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B ryce felt a warm hand move along her bare stomach. Her eyes opened, and she turned to find Sophie leaning up on her elbow, staring down at her hand as it moved. Her eyes moved to meet Bryce’s, and they both smiled nervously at each other. This was the awkward morning-after part, except it wasn’t really awkward. It was nice. Sophie had her hand on Bryce’s skin. She was stroking it, and she’d just been watching her fingertips glide across it.

“I woke up with you next to me, and I still kind of can’t believe that. I had to touch you to make sure you were real,” Sophie said.

“I’m real,” she replied. “But you can touch me whenever you want if you need reminding.”

“Good morning,” Sophie said, proceeding to wrap her arm around Bryce fully now, moving into her.

“Morning,” she replied, wrapping her own arm around Sophie’s shoulder to allow her head to lie against her chest. “Well, I was going to kiss you, but…”

“Morning breath. After I brush my teeth,” Sophie told her.

“Sophie, I waited over a year to wake up next to you. Do you honestly think I care if you have morning breath? If either of us do?”

“I want you to want to kiss me again,” Sophie argued.

Bryce chuckled and shook her head.

“Babe, I pretty much always want to kiss you. I’ve spent a year wanting to kiss you. Last night, I couldn’t stop kissing you. Remember the bathroom?”

“Yes,” Sophie said, chuckling as well now. She shifted until she was looking at Bryce again and added, “And I also remember the first pair of shorts you pulled out for me to wear. They were very, very tiny, Bryce.”

Bryce cupped her cheek and said, “I don’t even know how those got in there. I packed three times. The first time, I was so excited, I just kept tossing stuff into my bag. The second time, I tried to make sense, but the third time, I had everything organized and what I thought I’d need.”

“And tiny cheerleading shorts were things you need ?” Sophie quirked an eyebrow at her. “I don’t see you wearing those.”

“They are Kelsey’s,” Bryce explained as she shook her head. “We stay over at each other’s places sometimes. I probably have at least two or three of Kelsey’s sweaters and some of Megan’s socks, even.”

“Do you stay at Sean’s, too?” Sophie asked.

Bryce recognized the soft, serious tone.

“No,” she said. “And we don’t share beds, either. When we were all here last time, we got one room with two beds to save money, but I slept next to Megs. Sean shared a bed with Kelsey. It worked out because Megan loves Kels, and Sean… well…”

“Loves you?” Sophie said.

Bryce shifted until she had Sophie on her back, and she was hovering over her. They’d done this last night during the movie they hadn’t paid attention to. Their lips were still a little swollen, and she wondered if the interviewer would be able to tell that they’d been making out all night when they talked to her later.

“She thinks she does,” she replied. “And I didn’t tell you that to make you think that anything was ever going to happen again between Sean and me. You asked why I was only texting Megan and Kelsey.”

“But she told you she still has feelings for you,” Sophie said as she wrapped her arms around Bryce’s neck.

“Soph, I don’t know what she’s feeling, honestly. I don’t think it’s love. I think she kept stuff inside for years and just finally told me before I came here.”

“The timing is suspicious.”

“It’s hard for her, hearing me talk about you,” Bryce said as she placed her hand on Sophie’s side, lifting Sophie’s borrowed T-shirt up a little to touch her skin. “She more or less dealt with it for a year, but I think the idea that I could find you and it could be something was too much for her to handle. I had no idea she’d been planning on proposing back when we were together. For me, it was obvious that we were meant to be friends.”

“But she doesn’t want that, does she?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m giving her space right now, but Sean’s feelings about me, whatever they may be, don’t change anything, Soph. I don’t have those feelings for her. I’m not sure I ever did. That makes me sound awful, but I came out to myself right before meeting Sean, and she was just…”

“Hot? Sexy?”

“No, she was just so, so gay.” Bryce laughed.

Sophie laughed, too.

“She’s a beautiful woman, yes, but she’s also a woman who loves women, and she makes no apologies for it. I needed that back then. She liked me, too, and at first, we were good. I was… very excited to finally… have…”

“Sex?” Sophie guessed.

“With a woman, yes. It was way better than anything I’d ever done with a guy, and I understood why then. Things slowed after that, and we were friends more than lovers, and now I know that’s what she wants, but it’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?” Sophie asked the loaded question.

“To kiss you good morning,” she said. “For real. Slowly and deeply until it’s time for us to get up and get dressed for this video interview.”

“I forgot all about that,” Sophie replied.

