Page 56 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls (Kissing At Work #2)

“ S hould we tell anyone our dating started as an act?”

Skye turned to Celene in a linen shirt over a bikini top, tapping a rhythm on her steering wheel. Outside the windows, rain poured down—an opportune time to broach the topic.

Evenly, Celene replied, “To my family, no. It doesn’t make a difference.”

“I agree. It’d be more work explaining the why, and everyone would end up frustrated.

” Skye nodded, then crossed legs mostly bare in her cutoff jeans.

“Same for Luce. As for Thalia and Larkin, I think they deserve to know when we started for real. And you know how Thalia’s all about transferring energy and truth. ”

She’d fished the moonstone from the backpack she and Celene shared for the occasion—an afternoon at one of Yielding’s local pools.

They’d searched for the best one across town.

Clean, fewer children, plenty of shade to read.

The weather app failed them; dark clouds had swelled the sky as they left the Vale house, and once they arrived outside the pool, rain pierced the ground in streams.

From the same bag, Celene uncovered her latest read: a memoir on a mother grieving the disappearance of her two children. Not the sunniest poolside read.

Celene thumbed to her bookmark in the middle, a consummate fellow introvert, capable of finding her comforts despite the inconvenient weather. “Tell them. I don’t mind.”

Rolling the smooth moonstone between her fingers, Skye tried not to sigh as swooningly as she wanted. They hadn’t revisited yesterday’s confessions about marriage, though it’d be dicey to go much deeper than that.

June and Zinnia enthusiastically agreed on vanilla bean and roasted peach cake, the final of the five. It scored well with Skye and Celene, too. And, selfishly, it left their favorite to themselves, to a fictional—or rather, future—wedding Celene spoke of with conviction.

A future wedding meant commitment.

A future wedding meant love .

Skye reflected on this as she gazed out her passenger window. She could always fall into her imagination, of tiptoeing down each leaf of the maple near them like raindrops, growing lighter and sparser as the minutes passed.

The trembling leaves reminded Skye of her Forever Fuchsia. She missed working on it.

Hm. Maybe...

Maybe she could set something up in the Vale house?

After showing her parents her hideaway workspace, it’d be easier to safely move her projects out in the open.

And, by extension, where Celene could see her in action.

Not to be too cheesy, but that house on Goldfinch Lane became their love nest. A nickname she kept to herself, a private piece of satisfaction.

Especially now that she knew how her and Celene’s reception would taste—like baked blueberries with notes of jasmine and lemon zest.

She waited until the maple no longer flickered from rain to reach out a pointer finger, wobbling Celene’s book to get her attention. “Hey.”

But what met Skye stunned her, and she couldn’t hide it. Mouth hinging loose, she gaped at Celene hastily wiping under her eyes, looking away.

Skye recognized those dark lashes bunched like triangles. She’d been crying. Her girlfriend did get affected by her reading choices.

They stayed like this for a minute. Celene drying her cheeks, and Skye seeing her for what she was: sensitive.

But Skye refrained from making a fuss. No matter how it ratcheted her protective side, a desire to tell Celene her emotions were beautiful. Instead, she held Celene’s forearm, saying, “Swimming lost its appeal, even if the rain stopped. Want to go home?”

Shit. Home . She’d gotten too comfortable staying over.

Celene let Skye off the hook. Even if Skye spotted her gaze twitch around her face intently, absorbing her words. “Sure. I enjoyed this.”

“Me, too,” Skye admitted, buckling her seatbelt. “Daydreaming’s more vivid when it’s cloudy like this.”

“You were staring at that tree.”

To this day, it startled Skye to know how often Celene kept an eye on her. Rather than past acquaintances who’d ignored or forgotten someone who could go silent for hours at a time, Celene gave the impression of an admirer. “I was, yeah.”

“Speaking of,” Celene mentioned as she pulled out of the parking lot, navigating the streets without questioning which turn to make.

“Where we first met. You told me our tree’s gone now, but.

..” This topic raised the skin on the back of Skye’s neck.

“Could you show me where it was? My memories are fuzzy.”

“Of course. It’s on Whitetail Circle, midway between our houses.”

“Should we visit? For nostalgia’s sake.”

“I’d love that, yes.”

Wasn’t the only thing Skye loved.

Rearranging her bangs, elbow propped on the door, Skye pondered aloud. “Before you came back into town this time, I’d hunted through Luce’s old boxes for any pictures of us as kids and came up empty.”

“Pre-smartphone days were weird. You’d have stacks of photos from some forgettable day at the DMV, then nothing of notable vacations. They could’ve easily been lost.” Celene’s voice grew soft as she revealed, “I’ve looked for photos of us, too. No luck.”

“What a shame.”

“The only proof of our past is our memories of each other.” Celene pinned her with another glance, pensive this time. “Kind of romantic, I suppose.”

Skye let herself swoon, regardless of the disappointment. “Right. A dream.”

Celene’s first view of Skye Florentine was the bottom of her shoes.

Then, Skye’s head popped out, long beaded hair clattering against her bright, albeit unsure smile.

Celene couldn’t remember minute details, though she recalled the shock of finding another kid in the middle of what seemed to be nowhere.

Triply so to be allowed to climb trees. Tree climbing seemed so forbidden and alien.

“Through here.” Current-day Skye pointed toward two cookie-cutter houses and the leafy space between them that opened to a woodsy path.

Celene couldn’t explain why her pulse quickened. It wasn’t like she hadn’t jogged past this area. “Is this private property?”

“Yeah, probably.” Then, Skye raised a hand at a woman outside one of those houses, about their age, culling a bag of groceries from her car trunk. Yielding’s very own princess yelled out, “Heading through here really quick. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Skye, hey. Go for it,” the woman in a loose flannel replied, waving a bundle of carrots in her hand. Lacking any suspicion that’d come second nature in Celene’s upbringing, she walked to her front door. Resuming her life as Skye pulled a stranger past her tall, wooden fence.

