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“Go for it,” Taylor said.

What was she going to ask? Something about why Taylor had brought her here tonight and was just hanging out with her insteadof giving her flirting lessons, like they’d agreed on? Or if she was Taylor’s type? Or if they could leave right now and go back to Taylor’s place? Or…

Avery looked from side to side and lowered her voice.

“Do I get to keep this boa?”

Taylor dissolved into giggles.

Six

The next afternoon, as Averywalked over to the community garden after work, she still felt a glow from last night. She’d been stupidly nervous before the burlesque show—No, Avery, no bad self-talk, remember?Okay, she’d beenverynervous before the burlesque show. She’d never gone to anything like that, and it had stressed her out to be there with Taylor, who was so cool that she’d probably been to zillions of these things, and who probably knew the performers and knew what she was supposed to act like and how and why. And then she’d had the ridiculous idea to sit up front?

But she realized during the show that she hadn’t given Taylor nearly enough credit. Taylor had been so supportive—smiling at her, cheering for her, moving a little closer to her when she could tell that Avery was anxious. It had made her want to bring Taylor along to all stressful events, to everything that she thought she couldn’t really do, just to have Taylor there to be her cheerleader. She felt like she could accomplish anything with Taylor by her side.

Even though Taylor wasn’t actually cheering for her—she wasonly doing this because…Wait, why was she doing this, anyway? Because she was having fun doing it? It must be that, right? Taylor didn’t do things she didn’t want to; she’d made that very clear. And Avery had gotten to know Taylor pretty well in the past month; she wasn’t the type of person to blow smoke up someone’s ass. Taylor was only giving her flirting lessons because she wanted to. She must be cheering her on because she actually believed in her. All of those compliments Taylor had given her on the ride home from the burlesque show about how funny she’d been and how well she’d done must be because she’d meant it, right?

Though, wow, Avery got embarrassed all over again just thinking about the moment when the Goddess had shaken her blue-tasseled boobs in her face. She’d had the urge to reach out and ring the tassels like they were bells. That had made her blush even harder than she had before, and made her scared to make eye contact with either the Goddess or Taylor, out of fear that they’d know what she’d been thinking. And thenthathad made her wonder what Taylor’s boobs looked like, and what they would look like swinging back and forth, and what it would feel like if the hand Taylor had put on her knee moved up just a little bit higher, and, well, she’d had trouble making eye contact with Taylor for awhileafter that.

Fine, she’d admit to herself that she had a tiny crush on Taylor. That was normal, wasn’t it? Especially since they were spending so much time together, getting to know each other, and Taylor was teaching her how to flirt. Plus, Taylor was the kind of person thateveryonehad a crush on. She was hot; she was confident in her own skin; she knew how to talk to everyone; she sometimes looked at people with those warm eyes and slow smile like she really, really liked what she saw; she walked and danced in that unselfconscious, open way that meant she was probablyverygood in bed…In a word, Taylor was fucking sexy. Fine, that was two words, but it was true. Obviously, she would have a crush on her, especially since she was just starting this whole dating-women era of her life.

But that didn’t mean anything. It was no big deal. She’d let this crush go on and keep that energy to continue learning how to flirt with other people, and maybe she’d eventually go on an actual date with an actual woman and put those skills to use.

She pushed open the gates to the community garden. Maybe gardening would take her mind off Taylor.

“Hey, Avery!” Beth waved at her from their shared garden plot, and Avery waved back. She was weirdly excited to see the garden today. She hadn’t been there since the weekend, and even then there had been so many changes; she wondered what would be there today.

“Oh my God, look at the zucchini!” she said to Beth when she got to their plot. “I feel like it’s grown a foot in the last few days!”

Then she laughed at herself.

“Sorry, I feel ridiculous getting so excited about zucchini, I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” she said to Beth.

Beth shook her head.

“Please do not apologize, you’re making me feel better for scaring the birds away with my shout of glee when I saw the radish seeds we planted.”

Avery walked down to the other end of the garden plot. She got to the corner where they’d planted the radishes, and looked up at Beth, her eyes wide.

“Wait. Are these huge sprouts our radish seeds?”

Beth grinned at her and nodded.

“Isn’t it amazing?”

Avery pulled her phone out of her pocket.

“I don’t care how dorky it is, I need to document this.”

“Oh, good idea,” Beth said, and reached for her phone, too.

They spent the next hour working in the garden together, weeding and watering and planting and asking James and some of their fellow gardeners questions, but most of all, laughing and chatting. They didn’t talk about anything important, only what they’d done the week before and what vegetables and flowers they wanted to learn more about next and what they both thought of the book from that bookstore event, but Avery enjoyed every moment of being in the sunshine and working in the dirt and talking.

After they were done with their plot, they walked together around the garden to check out what everyone else was growing.

“Wow, they harvested onions over there,” Beth said. “I wonder how long those took to grow.”

Avery nudged her.