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“I didn’t expectyou to call so soon.” Lila grinned as she set the mascara wand down on the counter of her bathroom. A thrill ran through her at the thought Heidi had been thinking about her that day. She had been right when she’d said there was an instant connection between them from both being survivors, but she could also see the deep hurt and hesitation in Heidi.

“I didn’t think I’d call.” Heidi’s voice was soft, nearly a wisp, and Lila had to strain to make sure she heard correctly. That dark empty tone was far stronger now than it had been hours before when they’d seen each other at the hospital. It nearly broke Lila’s heart to hear it.

Giving a nervous chuckle, Lila checked her makeup in the mirror before spinning out of her bathroom and plopping down onto the couch. The silence was unnerving, but Lila had trained herself to listen to the silence for years, and she listened as Heidi paused. Just what was she worrying about? “So what did you call to talk about?”

“Are you busy?” Heidi suddenly asked as if she realized she might be interrupting something.

“Not at the moment.” That light flirty tone was still present, but Lila had to work to keep it there. Something seemed off and wrong, as if Heidi was screaming for her to pay attention and listen and take care of her.

“Are you busy tonight?”

Lila paused, trying to grasp onto the conversation and where it was going, keeping track of the different jumps Heidi made as she bounced from question to question. “I am, actually. But I have time to talk now if you wanted. My date isn’t set to arrive for a couple hours at least.”

“Late night,” Heidi commented. “I’m such a morning person.”

“I am too, honestly. I love the quiet of mornings that nights just don’t seem to give me.” It wasn’t a lie, although Lila found she spent more nights wide awake than early mornings. She missed those mornings though—something about the eerie quiet before the day got started seemed like the perfect way to center herself. “Maybe I should get up early and give you a call sometime.”

“I would like that.” A tendril of hope lingered in Heidi’s tone, and Lila grasped onto it and held on with an iron fist. That was what she wanted to hear in every word Heidi said.

“So, what would we talk about?” Lila pried softly, hoping Heidi would feel welcome to open up even more. She had a feeling Heidi was used to keeping everything bottled so tightly that she didn’t even know how to let it all loose.

“I don’t know. You have a date tonight?”

“I do.” Lila wondered if that would cause issues, but she was as open as she could be about her relationships and how she wanted to live her life. “It’s a woman I’ve been seeing for about a year now.”

“Oh, do you like her?”

Lila giggled. “Of course, why else would I continue to see her?”

“That was a stupid question, sorry.”

Pressing her lips together, Lila paused. “Not stupid, just trying to make conversation, and I shot it down. I apologize. I do like her. This is about as far as we’ll ever go in a relationship, dates when she can find the time, and I’m comfortable with that. I don’t need anything deeper from her.”

Heidi dragged in a ragged breath. “Do you want more?”

“No. I’m perfectly comfortable with what we have.”

“That’s good.” Heidi’s voice was flat.

Lila squinted at her television across the room. “You said you had a date today. Did it go well?”

Heidi coughed before she answered. “No, not really. I mean…it’s not for lack of trying.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re both trying, and it seems we both miss more often than not. She was rushed today, so we didn’t really get to talk about much of anything.” Heidi’s voice wavered.

Lila dashed her tongue across her lips, daring herself to ask a risky question. “Did you need that connection with her?”

Heidi sighed. “I did. I wanted it. I know she’ll give it to me, so long as I can figure out the right way to ask.”

“And you haven’t yet?”

Groaning, Heidi let silence fill the conversation before she finally spoke. “I thought we had at one point, but maybe we’ve never known how to communicate effectively.”

“How long have you been together?” Lila’s curiosity was piqued. It wasn’t often she found couples who had been together for ages not knowing how to communicate. It usually ended before then, and she would know, she’d seen her fair share of couples throughout her life, those still together and those who were on their third or fourth long-term partner.

“Fifteen years. Sixteen this coming January.”