Page 40 of Toni and Addie Go Viral

Toni

Toni woke in the middle of the night when tendrils of Addie’s unbraided hair all but smothered her. She hadn’t braided anyone’s hair in a lot of years; her own hair hadn’t been long enough for such things since elementary school, but she had the general thought that it was easy enough to do.

Carefully she divided the mass into three chunks and started trying to plait them together.

A giggle was her only warning before the woman attached to the cloud of hair looked back at her. “I’ve heard of fairy knots as a kid, where the wee creatures put knots in horses’ manes and ladies’ hair, but you look a bit big for a fairy.”

“Your hair tried to strangle me,” Toni started. “I’m just defending myself.”

“It’s not sentient.” Addie rolled over. “I can braid it so you can sleep.”

Toni pulled her closer, so Addie was curled against Toni’s chest. “You got to hear about my life before you distracted me again. Since you’re awake now, tell me the things we would’ve talked about if you hadn’t lost my number.”

Addie snuggled in before saying, “Well, the big thing is that they expanded the show. We are up to twelve episodes now, but you probably heard.”

Toni started to absently thread her fingers through Addie’s unbraided hair. “Twelve is good, right?”

“Even more would be better, but it means that the pilot was well received by the money people,” Addie explained.

“All the buzz put The Whitechapel Widow back on the bestseller lists, you know?” Toni offered, still stroking Addie’s hair. “We sold more overseas translations, too.”

“Same with the show. It will air in more places than originally planned,” Addie told her. “So the real question is how are you coping with all of it?”

Toni was surprised. Most people saw only the bright part of success, and that part was great.

The crushing imposter syndrome—and the panic that everyone was staring at her, hoping she failed—was there, too, though.

She confessed, “I’m not sure I am, honestly.

I mean, I’m happy with the sequel so far, but I feel like a big fraud with every interview. They act like it’s something huge—”

“It is,” Addie interjected.

“Okay, but I sold it to pay a bill. I was hoping for a few dollars, so I didn’t have to rent out my guest room.” Toni took a pause, realizing what she was about to say.

No one but Emily knew the whole story. Addie is my friend.

It’s safe to tell her the whole truth. Before she could change her mind, Toni said, “I know I told you the small version, but the full story is that the night I met you, I’d found out that my deadbeat of a father had left my mother hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and Lil—my mother—needs to be in a memory care facility.

I was panicking. I have to make sure she’s safe, but I can’t go to work to pay for things and move her into my place.

She can’t be left alone. She and I aren’t close, but she’s my mom. … It was a lot of upheaval.”

“Your poor mother!” Addie stared up at Toni. “And poor you! No wonder you were at the bar that night.”

“This may come as a surprise to you, but I haven’t traditionally had great coping skills.” Toni gave her a wry grin. “Liquor and ladies.”

“So you were there looking for…”

“Exactly what I found.” Toni hated the flash of guilt she felt as Addie winced. “But I didn’t expect to meet a friend or the actor who’d be my character. Hell, I hadn’t even thought the book would sell. Em suggested I try writing, and I admitted I had written a book.…”

“I met you as a broke college professor, then?”

Toni chuckled. “Painfully so.”

“And your mom…”

“She’s getting the care she needs now. We’ve had our issues over the years.

I was a tomboy, very politically outspoken, and a feminist lesbian…

” Toni paused, weighing how much to admit.

“If you could letter in sex, I’d have been a star athlete in high school.

My mother was mortified. I was not a wanted pregnancy, and I wasn’t a wanted child. ”

“I’m so sorry.” Addie squeezed her, a hug of sorts. “Did you end up closer to her as an adult?”

Toni snorted. “No. I fought with her, mostly about my louse of a father, but he had her wrapped around his finger. She had a hit song before she got pregnant. Did a little touring. Then he wanted her to be a fifties-style homemaker—which was painful. She was a terrible cook, could ruin laundry randomly, and was just miserable. And my dad? Gambled away her royalties every time they came.”

“He’s gone, though?” Addie prompted after a few quiet minutes.

“Yes, but he took a loan against her house, credit cards that she cosigned, and ran up so much debt that even with selling the house, she was deeper in debt than I could pay off in a decade.…”

“Until the book deal,” Addie filled in. “You saved her, Toni.”

The awe in her voice made Toni feel marginally better about telling her everything. “I did what I had to do. That’s all. I paid her bills, and since he’s gone, he can’t make new ones now.”

“Have you told her about the show?”

“No. She’s not a big fan of lesbians, or rather, she never used to be.

” Toni wasn’t sure she’d told anyone this much about her childhood in years.

Possibly ever. Here or there, things came out in conversations, but straight-up telling someone was new.

“Anyhow… so I wasn’t expecting all of this to happen, but it’s erased Lil’s debt. And I met you.”

“My parents are a different sort of mess.” Addie shook her head, tickling Toni’s chest as the tendrils of hair slid around.

“You told me some in LA.” Toni couldn’t imagine anyone not getting along with Addie or feeling lucky as hell to know her.

“Right, well, they project their drama onto me. I guess the good news is that I think I became an actor as a result. I had a lot of practice pretending to be perfectly okay with whatever their latest drama was.” Addie huffed in remembered irritation.

“At least they encouraged my career. Mom took me to auditions, and I did a few commercials as a kid. That money is what I’ve been using to offset bills until I got my big break. ”

“I like the idea that my book was a part of that ‘big break’ for both of us, financially,” Toni confessed.

“Me too.” Addie yawned. “We probably ought to sleep, as much as my body is starting to have other ideas. We have photos tomorrow.”

“And luncheon, and a book signing.”

“Open to the public?” Addie clarified. “They shipped photos from the show for me to sign, too. I’ve never done anything like that, and I’m nervous.”

“Sticky notes. That’s the secret. That way you can see how they spell their name.

” Toni kissed the top of Addie’s head. Then she froze.

It was a little gesture, but not exactly a friends gesture or friends-who-get-naked gesture.

But Addie didn’t react. Instead, she sat up, pulled her hair over her shoulder, and braided it with far more speed and ease than Toni could ever have managed.

Then she met Toni’s eyes. “You are the best thing that’s happened to me this year, you know? Whatever this is between us, I like it.”

“I do, too,” Toni confessed. “You make me feel safe and like I want to protect you.”

“Same. I couldn’t do the things we did without that,” Addie said quietly. “If I don’t have any comfort with someone, I can’t let them touch me.”

Toni nodded. “I need to be… hella aroused usually. I’m okay touching people, but there’s a…”

“Vulnerability,” Addie supplied.

“Yes. That. I don’t let everyone I take to bed touch me, and if they do, it’s often just hands.” Toni couldn’t remember ever sharing these sorts of details with a lover. “I’ve never let anyone do to me what I did with you.…”

“The vibe?”

“Yes.”

“With your control issues, that makes sense,” Addie said simply.

Toni chuckled. “To you.”

“Maybe someday you can,” Addie said lightly. “It felt really good. Or maybe you can try something else new. I’m pretty game to try new things with you, but only ones we both want. I don’t want you uncomfortable just because I’m so excitable.”

She sounded so earnest that Toni felt like her heartbeat was erratic. “I like how excitable you are.”

“Only with you.”

“Well, I like that, too.”

“I noticed.” Addie snuggled in against her side.

And Toni could only pull her closer.

They fell asleep like that, and Toni felt an unfamiliar sense that everything was finally going to be smooth sailing in her life.

It was a rare feeling, one she’d never had in her childhood home or in her academic career.

Life was about precarious moments, but tonight, she had a career—two, actually—and she had financial security, and a friend who made her feel like everything was sunny.