Chapter 12
Holly closed Gil’s door behind her. Physical therapy was already frustrating enough for him, so he didn’t need an audience to watch him struggle. If the physical therapist needed her help, he’d come get her.
She went over to the kitchen, where Sharon was rooting through a drawer.
“Can I help you with anything?” Holly asked.
“No, thanks. I’m just looking for one of my mother-in-law’s recipes. I won’t start preparing lunch for another hour.” Sharon glanced over her shoulder. “Leontyne is in the living room. I think she’s a little bored too. Why don’t you girls go up to her room and watch another episode of that show you like?”
If she didn’t know any better, she would think Leo’s mother was trying to matchmake. She encouraged them to spend time together at every opportunity. Not that Holly didn’t want to, but she would have felt weird watching Netflix while she was supposed to be working. “No, thanks. I want to stay downstairs in case Gil and Reid need me.”
“All right.” Sharon went back to her search for the recipe.
Holly wandered into the living room.
Leo sat in her father’s easy chair, her eyes closed and her fingers moving to the rhythm of music only she could hear. For a moment, Holly thought she might be working on a new song, but there was no pen and paper and no recording device nearby. Just as she was about to tiptoe out, Leo opened her eyes.
An instant smile formed on her lips. “Hey. Are you done adulting?”
Holly chuckled. “Just for the moment. The physical therapist is with your father for the next hour.” She walked over to the piano bench, which was the seat closest to Leo’s easy chair, and sat down.
Leo tilted her head to the side and studied her. “You look good there. Do you play?”
“Oh God, no. I wouldn’t call it that.”
“So you do play? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Holly scrunched up her face. “Because it’s embarrassing. The only thing I can play is one piece.”
“Which one?”
Holly hummed it.
“Ah. Czerny’s Study in C Major,” Leo said. “Okay, let’s play that.”
“Um, I thought you didn’t want to play classical music?”
Leo smiled. “I’ll make an exception just this once.” She came over and motioned at her to slide to the side so she could sit next to her.
It felt nice and warm to have her so close, but playing the piano with her was like painting in front of Pablo Picasso when you could barely draw a stick figure. “I don’t know about this.”
“Come on.” Leo bumped her with her shoulder, bringing their bodies into even closer contact. “Dad is busy with PT. It’s just the two of us here.”
“Yeah, but one of us is musical genius Jenna Blake.”
“No,” Leo said very seriously and turned a little on the bench to look into her eyes. “One of us is Leo, not Jenna.”
“Right. You know you’re Leo to me.”
Instead of answering, Leo stared at something farther down.
When Holly followed her gaze, she realized she’d put her hand on Leo’s leg, probably to reassure her. It felt natural. But jeez, talk about sending mixed signals.
Before she could snatch her hand away, Leo covered it with her own and squeezed gently. “Ready?”
Holly swallowed. “All right. Let’s play.”
Leo opened the lid with the hand that wasn’t still covering Holly’s. “How about I play the left hand, and you play the right?”
“Okay.”
“Remember where to put your fingers?”
“I think so.” She placed her fingers on the keys.
Leo finally took her hand away from Holly’s and stroked her fingertips over the hand resting on the piano, from wrist to knuckles. “Relax,” she said softly. “Focus on how the keys feel under your fingers.”
The last thing Holly was focused on at the moment was the piano. Sharing this with Leo was too confusing. There was something between them; she couldn’t deny that. She felt drawn to Leo in a way that might have seemed almost sexual to an observer, but to her, it wasn’t about sex. This was all about emotion.
Leo shuffled through her father’s sheet music, found the right one, and placed it in front of them.
Holly took a deep breath and then haltingly began to play the first notes, stumbling through the piece. God, this was awful. Her tempo was all off, and she had the dynamics of a robot.
Next to her, Leo’s fingers moved gracefully and without effort. It looked as if it came as easy to her as breathing. Wow. No wonder women were swooning when they watched Leo’s long fingers caress the neck of her guitar during concerts. If she weren’t asexual, she probably would too. As it was, her fantasies ended at those talented fingers giving her a massage or caressing her tenderly. Other people might have considered it foreplay, but for her it was the main course, an experience that was sensual rather than sexual.
