Title: Confessions Lead to Strange Bedfellows
Author: Kimberly21570
Fandoms: Guiding Light / All My Children
Pairings: Olivia and Natalia / Lena and Bianca
Disclaimers and other Assorted Ramblings: The characters of Olivia Spencer, Natalia Rivera, Doris and Ashlee Wolfe, and Jeffrey O'Neill are owned by CBS/TeleNext and Proctor & Gamble. The characters of Jennifer Morgan, Tracy Jackson, Bennett Thomas, Langston Malloy, Gwen Matthews, and Preston Morgan are the property of this author, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No copyright infringement intended with regard to Guiding Light, CBS/TeleNext, Proctor & Gamble, or any other entity. The dialogue, settings, and story content in these scenes are original. Written for fun, not profit. All other standard disclaimers apply.
Thank you to all who continue to read and/or comment. I believe I've responded personally to all comments where responses are possible, so if I've missed someone, please know that it wasn't purposeful. And thank you again to my pal, MoniRod for the edit—especially this one, because I know how busy you've been, of late. I appreciate you, and I owe you—BIG TIME!
Rating: Chapter 14 is rated NC-17 for some sexual situations and strong language.
Confessions Lead to Strange Bedfellows
Copyright May 2009
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."
— James 1:2-8, the Bible, New International Version (NIV)
"God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it."
Unknown
Chapter 14.14 – Trials and Tribulations:
Thursday, June 18, 2009… Penthouse Suite, the Beacon—12:45 a.m. Central Daylight Time
"Omigosh, I'm so sorry it took me so long to get here… I was on my way out the door, and the cops showed up, and dragged me off to the police station… Can you believe they can do that? I mean, they didn't have a warrant or anything! Not that I was under arrest, mind you. I wasn't. But still… Can you believe that? And it took them forever just to ask me some questions—the same questions your attorney asked me… and then they asked me again! And when they finally let me go, there was all this traffic along Lake Shore Drive, and…"
Her thick, blonde mane flapping like a flag in the wind, as it streamed out from beneath a bright red headband that didn't match anything else she was wearing, Ashlee Wolfe's endless string of nonsensical commentary entered the room thirty seconds before she did. Her nervous tittering and frenzied push of speech made her sound almost frantic. And yet everyone in the room understood that it was just her natural way of communicating. Their heads were spinning from trying to keep up, but they understood, nonetheless.
"Ashlee. Focus," Olivia said gently, but firmly, as she grasped the young woman's biceps, steadying her, just moments after she entered the room.
Sucking in lungsful of air, Ashlee blew out an exasperated breath. "Focus," she nodded resolutely. "Right."
"You said on the phone that you could help," Olivia reminded. "What do you know about that night, that we don't?"
"I remember that night clearly," Ashlee said when she finally took a few more deep breaths, and calmed enough to make sense. "She was all over you at that party," she said to Tracy. "Toni, I mean."
"Yes, I figured that part out," Tracy said with a slight grin, meaning Ashlee's reference to the other young woman. Despite the tension she was feeling, she still found Ashlee's social awkwardness sweet, and a little bit amusing.
"Anyway, I couldn't believe it when your attorney told me what happened!" Ashlee sounded positively appalled. "I mean, Oh. My. God… Seriously? What has that girl been smokin'? Must've been some of that wacky weed, or somethin', because she's outta her freakin' mind if she thinks you actually…"
She was on a ramble again, and this time, Natalia reined her in. "Ashlee!" she said sternly, snapping the girl out of it.
"Huh?" Stalled mid-sentence, Ashlee's mouth gaped open, leaving her with a look of bewilderment on her face. It was almost as though she had forgotten what she was talking about.
"What happened at the party?"
"Oh. Right. The party," Ashlee blurted out. Tracking her thoughts aloud, she muttered her way through the evening, all the way up to Toni having Tracy trapped against the wall, while the rest of the group sat there watching with a mixture of amusement and disbelief on their faces. And once she got to the point where Tracy was essentially held hostage, she continued the story, directing her comments toward the others, rather than herself. "You pushed her away, but not in a mean way. But that didn't stop her. She just pushed you harder against the wall. So then you tried to let her down politely, but she wouldn't listen," she said to Tracy. "You had to get pretty intense with her, to get her to stop."
"But she finally did?" Tracy inquired.
