No Experience Required

by Kimberly Cooper Griffin

  “Maybe you should rethink it.”

  * * *

  When I first started writing this book, I was the biggest idiot you’d ever seen, at least as far as love went. Interestingly enough, I was exceptionally good at giving other people advice about their love lives. However, when it came to me, not so much. I was a disaster at relationships, a mess when it came to meeting potential girlfriends, and clueless about dating. In fact, I actively went out of my way to avoid it all because I believed I was better off single.

  Then, one day, my best friend, Audie—the one I have so lovingly used in example after example in this book—talked me into writing this. She thought I should package some of the advice I was giving and spread it to a larger audience. She thought I needed to help others. I thought she was nuts. But to shut her up, I wrote a few chapters. They turned out pretty well, so I kept going.

  Interestingly enough, as I was compiling the chapters, I did some major introspection and found that, even though I was telling other people how they should approach the whole love thing, I wasn’t doing any of it myself. I decided, in order to be credible, I should follow my own advice. Of course, my efforts were for pure research. Or so I thought. Guess who found the love of her life. This idiot!

  Now, I’m not saying I have all the answers about love. Honestly, who really does? But, if my advice can help a few people work out some of the issues preventing them from finding their Happily Ever After, well, then I guess this book is worth the effort.

  So, relax a little. Give yourself a break. Give your partner a break. Let each other mess up sometimes. And then try to figure out the next step.

  All I can tell you is, it’s worth it.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Izzy held Jane’s foot in her hand and rubbed the arch. She wasn’t much of a foot person, but poor Jane had been on her feet all day at the freshman-orientation meeting at school and had gone by to see her dad at the nursing home after work.

  Jane moaned and closed her eyes. “God, that feels good.”

  Izzy smiled. “I’m glad m’lady approves. How was your dad today?”

  “The same. I think he might outlive us all.”

  It had been touch-and-go after the initial stroke. It had affected his entire left side, leaving him confined to a wheelchair, and his cognitive functions had been grossly affected, but they couldn’t tell how much since he was unable to speak and didn’t seem to understand language. The interesting thing was, nothing seemed to bother him. He seemed content, and he enjoyed seeing his family. The staff loved his happy demeanor, and Jane looked forward to seeing him. Izzy still hadn’t met him, but she’d met the others.

  She rubbed Jane’s foot and thought about how things had a way of changing in interesting and unforeseen ways.

  The doorbell rang.

  Jane opened her eyes. “It’s after six. Who could it be? Is Audie coming over tonight?”

  “Who knows? That woman is as predictable as a box of monkeys.” Izzy raised Jane’s foot from her lap and placed it gently on the cushion she’d just risen from. “I’m not done.”

  “Yes, mistress.” Jane stretched like a sated cat. “I’ll be right here when you come back.”

  Izzy opened the front door, and a large box sat on the front doorstep. The delivery person was running back to the big brown truck parked in the street in front of the house.

  “Thanks, Heidi!” Izzy yelled at the back of the tall woman who’d delivered packages to houses on her street for over ten years.

  “See you at the alley tomorrow. We need you to bring your A game!” Heidi shouted back.

  “I’ll be there!” Izzy shouted back.

  Heidi mounted the steps to her truck, and Izzy waved as the truck roared down the street.

  Izzy lifted the box. It was heavy, the return address unfamiliar.

  “We need to have Heidi and Remy over for dinner or something,” Jane said when Izzy came back into the house.

  “If we invite them, we have to invite the whole crew. I’d never hear the end of it from the bowling team if they thought I was playing favorites.”

  “Let’s have a barbecue, then. Invite them all.”

  “You know me. I love any excuse to fire up the grill.” Izzy walked toward the couch where Jane was still sitting.

  “What’s in the box?” Jane sat up.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t order anything.” Izzy placed the box on the coffee table, pulled her pocket knife out, and started to break the seal. A familiar title appeared in the box.

  “Oh, wow.” Excitement bubbled in her stomach.

  “What?” Jane stood to see inside.

  Izzy picked up one of the books and held it aloft. “It’s here.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Jane hugged her. “This is awesome! Your book is a real book. How incredible does this make you feel?”

  Izzy stared at the volume in her hand. “I have no words.”

  Jane patted her on the belly. “And you call yourself a writer!”

  “I never thought of myself as a writer until this very minute. Not until I held this.”

  Jane grabbed her phone from the arm of the couch. “Let me take a picture of you with it. I’m going to send it to everyone I know.”

  Jane positioned her with the book facing her, and Izzy couldn’t help but give a goofy, excited smile. Jane snapped a picture and then picked a copy of the book out of the box. “This is good-looking. I’d buy it.”

  Izzy flipped through it. “I saw the cover during pre-production, but it looks so much better in person.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Jane said. “This calls for a celebration. Where do you want to go?”

  Izzy didn’t know what to do with her excitement. “I want to go out, but we have work tomorrow.”

  Jane popped her on the shoulder. “So what? This is a good excuse to call in well tomorrow. I can’t think of a better reason.”

  Izzy mentally flipped through tomorrow’s calendar. The goofy smile didn’t want to go away. She hugged the book to her. “Okay. I’m calling in. We can celebrate with a day of doing anything we want.”

  “That sounds awesome!” Jane flipped through the pages. “It’s so professional.”

  Watching Jane, Izzy’s heart rate went up. Jane had already seen the dedication that Izzy had written to her. She’d stupidly left the page up on her computer, so she’d ruined that particular surprise. But there was something else on the last page she hadn’t seen. Maybe she wouldn’t see it or she’d flip past it. But Jane stopped when she reached the back cover and turned again through the pages publishers mysteriously leave blank at the end of some books. She stopped on the last printed page. Izzy saw disbelief and then something else in her expression. Izzy hoped it was happiness.