Holly was so focused on watching Leo that she stopped her own playing.
Leo paused too and looked at her.
“Sorry,” Holly said. “I told you I’m not good at this.”
“Then let’s play it slower. Want to try playing the left hand, and I take over the right-hand melody?”
Holly nodded and started to get up to switch sides, but Leo just guided her hand to the correct keys and then reached across Holly’s arm to the piano’s right side. Their forearms touched each other lightly, but Holly didn’t feel crowded. It actually felt…nice.
They started from the beginning, and this time, Holly played without pausing. She had to admit it didn’t sound too bad.
When the last notes faded away, they both left their hands where they were for a little longer.
“Who taught you?” Leo asked as she finally put her hands on her lap.
Holly withdrew too. “Your father.”
Leo’s head swiveled around. “My father?”
“Yeah. You’d think I’d play a little better with him as my teacher, right?” Holly laughed. “He tried to teach me while he was recovering from his first stroke, but I’m hopeless. No matter how much I practiced, I could never coordinate playing with both hands and the pedal.”
“I bet that didn’t go over too well. After all, if you’re not a perfect student, it means he’s not the perfect teacher he thinks he is, right?”
“Actually, he took it pretty well.”
“Are we talking about the same man?” Leo asked. “When I was eight, my mother had to intervene because he wouldn’t let me stop practicing until I got one of Liszt’s pieces right.”
“I guess it’s different with you.”
“Yeah.” The one word dripped with bitterness.
“Maybe it’s because you’re his daughter, and he cares about you,” Holly said softly.
Leo snorted. “He’s got a funny way of showing it.”
Holly didn’t know what to say to that, so she just slid even closer on the piano bench and put one arm around her hip. “He probably never learned how to show it. But that’s his deficit, not yours. It doesn’t mean you’re not lovable.”
That last word hung between them as Leo slowly turned her head and looked at her.
Their closeness suddenly made Holly a little nervous, but at the same time, she didn’t want to move away from Leo’s warmth. This close, she could make out the brown flecks in her olive-green eyes. The bitterness in them from before was gone, and now they held only—
A discreet clearing of someone’s throat made them both jump.
Reid, the physical therapist, stood in the doorway. “Um, sorry to interrupt, but I could use a second person for one of the exercises. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.” Holly quickly withdrew her arm from around Leo and got up. In the tight space between the piano and the bench, her feet got tangled with Leo’s, and she stumbled.
Leo caught her before she could crash into the piano. “You okay?” she asked quietly.
Jeez, she really was a bumbling idiot around Leo. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
Slowly, Leo took her hands off Holly’s hips and slid the bench back to give her more space.
Holly moved past her. At the door, she turned back. “Thanks for playing with me. Uh, I mean…”
Leo laughed. “I know what you mean. And you’re very welcome.”
A few days later, Leo stood at the dormer window of her old room. The stars twinkled down on her through the glass. As a child, she had often climbed through this window and up onto the roof whenever she had needed to escape. She slid open the window and paused. Should I…? She shrugged. Why not? It wasn’t as if her parents would ground her even if they caught her.
She climbed onto her desk chair, gripped the window frame with both hands, and had just lifted one leg over the sill when a knock sounded on her door.
Quickly, she swung her leg back down and hopped off the chair since she didn’t want to give away her secret spot.
“Yes?” she called out and turned to face the room.
The door swung open, and Holly peeked inside. “Hi. Your father is down for the night. I came up to see if you’d like to watch one of the movies with me that we didn’t get to see the other night.”
Leo hesitated. Her gaze went back toward the still-open window. The spot up on the roof was one place that she had never shared with anyone, not even Ashley. But now the urge to share it with Holly overcame her, and after all, Holly had shared her feel-good place—the room with the puppies and kittens—the week before last.
“Never mind,” Holly said when Leo didn’t answer immediately. “If you’re not in the mood, we can watch it another—”
“No. I mean, yes, let’s watch the movie another day. Tonight, I want to show you something else.”
Holly stepped farther into the room and closed the door behind her. Curiosity glittered in her eyes.
