A Beginner's Guide to Gold Digging: Chapter 7

Lily

“They bought it! They really bought it! High five!” I said, raising my palm and anticipating the sensation of Cris’ skin touching mine. 

Unfortunately, no skin-on-skin occurred: Crispin was too busy looking at me like I’d sprouted a second head. 

We sat in the backseats of his limo, Naomi driving us in the direction of my house. I’d already explained the whole thing to her, wiggling with excitement at how convincing I’d been. 

“Come on,” I whined, “Don’t leave me hanging here, douchebag.”

Cris buried his face in his palms. 

I sighed. “Okay, look, I know I got a little carried away-”

“You could say that,” Cris said, reaching into his breast pocket. From it, he retrieved a ring with a diamond the size of marble on it. “My dad slipped me this as we left. I didn’t even have to ask for it.”

“Oh wow,” I marveled. “It’s beautiful. Was it-”

“My mom’s, yeah.”

“That’s-”

“That’s bad, Lily, that’s very bad,” Cris said. “Do you not get what this means? We oversold it. They sincerely think you want to marry me and that I want to marry you and they’re on board with it. And if I break it off or if they get wind of the fact that this is a sham, they cut me off, and that means I can’t pay for any of your shit.”

My eyes widened as realization dawned within me. Oh, God, he was right. I must’ve gotten lost in character; I’d thought the kiss was too much, but I wanted them to believe I loved Cris, needed them to believe I loved Cris, so I’d gone for it and… Shit. 

And I’d kissed him without even asking! Shit, shit, shit, that was bad, that was basically assault, oh God what had I done-

“If I may interject,” Naomi offered. 

“Please do,” Cris said, which was good, because I was at a loss for words as I tumbled down the rapids of anxiety and guilt inside my mind. 

“There’s still a way out of this,” Naomi said. “You just have to ride it out long enough to get Lily’s stuff all paid for, and then have Lily be the one to break it off.”

Cris snapped his fingers. “That would work! That would definitely work! Holy shit! Thank you, Naomi; you’re the best!”

“I try,” Naomi said with feigned modesty. 

Cris… Was a little too excited by not having to marry me. I mean, not that I wanted him to marry me or anything gross like that, but it still stung a little bit. I mean, would it be that bad to be married to someone who wasn’t attracted to you… Okay, yeah, it would, definitely would. And besides, this was only supposed to be a one-day affair. After this, he was supposed to get back to his usual man-whoring ways. Now, he was stuck with a frumpy weirdo cramping his style for what would very probably be the better part of a year. And said frumpy weirdo had kissed him, and yeah, maybe I hadn’t found it nearly as bad as I thought it would be because I guess I was just that good at acting, but there was no way he’d enjoyed it! Nobody would. 

Nobody ever did. 

“Okay,” I nodded, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Then… That’s what we’ll do. We can speed up the timeline on the whole plan- once my surgery is done, we’ll… I dunno, stage an argument, I guess? Do we need to make them think I cheated on you? How do we-”

“We’ll tell them the truth,” Cris said. “You’re a lesbian and it took being with me for you to figure it out.”

A familiar icy slash carved a horizontal wound through my belly. “That’s-”

“Not a big deal, it’s happened to me before,” Cris said. 

“It has?”

“Yeah,” Cris sighed. 

“I keep telling him he needs to stop doing that,” Naomi said. She was laughing while she said it, but from the look on Cris’ face, he didn’t find it particularly funny. 

There was more to this story. Had to be. But I didn’t want to make him any more uncomfortable than I already had, so I simply took the engagement ring out of his hand and put it on my finger. It was heavy, both literally and in terms of the weight of family history I could feel contained within it. But it was also beautiful and ornate and… It looked pretty good on me. 

If Cris thought so, he didn’t say. He simply pulled out his phone and started texting. 

“Who are you-”

“Rose,” he answered. “I need a drink. And I need my drinking buddy if I’m doing this.”