"Yeah." Ashlee's head was nodding like one of those bobble-head things, and everyone wondered how she wasn't dizzy.
"Do you remember what happened after that?" Jen asked, hopeful for more insight.
"Yeah," Ashlee said. She glanced at Tracy. "After you finally got her off of you, you walked outside to get some air. And Toni ran off into one of the bedrooms, crying."
Tracy briefly flashed back to that night again, her memories, disjointed as they were, intertwining with Ashlee's recounting of the events that had transpired…
Friday, December 5, 2003… Frat Party, University of Illinois, Springfield—11:45 p.m. Central Standard Time
The frat house was an old Victorian style mansion, set amongst a cluster of smaller row houses near the University of Illinois, Springfield campus. Haphazardly parked vehicles were strewn everywhere, including the manicured lawn, and despite the freezing temperatures and the falling snow, the wrap-around porch was filled with partying college co-eds.
The music blared out into the night. And inside the house, strobe lights flashed, and the air was filled with the stench of alcohol and cigarette smoke, and the distinctive aroma of weed, poorly camouflaged by incense. Tracy's head was pounding, and she felt slightly disoriented, as Toni pressed her hard against the wall near the outer edge of the winding staircase. They had been talking for a while, as they often did after a game, and inch by inch, Toni had maneuvered them backwards until she had Tracy trapped.
Tracy realized too late that the punch had been spiked, and given her lack of experience with alcohol, she didn't tolerate it well. And she found herself in a situation she neither expected, nor wanted, as Toni smiled into her eyes, touched her face, and finally, kissed her.
Her kisses were tentative; slow and sweet at first, and Tracy didn't immediately resist. Instead, she fell into them; which only encouraged Toni to continue, deepening them. At first, with the light flicking of her tongue against Tracy's lower lip, she insinuated a desire for more. And then, with a gentle insistence, she coaxed Tracy's lips to part, slipping her tongue inside. Even then, Tracy didn't protest. But even through the foggy haze that had overtaken her brain, her instincts were telling her she should.
Before she could act upon her intuition, Toni's hot mouth was pressed against her neck, kissing, nipping. And then Tracy felt the warmth of her breath against her ear. "I've wanted to get close to you for a long time," Toni murmured, as her lips skimmed Tracy's earlobe. "Guess I needed a little liquid courage."
"Uh, yeah," Tracy said edgily, her dark eyes widening as she realize the position she was in. "I think this liquid courage is gonna get us in trouble. We should stop, before we end up regretting something."
"Oh, I can assure you, Tracy," Toni husked, sounding far more confident than she felt. Truth be told, she was a nervous wreck. But she really liked Tracy—had been crushing on her for months. And she was willing to do anything necessary to prove it to her. "I won't regret a thing."
Gently, Tracy tried to push the girl away. "Perhaps not, but I will," she replied, hoping she sounded firm, but not harsh. She liked Toni a lot. But not like this. No, her heart belonged to Jen—even if Jen wasn't ready for that yet.
But Toni would have none of that. "God, you're so hot," she practically growled, as her mouth trailed across Tracy's neck. "I wanna touch you so bad."
"Toni, please," Tracy begged weakly, attempting again to break free of the girl's hold on her. But the girl was surprisingly strong. And Tracy's reflexes were stunted. Her defenses were down, and she found herself struggling to overpower her.
"Come on, Jackson," Toni coaxed, as her fingers fumbled with the buckle on Tracy's belt. She claimed Tracy's mouth, drawing a startled squeak from her lungs. "This party can be like our own private Vegas," she enticed. "What happens here, stays here."
For a brief moment, Tracy fell into the kiss again. And then her willpower surged. Tearing her mouth away from Toni's, she drew in a deep breath, as she struggled to regain control of the quickly spiraling situation. She tried to shove Toni's busy hands away. "This isn't going to happen," she barely managed.
"Oh?" Toni said, sounding intrigued. "And why not?"
Tracy met Toni's light brown gaze with her own dark one. "Because I'm in love with someone else," she stated boldly. And it was true. Despite the fact that she had never even kissed Jen, she knew in that moment that Jen was the one. She hadn't a clue where that moment of clarity came from, but she was grateful that it had.
"I won't tell, if you won't," Toni flirtingly tempted.