“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Leo asked.
“Um, no. I don’t think so. What are you planning to do? Take me parachuting in the middle of the night?” Her smile looked a little timid.
Leo chuckled. “No, nothing that spectacular. I’m taking you to my favorite spot in Fair Oaks.”
“That spot at the creek, where we always stop when we go running?”
“Nope. That’s my second-favorite spot.” Apparently, Holly had guessed how much she liked that place without Leo having to tell her.
“So where’s number one?” Holly asked.
Grinning, Leo pointed at the window behind her.
Holly stared past her. “Across the street? The high school? I didn’t think you liked that place any more than I did.”
“I didn’t. I don’t mean the high school. Come on. I think it’s easier if I just show you. Follow me, and be careful. I don’t want to explain to the agency you work for how their employee fell off our roof in the middle of the night.”
“We’re going up on the roof?” Holly squeaked out.
“Yep.” She climbed onto the desk chair, held on to the window frame, and swung one leg, then the other over the sill. After two steps onto the roof, she stopped and turned to help Holly. “It’s easiest if you put your hand here and—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Holly was already out the window and up next to her.
A light breeze tugged on their T-shirts as they stood on the roof, side by side.
Leo grinned at her.
“What?” Holly returned the grin. “You thought I wouldn’t have the courage to follow you, city girl?”
“I’m not a city girl,” Leo said automatically.
“No?”
Normally, Leo was quick to say that she was a New Yorker, but now, up here on the roof with Holly, she was strangely content to be right where she was. She shrugged and climbed up the slope of the roof without answering.
They made their way around the jutting-out dormer window, arms spread out to the sides to help them keep their balance.
“Here,” Leo said when they reached the brick chimney. “When I was growing up, I would always sit behind the chimney so I couldn’t be seen from below.”
They settled down next to each other, both of them leaning against the bricks. The shingles were still warm beneath Leo, even though the sun had set two hours ago, and Holly’s body warmed her on one side.
The street below them was empty since most people in town were in bed by ten. The crescent moon painted a silvery path across the shingles. Lightning bugs and stars formed a network of light all around them.
Amazing. Leo stared up into the sky. Another thing she had missed. She had never seen the stars like this in the city.
No traffic noise, car horns, sirens, or booming radios interrupted the peaceful atmosphere. Crickets chirped, and the louder song of a cicada came from somewhere close to the tree line at the edge of town. The scent of honeysuckle and freshly cut grass trailed on the air.
It was so beautiful that it felt almost surreal, and Holly’s presence somehow added to it instead of feeling like an intrusion.
Neither felt the need to speak for several minutes.
Finally, an owl interrupted the near silence.
“So this is where you went when you needed to escape,” Holly whispered, as if she didn’t want to interrupt the peace.
Leo nodded. “My parents never found me. I sat up here for hours, looking at the stars, and dreamed of being a famous pop singer.”
“And now you are,” Holly said, a smile in her voice.
“Now I am.” She sighed. It sure wasn’t as fulfilling as she had thought back then, but she didn’t want to spoil this beautiful night by bringing that up again.
Holly put a hand on her thigh, which was bare below the leg of her jean shorts.
A tingle climbed up her leg. Oh Jesus. Holly had no idea what she was doing to her. She just wanted to provide comfort.
Leo cleared her throat and focused on the conversation. “Sometimes, when the need to get out became too bad, I took a map and a flashlight up here and looked up which roads would get me to New York.”
“Is it really so bad here?” Holly asked quietly.
Now that Leo’s eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, she could make out Holly’s features. She was looking at her with an almost vulnerable expression, as if Leo’s negative opinion of their hometown hurt her.
“No,” she surprised herself by saying, “it hasn’t been so bad this time.”
Their gazes met and held. A slow smile spread over Holly’s face. In the low light provided by the moon and stars, her blue eyes appeared to be a silvery gray, and Leo imagined that she could see them shining with relief or happiness or both.
Silence settled over them for a bit.
Leo let her thoughts drift, partly to the past, partly to the present, enjoying this moment with Holly. This is so ridiculously romantic, someone should write a song about it. She chuckled.
