Bywater Books
Copyright © 2014 Georgia Beers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Bywater Books First Edition: June 2014
Cover designer: Bonnie Liss (Phoenix Graphics)
Bywater Books
PO Box 3671
Ann Arbor MI 48106-3671
www.bywaterbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-61294-050-2
This novel is a work of fiction. Although parts of the plot were inspired by actual events, all characters and events described by the author are fictitious. No resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, is intended.
Olive Oil & White Bread
Contents
1988: The Way You Make Me Feel
One
Two
1989: When I See You Smile
Three
Four
1991: Love Will Never Do (Without You)
Five
Six
Seven
1994: The Power of Love
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
1997: Semi-Charmed Life
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
1999: Kiss Me
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
2001: Hanging by a Moment
Twenty
Twenty-One
2005: Lonely No More
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
2006: SexyBack
Thirty
2011: Raise a Glass
Thirty-One
About the Author
Acknowledgments
1988
The Way You Make Me Feel
One
Jillian Clark stood in the on-deck circle, waiting for her turn at bat and reflecting on what her friend Tinny had told her.
Left center’s got a weak arm. If you get the chance to go home, take it.
It was her Thursday night softball league—the third time this week she’d played—and she felt strong. Content. It was mid-August. Summer was almost over; she was fresh out of college and ready to start her first real, full-time job. Life was good.
She took a couple of practice swings then squatted down to tighten the laces on her cleats when her peripheral vision caught movement and she stood up straight to look around. Two women walked together, chatting animatedly. One of them was Laura, a woman Jillian had met in passing. The other—took Jillian’s breath away. All movement became sluggish, until Laura and the most gorgeous brunette Jillian had ever seen were moving in slow motion, like a scene from a romantic comedy. For Jillian in that moment, nothing existed except that beautiful woman. Body moving fluidly as she walked, she was tall and curvy—and completely out of Jillian’s league. She wore cut-off jeans and a clingy chocolate brown T-shirt with a V-neck that showed a teasing peek of cleavage. The color of the shirt accentuated her large brown eyes and what had to be ten pounds of thick, wavy, dark hair. Her skin was tanner than Jillian would ever be in her lifetime, even if she spent every day in a tanning bed, and she smelled like a combination of scents that Jillian couldn’t quite pinpoint, but was immediately drawn to: sandalwood, something tangy, musky, something spicy. The woman looked directly at Jillian as she sauntered by, still talking with Laura, and their eyes held for a beat longer than necessary. She gave Jillian a lazy, sexy smile and arched one dark eyebrow as she did it. It nearly melted Jillian into a puddle where she stood.
Then the moment was over.
Wow.
Jillian stared after the woman whose scent still lingered in Jillian’s nostrils, her eyes locked so obviously on the retreating form that some of her teammates began to laugh.
“Batter?” she heard a male voice say. He sounded far away.
“Jillian.” This time it was Tinny, and Jillian blinked rapidly, looked around, felt weirdly confused. She saw Tinny’s face as she gestured madly toward home plate. “You’re up, Romeo.”
A quick glimpse into the bleachers told her that Laura and her beautiful friend had taken seats and were watching the game. Now is the time to be impressive. Now or never. “No pressure or anything,” she muttered under her breath and stepped into the batter’s box. Holding up a hand to the ump, she dug her back foot into the dirt, twisted it left and right until it felt even and sure in the spot. She glanced at her teammate preparing to lead off from first, then gripped the bat, took one practice swing, and crouched into her stance.
The softball gods smiled on her. She waited for the second pitch—following her cousin’s advice to never, ever swing at the first one—and the second the ball hit the bat, solid and direct, Jillian knew it was a base hit. As the ball flew into deep right field, she ran hard, stopping easily on second base and bringing in an RBI to the cheering and applause of her teammates. It was hard to tell from where she stood, but she was pretty sure Laura and—more importantly—the gorgeous brunette were watching. How about that stunning display of athletic prowess, huh? Interested yet? She shook her head at her own cocky thoughts.
And the smiling of the softball gods pretty much stopped there.
The next batter popped out to the short stop, so Jillian stayed on second. With two outs, Tinny came up to bat. She was a big woman, broad-shouldered and thick-legged, and Jillian watched with a grin as the outfielders took a few steps back, intelligently so. True to form, Tinny crushed a pitch right down the middle toward the left center fielder. Jillian took off like a shot. As she approached third, Tinny’s voice echoed in her head.
Left center’s got a weak arm.
That was all she needed for her ego to take over, and she ignored the third base coach, who was giving her the “Stop Right Here” sign as clearly as she possibly could without jumping up and down screaming. Jillian blew past her, determined to make an impression on the beautiful stranger sitting in the bleachers.
Turned out, Tinny was somehow mistaken. The left center fielder made a picture-perfect throw that Jillian heard whiz by her head. The catcher had the ball in her mitt well before Jillian had even made the decision to take her out. They collided in a billowing cloud of dust and sweat and body hitting body, an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object. The sound from the crowd was a collective wince.