"Listen to me, Toni," Tracy barked, as she summoned the strength to grasp Toni's biceps, forcing space between them. "I don't wanna be a bitch here, but I am not now, nor will I ever be, attracted to you. So please stop, before this gets any worse."
It wasn't true, of course. Petite, yet paradoxically curvy in all the right places—muscular, like an athlete, with big brown eyes a few shades lighter than her wavy brunette locks, Toni was absolutely adorable. And Tracy found her ridiculously attractive. Her eyes would fill with light and amusement every time she smiled, and that body just wouldn't quit. Tracy would've had to be dead to not find the girl appealing. But her heart was already spoken for, and she wasn't interested in playing games while she waited for Jen to come around. That wouldn't be fair to Toni. Nor would it be fair to Tracy, or Jen, for that matter.
Immediately, Toni's eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip began to quiver, as the pain of rejection snapped inside her with the force of a tightly wound violin string, unleashed. It was the thing she feared most—the reason she had never had the courage to even ask Tracy to meet her for lunch, let alone out on an actual date. The alcohol had given her that courage—and now she wished she'd never touched it. It was all too much for her to handle, and tearing her gaze away from the intensity of Tracy's dark eyes, she turned and ran from the room, tears of humiliation pouring down her cheeks.
Feeling regretful for having caused Toni's tears, and growing more disoriented by the moment, Tracy slowly made her way toward the double entryway that led out onto the wrap-around porch. She stumbled through the open door and across the porch, where she leaned against the railing for support, as she gasped for air, all the while praying she wouldn't embarrass herself in front of hundreds of other students by vomiting all over the place. She had come to this party with a group of teammates just a few hours prior, but standing there on that front porch, dizzy, disoriented, and now remorseful, she had never felt so alone in her entire life.
Thursday, June 18, 2009… Penthouse Suite, the Beacon—1:15 a.m. Central Daylight Time
The more Ashlee talked, the more Tracy's memory began to reconstruct the events. She could remember Toni's frantic kisses, the brush of that insistent tongue in her mouth, and the sensation of her body pressing into her own. And she could hear the sound of that voice, rasping in her ear above the cacophonous music and the roar of shouted conversation, as she told her how the alcohol had given her the courage to make a pass she had wanted to make for months.
And then she remembered warning the girl that too much alcohol led to poor decisions, and she didn't want any regrets—for either of them. She had tried in vain to let her down easily, but the girl simply wouldn't listen. But beyond that, she remembered very little. She figured that must have been when the alcohol really kicked in, because she didn't recall getting harsh with Toni. Nor did she remember going outside for air.
"I followed you out onto the porch," Ashlee was saying, as she pulled Tracy back into the present. She was perched comfortably in the armchair across from the sofa, where Jen and Tracy were sitting. "Because you looked upset, and I was worried. You said your head was spinning, and you thought it was the vodka in the punch. But I think you were drugged, Tracy."
Tracy's head was spinning even now, as she tried to reconcile the swell of information she was receiving. Looking back on the situation, she couldn't say that she would argue.
"You never saw Tracy go into any of the rooms with her?" Olivia asked, knowing that the police report alleged that Tracy had taken the girl into one of the main floor bedrooms, where the assault ultimately took place.
Ashlee was shaking her head. "No," she said, adamantly. "I was already there when she came in with a few of her friends. They all headed in different directions, but Tracy stayed. Until she went outside, she never left the main party the entire night. I know, because neither did I. We hung out with other people while we were there, but we left together."
Her clear blue eyes met Tracy's dark gaze then, as she spoke directly to her. "You looked like hell, even after you went outside, and you said you felt even worse. So I took you home; dropped you off around two in the morning. You were never alone with her, Tracy. Not for a minute."
"Really?" Tracy sounded hopeful for the first time since this nightmare began.
"Really," Ashlee assured, with another dizzying display of rapid head nodding.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Jen wrapped her arms around Tracy from the side. She pulled her close, pressing her forehead against Tracy's temple. "See, Honey, I told you, you didn't do this."
"It can't be this simple," Tracy declared. Standing from the sofa, she began to pace. She was afraid to believe it could be, because what if it wasn't? She'd be right back where she started—on the verge of losing her family.
"How can you be so certain it was that same party?" Olivia directed her query toward Ashlee. She wasn't trying to be difficult. She was just looking for anything the detective might hone in on.