“What?” Holly asked.
“Nothing.”
Holly poked her. “Tell me.”
“Hey. Don’t make me fall.”
They paused and stared at each other.
“Off the roof, I meant,” Leo said hastily.
“I know what you meant. So why were you laughing?”
“Um, just thinking about the time I scraped my ass bad when I snuck out one night and slid down the roof to go skinny-dipping with Ash.” She regarded Holly. “How about you? Did you ever do something stupid like that?”
“No. As you can imagine, I wasn’t into skinny-dipping with girls…or boys.”
“So you knew you were asexual, even back then?” Leo asked.
“I always knew I was different somehow, but I couldn’t say what it was that made me different. I didn’t have a word for it for the longest time. I just knew that I didn’t fit in.”
“It was the same for me.”
“Yeah, but I think you figured it out a little faster.”
“True. The giant crush I had on Ash was a big clue.”
Holly groaned a little. “God, all those high school crushes… My classmates suddenly started to go gaga over someone, and all they wanted to do was hang around the boys or talk about the boys.” She shook herself. “It seemed so stupid to me. I felt like I was the only normal one. It took me a while to figure out that it was the other way around—everyone else was normal, and I was the weird one.”
“Hey.” Leo reached over and took her hand. “You’re not weird.”
“I know that now, but back then… I was the only one in my class who didn’t go on a single date during high school.”
Leo entwined their fingers. “I didn’t date in high school either.” She’d been too hung up on Ash back then. With a rakish grin, she added, “Although I sure made up for that when I moved to New York. I take it you didn’t?”
“No. I didn’t feel I had anything to make up for. I was too busy with school, friends, and hobbies.”
“So Ash…she was your first?” Leo studied their entwined hands, and try as she might, she couldn’t imagine the two of them together.
“No. I had a girlfriend before her…and a boyfriend my junior year in college.”
Leo stared. “A boyfriend? You?” Somehow, she could imagine that even less—didn’t want to imagine it, truth be told.
“It didn’t last long, and we only slept with each other once.” Holly pulled her knees to her chest and leaned her chin on top.
An almost physical jolt went through Leo, and she jerked their entwined hands. “So you…? I thought… You actually had sex?”
Holly nodded and leaned her cheek on her knees so she could regard Leo while they talked. “That’s what you’re supposed to be doing in a relationship, right?”
“Only if both people involved want it.”
“I wish I’d had a friend back then who told me that. The one college friend I talked to asked me how I could know I didn’t like sex if I’d never tried it.”
“Jesus.” Leo hissed out the word through her teeth. “What bullshit. I knew I didn’t want to have sex with men without having to try it first.”
“Yeah. I should have listened to my instincts. It was a pretty underwhelming experience. I couldn’t believe that was the mind-blowing thing that everyone seemed to be so excited about.”
Leo could relate. “My first time wasn’t exactly spectacular either. I had no clue what I was doing.”
“And the second, third, and fourth time?”
“Well,” Leo drawled and winked at her, “let’s just say my father was right about one thing: practice does make perfect.”
Their laughter drifted through the night air.
“Not for me,” Holly said after a while. “When I met Dana my senior year at Mizzou, I fell head over heels and thought I had finally figured it out. Clearly, I was a lesbian and just hadn’t been attracted to anyone because I’d been looking at the wrong gender.”
“But?” Leo prompted when Holly fell silent.
“It turned out I was confusing sexual and romantic attraction. I really loved Dana, but the sex…meh.”
Meh. Leo still found it hard to grasp how anyone could feel that way about sex, especially sex with a person they loved. “Did you…talk to her about it?”
“Oh yeah. We did nothing but talk…or fight about it for most of our relationship. I even ended up going to therapy because I thought something was wrong with me.”
“And the therapist didn’t tell you otherwise?”
“No. She had never heard of asexuality either. That’s the hardest thing about being ace—most people don’t know it exists, so you just feel broken.”
God, and she had thought she’d felt lonely and isolated when she’d been growing up! Compared to Holly, she’d had it easy. At least she had known other gay people existed. Leo held her hand a little more tightly.
