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“Bo-ring,” Henry said, echoed quickly by Charlie.

Hadley thought on her feet. “Yeah, except there's a catch. You have to put on all your clothes backward or you forfeit the race.”

Emily laughed like little bells and soon the three of them were struggling to put shorts and t-shirts on backward over still-wet bathing suits.

Florence shook her head.

“What?” asked Hadley.

“Is life always like this for you?” Florence asked. “Just one game after another?”

“Might as well make things fun,” said Hadley. “You judge this. I'm going up to see if dinner's almost ready and to set the table.”

Florence nodded and Hadley set off back up to the house.

She breathed more easily when she was alone again. But she couldn't get the mental picture of Florence, hair up, skin soft, wading into the cool lake water.

She gritted her teeth.

Getting a crush on her strict co-nanny was definitely not a part of the plan here. Still though, the picture rippled in her mind for the rest of the evening.

Chapter Seventeen

Florence groaned as she turned the coffee shop sign to closed.

“It's been a beast of a day,” Eleanor said from behind the till. “But the good news is that tips are looking good. You've got a real talent for this, Florence.”

She had a talent for cleaning up and smiling on command, neither of which, in Florence's view, were actual talents. But she smiled anyway. “Thank you. I only wish that there was a foot masseuse waiting at home for me. My feet are killing me.”

Her feet hurt, her back hurt, but more importantly, the last time she'd checked her phone there'd been three missed calls, all from the same unknown number. She wasn't kidding herself, she knew that the debt agency were still trying to get in contact with her. The idea made her stomach turn to jello and her head start to hurt.

“Get yourself married,” Eleanor advised. “You'll get massages on command.”

“Are you married?” asked Florence without really thinking.

“Sure am.”

Florence frowned. There was no more information forthcoming and her curiosity at this point was more demanding than her manners. She looked at the rainbow flag on the cash register. “Are you, um, are you...” She tasted the word before she said it, rolling it over her tongue. “Are you a lesbian?”

The correct term, she was sure, she'd looked things up online, she didn't want to offend. But it still felt odd, not quite right.

Eleanor laughed. “No, dear. But I'm married to a woman, if that's what you mean.”

Florence frowned. Her research hadn't plunged into these territories. If anything, she was more confused now than before. Lesbian was the word she was looking for, she was sure of it. She'd paid special attention because she was beginning to think it might explain a few things.

Okay, so the word didn't feel quite right to her. But it might explain why she couldn't get the thought of Hadley in her bathing suit out of her mind. Why she kept thinking about the memory of slick-smooth skin against her fingertips. Why she burned with a warmth when she remembered the evening at the lake.

Why, when it was very dark and very quiet late at night, it was Hadley's face that flashed into her mind as her fingers wandered and then labored to bring her to half-satisfaction that never seemed like enough.

Eleanor saw her face and then laughed again. “I don't do labels much, to be honest,” she explained. “I don't consider myself bisexual either. I'm just... I'm just me, I suppose. I'll take 'queer' if I need a descriptor. Other than that, I love who I love, I'm attracted to who I'm attracted to, and I don't think about gender or sexuality in terms of gay or straight or whatever else.”

“I see,” Florence said, turning the idea over in her mind.

“Labels complicate things,” said Eleanor. “They put you in boxes that you feel you have to stay in. I don't like boxes and I definitely don't like having my options limited by what other people think I should be or do based on some arbitrary label.”

“Right,” Florence said, still toying with the thought.

It felt... good. Better. Queer, she could deal with that. Queer as in she didn't want a label, as in she didn't need a label. Better than having to strive to fill some lesbian stereotype. She didn't own a single flannel shirt and had no intention of buying a Subaru.