Page 1 of February (New Orleans #2)

“W hy does my head weigh a hundred pounds?”

Bridgette’s eyes opened slowly. There was a female voice in her bedroom. It was coming from behind her. She thought she recognized it but was too tired to identify it.

“No, it’s a thousand.” There was a sigh. “Bridge, do you have all the ibuprofen in the world in your bathroom?”

Jill. It was Jill. Bridgette’s eyes opened wider, and she looked down at her body. She was clothed. Well, she was sort of clothed. She was wearing a tan bra and a pair of old cheer shorts from high school that still somehow fit, so she considered them to be like the jeans in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants : no matter how much weight she gained, the magic shorts would always fit her, or so she hoped.

“Bridge?” Jill asked.

Bridgette tried to remember the previous night. She and Jill had gone out, and they’d definitely had too much to drink. Jill had been on three dates with a woman she’d met online, and at the end of the third one, she’d known it wasn’t going to go anywhere, so she’d called Bridgette to see if she wanted to sulk with her over drinks. Bridgette remembered that part. They’d gone to a bar in the Quarter, which was probably a mistake because the drinks had been cheaper, and it had been an all-night happy hour, which meant that the drinks were also basically doubled, and they’d danced and drank and danced some more. Bridgette hadn’t danced like that in a while, and she definitely hadn’t drunk like that in a long time, either. Maybe last year, during Carnival season, but she didn’t remember much beyond the drinking and the dancing.

“We didn’t sleep together, Bridgette,” Jill said. “Well, we passed out together, but nothing happened.”

Bridgette sighed and rolled over to face Jill, who had the blanket pulled up to her neck, but Bridgette assumed she was clothed, given her statement.

“No?”

“God, no. You’re pretty, I guess, but… no, thanks.”

Bridgette laughed and said, “Thanks, I think.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. So, what happened?”

“We got drunk.”

“I don’t remember leaving the bar.”

“Melinda drove us. I texted her to go get your car. She and Kyle met us on Canal, and I don’t think we’ll be hearing the end of this one for a while. I remember them offering to take me to my place, but I really had to pee, so I told them to just leave me here. I think they walked back to her place after that.”

“So, they probably assume we…”

“Yeah,” Jill said. “And I plan on correcting them today when I can make my legs move and get to work.”

“Your legs don’t work?”

“I passed out in my heels,” Jill replied. “I woke up and kicked them off, but I think my feet will be deformed for a while. Should be fun walking around the city today, giving tours.”

“Shit… Work,” Bridgette muttered, rubbing her hands over her face. “I’ve got work, too. Why did we get that drunk?”

“I’m only twenty-five. I should be able to handle my booze still, right?”

“I’m only twenty-seven. I should be able to do the same,” Bridgette replied.

“I need a shower and a lot of coffee.”

“I can make us coffee. Do you want to shower here?”

“No, I’ll go home. And I’m going to call a car because I can not walk right now. I need to get my uniform, anyway,” Jill replied. “Can you make my legs move, though?”

“I can shove you off the bed,” Bridgette offered. “Gently, I mean.”

Jill laughed a bit before she stopped and said, “Don’t make me laugh. My head is killing me.”

“Well, I can at least help with that and send you home medicated and with a bottle of water that you should chug. I’ll do the same.”

“Thanks,” Jill replied as she sat up slowly.

The blanket fell to her waist, and Bridgette noticed that Jill was wearing one of her old T-shirts.

“Can I give this back to you later?” Jill asked, tugging on it.

“Sure. Did you steal it from my drawer?”

“Yes. And those other things you have in there don’t usually go under your shirts. Everyone knows that, Bridge. Sock or underwear drawer or bedside table, not in the top drawer, where anyone could reach for a shirt and be surprised.”

Bridgette laughed and said, “I’ll make a note of that.”

“And the blue one you have in there… You need to tell me where you got that,” Jill noted and went to stand up and stretch.

Bridgette noticed then that Jill was only wearing that old T-shirt and white boy shorts. She had always liked the woman enough, but for whatever reason, she wasn’t at all attracted to her. Still, seeing a beautiful woman in only her underwear and a borrowed T-shirt was enough to make any lesbian realize how horny and lonely she was, and Bridgette was no exception.

She watched Jill put on her jeans from the previous night and then stare down at her heels, so she asked, “Do you want to borrow a pair of flip-flops?”

“God, yes,” Jill replied.

◆◆◆

“Honey, you look like hell,” her mom said when Bridgette walked into the small, local office for the family greeting card company.

“Gee. Thanks, Mom.”

“What happened?”

“I drank a little too much hanging out with Jill last night,” she replied.

“You’re really getting too old to be partying in the Quarter,” her mom noted.

“I am not too old. I’m twenty-seven,” she reminded. “That’s not even thirty.”

“It’s a workday, Bridge,” her mom said.

“And I’m here with my gallon of coffee and my headache.”

“We need you at one hundred percent, honey,” her mom replied.

“I’m at, like, eighty-two. If you can give me an hour, I’ll get up to ninety. That’s about all I can promise today.”