"Because it's the only frat party I've ever been to," Tracy answered, with a quick glance toward Olivia. "I was sick for two days afterward; barely made it to work on Monday morning." She glanced at her fiancée. "Thank God Jen was there to cover for me."
Olivia arched an eyebrow in response to Tracy's inadvertent confession, and Tracy laughed for the first time in hours. "After that experience, I didn't have any desire for a repeat incident. So I never went to another one of those parties."
"Can't say that I blame you," Ashlee said supportively.
"I don't know about the rest of you, but it sounds to me like you should be pressing charges against this Toni person. Not the other way around," Natalia said to Tracy.
Shaking her head, Tracy disagreed. "She was a nice kid, Natalia," she asserted. "She was drunk, and she made a bad judgment call."
"You're a lot more forgiving than I would be," Olivia commented.
Three sets of questioning eyes fell on her. After hearing her story about that night with Jeffrey, none of them believed that for a moment. That bastard had gotten away with rape, and they all knew it. "Okay, point taken," Olivia said sheepishly, in response to their unspoken comments.
Ashlee looked decidedly confused, but that wasn't at all uncommon.
"So… you told the police all of this?" Olivia checked in with Ashlee.
"Yes," Ashlee answered. "I told Detective Malloy. Some lady from DCFS was there too." She shrugged noncommittally. "I don't know why."
As Ashlee's commentary came to an end, Olivia's phone rang, startling the group. Immediately, her heart began to pound. She grabbed it, thinking something must have happened with Emma or one of the boys. It was nearly one in the morning. What else could it be?
To her relief, it was Doris's voice she heard piping through the line. "I figured it out," the Mayor reported. "The connection to Tracy, I mean."
Grinning to herself, it occurred to her that the apple didn't fall far from the tree—in some respects, at least. She tapped a button on her phone, turning it to speaker. "What is it?" she asked, anxious to hear the response.
"The woman who attacked Tracy at Company," Doris said with a hint of reminder in her tone. "She's the girl's mother."
It felt like a bomb had been dropped, and the room turned eerily still, as the waves of shock rippled through.
"What?" Tracy blurted out. She looked dumbfounded.
A chorus of equally stunned responses echoed closely behind.
"Yeah," Doris huffed. "That's what I thought, too. Can you believe that?" She sounded incredulous. "There's no way that's a coincidence."
Leaning forward on the sofa, Tracy buried her face in her hands. "Wow. I never saw that coming," she said, disbelievingly. "Martin is such a common name, that I…"
"Hey, we all missed it," Natalia said soothingly.
"Exactly," Olivia agreed.
"It took us hours to make the connection, Tracy," Doris added, from the other end of the line. "And even then, we had to pull information from classified databases to confirm it."
"Us?... We?" Olivia emphasized the plurality of the words, her tone sounding intrigued.
Doris began to stammer, and Bennett glared and swatted her. She couldn't allow anyone to know she had taken a personal interest in the parties involved in the custody case. It would taint any ruling she might make, and leave Jen vulnerable to having her case moved back to Judge Carson's docket. She didn't stand a chance in hell of keeping her children then.
Biting her lower lip, Doris managed to stifle a yelp.
"Wait a minute," Ashlee piped in, inadvertently saving Doris's ass. "Are you saying that Diane Martin attacked you?" she asked Tracy.
"Ashlee?" Doris's questioning voice echoed through the phone.
"Hey, Mom," Ashlee said in her usual chipper tone.
"What are you doing there?" Doris asked, confused.
"Helping," Ashlee answered vaguely. "Where are you? I tried to call you earlier. Your phone went straight to voicemail." She sounded almost disheartened.
"I, uh… I'm working with…" Doris scrambled for an explanation, but Bennett was shaking her head "no."
Leveling Bennett with a look that said she wasn't happy, Doris answered Ashlee's question with a half-truth. "I'm working."
"Oh—" Ashlee huffed. Doris's response reminded her of the way things used to be when she was growing up—the excuses and the secrecy that had become so commonplace in their relationship. Instinctively, she knew that her mother was keeping something from her. And she didn't like it. Not one bit.
"Ashlee, Honey, I… I'm sor…"
Tracy's brow furrowed as she contemplated Ashlee's question. "You know Diane Martin?" she asked her, inadvertently cutting off Doris's apology to her daughter.