“Finally, Dana and I broke up—or rather she broke up with me. She was convinced that if I really loved her, I’d want her as much as she wanted me.”
Leo cradled her hand between both of hers and barely held herself back from lifting it to her mouth to kiss her palm. Never had she wanted to comfort anyone so much. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. At least then I finally found out what was going on with me. One night, I went online, typed in something like ‘help, I’m not interested in sex,’ and came across a description of asexuality. A lot of things suddenly made sense. It was such a relief when I could finally stop trying to be someone I’m not.”
“I can imagine.” Her head was spinning, and it wasn’t because she was up on the roof. She processed what Holly had told her for a while, just listening to the concert of the crickets and the occasional hooting of an owl.
Neither of them let go of the other’s hand—or acknowledged the fact that they were still holding hands.
“So,” Leo said after a while, “once you knew, did you come out to people as asexual?”
“Not to everyone. With some people, I’d rather let them assume I’m a lesbian—which I am, in a way—than to get into the details with them. I did tell the women I dated, of course.” She sighed. “Most of the time, it put a sudden end to any date.”
“Is that what happened with Ash?” Leo finally asked the question she had wanted to ask for some time now.
“No. It was different with her. She was completely fine with me being ace—or so she said. But it turned out that wasn’t quite true.”
A wave of rage gripped Leo so firmly that she started to shake. “Did she…?”
“No,” Holly said quickly. “She never openly put any pressure on me, but…” Another sigh escaped her. “She clearly wasn’t happy without sex, and I felt like I owed it to her.”
“Owed her?” The words nearly blurred together in Leo’s haste to get them out. “You don’t owe anyone anything if it traumatizes or repulses you!”
Now Holly was the one who took Leo’s hand in both of hers so that they ended up in a four-handed clutch. “It’s not like that for me, Leo.”
“But one of the people in the forum said…”
“Not all people who fall on the ace spectrum are the same, just like not all lesbians are the same. Some asexual people are completely grossed out by the mere thought of sex or even kissing, while others wouldn’t mind having sex for their partner’s sake, even if they don’t get much out of it for themselves.”
“Oh.” Every time she felt as if she had a good grasp on what asexuality was, she learned something new. “And you’re one of those?”
“I’m not repulsed by sex. I just never think about it or crave it. If I hear people groan about how long it’s been since they had any, it makes me want to laugh. If I never had sex again in my life, that would be fine with me. But that doesn’t mean I find it traumatizing.”
Leo scratched her head as she tried to puzzle all the pieces together. They didn’t quite seem to fit. “That sounds like it’s a take-it-or-leave-it thing for you.” When Holly nodded, she asked, “If it is, why would you be willing to give up dating and relationships just to avoid sex?”
Holly looked down at their hands as if trying to figure out which fingers belonged to her and which were Leo’s. Or maybe she was trying to find the right words. “It’s not sex I’m trying to avoid. Not really. If I’m with a woman I love, I don’t mind having sex occasionally. But what I can never give her is a truly passionate response. Women want to be desired. They want to be able to turn me on with just a look or a touch. They want me to take them up against the wall or on the kitchen table because I can’t wait until we make it into the bedroom.”
Jesus, was it getting hot up here on the roof? Leo freed one hand from their tangle of fingers and discreetly tugged on the crew neck of her T-shirt.
“That’s something I can never give them, even if I have sex with them.”
At the sadness in Holly’s voice, Leo’s arousal dwindled away. Her stomach knotted, and she pressed their entwined hands against her belly in an effort to ease that almost painful feeling. “Okay,” she rasped out. “I get it now…I think.”
“Don’t worry if it takes you a while to understand. It took my brother Ethan a couple of years to get it. He was the first person I told after finding out I’m ace, and he promptly told me it was just a phase and I’d grow out of it.”
Leo waved her free hand at her. “Hello? You’re what? Twenty-nine?”
Holly nodded.
“That would be a mighty long phase. My mother told me the same when I came out to her, but even she seems to get it now that I won’t grow out of being a lesbian.”