“Can you even drive to restock?”

Bridgette placed her bag and coffee cup onto her desk, which was in the middle of the large room where four other people worked. Her mother wasn’t always here, but when either one or both of her parents were in town, they used the single private office in the space or the conference room, leaving Bridgette in the bullpen until they left and she could take the office.

“Yes, Mom. I’m not drunk. I’m just hungover.”

“I’ve got the list for you,” her mom said and dropped a piece of paper onto Bridgette’s desk. “And the stock is organized and ready to go.”

“Thanks,” Bridgette replied.

She sat down and took a long drink of her coffee before she risked looking up at her mother.

“I’m not judging, honey, but… Are you okay?”

“Mom, Jill had a promising date situation that ended up not being promising, so she asked me to go out and commiserate with her. I’m fine.”

“You haven’t really dated anyone since–”

“Yes, I know.” Bridgette gritted her teeth.

“Honey, Jill is very nice. And Melinda said Kyle had a sister when she came by the other day.”

Bridgette laughed, her headache be damned, and said, “Mom, Kyle’s sister is super straight; not at all into women. And Jill and I are just friends in the same way Melinda and I are just friends.”

“But maybe it could be more.”

“I’m not into Jill, Mom.”

“But you’re over Toya, right?”

“Yes, Mom. I’m over her. It’s been nearly eight months since we broke up.”

“She broke up with you, you mean?”

“You just had to point that out?”

“Well, when you’re the one who gets dumped, it takes longer to get over.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated through gritted teeth.

When her phone beeped from inside her bag, she pulled it out and checked the screen. It was a text from Melinda.

Melinda Andrews : Jill looks like crap. I’m taking her to lunch later. Do you want to go? I’m buying you both a lot of carbs and some bacon, too.

Bridgette wanted to reply with a ‘yes’ because she could use some carbs and protein to soak up the sugar in the alcohol she’d consumed, but she also wanted to ask if Kyle would be there, too, and didn’t know how to do that without Melinda understanding why she wanted to know.

“What’s wrong?” her mom asked.

“Melinda and Kyle are really happy.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“No, it’s great. I’m just feeling a little left out.”

“That’s Melinda on the phone, I take it?”

Bridgette nodded.

“And she’s been spending all of her time with her new girlfriend?”

“No, that’s not it; we still hang out all the time. It’s just that Kyle is usually there.”

“Do you not like Kyle?”

“I do. She’s great. Just seeing them all loved up and happy makes me wish I had that, too. And before you say anything, I don’t mean with Jill.”

Her mom nodded and patted her shoulder as she sat back against the desk.

“Bridgette, it’ll happen when it happens. You can’t rush these things.”

“You met Dad in college. He’s the only guy you’ve ever dated.”

“I’m still a mother, which means I come with infinite wisdom. If you ever give me grandchildren, you’ll see that.”

“Mom, I don’t want–”

“Kids, I know. I’m not giving you a hard time about that anymore. I respect your wishes. I’m only saying that I’m older and wiser.”

“Go on,” Bridgette said.

“If it’s not Toya, honey, it’ll be someone else, and that someone will be perfect for you.”

“I thought Toya was perfect for me.”

“And maybe she was for a while, but not forever. You weren’t together all that long.”

“Six months.”

“And you fell pretty hard for her. Sometimes, all those hormones, when you first meet someone, get in the way of figuring out if it’s meant for now or meant for forever.”

“I get it. I just sit here, writing and stocking cards about happily-ever-afters and anniversaries and love, and it’s hard sometimes because I don’t have that, the thing that we put in all of those cards, summarizing the feelings in a few words so that someone can give it to the person they love.”

“Do you want to write some breakup cards for a while? That could be fun.”

Bridgette laughed but said, “That’s not a bad idea. I bet if I made some and put them online, we’d–”

“Honey, we’ve talked about the online thing.”

“Mom, we’re struggling. Why won’t you let me do this?”

“Your father and I like the local part of our business. We’ve always done well enough here.”

“But that’s not the case anymore. We need–”

“Morning,” Dan, the newest member of the team, who had joined them about a year ago, greeted as he walked into the office.

“We’ll finish this later,” Bridgette said.

“We’ve already finished it,” her mom told her with a wink. “Good morning, Dan. How’s your mom?”

“Oh, she’s good. The break wasn’t as bad as the doctor thought, and she’ll be out of the cast in a few weeks.”

Bridgette didn’t listen to the rest of their conversation. She got to work after declining the offer for lunch, knowing that Kyle would be there. They’d only just gotten together, meeting at the beginning of the year, and they were already, somehow, magically in love, which was amazing, but considering they’d only met because Bridgette had asked Melinda to go out with her to help Bridgette meet a woman, and that Bridgette had actually seen Kyle first, it still kind of stung that Melinda had happened into love while Bridgette continued to sit at her desk, coming up with words to describe it for their next card line that would come out in just a week to be in time for Valentine’s Day.

