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I filled two glasses with water and ice and brought them over.

“Oh, thanks,” she said, taking a glass from me as I set out the coasters. I should have had food. I guess I wasn’t a very good hostess.

I sat down on the couch with enough space between us so it wasn’t weird and we sipped our water. My apartment was so quiet that I was going to start tearing my hair out any minute. Normally I always had the TV or music on. I was so used to the café, that quiet really bothered me.

“So . . . ” I said, drawing the word out and turning to face her.

“So,” she said, setting down her water. “I guess we’re gonna be friends now, huh?” I nodded.

“It’s a little bit harder when you’re adults, isn’t it? I can’t just ask you to join my blanket fort with your Barbies.” She laughed.

“Well, you could. Blanket forts are awesome.” She had a point. “Plus, now we can have wine in the blanket fort, which is so much better.” Now that was something I could get behind.

“Okay. Let’s do it.” I set my water down and got up, heading to the closet where I stored my extra blankets. I was a HUGE fan of piling as many blankets on top of me as I could without suffocating in the winter, so I had a lot of them. My mom also seemed to give me a blanket for every single holiday because I loved them so much.

I started yanking them down from the shelves and throwing them on the floor.

“Are we seriously doing this?” Molly asked, her eyes sparkling.

“Hell yes, we are seriously doing this.” She made the cutest little sound of delight and went back to the living room to figure out how this fort was going to happen.

In the end, we used four chairs and had to pin a few of the blankets together to make it work, but soon we had a genuine blanket fort and I busted out a bottle of cheap red. Since it was dark under there, I pulled a few lamps under to make it cozy.

“You know what this needs?” Molly asked.

“What?” I sipped my wine, pacing myself.

“Popcorn.” She ducked out and started rummaging through my cupboards. I left the sanctuary of the fort to go give her a hand. We almost bumped into one another and I apologized as she blushed. Fuck, she was pretty. So fucking pretty. She’d always been pretty, but it was a completely different thing to see her now as a woman. I got out the popcorn and put it in the microwave as she got out a big bowl and then a few other snacks.

“This is perfect,” she said as I watched the popcorn bag rotate in the microwave.

“Yeah,” I said without thinking. I looked up to find her staring at me. She quickly looked down to the plate that she was arranging cookies and chocolates on.

Huh?

I went back to staring at the popcorn and it finished popping. We gathered up the snacks and went back to the fort, but I brought my phone and pulled up some music. Something mellow. And not super gay. I settled on Adele. On a low volume.

Molly and I shared the popcorn and our hands kept bumping in the bowl and it was almost a cliché romantic scene in a movie. Without the romance and sexual tension. At least on her side. On mine? Fuck, I wanted to grab her and kiss her so hard that both of us stopped breathing. I wanted to pull her hair and slip that shirt off and taste her collarbone.

Yeah, I needed to slow down on the wine.

I set my glass down.

“What else have you been doing with yourself now that you’re back?” I asked.

“Uh, not a whole lot. Feels like all the decent people left and now only the losers are left. With yourself as the exception.” She tipped her glass in my direction.

“Yeah, yeah. I see how it is. I don’t even care. What people think about me doesn’t really matter. So what, I’m a lesbian that dropped out of college and moved back home. So sue me.” I took a swing from my glass and then realized what I’d just said. Oh. Oops.

To her credit, Molly didn’t gasp or make any other signs that she was shocked by the information.

“Well, I guess the lesbian is out of the bag.” What the hell, it didn’t matter. She was going to figure it out anyway. I worked at a fucking queer café. It couldn’t be that much of a surprise.

“How long have you known?” she said, not meeting my eyes.

“Not sure. I mean, I think I alwaysknewbut I didn’t want it to be true? Are you asking if I knew when we were kids? On some level, probably, but I never would have figured it out, I don’t think. Took me graduating high school. That’s when I found my first girlfriend.” Ah, what wonderful and confusing times those had been. I wouldn’t go back to them for all the wine in the world.

“Oh,” she said and I couldn’t figure out what the fuck that word was supposed to me.