Page 3

Kat

Kat only made it two blocks from the bookstore before she had to stop and sit down—in part because her tote bag was unbearably heavy (she hadn’t thought through the carrying-them-home part when she’d purchased the books), but mostly because she had a suspicion that her face had turned a mortifying shade of red, and that if she didn’t stop and take a few deep breaths, she was going to be walking around the West Village looking like a tomato.

She sat on a bench in a little triangle-shaped park and focused on the trickling sounds of the fountain in the park’s center.

She watched pigeons strut around the water’s edge, bickering over pizza crusts and fluffing themselves up to look bigger.

But it wasn’t enough to distract her from her humiliation.

She had practically thrown herself at Jude, and Jude had rushed her out like she couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

Kat had noticed Jude the second she walked into the bookstore.

And not just because she was crying, either.

Jude was seriously cute, tall and stocky with soft blond hair in a short boyish cut.

Exactly the kind of butch that Kat liked to pine over during late-night Instagram spirals.

When Jude’s gray-green eyes had met Kat’s, she’d had to stop herself from letting her mouth hang open.

But it was Jude’s grin that had made her feel completely lightheaded.

It had tugged up one side of her mouth more than the other.

Like a smirk, but nicer. As if you were in on the joke.

She had been so friendly, too. As she’d enthusiastically piled books into Kat’s hands, Kat had felt a magnetic tug toward Jude, urging her to get closer.

The pull had been so strong that she’d forgotten to worry that she had only ever kissed one girl before and what if she was terrible at it and what if Jude asked her out and then Kat totally embarrassed herself because she didn’t know anything about lesbian dating and what if she—

Nope. Nuh-uh. She needed to reel these thoughts in.

She needed to save her baby-queer spirals for the middle of the night at home, where no one could look over her shoulder while she took BuzzFeed quizzes with titles like “Are You a Top or a Bottom?” followed immediately by googling “What is top or bottom for lesbians?” The population of the West Village did not need to see that.

Kat took a deep breath and tried to stop obsessing over the many ways that she could potentially embarrass herself if she ever actually got to the point of going on a date with a woman. Which was looking increasingly unlikely, based on the encounter she’d just had.

Kat groaned and hunched over on the bench. The thing was, Kat could have sworn that Jude had been feeling the same way. But then something had changed. What had she done to make Jude suddenly lose interest like that?

Kat stood up and hoisted the tote bag over her shoulder. She was being ridiculous. She should just go back to the bookstore and ask Jude if she wanted to get a drink sometime. It was no big deal.

Kat made it half a block before she stopped again. She leaned against a lamppost, worrying the straps of the tote bag with her fingers.

It wasn’t fear stopping her, necessarily.

Asking someone out didn’t scare Kat. If Jude had been a guy, then Kat would have undone another button on her shirt, marched in, leaned seductively over the counter, and instructed him to take her out for dinner tonight.

She would have felt in control, confident, seductive.

But Jude wasn’t a guy. And for some reason, that made everything seem different.

Kat had never asked a girl out before. The moves Kat used on guys might not work on women.

What if the rules were different? What if she totally humiliated herself by asking Jude out in a straight girl way that turned Jude off?

Or, worse, what if Jude felt creeped on?

Kat hated when guys kept making their interest known after Kat had tried to politely turn them down.

And this was Jude’s workplace, where she had to be polite to Kat.

Oh my God. Kat was a sexual predator.

Her face burned even brighter red and she covered it with her hands, hoping the coldness of her fingertips would draw out some of the color.

How did you approach a woman without making her uncomfortable?

With guys, it was easy—even if the guy wasn’t interested, he would probably feel flattered by being approached.

Not unsafe. Kat didn’t want to make any woman feel unsafe. She knew how unpleasant that could be.

Kat groaned into her hands. Why was being queer so complicated?

She spun around and started walking away from the bookstore, back toward home.

It was the middle of a weekday, but Bleecker Street was crowded.