"Well, I know of her," Ashlee answered. And then she scrunched up her face in that way she always did when she was confused. "Why did she attack you?"
"I really don't know," Tracy answered in a bewildered tone. "She's hated me since the moment she met me, and I have no idea why." She thought about that for a moment, as realization dawned. "Oh, my God, all this time she's thought…"
"We don't know that, Tracy," Jen cautioned. "Maybe there's another explanation."
"Like what?" Tracy countered, sounding agitated.
"I don't know, Honey," Jen answered. "But don't you think it's odd that Toni waited until now to press charges? I mean, if this really happened, and Diane has been angry about it all these years, wouldn't she have encouraged her to do something about it before now?"
"Maybe," Tracy shrugged.
"Yes. Maybe," Jen granted. "And maybe she's just trying to get back at us for her arrest," she suggested. "Not that it was our fault, but… she blames us, still the same."
"So, what happened at Company, anyway?" Ashlee asked Olivia, as Jen and Tracy continued their conversation.
"She went on some homophobic rampage when she saw the four of us out to dinner," Olivia reported. "It got really ugly, and Diane was arrested."
"Mrs. Martin, a homophobe?" Ashlee belted out one of those annoying cackles. "Talk about matching kettles and pots."
Six faces—two of whom were listening through the phone—wore matching what-the-fuck expressions, as they tried to decipher Ashlee's meaning. Tracy was the one to finally ask.
"I mean, she has no room to talk," Ashlee answered with a titter. And then she cupped her hands around her mouth, whispering, "She's been sleeping with Jackie Hanson since high school… behind their husbands' backs!"
"Ha!" Olivia shouted triumphantly at the news. "I knew it!" She had pegged the two of them for lovers, years ago. She'd just never had any proof.
Jen met Tracy's gaze, and spontaneously, they both started laughing. What else could they possibly do? The entire situation was just ludicrous.
Ashlee stared at them with an odd sense of fascination, as she wondered why on earth that was so funny.
"How do you know all of this?" Natalia asked curiously. To say she was shocked about the news would be an understatement.
Ashlee shrugged. "I'm the Mayor's daughter," she said with an air of nonchalance. "Everybody wants to be my friend, so I hear all the good gossip around town."
Doris smirked, and filed that little tidbit of information away. It might prove useful during her next campaign. "When's the last time either of you remembers seeing Toni?" she asked Ashlee and Tracy simultaneously.
The two women looked at one another, their minds clearly attempting to recollect.
"Gosh, Mom, I don't know," Ashlee sighed. Her brow was furrowed, and she looked like she might strain herself. And then her eyes lit up, like she'd just stumbled upon a revelation. "Now that I think about it, she stopped coming to class after that. I wondered why at the time, but I've never run into her anywhere since then, to ask." She paused for a moment, glancing at Tracy again. "What about you?"
Tracy was shaking her head. "She never came to any more of our Thursday night games," she said. "And I never ran into her in any of my classes."
"Well, that's because she was on campus as part of the advanced placement program through Springfield High," Ashlee reported. "That's how I was there back then, too. I was a senior that year. Toni was a junior. We used to ride the bus to the Springfield U campus together in the afternoon."
"That explains a lot, actually," Tracy admitted with a sigh of relief. "But it still doesn't explain why she suddenly decided to press these charges against me."
"No," Olivia said with a tone of skepticism. "It doesn't." She turned her attention back to her phone, addressing Doris again. "Do you have any ideas on that, Madam Mayor?"
"Not yet," Doris admitted. "But I'm not giving up until I do."
Tracy smiled at the obvious emotion in the Mayor's tone. She barely knew the woman, and yet, Doris was actively working to help her. She couldn't have appreciated her more, and her tone reflected that when she thanked her for all she was doing to help.
With that, Doris begged off the call, citing a need to get back to work. Truth was, she was ready to get back to Bennett… and that bag of toys she left near the front door. A round of goodbyes followed, and then Olivia terminated the call. She turned her attention back to the group then. "So, where do we go from here?"
Thursday, June 18, 2009… Bennett Thomas's Residence—1:15 a.m. Central Daylight Time
Terminating the call, Doris glanced at Bennett with a satisfied smirk on her lips. The expression in Bennett's eyes answered her unspoken question.
And then Bennett's voice confirmed it. "You know," she husked, as she stealthily crawled across the sofa toward her. "I think I promised you a reward if you finished your task."
