Worth a Shot Read online

  Miranda, the tech explained to us as he led us along the concrete floor, was five years old, fixed, and had been mistreated by her former owners before ending up at the League. “She’s not the prettiest dog, but she’s perfectly behaved,” he said earnestly.

  “Well, that’s a shame. Do you have any gorgeous dogs who are also complete assholes, because my friend here is looking for—” I stopped when Katie jabbed me not-so-gently in the ribs with her elbow.

  “We’d love to meet her,” she said.

  “Great!”

  Miranda was missing half of one short-cropped ear, and one of her eyes was milky and blind. Her other eye was bright brown, and her butt wagged so hard when she sniffed Katie’s hand that I thought she might fall over. “Aw, you wook mean, but you’re a big softie, huh?” I cooed—fucking baby talk—before I could help myself.

  “She’s been here for close to a month now,” our helpful tech said. “She’s just waiting for the right person to take her home.”

  “You got here at the same time I did,” Katie said, and the smile she gave that dog was the sort of smile I’d kill to get myself. Soft and sweet and open in a way Katie didn’t let herself be with me, or with anyone else, from what I’d observed. She didn’t seem to open herself up to people, and even with our easy rapport, she still stayed quiet more often than not. Which―not a problem, I’d never had a hard time filling the silence. Maybe I should do it less, actually.

  An hour later Katie had a dog, which meant I also had a dog. Katie promised to keep the back yard clean, and I promised to help keep Miranda fed, watered and walked.

  I’d half expected getting a dog to mean that the door between our separate sides would stay closed all the time, but the exact opposite happened. Miranda, it seemed, hated being alone, and Katie couldn’t take her to school with her. The simple solution was for me to leave the door open when I worked from home, so Miranda wouldn’t break my heart with her little cries of discontent.

  That morphed into me taking her into the shop where I did my custom painting, and Miranda was an instant fave with Mendoza and his crew. There was nothing quite as wonderfully incongruous as watching a burly car mechanic get down on his knees so he could scratch Miranda’s belly. “Your girl gonna hunt me down if I steal her dog?” he asked me at the end of the first week of my bringing her along.

  “Hell with that, I’ll hunt you down if you steal her dog,” I told him, handing over sketches for a heavily modified Prius. Yes, a street-racing Prius. We didn’t judge.

  Mendoza shrugged and kept scratching. “Seems like you’ve stolen her already.”

  That didn’t even merit a response. I hadn’t stolen anyone. We were sharing―it was different.

  The remark stuck with me for the rest of the day, though. In a way, I did feel a little bit like a thief. Katie was Miranda’s owner, but I spent the most time with her. We’d lived side by side for two months at this point, and I was pretty sure I’d know if Katie was bothered by the fact that I bogarted her dog every day. Sure, she was at school, but her hours were irregular. She had to be home alone sometimes.

  I didn’t like the thought of Katie home alone. Not because she wasn’t competent or anything. The woman was one of the most competent people I’d ever met, and that, it turned out, was a serious kink for me that I was only just coming to realize. Last week she’d taken her new stun gun apart in front of me, detailing how every little piece of it worked as she lovingly put it back together, and I’d gotten so slick I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to clean myself up before Katie smelled it. She was just so serious about everything she really set her mind to. I sometimes let myself imagine being the thing that she’d set her mind to, then her hands, and her mouth…

  Not the point. The point was, I didn’t think Katie was hiding anything from me, but in point of fact, I didn’t know. And if I was doing anything that made her uncomfortable, I wanted to know so I could knock it the fuck off before she bailed on me and found a new place to live.

  I brought it up when we had dinner that evening. It was Katie’s turn to cook—she made a beef stroganoff that tasted like it could have come from a restaurant in St. Petersburg. I’d only been there once, but I remembered the food. “You know, you can tell me if you want Miranda around the house more,” I said before taking my first bite. Mmm, so good.

  Katie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you know…me taking her to work all the time. I don’t mean to leave you alone here.”

