Page 8 of Toni and Addie Go Viral

Addie

“Ads?” Her roommate stared at her in a far-too-familiar judgmental way, one that said all sorts of sentences that Addie could do without hearing.

Eric was Addie’s oldest, dearest friend.

They were cousins by birth, friends by choice, and roommates by convenience.

Currently, that meant a wee flat in Edinburgh, but in a few months, they were headed back to California—not up to San Francisco where her parents now lived, but Los Angeles where she grew up.

“Hi, honey, I’m home,” Addie chirped, knowing damn well that no amount of avoidance could head off the inevitable conversation.

Her cousin was overprotective on the best of days, overbearing on a few occasions.

In fairness, Addie was often more impulsive than a hummingbird on straight sugar, and Eric took their parents’ mandate to look after her very seriously.

“Why are you wearing a nightie?” Eric swept a look from toes to nose, no doubt cataloguing the new blazer she was wearing as well as the somewhat scandalous lack of a bra under her very translucent nightie. “And not much else? In public?”

“Method acting.” Addie sailed past. “Be out in a moment.”

Inside the madness of her bedroom, she temporarily removed the blazer, shucked the nightie, pulled on jeans and a shirt, and then slipped the blazer back on. It smelled like the woman who had been wearing it earlier.

Addie took a deep sniff and sighed. Toni Darbyshire.

Dr. Darbyshire. Toni. Could she be any hotter?

Addie knew that her late awakening meant that she could be a little backward on the dating scene.

The time for experimentation had been fumbling with boys, and it had bored her.

So she thought she was asexual. She’d dated only men, including a few actors who had seen her as a disposable accessory and one who thought of her as property.

By the time she realized she was a lesbian, she felt awkward at trying to figure out how it all worked with someone she didn’t really want to date, so she waited. She tried a few dates, but no one had been that person. So now she was a twentysomething virgin.

What if she had gone back with Toni, what if she’d truly tried to return the pleasure Toni had given her… and not known what to do?

Hey, I know you usually teach history, but what about lesbian lessons?

Addie winced at the thought of that conversation. Toni certainly knew how to please a woman. Addie’s drawers were still damp. Self-consciously, she shoved both her nightdress and drawers under her blankets. Addie’s face burned at the memory. She’d been positively wanton when Toni touched her.

And Toni? She’d been everything Addie could dream of, assertive to the point of dominating but still considerate. She’d made certain that Addie consented to every moment, and Addie had crossed lines that she’d not expected to cross tonight.

Am I still a virgin?

It was a complicated question. Until tonight, the only hand that had traveled there was her own.

She’d typically cut things off after a few kisses.

She certainly hadn’t moved at the speed to which Dr. Darbyshire was accustomed.

Admittedly, Addie had thought all she wanted in a relationship was cuddles and sweet words.

Tonight was proof that she wasn’t asexual, at all.

Demisexual, then?

With the right person, she was fine with a little debauchery in the garden.

She brought the hand that had been in Toni’s knickers to her lips, wondering just how much further she’d have gone if she’d gone back to Toni’s hotel.

But then Addie had realized, at a rather awkward moment, that Toni had not offered up her own surname even once.

Addie meant nothing to her, and that wasn’t what she wanted. Not at all.

Addie washed her hands and then walked into the tiny living room where Eric was waiting.

“Well? Spill.”

She flopped onto the sofa. “I know. I know. I didn’t get that last role, but I have a real shot at the Mina adaptation, and there was this professor at the history conference…”

“So you were researching?” Eric guessed.

“Yes. Mostly.” Addie had listened to Toni’s talk, and she hadn’t actually heard all of it because she was caught up in the way Toni moved and the curve of her mouth and…

Addie sighed. That was not a safe direction to let her thoughts wander. “She’s brilliant, you know. Dr. Darbyshire.”

“A professor, huh?” Eric wiggled his brows. “Hot for teacher?” He pointed at the blazer she was currently wearing. “One with passable taste.”

