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So, of course, she met someone who made her reconsider all of her plans… with only two months to spare, no less.

She wasn’t even thinking of the acquaintances she had made, the ones that could turn into bigger friendships if she let down her guard and let it happen. Blair and even Tara didn’t grate her half as much as other girls her age, and it was probably because the other two were older and a bit more set in their ways. People called Helena immature, but from her perspective, immaturity was spending more time fretting about grades and future careers than taking life by the horns right now.

Besides… she had told Delia most of her whole truth. Most of it. Eventually, she would have to confess her real age. All it would take was Delia sneaking a look at Helena’s real birth date in her passport. It was rarely an issue the one time they had been abroad in a country where the age of majority for everything was eighteen, but this was the US, where so much was locked behind the magic number of twenty-one.

I have to tell her… Helena dreaded it. So much so that she decided to put it off a little longer, in case this relationship didn’t go anywhere once she was off at college being a freshman, not a junior or senior like Delia assumed.

She had other more important things to discuss with her older girlfriend who had a day job that kept her busy most days of the week.

“That’s quite the predicament,” Delia agreed one Wednesday night when they were in bed. Most of her clothes were off, but it was Helena who was completely naked, the sheets wrapped around her body that warm summer night. She walked her fingers up Delia’s arm while they spoke, resisting the urge to kiss her, to inhibit their ability to say anything of note. “Whatever will you do without somewhere to live?”

Helena took Delia’s good mood as an excuse to strike. “I could move in with you. Until I have to go back to college, anyway. It’ll be like six weeks. Maybe seven.”

“What were you going to do before shacking up with me was an option?”

Sighing, Helena flopped down onto the pillow, clutching Delia’s wrist and bringing her hand to a lonely stomach starved for touch. Delia rubbed the spot between Helena’s navel and mound, lulling her into a light doze while she figured out what she wanted to say. “Either get an Airbnb or head somewhere else. Do some last-minute training, my last hurrah before I gasp into the good night.”

“You like to sound like you’re dying.”

“I don’t know what my future holds…” As the weeks, the months wore on, Helena found herself opening up more of her fears and uncertainties around Delia. What had started as a relationship of sexual convenience had turned into late-night pillow talk long after they stopped making love. Fucking. Stop calling it lovemaking. Helena knew nothing about “making love.” She knew sex. She knew fucking. She knew furious, lusty hookups with someone she had known for two seconds and never saw again.

There wasn’t supposed to be any emotion attached to it. Not until she was… Delia’s age.

“Where would you go if I wasn’t here tying you down?”

Helena clasped her hand over Delia’s. As their fingers intertwined, she said, “Vegas.”

“For several weeks? Only gamblers stay that long if they aren’t moving there.”

“I’d start there and see where the wind took me with what funds I had left. You know me, I want to go where the party is. That’s why I picked Vegas over Santa Fe. Or Salt Lake City.”

“I dunno, I’ve heard some wild stories about Utah. Lots of repression out that way.”

“I’m not a repressed woman.”

“No, you certainly aren’t.”

Delia still hadn’t said if Helena could stay with her for the next few weeks. Unfortunately, time was of the essence. Helena’s lease was up for her room, and the original resident was due back from her study abroad trip in a few days. I’ve gotta be out by Sunday. That was barely enough time to arrange new accommodations on a budget. While Helena had been careful with her money, including the prize winnings from the New York club, she knew it would be gone if she didn’t secure a new summer fling willing to pay for some of her living costs. Vegas was an obvious place. When starting on her own, she had gone there long enough to get a feel for the scene and have some riotous fun once she was picked out for the VIP crowd. All I had to do was flash the bouncer. She barely remembered that night, and not because she ever imbibed or did drugs. It was a lot of fun at once.

Then she met Irene and Josh again… and was sucked into their world with every subsequent night together until she was living with them in San Bernardino, traveling the world with them one weekend at a time. Helena’s passport was already full of more stamps than most people saw in three lifetimes.

“Besides,” Helena tested the waters again, “we’re going to Monaco in a couple of weeks. “Where am I staying in the meantime?”

“Fine, fine.” Delia dragged Helena back into her arms, their arms flopping together as they both succumbed to an uncomfortable position that would last about one minute before someone gave up the ghost. “You can stay here. You don’t have a lot of stuff anyway, right?”

“No. Just a couple of bags. I tend to mail home anything else. I like to travel light.”

“When do you have to be out of your room?”

“Sunday.”

“We’ll bring your stuff over on Saturday. You spend most of your nights here anyway.”

Helena hid her grin of relief in Delia’s shoulder. “Why are you accommodating me?”

“Huh? Am I not supposed to? You’re my girlfriend. It’s been three months. We’ve gone as exclusive as a couple like us gets already. Maybe I wouldn’t be ready for a permanent move-in, but you’re going back to Washington in August. We should make the most of it.”

“About that… what happens to us when I go back? It’s on the other side of the country.”