  “It doesn’t bother me, Sam,” Katie assured me.

  But now I was bothered. The more I thought about it, the more bothered I got. “Would you even tell me if it did, though?” I held up a hand when she went to reply. “Hear me out. You’ve been living here for two months—two months—and I have yet to hear you complain about anything. It’s not like we keep everything separate, either.” I gestured back to the door between our homes. “That’s open all the time. You got all this stuff put in that’s supposed to help guarantee your safety, your privacy. I violate that continuously, and you never tell me no.” I leaned forward. “You can tell me to fuck off, Katie. You really can.”

  Katie’s brows drew down and together. She looked…actually, kind of as if she’d enjoy telling me to fuck off right now. But she didn’t. “I like having you around.”

  “I know you do, and I’m grateful, I just―I want to make sure you know that you can be honest with me. If I do something that bothers you, I want to know about it. Whether it’s dognapping or mixing my dirty laundry with yours or, I don’t know, how I make the vindaloo too spicy. We can still be friends even if you assert yourself.”

  “I can assert myself!” she protested.

  She said that, but it wasn’t the vibe I got from her. Apart from baseball, at least, where she was absolutely cutthroat. “Prove it. Tell me something about our interactions that pisses you off. I won’t get mad, I swear.”

  “I don’t have to insult you to be assertive.”

  “Katie…”

  She steamrolled right on by me. “I don’t have to point out your flaws to be assertive. I don’t have to get angry in order to be honest with you!”

  “You don’t have to be totally controlled, either.”

  “Being controlled has done a hell of a lot more for me than saying whatever crosses my mind has,” Katie snapped, and stabbed her fork into a piece of beef as if it had offended her.

  Oookay. What I’d intended as something kind of light and funny had gotten real serious, real fast. I sensed we were treading close to unspoken territory, i.e. family stuff, and backed off. Katie didn’t talk about her family and I didn’t pry. “So basically you’re saying I’m brilliant.”

  “That isn’t what I’m saying.”

  “Sure it is!” I grinned cheekily. “I’ve given you free rein to slag off on me and you don’t take the bait? You’re a saint, and I’m perfect, and our dog is a marvel who I’m going to continue taking to work with me. Life is good.”

  “Life is very good,” Katie said, but she wasn’t smiling as she reached out and took my hand. It wasn’t that this was the first time she’d touched me by any means, but it was one of the most deliberate. “I’m happy. I can’t remember being this happy before. I’ll tell you if you do anything I really don’t like, I promise, but I’m just…” She took a deep breath. “I’m happy with you.”

  “Aw, luv.” I squeezed her hand back. “I’m glad.”

  So, Katie wasn’t used to being happy? Then I, as her friend, confidant and admirer, was going to have to get her more used to that particular state of being. It was a new sort of step for me, not going straight for the jugular of someone I was attracted to, but I didn’t want lust to interfere in what she and I were developing. It seemed as if I might be the only experience Katie had with an actual friend, and that was quite an amazing thing to be. If I had to subsume my own desires a little bit to give her that experience, then I could do it.

  I could. I totally could. It wou
ld be easier if she didn’t walk into my kitchen in the morning wearing nothing but a long T-shirt, but I could bloody do it.

  I introduced her to the map game, which was fun. Slightly depressing, but fun. I bought a map of the world and backed it with poster board, then stuck it on my living room wall. I had a collection of multi-colored tacks to go with it, and three months after she became my housemate we spent a fun, frivolous afternoon putting pins in the places we’d been, and all the places we wanted to go.

  My pins were cast all over the map like grains of primary-colored sand, hitting almost every continent. After that I put up pins in the places that I still wanted to go, some big and ritzy cities but mostly small-town American affairs along the old Route 66. It was an utter cliché, but I was nevertheless enamored with the idea of driving all the way across this country.

