m sure you have some time off,” smiled Kelsie. “We’re going to be filming a lot as well so maybe we can coordinate our schedules or something. Cool?”

  “Yeah,” I said absently. “Yeah, cool.” I hung there, starring at her dumbly, silent and unsure what to say next.

  “It was nice meeting you, Audra,” she said with a curl on her lip. Kelsie slipped her sunglasses back on her face. “I hope we have a nice six weeks together.”

  “Yeah,” I said again. “Totally. Thanks for staying at the Hotel Champlain.” Kelsie laughed demurely. She could tell I was on a different planet.

  “Hey Audra,” she said, leaning in and lowering her voice to a whisper. “Look, I’m not all that intimidating. I know it can be weird having a Hollywood celebrity around. Have you seen any of my movies?”

  “Well, um, no,” I admitted sheepishly. “No, I don’t really like most big budget Hollywood movies.” This gave Kelsie a tickle, causing her to laugh.

  “Oh God,” she said. “I get it. I love movies but some of them are just… yuck!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, slumping my shoulders. “I’m not trying to be offensive. I just don’t watch a lot of movies. And though I’ve heard your name before, I don’t really know who you are… if that makes any sense.”

  “Perfect sense,” smiled Kelsie. “Audra, that’s perfect.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she affirmed. “Keep that attitude. I’ll catch you later.” Kelsie pursed her lips and turned from me, walking around the desk and looking down to the key in her hand. I couldn’t believe I had acted like such an idiot in front of her. Not only was I probably drooling over her, I also told her that I wasn’t even a fan. Two strikes there. If Jake had seen me act that way, he’d definitely have some things to say. ‘You should have just told her you liked her movies,’ or ‘gush over her and pretend you’re a super fan.’ But I couldn’t. I was crippled by the wonderful air about her.

  We didn’t get pretty girls like her around Champlain too often. And as a young and unattached woman myself, I felt a revived sense of excitement building inside of me over the chance of getting to know Kelsie. She represented possibility to me and that feeling was incredibly potent. It gave me a renewed hope.

  See Hotel Hollywood on Amazon

  An Excerpt From: Chef Cutegirl

  A Lesbian Romance

  I really couldn’t believe it. After going through the rigorous audition process, which included multiple interviews, references from people I had worked with, and a number of kitchen demos, I had actually made the cut. I was offered a spot on Hot Chef, the most well-known cooking competition show in all of reality television. I mean, this was the big time. Chefs who won the title of Hot Chef went on to open their own restaurants and build their own empires. Even chefs who didn’t win often hit the big time, getting their own television shows and cookbooks. Hot Chef was a career-maker and I was going to be on it. Mind… blown.

  And the best part? This season was going to be filmed in my hometown of Chicago. I didn’t even have to travel. I had home field advantage. I knew the culinary world in my city. The scales were tipped in my favor. This was going to be Emily Gold’s time to shine. I was determined to win.

  You might have heard the name Emily Gold and thought, oh yeah, she’s head chef at Maison du Faisan in Chicago. She’s been featured in the Sun-Times as a young chef to watch, the 30 best chefs under 30. She was number 17. And, yeah, Maison won a James Beard award with Emily at the helm.

  No biggie, right? Actually, it was a biggie. It was exciting and thrilling and it made me so happy that my culinary career was really taking off. I had worked so hard for this, starting as a dishwasher when I was only 13 years old. And now, at 30, I was going to be on television, competing on Hot Chef, trying to make my face, my name, and my food known throughout the country.

  It was a dream come true. I had cooked my ass off, given up so much. The hardest thing to give up in my mad career chase was my love life. As a chef, you work tirelessly. We’re talking a lot of 18 hours days. And as the head chef of a popular restaurant, it’s even more difficult to maintain any semblance of a social or romantic life. Your world revolves around the restaurant. Most of the time, people in the restaurant world, chefs and front of the house alike, get involved with one another. Hey, you’re at work so much and you really only interact with this small group of other people. It can get incestuous. You start to factor people out of being a potential partner because they dated someone you dated last year. It’s a small world when it comes down to it, and it’s just a bit smaller when you’re a lesbian like me.

  The cooking world is very male dominated. Lots of bravado and all that. Lots of sexism. Lots of male chefs think they’re hot shit and that you, as a woman, will just drop your panties at even the hint that they might want to screw you. No, sorry boys, I don’t play for your team. My type is the cute and innocent waif. The Audrey Hepburn type. Not some hairy-chested, burly idiot. And there are a lot of hairy, burly idiots in restaurant life. Ugh. Avoid.

  But, on the same token, I don’t mind working with guys like this because they’ve got a lot to prove and they work hard because of it. It’s a cutthroat vocation. You don’t get promoted to a head chef position by navel gazing. And, as a woman, if you want to make it to head chef you have to work even harder. We have to prove ourselves double what the guys have to do, we have to withstand all the sexism, slimy owners, lack of respect from the male chefs. It’s messed up. But if you love doing this, if you love cooking and creating and making people happy, you’ll do anything to make the job work for you.

&nb
sp; I knew that being on Hot Chef was going to propel me into something even greater than I had ever imagined. As long as I, you know, didn’t get eliminated early. You never remember those chefs. It’s a field of 17 chefs and you know from watching, just as well as I do, that you don’t really start rooting for someone until it’s down to 8 or so. That’s when the world starts paying attention. That’s where careers start being made.

  Although I’d watched every season of the show, I still didn’t know what to expect. So much of it is edited for TV, of course, and it just appears so fluid and seamless. Like, how much would I really be cooking? What order do they film stuff? What about the little individual interview segments with the chefs? Is that before or after they get eliminated? It wasn’t just cooking I was concerned with, I knew I could do that well, but the whole role of being a reality television persona is what gave me a bit of anxiety. I didn’t want to look like a total idiot.

  You know the people. If you’ve watched a show like Hot Chef before, you know that there’s always a couple clueless weirdos, maybe someone who’s full of themselves and just says the most egotistical things constantly. You wonder… are they going to watch this all later and see what a fool they were? But my guess is that if it’s so easy for you to look that foolish on national television then, well, you probably won’t recognize your foolishness when you see it before you on screen.

  And what about the judges? I’d always go back and forth as to whether or not I thought they were nice or not. Sometimes Tim Cicerone, famed chef and restauranteur, would come off as a total teddy bear. And other times it was like he had a stick up his ass, his bald head growing red because some chef over-steamed their broccoli. “If you can’t cook broccoli properly,” Tim would say. “What makes you think you can do foie gras in 3 hours?”