“Well, my brother is a slow learner. He gets it now, for the most part, but after that coming-out experience, and after hearing from a lesbian friend that I just needed to have sex with the right woman, I didn’t tell anyone else for a while.”
Leo shook her head. “God, people can be assholes.”
Holly smiled wryly. “Sad but true. How did your parents react when you came out to them?”
“My mother didn’t, for the most part. As I said, she thought it was just a phase, so she didn’t take it seriously. My father… He told me he didn’t want that kind of lifestyle in his house. After that, we didn’t exchange another word. I left the week after.”
She hadn’t expected to talk about this, but it felt surprisingly good to open up. Holly was so easy to talk to. Why the hell hadn’t they been friends growing up? Why had she wasted her time with someone like Ash when she could have spent it with Holly?
Holly gave her a sincere look. “I’m so sorry—sorry that he didn’t try to understand and sorry that I judged you for not coming back sooner.”
“Maybe I should have. Come back sooner, I mean.” At the very least, she would have gotten to know Holly sooner. She looked down at their hands, which were once again cradled together. There was a connection between them that went beyond that visible network of fingers.
Under different circumstances, Leo would have assumed it was attraction—and maybe it was, just one of the other kinds of attraction Holly had mentioned, because it sure seemed as if Holly could feel it too.
Something one-sided wouldn’t feel so strong, would it?
“Holly, I…” She tightened her hold on Holly’s fingers, struggling for the right words, until Holly let out a quiet groan. Immediately, Leo eased her grip. “I’m sorry. C-can I ask you something?” Great. Now she, the woman who’d stayed cool when groupies had thrown their bras at her on stage, was stuttering like a teenager.
Holly nodded, the white of her eyes shimmering in the moonlight as she stared at her.
“If there were no expectations of passion or sex, would you start dating again?”
“There always is—”
“Would you?” Leo asked again with more urgency. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe until she had an answer. “Because I really would like to. Date you. No sex. No commitment. Let’s just enjoy each other’s company while I’m here…and, well, maybe a kiss or two.”
A shadow darted across Holly’s features. Her brows slammed down as if something Leo had said dismayed her.
“If you enjoy that sort of thing,” Leo quickly added. “If you don’t, that’s fine too.”
Holly’s tongue flicked out and licked her bottom lip. “I do, but… Leo, we can enjoy each other’s company the way we have, as friends.”
Leo didn’t look away. “Then that’s all you’re feeling? Just friendly feelings for me?”
Holly’s eyes said something else. She squeezed them shut as if she didn’t want Leo to see. “No, but…”
“Then kiss me. Right here, under the stars.”
An unexpected smile flickered across Holly’s face, easing the tension a little. She opened her eyes. “Are you getting poetic, Ms. Songstress?”
“You inspire me,” Leo said, and it wasn’t a line.
“Leontyne?” Leo’s mother called from the window. “Holly? Where on earth are you?”
Dammit. Leo suppressed a groan. Her mother had the worst timing in the universe.
“Oh shit,” Holly whispered and huddled against her.
Leo leaned even closer, allowing herself to enjoy the press of Holly’s body against hers, and whispered back, “Don’t worry. She can’t see us.”
And she was right. After grumbling something they couldn’t understand, Leo’s mother closed the window.
“Oh no.” Holly’s eyes widened. “Now we’re trapped out here.”
“No. I told you, I know a spot where we can slide down the roof and climb onto the porch.”
“The same spot where you scraped your ass as a teenager?” Holly asked.
Oops. She gave her a sheepish grin. “Um, yeah.”
Holly sighed. “Yippee-ki-yay. Okay, lead the way. We should get back to make sure your parents are okay.”
“Ass-scraping, here we come,” Leo muttered and let go of Holly’s hands to crawl up the roof and down on the other side.
But Holly stopped her with a quick touch to her shoulder. “Leo?”
“Hmm?” She turned back around.
Holly took an audible breath. “I…” She shook her head as if giving up the search for words and instead raised up on her knees.
Leo didn’t dare move or even breathe or blink, afraid to startle Holly away and lose this precious moment.
Holly took her face between her hands and looked into her eyes from only inches away. She leaned forward until her warm breath fanned over Leo’s mouth.