As luck would have it, the catcher was roughly the size of a small mountain. The 5’4” Jillian didn’t stand a chance, like a cartoon character hitting a brick wall and falling flat. That’s certainly how it felt.
“Out!”
Jillian knew it before she heard it. Cheers went up from the opponents’ bench. Jillian laid on her back in the dirt and groaned as the cloud of dust settled around her, certain she’d broken every bone in her body—or at least most of them—and wondered if she’d ever be able to breathe normally again.
“Batter? You okay?” the umpire asked, not unkindly.
Jillian glanced at the bleachers. Laura and her gorgeous friend were nowhere to be seen. “Nothing shattered but my pride,” she muttered, not quite sure if that was true. She gingerly flexed fingers and toes, then legs and arms, to make sure everything still worked. Tinny came up next to her and grasped her arm.
“You okay, Jill? Jesus, that was a hard hit.”
“Thanks for the news flash. I thought you said left center couldn’t throw.”
Tinny grimaced as she pulled her friend
to her feet. “Yeah, I meant right center.”
“Perfect. That’s just perfect.” Jillian limped off the field with Tinny’s help, in dire need of an ice pack and a beer, and trying to ascertain just how big the black and blue bruise on her outer thigh was going to be. She shook her head, irritated by the whole event, sure that since she’d never seen the gorgeous brunette before, she’d probably never see her again. She’d blown it. Big time. She was sure of it.
She was wrong.
Angelina Righetti looked around in awe. Never had she been in a straight bar that was so completely filled with lesbians. In fact, now that she was what her friend Laura liked to call “officially out,” it seemed like she was seeing short-haired, athletic, slightly masculine women everywhere. This, she knew (from some lesson in her college econ class) was an example of the Law of Attraction. Start thinking about a certain product and suddenly you begin to see it everywhere you look. For Angie, this had been most true of cars, but lately, it was happening to her with gay women.
“Sweetie, close your mouth,” Laura said, interrupting Angie’s thoughts. “You’re going to draw flies.”
Angie spoke louder than she wanted to so she could be heard over Guns N’ Roses belting “Sweet Child O’ Mine” from the jukebox. “Is it just me or is this place crawling with dykes?”
Laura’s beer dribbled down her chin as she tried to drink and laugh at the same time. She looked around as she wiped her face. “It’s not just you. It’s Thursday. This place sponsors, like, four softball teams on Thursday. Softball equals us.”
Angie nodded, still not quite used to being part of the “us.” Not quite used to it and not quite comfortable with it, if she was going to be honest. It still felt so new to her, even though Laura said she knew the second they’d met at college their freshman year. Laura had proven the existence of her impeccable gaydar to Angie more than once, so she couldn’t really argue with her, but it had taken her three-and-a-half years to figure out what Laura knew immediately.
“You’ve got a pretty wide selection here,” Laura commented with a waggle of eyebrows. “See anything worth trying out? Taking for a spin, perhaps?”
Angie knew that her answer was no, but she made a show of looking around anyway, scoping out the “merchandise.” Laura was determined to find her a girlfriend, whether Angie was ready for one or not. And Angie felt like Laura had been so patient with her over the years that she owed her at least the pretense of trying. So she continued to scan, stopping here and there then moving her gaze along. To her surprise, her eyes settled on a very pretty woman sitting at the bar, sipping a wine cooler. She wore cut-off denim shorts, much like Angie’s, and her auburn hair was French braided down the back of her head. One smooth leg was crossed over the other, and Angie’s gaze slid up from ankle to very shapely thigh.
Clenching her straw in her teeth, Angie said quietly, “Wow. She’s pretty.”
Laura followed her line of sight then gave her eyes a dramatic roll. “Leave it to you to find the only straight girl in the place. That’s Carly’s sister,” she said, referring to one of the girls on the team they’d watched. “She watches all Carly’s games, then sometimes comes out for a drink. Straight as an arrow.”
“Oh.” The straight girl. Figures.
“What about that one?” Laura jerked her head toward the corner of the bar where three jersey-clad women chatted loudly. “The one with the glasses. That’s Shirl. She’s single.”
Angie shrugged one shoulder and the sound she made was noncommittal. Shirl didn’t really float her boat.
“And that’s Chris. She just broke up with somebody.”
Angie followed Laura’s gaze over her own shoulder. “Which one? Redhead or short blonde?”
“Short blonde.”
She was sort of cute, Angie noted. Boyish. Like Laura. She pressed her lips together and looked around the bar again. She liked cute. She loved athletic. But she didn’t want boyish. Or masculine. Or butch. She hesitated to say so to Laura because she was afraid her friend would take it as an insult, but she couldn’t help it. She knew what she found attractive and it wasn’t a little boy.
“You know who was cute?” she asked Laura, a memory suddenly hitting her. “That blonde at the game.”
Laura furrowed her brows. “Which one?”
“Little with a pony tail. The one who tried to slide into home even though she was out by six miles.”
Laura laughed and shook her head. “That was such a boneheaded move. Who the hell was she trying to impress?”