Addie rolled her eyes and dodged the implied questions. “She’s not my teacher. I’d read a few of her articles when I was preparing for auditions. Watched some videos online. Then I saw her talk and took a lot of notes. And tonight, I wanted to see if I was a more convincing Victorian.”

Eric gave her The Look, the one that said she was worrying him. He went still enough to pass for a sculpture for a moment, and then asked, “Ads… what did you do?”

“I just went to talk to her.” Addie silently added, And let her give me my first ever mind-blowing orgasm with another person. That was a topic she wasn’t ready to ponder. Not now. Not out loud.

“ Mm-hmm. ” Eric made a gesture with his hand like he was beckoning.

“At that lesbian bar that just opened last spring.”

“ Without me?” Eric scowled. “You knew I wanted to go there.”

“And we still can. We aren’t moving home for a few months yet,” Addie reminded him.

She didn’t point out that Addie felt like it was different when they went to bars together.

People looked at them like they might be a couple, which was the one and only downside to her best friend being a trans man.

He was already a man before, but now his outside matched his true self—which was totally awesome for Eric!

For her? It created conflicts when people assumed they were together.

“I wanted to meet her as my potential character, assuming I get the role,” Addie offered. “I went to the bar as a Victorian.”

Eric gave her a quelling look. “Ads, you went in public in a see-through nightdress. Do you not see how that could have gone terribly wrong? If Aunt Marlene knew—”

“But she won’t because you don’t tell my mom what I do, right ?” Addie glared at her cousin. He was such a worrier; he was more like Addie’s mom than her actual mother was. “And anyhow, Toni was like a knight or a duke or some sort of other dashing hero.”

She sniffed the blazer’s collar again. She wasn’t sure what that cologne was, but she definitely liked it.

“You thought if I was there the professor might think you were straight? Or taken?” Eric guessed.

“Maybe.”

“That happened once, Ads.” Eric sighed, again sounding like he was channeling Marlene Stewart. “I swear, if you’d just call me ‘cuz’ people would—”

“It doesn’t matter. The professor is leaving for her new job in DC, but…” Addie hugged a pillow. “I met her. We talked, and she was even more amazing in person, especially…” She looked away, cheeks burning at the rest of the thought.

“Did you finally—”

“It’s not about sex!” Addie flopped backward, really, really, really not wanting to talk about that right now. All she admitted was, “We had a spark. She’s amazing.”

“Uh-huh.” Eric walked to the kitchen and grabbed a half-full bottle of red wine and a pair of glasses. “Did you exchange numbers, email, social media… anything?”

“Well, no, but…” Eric was staring at her, so Addie simply said, “She’s not on social media.”

He poured the wine without looking up at her. “And how do we know that already?”

Addie smiled despite herself. “I looked before, when I read her article. She’s not online. There are videos of her presenting, her bio at the university, links to a few publications, but there’s zero social media.”

Addie didn’t admit how thoroughly she’d looked, how she tried different iterations of Toni’s name, how she searched images—or how she felt defeated by her inability to find anything at all.

“I just felt a spark when I saw her first video, so I wanted to meet her and see…,” Addie whispered.

When Eric handed her the wine, Addie continued, “And she felt it, too. She kissed me.”

She didn’t let herself think about what else Toni had done, about how tightly Addie had gripped the fence posts. Her hands still ached from it, and unexpectedly her thighs clenched at the memory.

“So now what?” Eric prompted.

She shrugged. Addie had a Plan—that was always how she thought of it. Uppercase, proper noun. It was a Plan. It started with meeting the perfect woman and ended in eternal monogamy with her one true love, because she believed in that despite how she was raised.

Addie own parents weren’t married now. They often lived together functionally, but they each had half a duplex.

Marlene’s town house. Lenny’s town house.

They lived side by side in the San Francisco area these days.

They’d tried marriage—to each other and to others—but they just didn’t quite like the “leash of it all.”

And Addie loved them. She truly did. She just had always dreamed of something more traditional.

Too many Regency romances? Too much tragic Russian literature?