I looked over at his phone screen to see Rose texting him an address to meet her and Kyle at, as well as another message peeking through at the top of the screen. Someone named Julia, saying she’d be down to hang out tonight. 

***

Naomi dropped us off at a nondescript establishment called Bar Here. It was a small place, a basic brick house entered via a green door. On the other side, the place was clean and tidy, wooden floors and lights dangling from the ceiling, well-polished chairs and tables, and a decent if unremarkable drink menu. 

Rose and Kyle sat in a booth alongside two other people I recognized: Lisa and Rachel. They’d been my company’s first clients after I’d started socially transitioning. Building their catering company was a massive boon to our finances in a time where our client-well was drying up. Rachel was devastatingly hot, all massive muscles with a sharp jawline and beautifully purple hair, while Lisa had an effortless beauty about her as well: natural hair, perfect makeup, a flowing orange maxi dress adorning her curvaceous body. Obviously, I’d never commented on that, but like… Come on, she was really pretty, okay?

Cris dragged a circular table over to the booth while I commandeered two chairs, and we sat down facing our friends. 

“Heyo,” Lisa said. “Rose and Kyle were just filling us in.”

“I can already see how you’re friends with Rose, if this is the kind of mess you get yourself into,” Rachel said, pointing at Crispin. 

Cris offered only a non-commital grunt in response.

“How’d it go?” Rose asked. “Did they buy it?”

I held up my hand and pointed to the big honking rock on my finger. “Oversold it.”

“How? Did you grab him and make out with him or something?” Kyle laughed. 

My eyes fixated on a small smudge in the table’s woodstain. Crispin gave a small cough. 

“That was a joke,” Kyle said. 

“I mean apparently it wasn’t,” Lisa said, raising an eyebrow. 

Rose’s eyes narrowed as she looked back and forth between Cris and I. “So. Just so we’re clear, who initiated-”

Cris pointed at me. I pointed at myself with two fingers, one of which had the ring on it. 

“Huh,” Rose said, making an uncomfortable amount of eye contact with me. 

“What’s that mean?” I asked. 

“What’s what mean?” said an unfamiliar voice behind me.

I jumped out of my seat and yelped, while Cris turned to me and held out his palms flat. “It’s okay,” he said. 

“Sorry, I just- jumpy,” I said. 

“I think I should be the one to apologize,” the new voice said. 

I finally turned to face her, noting Cris’ broad smile when he looked at her with an inexplicable spike of bitterness. It faded once I got a good look at the newest addition to our impromptu hangout: quite probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. 

She was tall and toned, with blue-dyed hair worn in a neat shoulder-length ‘do and eyes of a matching shade and lips painted wine-red. Her nose had a stud in it, and her ears were full of studs. She wore a burgundy crop-top that showed off an absolutely glorious midriff, complete with a six-pack and a belly-button stud and a golden cross tattoo on her ribs. Skinny jeans completed the ensemble, hinting at long, muscular legs beneath the fabric. She had the face of a supermodel and the body of a fitness model and the aesthetic of one of my wildest wet dreams. My nipples hardened at the sight of her while a surge of sapphic desire shot up my spine and sent my brain into overdrive. 

Holy shit. 

“Hey, Julia,” Cris and Rose said in tandem. 

My eyes bulged. This was Julia? Wait, was she the lesbian Cris dated? The other one, obviously… Or not obviously, Cris and I weren’t actually dating. We were just… Engaged. 

What the hell is my life?

“Hey, Winfield,” Julia said, lightly punching my fiance (fake fiance, c’mon, brain, you know this) on the shoulder. She looked over at Rose and said, “That you, O’Neil?”

“It is indeed, old friend,” Rose said with a sad smile. 

Julia took a beat, then broke out into the goofiest, most adorable smile I’d ever seen. Holy fuck, she was sex on two legs and a complete goober? That was so not fair! “I fucking knew it!” Julia said. 

“Excuse you?” Rose laughed. 

“This,” she said, gesturing at Rose. “You. You’re a girl. You’re trans. I fucking knew it!”