Oh God, please…
Then her silent prayer was answered. Holly’s lips touched hers in a kiss that was almost chaste: no tongue, no wandering hands, nothing but their lips caressing each other. It was slow and soft, all tenderness and harmony—and it was the most perfect kiss Leo had ever experienced.
Finally, she felt as if someone was kissing her, just her, not her Grammys or her money or her body that had been on display in music videos.
Everything around her disappeared, except for Holly’s soft mouth and her gentle hands, which cradled her face, rooting her in place.
The kiss ended, but they lingered with their lips just a fraction of an inch apart. When they finally pulled back, they stared at each other.
A smile spread over Holly’s face, and Leo couldn’t help mirroring it. She wanted to say so much, but it was as if that single kiss had taken away her ability to speak. All she could do was look into Holly’s silvery-blue eyes in the moonlight.
“There.” Holly exhaled and slowly took her hands off Leo’s cheeks, sliding her fingers away until only her fingertips lingered and then dropped away. “I know that wasn’t exactly—”
Leo dipped her head forward and touched her lips to Holly’s again, just for a moment, to stop her from saying whatever she’d been about to say. “It was perfect.” Her voice sounded raspy. “Thank you.”
Holly’s smile brightened even more, if that was possible.
They knelt on the roof, facing each other, until Leo remembered that they had been about to climb down. She still felt the warmth of Holly’s lips on hers as she guided her down the roof. Her limbs were a bit shaky. Jesus, this isn’t the time to go all weak-kneed! She could imagine the headlines in the tabloids if she fell off and broke a bone or two.
When she reached the edge of the roof, she turned. “Here’s the trick. If you hold on to the gutter and swing inward a little, your feet will be on top of the porch rail. You won’t even have to jump.”
Holly swallowed audibly. “Um, you do know that I’m a nurse, not a circus performer, don’t you?”
You’re a magician, Leo wanted to say. She had kissed plenty of women in her life, most of them much more passionately, but somehow, Holly’s brief, gentle kiss had managed to get to her in a way that the others hadn’t. But she bit back the words. Since when was she the sappy type?
“You’ll be fine. I promise. It’s not as hard as it sounds.”
“Okay,” Holly croaked out.
“Don’t worry. I’ll go first and guide you down.” She turned so she was lying on the roof on her belly. “You won’t scrape your ass if you do it this way.”
Carefully, she slid down until her feet were braced against the gutter. Something scratched along her bare shin, making her flinch. She took a deep breath and let one leg dangle down. Now came the moment that she had to let go with her hands and slide down so she could grip the edge of the roof. Last time she’d done this, she had hesitated forever, but she didn’t want Holly to think she was a coward, so she let go.
“Leo!”
She grabbed the gutter with both hands. “I’ve got it.” Slowly, she lowered herself down. Uff. Good thing her personal trainer had her do pull-ups. Her bare feet found the top of the porch railing, and she eased herself down until she could jump to the porch.
There she stood, one shaking hand pressed to her chest for a moment. I’m getting too old for this. But being up on the roof with Holly had definitely been worth it.
“Okay, I’m down,” she called up to Holly. “Now you.”
Something scraped over the shingles.
Leo held her breath. This was even more nerve-racking than sliding down the roof herself. “Uh, maybe I should go back up to my room and open the window for you.”
But Holly’s white sneakers were already appearing over the edge, followed by her bare legs.
Leo gripped them tightly and guided her down.
With a soft thud, Holly slid down, right into Leo’s waiting arms. Leo’s eyes fluttered shut. The scent of summer, vanilla-and-coconut shampoo, and something that was just Holly teased her nostrils. God, she wanted to kiss her again so bad… No. Don’t spoil it. Wait until she tells you what she wants.
Holly cuddled against her for a second or two, then squeezed her hips once before letting go and stepping back. “Phew. Okay. We’re down.” She checked the baby-monitor receiver in her back pocket. “Now how do we get back inside?”
“Easy. My mother keeps a spare key beneath one of the flowerpots. At least she did fourteen years ago.” She lifted one of the pots and peered beneath. Nothing. Frowning, she tried another—and this time, she found what she was looking for. “Ta-da!” She held it up triumphantly.
