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“T hey moved it up,” she said. “What is with my luck?”

“What?” Bryce asked. “Oh, the Atlanta interview?”

“I’m still not over it. It’s annoying,” Sophie replied. “It was scheduled for after you left, and now, it’s today.”

“But isn’t that good? Interviewing sooner rather than later now that you don’t have a job?”

“Yes, but I was hoping to hear back from Arnette first because then, I’d at least know. I’d have an offer, or they’d tell me they didn’t want me back, but I’d know how much effort to invest in this one. I didn’t prepare enough.”

“You don’t want to move to Atlanta, anyway.”

“No, but I might not have a choice if I can’t get anything else here. I guess I could be a tour guide for Melinda for the summer and make some decent tips. That would keep money coming in, at least.”

“Jill and Melinda both make enough money to live off of.”

“Melinda didn’t have to pay off student loans for years. I don’t know about Jill, but she works there full-time, and her rent is cheaper than mine. I do know that.”

“You don’t have to move to Atlanta. You can work part-time or ask them for full-time, maybe, while you interview somewhere else if you don’t get the job at Arnette. I hate the idea of you moving away from your family just for a job when you don’t want to live there.”

“I know. Me too.” Sophie sighed as she sat down in her desk chair. “I was desperate when I started to apply for jobs outside of Louisiana. I applied for a few in Texas, one in Florida, two in Alabama, and one in Mississippi, I think. It would keep me close enough to my grandma, and all the jobs seemed like decent options with possibly good money, but I didn’t get any interviews until this one.”

“I’m going to leave and give you some space, okay? Technically, I’m still paying for a hotel room I haven’t used in days, so I’m going to check out, and that should give you enough time for the interview. I don’t want to distract you.”

“You won’t.” Sophie reached for Bryce’s hips and pulled her in close. “But I get it. Go. Check out. I’ll be here.”

“Are you sure you still want to talk to the producer today? We can move it. I know you didn’t expect to have a job interview right before it.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m not convinced this whole movie thing is going to happen, anyway.”

Bryce leaned down, kissed her, and said, “Well, I guess we’re about to find out.”

A few minutes later, with Bryce gone, Sophie felt two things hit her all at once. She felt like she could breathe and really focus on the interview because she wasn’t picturing her girlfriend lying in her bed naked just behind the wall or with her laptop, typing a blog, but she also felt this intense longing as if Bryce was already gone, and that was harder to push out of her mind before the interviewer showed up on screen.

“Sophie?” the woman said.

“Yes, hello,” she replied.

“I’m Laura. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You as well.”

“I am sorry about the whole interview mix-up. It looks like the recruiter found a slot on my calendar that was already booked, but my admin hadn’t blocked it off yet.”

“That’s okay,” Sophie said with a smile, hoping to hide the fact that it really wasn’t okay.

“Thank you for making yourself available today.”

“Of course,” she replied.

Laura was nice. She asked good questions about Sophie’s experience but also about her as a person, and they even laughed a couple of times about TV shows they both liked. As far as the interviews went, it was a good one, and had the company been local or hiring remotely, she would have definitely been interested in the job. As it stood, though, they wanted someone in Atlanta because the team Sophie would manage was all located there.

“We’re hiring remotely now, but in this case, your entire team would be in the office. They’ve all been here for over ten years, so we didn’t think it would be appropriate for their manager to work from home or otherwise be remote when they all come in every day.”

It was a good explanation, and Sophie liked that people had been there for over ten years. It probably meant they at least liked the company or their jobs. One person staying for over a decade was one thing, but six of them sticking around for that long had to mean something.

“May I ask why you’re looking externally for the manager role?”

“Yes, of course.” Laura nodded. “We did interview internally, but we didn’t find anyone with the right amount of experience that we were looking for.”