“Bullshit, you did,” Rose smiled. 

“No, I’m serious. There was always something… Not cis-het about you,” Julia said. “I honestly wish I’d said something sooner. Probably would have saved you some trouble.”

“Eh, I kinda already knew myself, I was just in deep denial,” Rose shrugged. 

“It’s true, that eggshell was thick and actively maintained,” Kyle laughed. 

“Also, the het part was true,” Rose said. “This is my fiance, Kyle.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Kyle,” Julia said with that magical smile and those stunning blue eyes a-sparkling. “I’m Julia Henderson. Rose and I went to high school together. Alongside this heartbreaker here.” She patted Crispin on the head. He looked like he was dying inside. 

Yeah, there was definitely more to this story. To their story. 

“Name’s Rachel,” Rachel said with a wave. “And this is my wife, Lisa. We’re friends of Rose and Kyle.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Julia replied. Then she turned her focus to me. “And who might you be, beautiful?”

My cheeks heated so much they may as well have been catching fire. The proverbial smoke strangled what passed for intelligent thought out of my brain, so my mouth simply uttered the first thing that rang clear: “Lily. I’m Cris’ fiance.”

She snickered and said to Cris, “Damn, buddy, you did well for yourself!”

Cris sighed. Why was he sighing? Weren’t we supposed to be keeping up the pretense? “She’s not actually my… We’re not actually engaged.” Oh, right. I mean, we don’t have to tell everyone about the whole context of the arrangement, right? Can’t we just let some people think-

“Then why is she wearing your mom’s engagement ring?” 

She recognizes it on-sight…

“It’s… It’s a long story, and I’ll tell you about it while I order us a round,” Cris said, getting up. “Come with me.”

“Okay,” she returned with a playful shrug.

“I’ll come too, give us all a chance to catch up,” Rose said, kissing Kyle on the cheek as she stood. 

“Get me some absinthe?” Kyle said. 

“Yes, my love, I will get you some absinthe,” she cooed. 

I watched the trio of old friends saunter away, wondering how much of a pig I looked like drooling over Julia’s ass. I also couldn’t help but notice Cris’ slumped posture and his hands buried deep in his pockets. 

“There’s some serious weirdness going on there, right?” Rachel said as I turned back around to face the others. 

“Very obviously,” Lisa nodded. She looked at Kyle and said, “You ever hear Rose mention Julia before? Like, ever?”

Kyle raked a hand through his perfect golden hair and grunted. “Oh, yeah. Not until recently, though.”

“How recently?” I asked. I needed to know more. I needed to know as much as possible about Julia. She and Cris were tangled up in each other, and given how the weird little situation he and I had found ourselves in was clearly hurting him, I needed information. He… Yeah, he was a white-knight and a rake and a lecher, but he was also a fundamentally kind person, and… And I liked spending time with him. He was fun to talk to, easy to work with, and a great smoking buddy. And a very good sugar-daddy, I thought, which immediately sent a chill down my back. 

Kyle pounded back the remainder of his beer, and said, “Okay, the thing to understand about Briar Rose is that before she and I started dating, she kept her cards close to the chest when it came to her past. For most of the time she and I were friends, I knew she had a bunch of older sisters, but I never met any of them… Well, okay, that’s technically not true, but for the purposes of this conversation it is. Point is: she didn’t tell me anything about her parents until we were together. And she never mentioned her childhood friends, to the point where I’d just assumed she hadn’t had any. I knew she went to Harvard, and that before that she went to Overton Prep. I knew she was a theater kid-”

“Deeply unsurprising,” Rachel laughed. 

Kyle gave her the finger. Rachel just laughed. 

“But,” Kyle continued, “Everything else about her life from before she and I met came out only recently. Case in point: she’d never even mentioned Crispin’s existence until we bumped into him at a party last month.”

“That’s…,” I started. I wanted to say ‘deeply weird’, but given Rose had pretty much admitted she’d used to have a thing for Crispin but it never went anywhere, and Crispin had apparently dated Julia who wasn’t into him at all… Yeah, I could imagine wanting to avoid the conversation altogether. 