"Yes," Doris murmured. Her blue eyes darkened with desire as she watched Bennett straddle her thighs. The silky fabric of Bennett's short robe rode upward along creamy caramel-colored skin, revealing a pair of toned thighs—and a strategic peek at other treasures—in the process.
Gasping at the sight, Doris's hands went immediately to Bennett's hips, appreciating the womanly curve of them. Her body had always been alluring, but never more so than after she had children. "I believe you did."
Lightly, Bennett's mouth skimmed across Doris's lips. "And I think you mentioned something about a bag full of goodies for me," she reminded.
Doris's breath shuddered in her chest. "Oh, I most certainly did," she purred, reaching for the sash on Bennett's robe. "It has your name written all over it."
Effortlessly, her fingers released the sash, hands slipping beneath, meeting the warm, smooth flesh of Bennett's torso. Gliding higher, they engulfed waiting breasts, thumbs scraping across taut nipples.
Bennett's eyes widened, and she groaned at the contact, as her mouth met Doris's, tongues instantly tangling.
Insistent hands continued to caress, to tease, as their kiss deepened, and Bennett's fingertips lazily tangled in Doris's hair.
Neither of them knew how long their kisses lingered, but Bennett's small noises of pleasure ignited Doris's own passion, spurring her on. And they whimpered in unison when Doris finally pulled her mouth from Bennett's, her kiss-swollen lips blazing a trail across heated flesh.
And then Bennett's fingers tightened in those soft brunette locks, as Doris's mouth replaced a hand, latching firmly onto one achingly hard nipple, while her fingers continued to tease the other.
Gently, but firmly, Doris bit down, and Bennett's body jerked in response. "Jesus, DJ," she growled. "You're driving me crazy!"
She could feel Doris's smirk slowly emerging around the edges of her aroused nipple, those teeth still firmly clutching the tender flesh. And then Doris nibbled again, this time more demandingly, and Bennett screamed out her pleasure in response. Moments later, Bennett was begging to be taken to bed. And Doris found herself more than eager to oblige.
Thursday, June 18, 2009… Detective Sargent Langston Malloy's Residence—1:30 a.m. Central Daylight Time
"Well, that was certainly interesting," Langston declared, when she and Gwen returned to her apartment complex after questioning Ashlee Wolfe. She had pulled in next to Gwen's car, and they were lingering in the parking lot, making idle conversation—a mutual effort to postpone their impending separation.
Gwen chuckled at the memory. Interesting was definitely the word for it. "Do you think she ever gets dizzy from all that chattering?" She'd never heard a witness statement quite like the one Ashlee had given.
It was a rhetorical question, and Langston simply laughed in response. Leaning against the rear quarter-panel of her silver Lexus with an air of casualness she did not feel, she sank her hands into the pockets of her trousers. That was one way to keep them occupied, she thought, as she briefly considered how much she would rather be doing something else with them.
"So, from the sound of things, I think your case has been nullified," she commented, forcing her mind back to the business at hand.
"Let's hope it's that easy," Gwen replied. "I really didn't want to be wrong about that young woman."
"Yeah… me either."
Langston was quiet for a moment, and then she ventured a glance at Gwen. "Guess that means we won't have an excuse to have dinner again anytime soon." She sounded disappointed.
Encouraged, Gwen stepped just a little closer, and reached out, lightly brushing her fingertips against Langston's arm. "Who says we need an excuse?" She was surprised by her own brazenness, albeit pleasantly so.
Not certain whether that particular response made her more happy… or nervous, Langston forced herself not to shy away from Gwen's touch. "I guess you have a point," she conceded.
Gwen smiled. "Good," she declared. "Would you like to have dinner with me again on Friday?" She was nervous as hell; couldn't believe she'd actually summoned the courage to ask. And she waited, with bated breath, for Langston's response.
She didn't have to wait long, as a playful grin hijacked Langston's lips. "You mean tomorrow?"
Laughing quietly, Gwen nodded. "I guess it is already Thursday, isn't it?" She met Langston's clear blue gaze, and smiled. "So, yes… tomorrow. Seven o'clock, my place? I'll cook for you this time."
Nodding, Langston felt the slightest fluttering in her belly, and she smiled again. "I'll bring the beer."
TBC in Chapter 14.15…