“She and I were lab partners in high school,” Skye informed Celene, tugging her by the hand. “She’s sweet. Back then, her dog would chase me on my bike, though.”

Celene’s shoes squished onto wet pine needles the further they trekked. Unpleasant, as was the itchiness of the taller stalks of glass. But she followed, feeling worlds away from society instead of a ten-minute walk. She recognized nothing, though a longing teased at her, right in the heartstrings.

“This is it.” Skye stopped them in an area studded with weathered construction markers—cement blocks caked with lichen, broken down pallets, distinctly leveled earth where pavement probably would’ve gone.

“Development started, then the project was abandoned, I guess. But our tree didn’t make it.

It would’ve been around...” With the toe of her shoe, Skye drew a big X in a particularly thick patch of weeds. “Here.”

A first, to miss a tree that probably matched the ones surrounding them. Celene must’ve had a cycle coming up soon, because everything made her emotional today. Clearing her throat, she gathered the rolled-up beach towel from the backpack. “Want to sit?”

Celene didn’t know what she’d wanted from this visit, though Skye leaned her elbows onto her knees with her eyes closed, at peace. Attuned to the forest. That may have been reason enough.

Waving a mosquito from her legs and any hovering near Skye’s, Celene chose to appreciate their environment. Branches above swayed in whispers; gray clouds hugged the sky.

Everything was probably magnified in Skye’s head, where Celene presumed colors were lustrous and the occasional rasp of deer feeding sounded like music.

“You were crying under a birch when I met you,” Skye whispered, as she often did in their quiet time. “A black birch. They’re trickier to climb because their branches grow at an angle. I was about to hop down when you showed up and changed my whole summer.”

Celene touched the pointed tips of her flats together to a light rhythm. “I was mad at Elise.”

“Ah, consistency.”

They laughed, keeping it as low as possible. Celene bumped her shoulder, and Skye bumped her back.

“A lot of money and effort went into the mosaic business. My grandparents expanded our house, adding the private suite so they could comfortably work around the clock with my parents.” Skye paused to imitate a bird Celene couldn’t spot, smiling when it called back.

“I loved being homeschooled. Cosmo didn’t.

For years, he enrolled in public school, and one day, everyone decided I needed more friends.

So, they sent me to school, too...” She used a pale stick to carve grooves into the dirt. “It wasn’t an easy transition for me.”

They were destined to know each other, fortified by Celene offering, “I didn’t have that many friends in school, either. Teachers hinted at me being hostile towards my classmates.” Shrugging, she smirked. “Maybe I was.”

“Do you know why?”

“Why was I an unfriendly child?” Celene slid closer to Skye, correcting the towel beneath her as it creased.

“Nobody understood me. And everyone was so noisy .” They swapped sly grins.

Celene wrapped an arm around Skye, dragging fingers over her shoulder.

“Some people are born difficult, and I’m one of them. ”

Skye parted her lips as if she wanted to dispute that, then let it go. “I can relate. Always spacey, head in the clouds. Any pun for my name, I’ve heard it.”

Celene wanted to kiss her. Though she needed to assure her. “I’m a little too grounded. We balance each other out, wouldn’t you say?”

Honeysuckle and Celene’s moisturizer—Skye smelled like them combined, distinct in the rain-soaked wilderness of birches and pines. Head slanted, she searched Celene’s face—her lips and eyes earning the most attention. “I’m so glad you came back.”

Engulfed in the fondness in Skye’s stare, Celene sighed. “Me, too.”

She knew it’d come before Skye spoke the word. And yet, her breath stilled at “Dragonfruit.”

“Dragonfruit,” Celene replied.

“Why haven’t you listed the house yet?”

The definite whirl of vulnerability tied Celene’s chest into knots. Her hands kept toying with Skye’s hair, as something to tether her to earth. “How come you’ve only told me about your art?”

“Okay,” Skye dropped a leg to shuffle even closer, beauty unreasonably jarring like this. “You first. Your biggest reason.”

This town boasted more amenities than she’d given it credit.

Her improvements cured the house of unsightliness.

Rustic chic and minimalism worked well together.

Sleep without the sirens.

The fresh air was healing.

Those weren’t enough. She could find those qualities anywhere, in other states. Her idealistic visions for life in a slower-paced locale weren’t unfounded. This wasn’t a question about Pennsylvania or refurbishments.

“Yielding’s grown on me.” Celene cursed at the thinness in her voice. However, she’d endure sounding weak to tell her, “But I won’t let this place go because I love you.”

Skye blinked in a beat of three, a lovely introduction to, “I love you, too. So much.”

God, had ‘love’ ever impacted Celene this strongly? To where Celene shivered in the breeze in this light state, only for a second before her smile broke through. “Good.”

And Skye rolled her eyes in her especially harmless way before she fit their lips into a kiss made almost ineffectual by their grinning. The answer about Skye’s art became irrelevant. Redundant, even.

Because they did it, they found each other. And they acknowledged it.

Celene brought her hand to Skye’s cheek, deepening the kiss. Their lips moved in idle passes and lazy drags, ending in a brushing of the tips of their noses.

Their families might have been annoying about their private lives, but Shanice was right. Did ‘winning’ matter if Celene could experience love in a true capacity, with someone whose sense of refuge aligned seamlessly with hers? In a mutual exchange of warmth, respect, and adulation?

When it began raining again, they yelped and jumped up, grabbed their things to sprint back to the car. Pelted by cold drops, their laughter echoed around the trees and ghosts of ones long ago.