“I don’t know, but I hope she’s okay. She was cute.” Angie thought back, remembering how attractive she’d immediately found the blonde. She couldn’t recall ever having been so physically drawn to somebody she’d never met—and she certainly wasn’t going to tell Laura about it and set herself up for teasing—but as they’d approached the game, the blonde was in the on-deck circle and bent over to adjust her cleat. She stood up and then Angie noticed the ponytail sticking out the back of the hat; it was adorable. As they got closer, the blonde turned to look at Angie and smiled. Blue eyes the color of a clear summer sky, and dimples. Dimples, for crying out loud. That’s what did it: the damn dimples; they made her swoon. Angie smiled back at her because she couldn’t help it. The entire time Laura was talking to her in the bleachers, she watched the blonde. Definitely my type. Definitely cute.
“Yeah, she is. I’ll give you that,” Laura said with a nod. “Her name is Jillian. Her team is sponsored by a different bar, which is why she’s not here. I don’t know her that well, but I’ll ask around, see what I can find out.”
“Great.” Angie didn’t expect much, but showing interest in somebody seemed to make Laura happy, and it gave her something to do. Angie wasn’t sure how she had ended up as Laura’s personal mission, but sometimes she felt like she was disappointing her because she didn’t just grab on to a couple of her suggestions and go crazy on them. Or let them go crazy on her. It just wasn’t her way. It wasn’t how she wanted to do things. Maybe she was old-fashioned, but she hated the idea of having sex with somebody she wasn’t in love with.
What she hadn’t told Laura was that she hadn’t yet actually gone all the way with a girl. Not yet. It was a little odd and a lot embarrassing. She certainly wasn’t a virgin. She was twenty-four, for god’s sake, and she’d been with a couple different guys. She’d had a boyfriend in high school. She’d had another at the beginning of college. They were nice guys. She’d liked them both a lot. Sex with each of them was . . . well, it was there. At the time, she’d thought she was in love with each of them. Now she knew that she had just been doing what she thought she was supposed to do after being with a guy for a while. And though it was terribly clichéd to say it, it had been true: there was just something missing for Angie. She didn’t think much about it at the time, had no idea exactly what it was until an unfortunate (or rather, fortunate, she thought now) game of spin the bottle at a frat party.
Jennifer Barclay, a breathtaking brunette with creamy pale skin and the most stunning green eyes Angie had ever seen—that was her name, and much to the intoxicated joy of their respective boyfriends, Angie’s spin landed squarely on Jennifer.
Angie would never forget it. Jennifer’s lips were soft, her mouth was warm and wet—and did she know how to kiss! Her hand slid up the base of Angie’s neck and under her hair to hold Angie’s face to hers. Angie cupped Jennifer’s cheek, and it took every ounce of strength she had not to whimper when Jennifer slipped her tongue in and touched Angie’s. Somewhere in the back of Angie’s mind, she was sure the guys were going nuts, but to her, it was as if the world had gone silent. There was nothing but Jennifer’s mouth and endless time.
To this day, Angie had no idea how long they had actually kissed. She would always believe there was no way Jennifer could have kissed her that way unless (a) she was harboring the same secret Angie was, and maybe didn’t know it yet; or (b) she was already gay but was using the boyfriend as cover.
&nb
sp; Regardless, Angie would be forever grateful to Jennifer Barclay. She had showed her, finally, exactly, what it was that Angie was missing with her boyfriends.
A girl.
Two
“Something smells good in here,” Angie said as she entered her parents’ house for Sunday dinner. Immediately enveloped in the scents of garlic and tomatoes, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Hiya, Pop.” She kissed her father’s cheek and watched him stir the sauce in the stockpot on the stove. Despite his lack of height, Joseph Righetti cut an imposing figure. Built like a bulldog, he was compact and muscular, and with his craggy complexion and buzz cut he radiated authority, even as he stood at the stove in a frilly apron, a dishrag over his shoulder. At his job as head of maintenance at the local high school, few employees disrespected him. But they didn’t know his secret. They had no idea that deep down, Joe Righetti was nothing more than a big teddy bear, especially when it came to his daughters.
“Hey there, my girl,” he responded, scooping up some sauce and holding it out for Angie to sample. He cupped his free hand below the wooden spoon and asked, “Enough salt?”
Angie smothered a smile as she blew on the sauce, then carefully tasted. He was always asking her if there was enough salt. Or pepper. Or oregano. Or garlic. And it was always just right. It was like a little dance they did each Sunday and Angie loved it. She let the sauce settle on her tongue, reveled in the perfect blend of seasonings, then gave one firm nod. “It’s perfect, Pop. As usual. Mama?” As she turned to leave the kitchen in search of her mother, she snagged a meatball off the plate that was piled high with them.
Joe took a swipe at her with his dishrag. “Get!” he scolded as Angie laughed and rushed to escape.
“Mama! Pop’s trying to kill me with the mopine!”
“Then stop stealing the meatballs,” came her mother’s matter-of-fact voice from the living room.
“I wouldn’t steal them if they weren’t so irresistible,” Angie replied as she approached the couch and gave her mother a kiss, then bit into the ball of beef. “What are we watching?” She knew already it was likely a classic film; her mother loved the oldies.
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