Apparently, her parents still hadn’t invested in a motion-sensitive porch light, but now it worked in their favor. No light flared on as they crossed the porch. As quietly as possible, Leo slid the key into the lock.
Holly waited right behind her, one hand on Leo’s hip. Her fingers radiated a warmth that wasn’t merely physical.
Just as Leo was about to turn the key, the door opened from the inside.
Both of them stumbled back.
Leo squinted into the sudden bright light and made out her mother’s back-lit shape in the doorframe. Shit.
“Heavens, Leontyne! Holly! What are the two of you doing outside?”
“Um…” They looked at each other, then back at Leo’s mom, and ducked their heads like two teenagers who’d been caught smoking weed. “Uh, just catching a bit of fresh air before bed,” Leo stammered out.
Her mother narrowed her eyes at them.
Before she could ask another question, Leo beat her to it, “What are you doing up?”
“I heard some noise up on the roof and wanted to check it out. Now that your father…that he can no longer do it, I’m the weird-noises checker in the family.” She lifted the flashlight in her hand with a brave smile.
“Um, I don’t think you have to do that, Mom. It was probably just a squirrel or something.”
“A squirrel?” Her mother looked at her as if she doubted her sanity.
“Oh, yeah,” Holly said. “They can make a lot of noise, especially if there’s more than one.”
Leo’s mother still looked doubtful, but she turned and stepped back inside. When they had returned the key to the flowerpot and followed her in, she closed the door and put the flashlight back onto the hall table. “Good night, you two. Don’t stay up too long.”
“We won’t,” Leo said. “Night.”
As her mother climbed the stairs to the master bedroom, her quiet mutter drifted back to them. “That must have been an awfully big squirrel.”
Leo pressed a hand to her mouth so she wouldn’t burst out laughing.
The bedroom door clicked shut upstairs.
“Squirrel, huh?” The dimples in Holly’s cheeks made an appearance as she gave her an affectionate smile.
Leo shrugged. “It was the first thing that came to mind. Like I said, I never got caught before, so I’m not used to having to make up excuses.”
“Then maybe our second date should be someplace less adventurous,” Holly said.
“So we’re doing this?” Leo asked, searching her face. “Dating?”
Holly’s smile gave way to a serious expression. “If I think about it tomorrow morning, in broad daylight, I’ll probably think this,” she waved her hand back and forth between them, “is a really bad idea.”
“Then let’s not do it—overthink it, I mean.” She tried to avoid it too. For once, she would just go with her gut feeling. “Let’s take it one day at a time.”
Holly blew out a breath. “All right.”
Leo offered her arm. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.” She nodded in the direction of the guest room.
Another smile chased away the conflicted expression on Holly’s face. She lightly settled her hand on Leo’s arm, and they climbed the stairs, both of them skipping the creaking steps. In front of Holly’s bedroom, they paused and stood facing each other.
With every other date, Leo would have ended the evening with a kiss, but Holly wasn’t like every other woman—and even though Leo couldn’t wait to kiss her again, she decided that was a good thing. “Good night. Sleep well.”
“Good night.” Holly put her hand on the doorknob but then turned back around. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For showing me your secret spot.”
Leo’s first instinct was to say, Stick with me, and I’ll show you so much more. But flashing her sexy pop-star grin and hiding behind lines like that wasn’t going to cut it with Holly. “I’m glad I did.”
“Me too.” Holly’s hand lingered on Leo’s arm for another moment, then she opened the door and, with one last soft smile, was gone.
Alone, Leo stood in the hall and stared at the closed door. After a while, she gave herself a mental kick and went to her own room. She sank onto the bed but knew she wouldn’t get any sleep tonight. Not after that kiss and their conversation.
Was she really doing this? Dating an asexual woman? Hell, dating a woman from Fair Oaks! It was completely crazy. She scrubbed her palms over her face. One day at a time. No overthinking, remember?
She dangled one hand out of bed and fished for her laptop, which she’d put on the floor earlier. Time for some more research into the complex topic of asexuality.