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Franny tucked her hands underneath Jade’s shirt, feeling her way up the curvature of her back. There was a spot, just in the middle, that made Jade go wild, and the second Franny pressedher fingers into it, her girl pulled away with a groan, throwing her head back, exposing her neck as she released her pleasure into the night.

“You are unreal.” Franny made no effort to keep the awe out of her voice.

Jade looked down at her. She ran her tongue over her lips, then swallowed. “I love you.”

Stunned, Franny reared back suddenly. “What?”

“I love you.” There was no hesitation.

“Jade, you don’t have to… Wait, are you serious?”

“I don’t care how much of a cliché I sound like. I don’t need six more months just to know that I love you. I need six more months to keep learning how to love you properly.”

Franny wrapped her arms tightly around Jade’s waist, her throat thick again. “I love you so much.”

“You mean it?”

“I’ve never been so excited to be in love before. So hopeful. So—so happy,” Franny said. “Whatever I imagined it would feel like to finally find my person is nothing compared to what I feel every time you so much as look in my direction.”

“Francesca.”

“My Jade.”

Jade’s eyes were glistening, and from the stinging Franny felt along her lash line, hers were too.

“You know, I never actually understood people who cried because they were happy,” Jade said.

“Yeah?”

“I just didn’t get it. It didn’t make sense to me at all, how something that made me happy could make me cry too. But you’ve got me out here boo-hooing like a baby with not a negative thought on my mind.”

A few tears tracked down Jade’s cheeks, and Franny used her fingers to smooth away the wet streaks they left behind.

“You’re so sensitive, angel,” Franny told her. “Tough-ass coach. Sweet, sensitive girl. They’re the same person. You’ve just been keeping one side in the dark a little too much.”

“Not anymore.” Jade shook her head. “Not with you.”

Franny pressed their foreheads together, grinning at her. “That’s right, because we’re in love.”

Jade returned her grin, eyes still watery. “Hell yeah we are. And I—”

She was cut off by a sudden flash of light, followed by a loud beep. They looked up but made no moves to untangle their bodies.

“M. M. Butler’s Taxi Service, here for a pickup. Would you two fornicators happen to know where I can find two gals and an old truck?”

Jade groaned, immediately rolling her eyes as she finally lifted herself out of Franny’s lap. “That husband of yours is making you corny, Miri.”

Miri beeped her horn twice more in response, a shit-eating grin on her dark face. “Be careful, Jadey-wadey, before I scoop up Ms. Franny here and leave you to hitchhike your ass home.”

“She wouldn’t leave me behind.” Jade opened the back door for Franny to slide in, but before she sat, Franny leaned up for one last cheeky peck on the lips.

“Never.”

28

One day, they would have a giant clawfoot tub made of brass like the ones they had in the horny historical dramas. They’d fill it up with steaming water and sit on either side, watching each other in comfortable anticipation as they soaked.

Until then, they had the small porcelain one in their little bathroom. The one with a big surface crack down the center that Jade had covered with a plastic bath mat. It was just deep enough and wide enough for one of them to cradle the other between their legs. There was very little room to move around or do anything at all, really. But maybe that was something of a treat all on its own.