“Julia only came up in conversation about a week ago, when I asked whether Rose had any other friends from growing up that she might want to invite to our wedding. She said the only other one was Julia, and that once upon a time, she, Julia, and Crispin were the three proverbial amigos. Did everything together. Before her mom forced her back into the closet, she came within an inch of telling them about her being a girl. But then… Well, then the death of a parent occurred and a traumatic re-closeting to boot, and she just kind of shut herself up. And she knew Cris loved Julia, that he always had. So, she pushed him to go to prom with Julia senior year. Then Julia turned out to be gay and Cris, in Rose’s words, ‘got his heart ripped out, put through a woodchipper, and used as kindling on a campfire.’ And Rose felt guilty as fuck, so when Julia went to a different college then them, they kinda just drifted apart. She and Crispin stayed close for a few more years, but then… Some more stuff happened, and they drifted apart as well.”

“That’s incredibly messy and deeply convoluted,” Lisa said. 

“Do you not believe me?”

“No, just the opposite. It’s so messy it could only happen to teenagers,” Lisa said. 

I turned my head, looked over at the three old friends reunited by bizarre circumstances, and felt a crash of sorrow and pity. Cris… Cris had basically lost his two best friends in one fell swoop. Sure, he and Rose had stuck by each other a few more years, but from the sound of it… Her drifting away from him was probably a long time coming. I stared at those broad shoulders of his, stooped over the bar waiting on drinks, flanked on both sides by beautiful women: one he’d wanted but never truly had, and one he probably (definitely; let’s be honest, it’s Cris, he’s got women throwing themselves at him left and right and he’s only too happy to catch them in those strong arms of his) could have had if the timing had been right. 

And now he was stuck with me. 

Dammit. No wonder he was depressed. I’d be depressed too if I was stuck with an ugly, nerdy loser like me. I needed to make it up to him. 

Julia was a well of information. If I wanted to know more about what dating Cris was like, she was the person to go to. But how to get her alone…

The three proverbial amigos returned to us with a tray of shots in hand. 

Cris and Julia sat on either side of me at our little table extension. My mind raced with ideas of how to figure this out without Cris knowing what I was up to. I’d already made an ass of myself, forced my stupid lips onto his, and made his home-life infinitely more complicated than it already was. I didn’t need to re-open old wounds by asking his would-be ex for gory details right in front of him.

So how to-

That was when Julia put her arm around me, brought her face real close to mine, and smiled hungrily. “So, Cris tells me you’re single and super gay.”

I babbled incoherently for twenty straight seconds before managing to sputter, “That’s technically true, yes.”

“Well so am I,” Julia said. “If it’s alright with you, I’d like to take you out on the town, show you a good time.” She ran a hand through my hair, traced the outline of my chin with her finger, and I swear I nearly melted into a girl-puddle right on the spot. “That sound good to you, beautiful?”

I squeaked. I nodded. I blinked rapidly. I pinched myself to make sure I hadn’t fallen asleep and wandered into a very, very nice dream.

She knocked back her absinthe shot, then rose to her feet and held out her hand. “Then c’mon. Let’s go. I know the perfect place for us. Cris tells me he calls you ‘angel’ as a pretend pet-name. Want me to show you Heaven?”

This was perfect! I could find out all I needed to know this way! Fuck, it pratically fell into my lap. “Sounds wonderful,” I said, taking her hand and rising with her. I looked at the table, at my… My friends, something I didn’t really have hithertofore. But I wanted to be Cris’ friend. And since this friend hadn’t wanted to bang him at any point, she was the perfect person to learn from. “I’ll text you later,” I said as Julia led me away. 

“Sounds good,” Cris said, a forced-looking smile on his face.
“Remember to use lube!” Rachel called after us. 

Over the sound of that joke, though, I heard Rose mutter something weird: “Cris, I love you, but you’re a fucking idiot.”

What was that about?