She worked until lunch, went to grab a sandwich from a local shop down the street, and then picked herself up with another cup of coffee around two. After that, she grabbed her list and the cards she’d need and hit the road. Since laying off the contractors they used to use to replenish their cards in the local stores, Bridgette had mainly been responsible for doing it. She didn’t mind. It got her out of the office, and she could take her mind off of things as she focused on making sure the stores all had the right quantity of the cards they’d ordered. She also liked seeing her family’s company work out in the wild, so to speak. Whenever she walked into a shop in the Quarter or on Canal Street, she’d walk over to the card rack or wall to see if they carried anything from them. If she didn’t see anything, she left her card, and if she did, she smiled. It made her proud that the small family business she’d inherit someday was delivering smiles through their work. If she did end up working on break-up cards, though, she supposed that might change.

After hours of restocking, her drive back home was long due to the traffic coming in and out of the city, so as she sat in her car, she thought about Toya and their time together, wondering what had gone so wrong. They’d met, instantly connected, and had a lot of really amazing sex. While it was true that they’d used every toy in the drawer that Jill had seen that morning, it had been more than that, though: she’d been in love. Toya had been, too. They’d said as much to each other. And they’d made plans, damn it. They’d made plans.

“Hello? Bridgette?” Toya said when she answered.

“Yeah, it’s me. Her,” Bridgette replied.

She’d called Toya for no reason in particular and connected through the Bluetooth in her car. Now, she had no idea what to say.

“What’s going on?”

“We were making plans.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When we were together, Toya, we were making plans.”

“Oh,” Toya said. “Why did you call, Bridge? We broke up months ago.”

“I wanted to know why, so I called.”

“Why we broke up?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m driving. Stuck in traffic, really.”

“And you need to know this now ?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since, and I think I need to know so that I can move on.”

“Bridge, it just wasn’t working.”

“But why? We were talking about how we’d move in together.”

“Yeah, and when we talked about it, I realized that that wasn’t what I wanted.”

“Oh,” Bridgette uttered.

“I’m sorry. I thought we talked about this back then.”

“We did. I just thought there might be more to it than that. I thought things were good. We were making plans,” she repeated, not caring how pathetic she sounded because she needed to know this.

It could help her finally move on if Toya would give it to her.

“It was only six months, Bridge.”

So, Toya wouldn’t be giving it to her how she’d hoped.

“And you’ve already moved on?” Bridgette asked.

“No. I told you, I didn’t want a relationship. I meant it. I still don’t really want one.”

“I kind of thought you were just saying that to make me feel better,” Bridgette replied.

“What? No. Bridge, I thought I was in love with you, but I think I just loved what we had then.”

“What was that?”

“A lot of sex, nights out, and fun. I’m twenty-four. I was twenty-three then. That was what I wanted.”

This was more than what Bridgette had been given during their actual breakup, so she decided that even though it hurt to hear, she needed to actually hear it.

“And it still is?”

“Yeah. I’ll settle down one day, but I’m not there yet. I knew you wanted a relationship and love and the moving-in thing and whatever came after all of that, so I thought it was better to just end it. I didn’t want us to keep going on and on and end up hurting you worse than, I guess, I already had. If I thought–”

There was a pause, so Bridgette’s eyebrows furrowed. She looked at the screen in her car, where she could see the call information, as if Toya’s actual face were on the screen and Bridgette would be able to read it and know what the woman had been about to say.

“Thought what?” she asked when nothing else came from Toya’s end of the phone.

“If I thought that you could be casual, I would’ve kept seeing you. I liked all the other stuff with you; I just didn’t want the commitment. You did. I don’t want to only see one person right now. I shouldn’t have gotten into a relationship with you, but I don’t think I knew it then that I didn’t want one.”

“Wait. You’re saying if I were all no-strings-attached, you would’ve been okay with that?”

“Yeah. But that’s not you,” Toya said. “You made that clear when you started talking about moving in together at, like, month four.”

“No, it’s not, really. But…” Bridgette sighed because she didn’t say what she was about to say. “I miss you.”

“No, you don’t. You miss what we had , which was a lot of fun, Bridge. It was really, really good sex and a lot of fun.”

“I can do fun.”

“Really? You told me you loved me two months into our relationship. And I repeat: you asked me to move in at month four.”

“Well, I don’t love you anymore; I know that much. I just miss it. I miss… God, I miss really, really good sex.”

Bridgette hadn’t meant to say that last part to Toya. It was more for herself because that was true. She missed having sex with a beautiful woman. Yes, she wanted a relationship, to fall in love like Melinda and Kyle, but she also just missed being touched by another woman, touching her, hearing her come at Bridgette’s fingers or mouth, and coming in return.

When no immediate response followed her statement, Bridgette thought that was probably a good thing, but she could still hear Toya breathing, so she knew that the woman hadn’t hung up on her.

“We shouldn’t be talking about this,” Toya finally said. “I’m at work, anyway, and my break is over, so I need to go.”

“But you’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Bridge… Just drive safe, okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. Bye,” Bridgette replied.

When Toya hung up, Bridgette disconnected as well and wondered what she’d just done, knowing full well that she’d just started something that she had no idea what to do with.