Sophie nodded, and they continued to talk about the role until the end of the interview, where she asked a couple of questions. Then, Laura took a few minutes to discuss Atlanta itself. She explained the location of the office and even suggested a few places Sophie could look for an apartment or a house. Sophie took that as a good sign because she’d sat through enough interviews to know that they wouldn’t take the time to do that unless they at least wanted her to move on to the next round of the interview process.

Feeling bad then, Sophie closed her laptop and turned to stare out the living room window. She didn’t want to move to Atlanta. She wanted the job at Arnette. She wanted to stay in New Orleans. She had friends here now, and she wanted time with her family. Yes, she could do that from Atlanta; it wasn’t that far away. But it wouldn’t be the same. She knew that for some natives, New Orleans was a place to live, but it wasn’t just that for her. Sophie loved that she could go get a beignet anytime she wanted or that she could find streets of art galleries to peruse and not buy, not feeling guilty about it because the tourists rarely bought things after looking, too. As crowded as the city got, and as much as she complained about it, she loved that there was something about her home that drew people to it. If Sophie wanted to hear some great jazz music, she only needed to walk to the nearest bar. If she wanted the best food in the South, she had it all outside her window.

All of that was true, but now there was something else that had her feeling like she never wanted to leave. She’d met Bryce here. They had a bar. They called it their bar now. Yes, she could come back and visit, but she liked the idea of them thinking about plans for the night and deciding to go to their bar for a bit of nostalgia. They could get there early so that they could sit on their sofa, which would be replaced soon, most likely. She liked the idea of dancing with Bryce there whenever they wanted to remember the night they’d met and the night they’d found one another again.

Sophie heard the key in the lock of her front door, and she smiled. Besides Bryce’s sounds in her ear when she was about to come, Sophie wasn’t sure there was a better sound in the world. Her girlfriend was letting herself into her apartment like they’d been together forever. When the door opened and Bryce stood there, Sophie smiled instantly.

“It went well?” Bryce asked.

“Oh. Yeah. But I’m just smiling at you letting yourself in.”

“Yeah?”

“I like it,” Sophie replied.

“I do, too,” Bryce said with a smile as she closed the door behind her. “I’m glad you do because I just checked out of my hotel, so you’re stuck with me here.”

Sophie stood and walked to her, wrapping her arms around Bryce’s neck.

“I’m going to turn down the second interview, assuming I get it.”

“With Atlanta? Was it that bad?”

“No, it was that good .”

Bryce stared at her in confusion.

“I liked the woman who would be my manager, and the role sounds like what I want, but I don’t want to waste their time. I don’t want to move to Atlanta, and it wouldn’t be fair of me to go through the rest of the process. I feel bad enough about wasting Laura’s time.”

“Are you sure? You were worried before.”

“I’m sure. I’ll take the tour guide offer if I need to. I’ll just have to brush up on my New Orleans history.”

“You’ll hear back from Arnette soon,” Bryce said as she wrapped her arms around Sophie’s waist.

“I hope so,” she replied.

“Do you want me to pull up a chair for the producer meeting? I’d like you in it with me, but if you’d prefer not to, I can talk to her and report back.”

“You really want this, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Bry, you really want someone to make a movie about our story, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s kind of cool, but I’d want it to be done right. I’m pretty close to the whole thing, obviously.” Bryce smiled. “I’d hate for them to make some awful movie about us. I also want to be aware of asking too much of you. There was already an interview with Women Loving Women and the possibility of two more, and now, there’s maybe a movie being made about us. You didn’t ask for this when you met me. And I like food blogging. I can go back to that no problem with my new subscribers and hope some of them stick around for the food stuff. I don’t have to ever write another word about us, Soph. I don’t want to put any kind of pressure on this , either. A movie isn’t something that they can post online tomorrow. It would take months, maybe even a couple of years, and I hope we’re still together, but I don’t want any pressure on us to stay that way just because there’s a movie coming out telling the story of how we met.”