  Katie’s ‘where I’ve been’ pins all centered around New York and Moscow, apart from the one in Denver. There were literally no outliers, no jaunts to the Jersey Shore or Ukraine or even Mongolia. I mean, I didn’t know what great fun there was to be had in Mongolia if you weren’t into riding across the steppes on horseback, but surely going sightseeing had to be better than squatting in Moscow for weeks.

  “I have family there,” was all Katie would tell me when I asked about it.

  “Right, and I have family in Hampstead, but that doesn’t mean I don’t spend most of my visits home in London,” I replied.

  “There’s a lot to do in Moscow!”

  “Like shiver,” I said. “And eat borscht.”

  “You like borscht.”

  “I do, that’s true, but it’s still a bit sad, darling.” I grabbed her hand and tugged her down onto the couch next to me. She fell almost directly on top of my lap, which wasn’t precisely where I’d intended her to land, but I certainly wasn’t complaining. “Isn’t there anywhere else you want to go?” I asked, keeping my hands politely above her waist even though all I wanted to do was wrap her up with my arms and legs and cling like a spider monkey.

  “I’m here,” she said softly, looking straight at me. Her eyes really were amazing—green around the edges slowly fading into a warm amber-brown. “This is exactly where I want to be.”

  I tried to shake off the subtext. “But how is that enough? Don’t you want to explore?”

  Katie, apparently, had had it with our genial unresolved sexual tension, because she turned in my lap, straddled my thighs and wove the fingers of one hand into my thick black hair. “I do,” she murmured, leaning in and kissing the corner of my mouth. I could feel her lips tremble against mine, and when I pulled her in closer she sighed with satisfaction, and perhaps some relief as well. “Maybe we could share your pins. Go and drive Route 66 together.”

  “Don’t mock me,” I warned her breathlessly. “Don’t play pretend, because I will absolutely drag you and Miranda out on a road trip with me once summer comes.”

  When Katie kissed me again, the tremor was gone. Her lips were warm and smooth, and I opened my mouth eagerly when they pressed against mine. “It’s a date,” she said once she finally pulled back.

  Chapter Two

  Have you ever felt as if you’ve fallen into something with someone who’s so perfect, you almost can’t trust it? Falling in love with Katie felt that way to me. She’d gone from being the perfect applicant to the perfect housemate to the almost-ideal girlfriend, and I was ecstatic. My intuition was also giving me hell over it, and the dissonance was hard to justify sometimes.

  There were little things surrounding Katie that just didn’t add up sometimes. Like the way her ‘family friend’ occasionally stopped by, but never stayed for longer than it took to exchange a greeting. When I asked for her name, all I got was “Mrs. Jones”. I wondered if she was in Katie’s contact list that way.

  Speaking of her family, they never seemed to call her, and she certainly never called them, at least not when I was around. I only asked once, on Valentine’s Day, whether she’d be calling home. “I don’t think so,” Katie had said, kind of somberly, and I’d dropped it. I kind of kicked myself for doing that, because I was a naturally curious person. I wanted to know all of these secret, private things about her. I wanted to know them because I was interested—invested—in keeping Katie happy. I wanted to know because I wanted to know her better, but I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t want to push her away. Despite Katie being the one to make the first real move, it still seemed as if the burden of keeping this thing going was pretty much on me, because Katie… She clearly didn’t have a lot of experience in romantic, sexual relationships.

  That didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to try with me. Oh my god, giving your girl head for the first time in her life? That’s setting the stage for every sexual encounter in the future, and I wasn’t letting up until I had her clenched and dripping around my fingers as I licked over the sweet nub of her clit, sucking until Katie wailed and pulsed against me. I rode her sensitive pussy with my tongue until she pulled me up to lie on top of her, kissing me desperately.

  “Oh fuck,” Katie breathed against my lips as she started to come down from the high of orgasm. “Oh fuck, oh fuck. Sam…” When she opened her eyes to look at me, her pupils were so dark all I could see was a ring of green at the edge of her iris. “Show me what to do for you,” Katie demanded, and I was more than happy to comply.