“Because I’m such a good kisser?”

“Yes,” Sophie said with a smile. “You are a very good kisser.”

“I don’t think it’s just me. I think it’s how we kiss each other ,” Bryce noted before she lowered her head and gently pressed her lips to Sophie’s.

Their kisses, no matter how fast or slow, always made her legs shake a bit. Being on top of Sophie like this didn’t help that, and if they were going to be doing more of this, and she hoped that they would, she’d have to get a grip on what Sophie’s lips did to her. For now, she just lowered her body, resting most of her weight on Sophie, who moaned in response. Sophie’s legs spread for her, too, allowing Bryce the chance to settle her hips between them, and while she didn’t rock or make a move for more, her body thrummed with the anticipation of what they’d do when they were both finally naked and pressed together like this.

“I don’t want Sean. I only want you,” she said before her lips met Sophie’s collarbone.

Sophie didn’t say anything. She just brought Bryce’s lips back to her own, and they remained like that until Sophie’s phone rang from its position on the desk.

“Well, I know it’s not me,” Bryce joked.

“Sorry. Let me just see who it is.”

Sophie slid out of bed, leaving Bryce to watch her walk over to the desk in her borrowed sweats, and Bryce couldn’t help but think about how cute her ass would’ve been in the shorts she’d jokingly pulled out for her last night.

“It’s my boss again,” Sophie said when she picked up the phone.

“Former boss,” Bryce corrected, sitting up in bed.

“Hello,” Sophie said into the phone before she paused. “No, I didn’t check your voicemail. I don’t work for you anymore.” She paused again. “What? No.”

Bryce watched Sophie’s face as it contorted in frustration and then anger, and she hoped those expressions were never aimed at her because they were intense and well, kind of sexy.

“No,” Sophie said. “I don’t care. I don’t want it. I need to go. Please don’t call me again.”

She hung up and turned toward Bryce.

“What did he want?” Bryce asked.

“He wants me to come back to work. He offered me a raise and a bonus.”

“Really?”

“I declined. No amount of money could make me go back there,” Sophie said as she sat down on the end of the bed, facing away from Bryce. “But that was dumb, wasn’t it? I don’t have a job, and he just offered me another twenty grand a year and a fifteen percent bonus that they’d give me at the next pay period.”

“Twenty grand? Damn,” Bryce said.

“I know. I should call him back, shouldn’t I? Grovel? Tell him yes?”

Bryce moved then until she was sitting behind Sophie on the bed, wrapping her body around Sophie’s and pulling her back against her.

“You were miserable there, Soph.”

“But it’s a lot of money,” Sophie said.

“Is that worth your happiness?” Bryce asked. “You have an interview today with a company you actually liked working for.”

“What if I don’t get it?”

“There’s always Atlanta,” Bryce reminded. “But I think you’ll kick ass today and get this job. If you don’t, and you’re still worried, you can call him back and do that groveling, but for now, let him stew a bit. From what you’ve told me, he deserves at least that, if not more. He sounds like a total asshole, and I hate how they treated you there.” She placed her chin on Sophie’s shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sophie said. “We should get ready for that interview anyway. Do you have something I can wear that would look at least somewhat decent? I’ll go home after and change for my Arnette interview.”

“You’ll only need a shirt since it’s a video interview, so that’s easy. Shirt, and I say just go bottomless. No pants. No cheer shorts. No panties.” She kissed Sophie’s neck. “I’ll even do it with you.”

Sophie laughed, and Bryce hoped her joke had helped Sophie get that horrible old job of hers out of her mind.

They stayed like that for a while, holding on to one another on the bed without saying anything else, until Sophie had to go the bathroom. Bryce stretched and found a shirt that Sophie could wear for their interview with the magazine and pulled one out for herself, too.

An hour later, it was time, and they sat on two different chairs: one that rolled and went with the small desk and another that went with the tiny table in the corner. Bryce gave Sophie the rolling chair, which made her look a good foot taller than Bryce and would probably be strange on camera, but they had no other choice in the matter because Victoria was on the screen.

“Hello,” she said. “You must be Bryce and Sophie. It’s so nice to meet you both.”

“Thanks. You too,” Bryce replied with a polite smile. “Bryce.” She pointed at herself.

“Sophie,” Sophie said, doing the same.

“And you’re together for the interview,” Victoria noted with a smile of her own. “Should I assume that things went well when you reconnected?”

“You could say that, yeah,” Bryce replied.