Sophie nodded and said, “I don’t know how I feel about it, honestly. I guess I’d need to believe it was actually going to happen before I form real feelings about it, but I don’t mind talking to the producer with you today. What’s her name?”

“Eloise,” Bryce replied. “And are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Sophie said. “I’ll tell you if there are things I don’t want to do, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Bryce replied.

Sophie kissed her slowly, wanting the comfort of her arms around her body and Bryce’s lips against her own. This was the first morning they had woken up without having sex since they started doing that a few days ago. They had lain in bed, sipping coffee and talking about what they wanted to do that day. Bryce had scrolled through her social media notifications and emails pertaining to her business, and Sophie did a crossword puzzle on her app, asking Bryce to help her with one of the clues. It was quite possibly the most content she’d ever felt in the morning.

It had gotten interrupted by the change in the interview schedule, which had really pissed her off at first. It hadn’t been her fault that they’d not scheduled things correctly on their end, causing her to have to scramble to shower and get dressed for her interview. Still, she was glad that she’d done it. Laura was nice, and Sophie felt like knowing that she would likely enjoy the company and the job but knew for a fact that she didn’t want to move was important, and the interview had helped her figure that out.

An hour later, Sophie received an email asking her for a second interview, and she politely declined, explaining that it wasn’t them; it was her. She didn’t mention the thing about not wanting to relocate. She explained that she’d changed her mind about interviewing altogether. It wasn’t exactly honest, but she still felt good about not wasting any more of their time. Getting a second interview boosted her confidence as well, which made her want to get her computer out and start looking for other jobs in case Arnette didn’t work out. She’d have to do that later, though, because she and Bryce were sitting in front of Bryce’s computer, waiting for the producer to show up to their meeting.

“You must be Sophie,” Eloise said the second she appeared on the screen.

“I am. Nice to meet you,” Sophie replied.

“Bryce, nice to see you in person,” the woman added, putting air quotes around the words ‘in person.’

“You too,” Bryce said.

“So, did you both read over the contracts?”

“We did, yes. We haven’t had a lawyer read them yet, though. This came out of the blue for us, and we’re trying to enjoy my visit by not getting lawyers involved,” Bryce joked.

Eloise laughed and said, “I try not to get lawyers involved in my relationships, too, so that makes perfect sense to me. Are there any questions I can answer for you, though?”

“I wanted to make sure that the wording ‘life rights’ only refers to our story,” Sophie chimed in. “Meaning, the period of time when Bryce and I met up until our reconnection recently.”

“You have someone wanting to make a movie about your childhood?” Eloise asked.

“No, but Bryce is a writer, and if she wants to write blogs about us or herself in the future, I want her to be able to do that without getting sued by you.”

Bryce lifted an eyebrow over at Sophie.

“We would only hold those rights, yes, and it would only pertain to things on film, so you can write about your life in books or blogs, if you want.”

“Okay,” Sophie replied. “I’ll still have a lawyer review it to make sure.”

“You definitely should. It’s the smart move. Look, I’m sure you’ve heard things about Hollywood producers, but I promise, we’re not like that. For one, I live in a studio in Long Beach.” Eloise chuckled. “We’re a small production company, and we only make LGBTQ+ movies. We do about two a year, if we’re lucky, and we think this one could be a hit. I’m hoping to sell it to Netflix or Hulu now that they’re getting in on stories about people like us.”

“Hulu?” Sophie asked.

“Yes. We would try to film in New Orleans, if we can, to make it authentic, and we would like both of you to consult closely. They also give tax breaks, and we would hire a local crew and save money because it’s not LA prices. We want to get it right, and we would pay you to help, obviously. Not Hollywood blockbuster money, but we’d still pay you something.”

“So, this is really a thing? Like, it’s legit?” Sophie asked.

“If you sign off, we will be getting started on this right away, so yes, it’s legit,” Eloise replied.

“How do you feel now ?” Bryce asked her with a small laugh.