Camilla

We’re a little tipsy by the time we get back to her place. This time we don’t stop in the living room. She takes the lead again, stripping me out of my suit, but leaving me in my red blouse.

“This is such a good colour on you,” she murmurs as she pulls my underwear down my legs. “The red. I like it.”

“Lick me,” I growl.

She laughs and dives in.

I need to tell her my plans.

I will.

Tomorrow.

We sleep in, and instead of making me brunch, Lizzie convinces me she knows a place so good it’s worth putting on pants.

She’s not wrong.

“This is great,” I tell her as I nibble on my second piece of toast.

“We’ll have to come here again.” She looks so pleased with herself.

I wince inside, but maybe we will come here again. Yeah. I want to. It’s just… I open my mouth to tell her about my travel plans, and I wimp out. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Do you want to sleep over again?” she asks, reaching over to steal a hash brown from my plate. “Because I want you to. Screw taking things slow.”

“I mean…” I can’t seem to get my mouth under control. “Hey, something we haven’t talked about yet—and okay, we’ve only had two dates—”

“Three dates. I count brunch as its own thing.”

I grin at her. “Three dates. So…as a comic, I talk about my real life in my shows. Which means that whatever we do together may be manipulated and revised into super quality jokes.”

“Manipulated and revised?” Her eyes crinkle up. “Because I’m not funny enough in the raw?”

And doesn’t that make me shift in my seat because my thighs are suddenly hot? “Don’t say things like ‘in the raw’ when we’re out in public,” I mutter.

She laughs.

“It’s more that…” I grab her orange slice. “It’s never about telling one funny story. That’s an anecdote, a party trick. My job is to weave different stories together to get to a larger, funnier punchline, but also have lots of punchlines along the way.”

“It’s not about being more attractive to a straight girl, but about standards being too low, about people consistently disappointing each other.”

God, yes. “Exactly. And the lens through which I can hit the painfully funny notes in that reality is through my dating experience. But those stories need to be massaged a bit because they aren’t really the point.”

“So I’ll be…what? A wild walk on the Upper West Side?”

I frown. “No. Maybe a little West Side Story, though. Opposite sides of the track, culture clash…”

“You fit in just fine last night.” Even when she frowns, it’s classy. Nothing like the twisted, angry slash I’m sure my own eyebrows are making.

I don’t like how my mood rockets this way and that with Elizabeth. This can’t be healthy.

She tilts her head to the side. “Was that the wrong thing to say?”

“Little bit.” I pick up my coffee and take a sip.

She mirrors the action and looks at me.

It’s unnerving, letting someone really look at you. Letting them pick at the masks we wear and try to peer beneath them. Hey, stranger. Who the fuck are you really?

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “It’s not for me to judge if you fit in.”

And zing, my mood rockets in the other direction. I grin at her. “You are pretty damn insightful.”

“It’s one of my best features. My boobs are also great.”

“They are.”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“You started it. Let’s go back to your place and have a nap.”

She puts her mug down and leans back, stretching her feet toward me under the table. Nudge. “Do you tell any jokes about your ex? The one whose couch you’re sleeping on now?”

I take another sip of coffee and don’t bother to point out that I’ve slept at her place almost every day that I’ve known her so far. “Not yet.”

“You will?”

“In time.”

“Why not now?”

Because I’m still bruised from our weird non-relationship and newly formed friendship. “I’m not sure.”

“Really?” Elizabeth asks softly.

I carefully watch her over the rim of my mug, but she doesn’t say anything else. “No,” I finally say. “I’m not really honest about much when it comes to Gretchen—mostly to myself, if that changes anything.”

“Ah.”

“I’m not okay with the way we broke up.” I laugh. “The way we got together. The whole thing. And we weren’t together long, so I don’t know why it matters.”

She sighs. “I was with my ex for six years, and probably only thought I was in love with him for maybe one of those years. It was still gut-wrenching to part ways. Emotions are weird. Attachment is weirder.”

“And here I was worried about you not being over him,” I say with a sigh. “And maybe I’m not completely over her? Did I just say that out loud?”

She gives me a more understanding look than I deserve. “Should you be taking notes? This sounds like great material. But just in case you want reassurance—yes, I’m totally over him. Maybe it’s easier because he has the wrong parts for me.”

“Good.” I pause. “Is this weird, talking about my feelings about Gretchen?” I frown. She started it, I think. I’m not sure. Suddenly we were talking about my ex-girlfriend, which is a totally not-slick move for our first brunch date. “Let’s change the subject.”

“Let’s not.” More softness. More fathomless gazing, her eyes big and all-knowing. “Let’s loop back to the part where you think, already, you might tell jokes about me.”

Oh. Oh! I lick my lips. “Yeah. I like you a lot more than I ever liked her. Uh…and I can see myself wanting to write material around you. Not about you, you get that, right? It’s about me? About the world? But you’re a good lens for…” I blush, my cheeks heating up, but fuck it, this is my life. “You’re a good lens for privilege, and using your money for good.”

“Sure. I can see that. Will I have a made up name? I watched this comedian once who did this whole sketch about his wife, who’s name was Jen, and he called her Clo. It was clever. Except that doesn’t really explain how it was funny, but trust me—”

“I trust you,” I say, and it’s like, whoa, yeah, I do, on a whole different level than what she means.

I never trusted Gretchen. I wanted her not to break my heart, but she did and I saw it coming a mile away.

Now I’m tumbling into something, head over heels in the most unbelievable way, with a woman who on paper is not for me.

I knew the night I met her that she was out of my league.

“You sure I can’t convince you we should have a nap?” I ask, rubbing my calf against hers. “Let me show you just how much I trust you. We can break out fifteenth-date sex acts.”

Her eyes go big and bright. “I can’t imagine what those are, but I’m game.”

“You know, the filthy things you eventually get up to…” I trail off, because no, she doesn’t know. Oh. “Okay, well…maybe we can do some story time before our nap? How does that sound?”

She beams. “Perfect.”