Too much classic pop music? Addie wasn’t sure why, but she knew what she wanted: true love, the kind that books were written about or songs sung about.

However, her own parents thought she was impaired in some way. They’d even gone as far as taking her to surprise therapy to ask if she had been assaulted. Upon learning she had not been assaulted, Marlene had wailed that she’d raised “a victim of the patriarchy” because Addie was a virgin.

As if “virgin” were a dirty word.…

She’d tried to explain asexuality, because that was her first theory.

Then she’d tried to explain being demisexual.

The idea that a person needed to have feelings to be aroused had made her mother roll her eyes, but the truth of the matter was that Addie only experienced that urge when she felt affection and friendship.

Which meant never in my life.

Until tonight.

She’d certainly tried. Addie’s goal of getting to know each other—building a foundation, starting with friendship—was at odds with the way most people dated.

And she wouldn’t say women were worse, but sometimes it felt like she only went out with women who were impatient.

Second date? Time for a U-Haul and definitely a tumble into bed.

That was all too fast for Addie.

Until Toni.

Toni didn’t know her, but Addie felt like she knew Toni.

Watching and rewatching videos, reading and rereading Toni’s lectures had resulted in a level of interest that Addie had never felt before.

She knew it wasn’t true, but she felt like she had been getting to know Toni.

It had, admittedly, made her feel like maybe she was having an academic version of a celebrity crush—and she half thought her interest would vanish if they met.

Now that Addie had met Toni? That spark of interest had turned into a flame.

Addie had almost gone back to apologize for freaking out. She wanted to explain, but she was unexpectedly unsure if she could do that and resist going much further than she was ready for when Toni didn’t know her. Addie wanted to be known; she wanted to be loved.

And Toni hadn’t even wanted to share her last name.

A chime from her phone made Addie pause, heart aflutter in hope. When she looked at the screen, Addie smothered a squeal.

From: History Toni

To: Addie

I tried to find you after the bar. Tell me you’re home safely.

Toni

Addie wasn’t sure what to say. Obviously, she was home safely, but she didn’t want the conversation to end there. “It’s her,” she told Eric. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Ask to meet her for breakfast,” Eric suggested.

“That’s… I don’t…” Addie wanted to see her, but she also wanted time to think. She wasn’t ready to process how she’d reacted to the professor.

Eric sat and waited. “Seriously, Ads? Then what’s your plan?”

That, of course, was the dilemma. The conference had ended. There was not a lot of likelihood that Addie would casually bump into Toni. Even though Addie would be moving back to the States soon, they’d be on opposite sides of the country.

Here, they had an ocean between them. There, it was still over two thousand miles of land between them. Half the distance in physical miles was still awfully far apart. And what sort of serious history professor would want a woman who lived off theater gigs that barely paid?

“I’ll send a reply, but…” Addie was low on a lot of things, but she had ample faith that there was an order to the world. “She lives in Washington, DC, though, so we’ll be almost as far apart there as if I stayed here.”

Eric nodded.

“But I have a good feeling…,” Addie whispered. It was more a hope than anything. Toni had touched her, held her, kissed her. Surely, she’d give some sign that she was as overwhelmed as Addie was.

“Does that mean we’re moving to DC?” Eric had been the one to pick Scotland, so by all rights, it was her turn to decide where they moved.

An impulsive streak had her wanting to say yes, but the reality was that if she wanted stage credits, they’d look at Manhattan.

If she wanted television or film, she should be in Los Angeles, and that was what she wanted—almost as much as she wanted to find The One.

Moving to DC and putting off pursuing her career, all because of one kiss, was ridiculous.

“No. We’re going to LA.…” Addie hated the burst of logic that seemed to have seeped into her, but she truly did believe that if they were meant to be, they would be.

From: Adelaine

To: History Toni

I am home safely. Are you always so demanding? (I like it.) I’ve never been so… scandalous. I panicked. Want to try again?

Addie

And if all else failed, Addie could see what conferences Toni was presenting at. That’s what professors did—they talked about their research at conferences—so Addie was sure she could find Toni again if the universe needed a nudge.