***

We stood outside of a place I’d dreaded coming back to. Margerie’s. It was a bar that, by some miracle, I’d never been banned from, but it was one I’d chosen to avoid at all costs. 

Then again, there were lots of things I’d tried to avoid, and yet here we were. 

Julia wrapped her arm around mine as we walked in, her in her boots and me in the flats I’d switched into. “You been here before?”

“Not in ages,” I confessed as we crossed the threshold into the purple-lit ambience of the only lesbian bar in town. 

The place was packed to the rafters, befitting a Saturday night. Butches and futches and femmes were going to town on each other while a house music remix of a Brandi Carlisle song played on the speakers. We finagled our way into an unoccupied table at the center of the rectangular interior, and as I sat down, a river of memories ran through me:

“Hey there. You look a little lost. Is everything okay?” Olivia had said. 

“I just… I’ve never been in a place like this,” I’d replied. 

“Yeah, I can tell. But I can show you the ropes. You look like you could use the help.”

“I’m gonna grab us some drinks,” Julia said as she undressed me with her eyes. “Cosmos good with you?”

“Isn’t that a little girly?” 

“Uh… Yeah? What’s wrong with that?” Julia said. “I’m a bit on the futch side, but like… Who cares? Fun stuff is fun. And besides, you’re-”

“I don’t usually dress like this,” I said. 

“Huh. Could’ve fooled me. It looks good on you.”

Every bone in my body resonated with her words. God, she was good. “You know what? Fair. Let’s get cosmos.”

“Cool. Be back in a flash. Try not to let some other lucky lady steal you away from me while I’m gone.”

I laughed. 

“Why was that funny?” Julia asked. 

“Uh… Never mind.”

She shrugged. Then she went off in search of libations. 

I looked around, quaking in my dress. God, I’d been wearing this sequined gown all day. I expected myself to be sick of it by now, but… Honestly, it still felt good. Maybe it was all the appreciative looks the other ladies at the bar were giving me, or maybe it was just the shocking revelation that I thought it looked good on me, but it felt right. Rose had insisted on me getting more than one, including the yellow sundress and a red maxi dress, and while part of me thought it was unnecessary… Maybe it wasn’t?

I mean, I was a woman. I was allowed to wear dresses from time to time. And if I was gonna be keeping up the pretense of being Cris’ fiance, I needed to look the part. And maybe I didn’t hate how I looked quite as much when I was wearing them? Some girls looked really good in sweats and hoodies, but I’d never thought of myself as one of them. They were mostly just a way to avoid people looking at my body. To avoid… 

To avoid them realizing I was a girl.

God, old habits died hard. 

And yeah, a girl could dress however she damn well pleased, but that meant… If it pleased me… I could wear dresses or skirts from time to time. Not all the time, obviously: they weren’t exactly practical to wear to a construction site, but at home, or on days off… Maybe playing around with something new would be good for me. Plus, it was Summer; it was too hot for most of my usual ensemble during the day. And I knew how to tuck, and in a few months I hopefully wouldn’t even need to anymore… Maybe jeans and tank tops could be good work-wear? And then on weekends and after work I could… I could try femme-ing it up. Rose was gonna help me learn the basics of makeup and skincare, and I could definitely get fashion advice from her and Lisa. 

And hey, when I dressed like this and went into character, I could tease Cris. That was always a good time. But not too much: I was already ruining his life. I didn’t want to make him actively hate me. He… He was putting up with a lot, and doing a lot for me. Maybe I could try throwing some sugar in with the spice when we hung out. 

“What’s got you so deep in thought, pretty lady?” Julia said as she returned with two cosmopolitans in hand. She handed me mine and clinked my glass with hers, and we took sips in tandem. 

“Oh, Cris, mostly,” I confessed.

“Oh yeah? What about him?” 

“Well, he and I are… We’re friends. And we’re in this weird situation. So I guess I wanna know more about him.”

“Fair and valid,” Julia said, putting her hand over mine and caressing the top of it. “How about some quid pro quo. You answer a question about you, I’ll answer a question about Cris.”