  Jane looked up.

  “What does this mean?” Jane pointed at the words on the otherwise blank page.

  “What does what mean?” Izzy knew exactly what she was asking about.

  “This. What is this?” Jane turned the book so Izzy could read the words Izzy already knew by heart. “Coming soon?”

  “Oh. I’m writing another book.” The tumult in her stomach increased.

  “An Idiot’s Guide to Lesbian Pregnancy?”

  Izzy’s mouth was dry. She swallowed hard. “Yeah. My publisher thinks it’s a great idea.”

  “And why would they think you’re an expert on this topic?”

  Izzy cleared her throat. “I wasn’t an expert at love, but here’s the book I wrote about it.” She held up the book.

  Jane looked at her suspiciously. “This is a little different, I think.”

  “Yeah. I’ll need a little help.”

  “I’d say. Who were you planning to get help from?” Jane’s brows were furrowed as if she was trying to figure something out.

  Izzy was too nervous to help her connect the dots. She needed to just come out and say what was on her mind, what had been on her mind for months. But she was afraid she’d have a heart attack instead. Her voice was
faint when she finally forced the words out. “I was thinking of working it out with you.”

  “Me?” Jane looked confused.

  Izzy smiled. “Yeah, you. If you’re still thinking you’d like to give it a try, that is. Otherwise, I’m going to be a little hard-pressed to get the information I’ll need in order to write the next one.”

  Jane’s eyes grew wide. “Wait. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Izzy felt like giggling. “I think I am.”

  Jane grabbed Izzy’s sleeve. “Are you sure?”

  If she started laughing, she might not stop. “Hell, no. But I’m willing.” Relief began to swell within her just because she was talking about it.

  “You are?” Jane didn’t look convinced.

  “I am.” Izzy smiled, and then she did laugh. “I seriously am.”

  Jane let go of her death grip on Izzy’s sleeve. Her shoulders relaxed, and a huge smile lit up her face. She covered the lower part of her face with her hands and then dropped both of them.

  “Oh my God, I’m…I don’t know what I am! This is crazy.” Jane threw her arms around Izzy and buried her face in her neck. Izzy couldn’t tell if Jane was laughing or crying. She didn’t know if she was laughing or crying. It was both. Her body shook with all this tension. She buried her face in Jane’s hair, taking in the wonderful scent of the woman she loved.

  “Believe me, I know.” Her voice cracked.

  Jane looked up with tears on her face. “Are you okay? Are you sure about this? Seriously sure?”

  Izzy wiped the tears from Jane’s face with the front of her T-shirt. “I have never been more serious about anything in my life.”

  “What made you…how did you decide to do this?”

  Izzy wasn’t sure how she’d decided. When she’d written the words in the back of the book a few months earlier, she’d done it almost out of determination more than anything else. She hadn’t been sure then. But she was now.

  “I could tell you wanted it, and I did a lot of soul-searching. I realized all of the reasons I’d always had about not having a kid didn’t seem right anymore, especially now that you’re in my life. And then all the fears I’ve had about my illness just didn’t make sense anymore. I’ve learned what I was afraid of might never actually happen. It’s hard to explain, but I’m just not afraid anymore.”

  Jane’s brow furrowed again, and Izzy wanted desperately for Jane to understand. “I know this isn’t something to experiment with. Not at all. But I’ve thought about it. A lot. Most of all, I see how much it means to you. And I want to give you everything you want. This is a big deal, and I want to do this with you. I want to share a big deal with you. I want to see a little you in this world. I want to have a baby with you, Jane. I really, really do. More than anything else I’ve ever wanted.”

  Jane kissed her. She wasn’t sure if it was to shut her up or what, but she didn’t care. She kissed her back, and all the feeling she had for Jane welled up and flowed through their kiss. Jane must have felt it, too, because the kiss she gave Izzy back was different, bigger, more open, more everything. The scope of their love exploded beyond the space they occupied.

  Eventually, Izzy gently broke the kiss. She held Jane’s face in her hands and stared into her eyes. It seemed the gaze Jane returned was a physical path between them.

  “I love you so much,” Izzy whispered.

  “I love you, too. It’s impossible to tell you how much.”

  “I feel it.”

  “So…”

  “Are you ready to do this thing?” Izzy asked.

  “I think I am.”

  Izzy smiled. “Good, because I’ve been doing some research.”

  Jane looked skeptical. “Already?”

  “I have a book to write, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, where do we start?”

  “Well, duh. You know how babies are made. We practice. Tons of practice.”

  Jane laughed. “You do realize we’re both women?”

  “You don’t say!” Izzy pretended to be surprised.

  “Well…”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve started the homework. I have a stash of books I’ve been gathering to figure this whole thing out. You and I have a lot of planning to do. And practice. Lots of practice.”

  About the Author

  Kimberly Cooper Griffin is a software engineer by day and a romance novelist by night. Born in San Diego, California, Kimberly joined the Air Force, traveled the world, and eventually settled down in Denver, Colorado, where she lives with her wife, the youngest of her three daughters, and a menagerie of dogs and cats. When Kimberly isn’t working or writing, she enjoys a variety of interests, but at the core of it all she has an insatiable desire to connect with people and experience life to its fullest. Every moment is collected and archived into memory, a candidate for being woven into the fabric of the tales she tells. Her novels explore the complexities of building relationships and finding balance when life has a tendency of getting in the way.

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

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