Sophie looked over at her and smiled.

“Can we start at the beginning? I would love to hear the story in Sophie’s words since I’ve gotten Bryce’s words already. But, Bryce, feel free to add in anything you didn’t include in your blog.”

“My words?” Sophie said, looking crazy adorable.

“Yes. Bryce wrote entire blog posts about you and how you met. I’d love to hear it from your perspective. How did it feel when you first saw her? How did it feel when she got pulled away? What happened after that for you?”

“Oh,” Sophie let out. “That’s a lot.” She glanced over at Bryce.

Bryce reached for and took her hand.

“How did it feel when you saw me?” she asked softly.

“Like magic,” Sophie replied. “Intense.”

“How so?” Victoria asked.

“How so?” Sophie chuckled. “I don’t even know how to answer that one.”

“Intense, like something was about to happen that mattered,” Bryce said. “That’s how it was for me; like I needed to pay attention.”

“Yeah, like that.” Sophie smiled at her again. “Like in movies and books, how they talk about the whole world disappearing around them and that person coming into complete focus; like a camera was only pointing to Bryce, and everything else dissolved and got blurry behind her.”

“That’s how it was for you?” Bryce asked her.

“Yeah. You?”

“Why do you think I couldn’t find the bar? Other than that sofa, I couldn’t remember much about how it looked inside or outside. You were all I could see.”

“For me, too,” Sophie said.

The interview continued for well over half an hour, with Victoria asking questions and Sophie turning to Bryce as if she needed a translator, but Bryce knew it was because she was nervous, so she looked to Bryce for help.

“Well, this was fantastic,” Victoria said. “Thank you. I’ll get this typed up and posted soon. I’ll send you the link when it’s live, and you can feel free to put it on your socials, Bryce. Sophie – you, too, if you have any.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Sophie said. “I’ll leave that up to Bryce.”

“I’d love to set a date for us to follow up. I’m not sure what your plans are after Bryce’s visit, but I know readers will want to hear back from you on how it’s going.”

“Plans?” Sophie asked, but it was more to herself than Victoria. “We haven’t talked about that yet.”

“That’s okay. We can just set something up for a few months from now, and if you need to postpone or cancel, we can do that then. I’ll have my assistant reach out to Bryce to coordinate, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” Bryce said. “And we have to run now. Sophie has a commitment this afternoon that she can’t miss.”

“Of course. Thank you again,” Victoria said.

Bryce ended the call and closed her laptop before she turned to Sophie and kissed her on the top of the head.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No,” Sophie replied. “Easier than I thought.”

“Don’t worry about the follow-up thing. We don’t have to do it. I can put her off if I have to.”

“It’s not that. I don’t mind. It’s weird, talking about myself and us with someone I don’t know, but it’s fine. I just… That’s in three months.”

“Yes,” Bryce said as she stood and pushed her chair back to the table. “And that scares you?”

“Not because it’s three months of us, but because you don’t live here, and I don’t live in Tennessee.”

“Soph, I blog for a living. It’s a short flight, really, or an eight-hour drive. And I like long drives, remember? I have some family obligations and things I do for my aunt that I might need to work around, but I’m not worried.”

“Right,” Sophie said, but she looked contemplative still. “Kyle and Monica both just moved here.”

“I remember.”

“Would you ever consider that? I don’t mean tomorrow or in three months. I’m not asking you to–”

“I would, yes. I love Tennessee, but I’m not tied to it beyond my friends and family. I love them, obviously, but I can always visit,” she said. “And I thought we weren’t going to talk about this stuff right now.”

“We don’t have to. This interview just got me thinking about where we might be in three months.”

Bryce sat on the end of the bed and said, “It’s still new, Soph, but what I can say is that I want us to be together. I don’t care how or where. I just know for sure now that this wasn’t one night in a bar. This matters, like we said to Victoria.”

“I know it does,” Sophie said, turning in the chair to face her. “I’ve never been great at following my heart, Bryce, but I’m no idiot when it comes to how good this feels. It was never meant to be one night in a bar.”

She smiled, and Bryce took her hands in hers.

“We should get moving. You have another interview to get ready for. I was thinking I could wait here, and when you are done, we could meet up.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“I thought you’d want to be alone.”

“I’ll do the interview in my living room. I have a desk there, so you could be in the bedroom, if you want. You can write. It’s okay if you’d rather not, but–”

“No, I’d love that. And not just because it means I get to see your bedroom.” Bryce winked at her.