“I like it,” I nodded, taking a sip of my cosmo. Damn, this thing was good. “How did you and Cris meet?”

“Same way I met Rose,” Julia answered, “In church.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, then brought my hand to her cross tattoo. “Did you think this tat was just for show?”

I smiled. She was very warm and surprisingly soft and touching her felt good, but I couldn’t afford to get distracted right now. I was on a mission. “Guess not.”

“Hm. Yeah. We were all in church one Sunday and recognized each other from school. After that, we got to talking, and got to hanging out, and one thing led to another. Suddenly I had two best friends.”

“Was he always-”

“Hey now, pretty girl, it’s my turn,” Julia said. “You said you haven’t been here for a while. And you looked nervous while you said that. Why?”

I took another sip of my drink. “It’s where I met my ex-girlfriend. My first girlfriend. There’s been others since then, but she… She left scars.”

She squeezed my hand again. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” I said, letting the booze loosen my tongue a bit more. “She, uh, clocked me as trans pretty quickly, and she… I dunno, she was always criticizing my appearance and then giving me shit whenever I tried to put in any effort, always telling me how lucky I was to have her, how she was risking her gold-star by hanging around with a... Well, with a trans girl like me. It was like she… She…”

“Got off on being the hot one in the relationship?” 

I snapped my fingers. “Yes! Yes, like that. I’ve never thought about it like that before, but… Yeah. Anyway, it turned out she was cheating on me, and I found out when I came here to surprise her for our anniversary and caught her making out with some butch muscle mommy. Turns out the reason she came here after work every night was to prowl for side-action”

“What an asshole.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Is it bad that I miss her sometimes?”

“No, it’s normal,” Julia said. “Though it is a little concerning.”

“Yeah, my therapist says that too.”

“Makes sense. Your turn, by the way,” Julia said, knocking back another third of her cosmo. 

“Was Cris always… How do I put this-”

“A slut?” Julia laughed. 

I snapped my fingers again. “Yeah, that.”

“No, actually,” Julia said. “Believe it or not, when we first met, freshman year, he was this gangly, skinny boy with braces and acne and a hideous buzz cut. Nobody gave him the time of day. Well, except Rose. She followed him around like a lovesick puppy.”

“What changed?”

“His sister Lydia’s boyfriend cheated on her. So, he challenged said boyfriend to a fight. And he got his ass beat. Like, it was bad: I wanted to go in and help him, but he wouldn’t let me. He just kept getting back up until a teacher caught us, and figured the other guy was the one assaulting Cris. Which got the other guy expelled, but Cris still wasn’t satisfied. Like, he did not want to ever lose a fight again. Textbook macho bullshit, but like… I dunno, it was weirdly sweet how much he cared about his family. Said he wanted to be able to protect them, his sisters and his little brother. And Rose, too. After that, he started hitting the gym like crazy. With me, no less. We became gym buddies. And he took up sailing, got super buff, the braces came off over the summer, skin cleared up, he finally grew out his terrible buzz cut into something suited to his facial structure… And the floodgates open. He got into fights and never, ever lost. He was tan and fit and could tell jokes and was super nice to everyone provided they weren’t mean to his family or friends, and… Well… You can probably fill in the blanks from there.”

“I can, yeah,” I said, my heartstrings tugging at the thought. “That sounds just like him. No chill, no filter, no impulse control. Questionable boundaries. And a very, very big heart. I can’t decide if it’s obnoxious or endearing.”

“Kinda both. Helps that he’s so damn sincere about it,” Julia said, tracing her fingers up my arm. “And like, the one time he tried to do that with me… All I had to do was say ‘never do that again’ and he listened.”

“What-”

“What kind of girls do you like?” she asked, her hand finishing the trail of goosebumps and settling on my shoulder.

“Usually more masc girls,” I said, nearly shivering in my seat. No, no, stop getting distracted. Go to horny-jail or focus up! You need to make it up to him. “Olivia was definitely a high-femme, but I guess she kinda ruined that for me.”