People rushed by her, hurrying into bodegas, peering through the windows of bakeries, and emerging from an old-fashioned Italian deli with foil-wrapped sandwiches the size of skateboards in their arms. Kat slowed to stare at a huge store dedicated entirely to cheese, then a smaller store that seemed to only sell soap shaped like cupcakes.

She passed three different pizza places, all claiming to be the best in the city, as proclaimed by various pizza authorities, and a row of vendors selling jewelry from folding tables on the sidewalk.

The amount of people walking around was overwhelming.

They jostled her, pushing past without looking at her, shoving at all sides.

It was stressful and overstimulating, but there was something nice about being part of the crowd.

She could be out in the world, among people, but still in her own bubble of anonymity.

But the chaos wasn’t enough to distract Kat from thinking about Jude.

The farther she walked, the more she reconvinced herself. Jude had definitely been flirting. The eye contact. The lingering handshake. That little smirk when Kat had asked for recommendations. Kat was good at reading people, and there was no way that had all been in her head.

She had to go back.

She had just changed directions for a third time and started striding back toward the bookstore when someone called her name. Not Kat but her full name: Katrina Kelly.

Shit, Kat thought, even as her body reacted instinctively, her spine straightening and her mouth curving into a smile. She thought about pretending not to have heard, but she’d already slowed. She couldn’t run away now without being obvious aboutit.

So much for her bubble of anonymity.

She turned around. Two girls were hurrying up to her, wide-eyed and blushing. They were both wearing patterned jumpsuits.

“Oh my God, are you Lily from P.R.O.M. ?” the blond girl in the lead asked. Her fingers tightened around her cup of iced coffee until the plastic buckled. “That was, like, my favorite TV show as a kid!”

“Yup!” Kat said brightly, trying not to wince at how loud the girl’s voice was.

“That’s me! Do you want a picture?” Over the years, Kat had learned that it was always quicker to offer fans what they wanted than to wait for them to pull themselves together enough to awkwardly stumble through the ask.

“Oh my God, I told you,” the blond girl said to her friend.

“We’re visiting from Boston and I was like, ‘Oh my God, wouldn’t it be so cool if we saw someone famous?

’ and she was like, ‘We’re not going to see anyone famous, this isn’t L.A.

,’ and then I was like, ‘I think that’s Lily from P.R.O.M.

, ’ and she was like, ‘Who?’ But I was right! ”

Kat laughed politely, although she wasn’t sure if the story was supposed to be funny. She noticed a few people glancing curiously at her as they walked past. She needed to get out there before more people recognized her.

“Here, let’s take a selfie!” Kat stepped in between the two girls and put a hand on each of their backs, trying to hurry them along. She smiled as the blond girl held up her phone and snapped a couple of shots. When she finished, Kat pulled away, relieved. Now she just had to extract herself.

“I have to ask,” the girl said, clutching Kat’s wrist. Her hand was unpleasantly clammy from the iced coffee. “Are you dating Frasier Pierce? I heard a rumor that you were back together and, oh my God, I would be so happy I would die! Your romance was, like, the whole reason I watched the show.”

Kat grimaced before she could help herself.

Frasier was a pile of shit in human form, and she couldn’t believe her self-esteem had ever been dire enough for her to actually date him.

She hadn’t seen him in years, either, so she had no idea where this dating rumor had come from. Frasier himself, probably.

Kat let out a bubbly laugh in hopes it would distract from her earlier pained expression.

“Now, you know I can’t kiss and tell!” Her voice had taken on a girly inflection so fake she wondered that the blonde didn’t call her out on it.

“But Frasier and I have remained really good friends since the show ended. I have to run, but it was so nice to meet you both! Thank you for being fans!”

She waved cheerfully to the girls and stepped decisively away from them into the street, risking getting taken out by an e-bike to make her escape. She started walking off as fast as she could.

That hadn’t been her best fan encounter.

Usually, Kat was smooth and gracious when people recognized her, able to keep them moving while still making them feel valued.

Her manager occasionally trolled through social media looking for fans describing the times they’d met her, just to make sure that Kat was coming off as “nice and approachable” enough.

But Kat had been caught off guard this time, and she’d let her eagerness to move on show through.