  “Give me your hand, babe,” I said. I guided her fingers down to my clit. “Rub, just there—ah, yeah, just like that,” I groaned as she mimicked my motion, two fingers on either side of my bud, pressing down hard and fast. “Good, mmm. Now here, pinch.” I put her other hand on one of my breasts, and bent over her face with the other. “Pinch them tight.”

  Katie followed my lead, sucking hard on one nipple while she squeezed the other, all the while rubbing her fingers around my clit. I ground down hard against her, and I knew I was going to come faster than usual but I wanted that, I wanted to show her, I wanted her to feel it and know that she could do this for me, that we could be good for each other like this. It wasn’t everything, but it was something. “Ah, Katie, babe,” I moaned, finally slipping two of my own fingers into my pussy and slamming them deep. I came, breathlessly, with a long sigh of satisfaction. I leaned in and kissed her, soft and sweet, and slowed her down with my own calming breaths, my nonsense murmurs and giggles.

  “What else?” Katie asked after a few minutes, with me lying between her legs, sucking a bruise into the pale flesh just above her breast. “What else do you like? What else can we do?”

  “Oh, babe.” I lifted my head and grinned wickedly at her. “We haven’t even gotten into the sex toys yet. There are so many things we can do, your pretty head’s going to spin.”

  “Oh yeah?” She grinned back at me, joyful, and it made my heart clench a bit. “Prove it.”

  I did. Three more times that night, in fact.

  The bedroom stuff was great. The home stuff in general was great. Our dog rocked—Miranda really was perfectly behaved, just needed the occasional walk, food, water and a lot of affection. Katie had her schedule, I had mine, and as long as we met somewhere in the middle, things were good.

  Going beyond those bounds, though? Things started to unravel.

  “It’s going to be fun!” I insisted. It was the first race of the season at Bandimere Speedway, and plenty of cars I’d painted were going to be there. I had a standing invite to hang with the drivers down in the pit, and it was a fun place to be. And I maybe, maybe wanted to show off my cute girlfriend. Maybe. Okay, definitely. “It’s not the testosterone fest you’re thinking it will be.” Katie raised one eyebrow. “Not completely. There are a few cars driven by ladies, and beyond that, people know me, they’ll be respectful. It’ll be a good time, I promise.”

  Katie was waffling, I could tell. I was an expert at instigating waffling. “Just for a few hours?” she asked, already picking up her jacket. It was warm out, but not that warm. She’d probably need it.

  “I guarantee it, babe,�
� I said, rubbing my hands together. We scratched Miranda behind the ears and left her with a new chew toy, then headed out to my Camaro. “It’s not too far to the track. We’ll be there in a blink.”

  “Don’t rush on my account.”

  I frowned as I pulled into traffic. “Are you bothered by crowds? Being out in public? Or is it just that you’re bothered by being out in public with me?” Because I wasn’t going to be keeping my preferences private for anyone, not even Katie.

  “No, it’s not you!” she assured me. “I swear it’s not. I’m just… I’m a private person. I don’t like being the center of attention.”

  I smiled. “Trust me, at these things, no person is the center of attention. It’s all about the cars.”

  That wasn’t completely true, of course. The drivers, the crews, the staff, the crowds—everybody had their place at the racetrack, and some of those places were more visible than others. I was a popular figure because, let’s face it, I was a pretty lesbian with a skill most of these boys could admire. I was safe to pal around with, non-threatening to the ladies and fodder for fantasies to some of the men. It was crass, and I knew it, but I’d gone into my career with my eyes firmly open. Being a salesperson was about showmanship, about staking a claim and making an entrance. It was about knowing what you had and flaunting it, and I did. I wasn’t flirty, but I was friendly.

  Katie was surprisingly good about it once we got into the swing of things. Coors was sponsoring the race—again, Lord, would they never stop inflicting their piss-water upon us?—and so Katie and I both got tepid beers to carry about as I made the rounds, introducing her at first as my friend. The third time I did it, she stopped me. “Her girlfriend, actually,” she clarified as she shook Mendoza’s hand.