“Now that’s just a crying shame,” Julia said, her hand reaching my cheek. “Don’t get me wrong, I like a lumberjack butch as much as the next sapphic, but there’s something I’ve always found irresistible about a cute little femme like you.”

“I… I’m not sure that’s me, though,” I said, my heart beat rising, my brain exploding with electric lust. “I mean… It might be. I… I haven’t really tried… All this before. Olivia wouldn’t let me. And… I think I like it, but what if I turn out not to?”

Her fingers settled over my lips. Holy shit. “Then you’re still you. And you’re fucking beautiful, Lily DiGiacomo.”

I gulped. 

“But if this is you… Well, I think you’ve got lots of potential,” she said, leaning in and giving me a kiss on the forehead.

I nearly combusted. Goddamn, this lady had game for days, and she was bothering with me? No accounting for taste, I guess. 

“And what about my type of girl?” she whispered into my ear, her breath caressing the soft skin behind it. “I like to think of myself as the best of both worlds. I can chop wood with the best of them, and help you with your makeup afterwards. Is that something that appeals to you?”

“I think… I think it’s my turn,” I said softly. 

She kissed my cheek. My burning, no doubt furiously red, cheek. “Go ahead, angel.”

The lust vanished. “Please don’t call me that.”

“Why-”

“That’s what Cris calls me.”

“Yeah, I know-”

“And I don’t wanna get my wires crossed,” I said, pulling back, polishing off the remainder of my drink. 

“Oookay,” she said, scooting backwards a bit in her chair. 

“You two dated,” I said. “Why?”

She blinked. “That’s… Okay, here’s the thing. I’ve always known I liked girls. But I was never super comfortable with that. There was this part of me that, like, wanted to be normal? Didn’t think I could be if I dated women? So I decided to try to force myself to be bi? And Cris… It was obvious he liked me. He looked at me the way Rose looked at him. And he and I were good friends and every girl he got with looked pretty happy, so I did an elaborate prom-posal and tried to see if I could acquire the taste. He was too shocked to respond at first, but Rose encouraged him to go for it. So we went, and we danced, and he was a gentleman, and I kissed him… And I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. Until I opened my eyes and saw the heartbreak in his and realized I’d tarnished one of the best friendships I’d ever had for the sake of trying to jam my square peg into a round hole and I felt guilty in a way that only a Catholic upbringing can make you feel. So yeah.”

“What… What’s it like? Being with him? I know you weren’t, but if he and I are-”

“Hey, uh, are we gonna talk about Cris all night?” she said, furrowing her brow. 

I blinked. Shit. Shit shit shit. This girl was doing everything short of telling me point-blank ‘I want to peg you so hard you can’t walk right for a month’ and I was giving her nothing. I was too busy with my own weird little drama. This wasn’t fair to her. Not by a longshot. “Dammit. I’m… I’m so sorry, I just… Maybe this isn’t a good idea. There’s a lot going on in my life and… Maybe I shouldn’t be letting myself get distracted? And besides, you can do way better than me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Lily,” Julia said. “But hey, I totally understand. Cris actually warned me you might say something like that.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. Uh, when we were getting drinks, I asked him if you two were actually together or not, and he said no, you’re gay, so I said I wanted to shoot my shot. And then he told me you’re in a weird place right now but I was welcome to go for it.”

“S-seriously?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “And then he said if I hurt you in any way, shape, or form, he’d steal all my autographed softball cards and sell them online for less than they were worth.”

In spite of my guilt and shame at fucking up with a girl this hot and this nice, I laughed. “That… Yeah, that’s about right.”

I stood up, phone in hand. “I’m sorry about tonight.”

“Don’t be,” Julia said, standing up and giving me a cheek-kiss good-bye. “Be good to Cris, though. He can be a real dickhead, but he’s a good guy underneath it all. And if he’s got you, he’s a lucky guy.”

I laughed again. “It’s not… It’s not like that.”

“Hm,” she said with a knowing grin. “If you insist.”