“Mmh, that looks delicious.” Jess’s low voice came from directly behind her. She walked around the couch on fluffy blue socks and sat next to Lena.
“You look comfortable.” The sight of Jess in a gray hoodie that had been washed so often the name of the college was illegible tempted Lena to change out of her shorts into something warmer too, but her stomach demanded she wait until after dinner.
Jess shrugged. “Ella slobbered all over my T-shirt, so I had to change anyway.” She looked around. “What do you want to drink?”
“Oh sorry, I forgot about that. What did we bring?”
“Nothing. Diana said we can drink anything we find. I think I saw water, soda, and beer in the fridge. And some wine on the counter.”
“Oh, I haven’t had wine for ages.”
“I haven’t had alcohol since before I got pregnant with Ella, but I’ve heard a glass of wine is supposed to be good for the heart.”
“Don’t you need to ask your doctor about that?”
Jess laughed. “This cardiologist approves.”
“I’ll get us some.” Lena started to rise.
“No, stay. It’ll just take a minute.” With her socks, Jess slid more than walked to the kitchen. “Red okay?”
“Sure.” Lena should limit her intake to one glass too. She wasn’t used to it, so the wine would make her tipsy. A stupid idea if she wanted to avoid revealing her budding attraction to Jess.
After a minute, Jess returned carrying two wine glasses in one hand and an open bottle of Pinot Noir in the other. Two bottles of water stuck out of the pocket of her hoodie. She placed everything on the table, then poured them each a glass.
Grateful for the water, Lena sipped that first. For the help in keeping her wits, she would forgive the use of plastic for once.
“Thank you for dinner.” Jess raised her wine glass. “To our mini vacation.”
“Thank you for bringing me here.” Lena touched her glass to Jess’s and looked in her eyes.
The cornflower blue wasn’t as bright as in the sunlight, but the dim lighting erased the fine lines around her eyes and gave her an ageless look, warm and inviting.
When Jess closed her eyes to twirl and sniff the wine, her dark eyelashes fluttered.
Before she had even had a sip of wine, Lena was already dizzy. She closed her eyes and breathed in. Oh, yeah. Diana and her partner weren’t skimpy when it came to wine. The first sip flooded her senses with something tart and fruity like cranberry or blackberry before it warmed her with a softer flavor, almost like vanilla. “Mmh. I think it’s the best wine I’ve ever had.”
Jess hummed in agreement. “I love it too. It will be so hard to limit myself to one glass.” She took a carrot and dipped it in the hummus. After finishing it off in two bites, she dipped two more and sighed. “I think this is the best hummus I’ve ever had. So we’re even.”
“Hey, you didn’t bring the wine.”
“Did too. From the kitchen.”
Lena laughed. “Oh, I’m so looking forward to the first time Ella uses that line on you.”
“Nah, she won’t. She’ll forever stay a cuddly and sweet baby.”
“Really? You’d want that?”
Jess nibbled on a slice of cucumber. “Actually, I can’t wait for her to talk, to express her thoughts, to show me she’s a person with her own will.” She chuckled. “Even though I’m afraid our tempers will clash more than once if she takes after me. At least that’s what my mom told me. She said my first word was no.”
Up. Tammy’s first word had been up, and she’d said it to Lena. She had wanted to be up in Lena’s arms, not their mother’s; her heart had nearly burst at the trust and love in Tammy’s eyes. Her mother hadn’t liked that show of free will at all and had given them both the cold shoulder for a day. “I think you’ll be a wonderful mom.”
“I don’t know.” Jess swirled the wine in her glass without drinking. “Sometimes I doubt if I made the right decision or if I was egotistical. I’m a single mother with little time to give.”
“That might be true, but you’re not the first woman to ever face this problem. And you have a great mom to help. But you give something else that’s important, not just time and love, but you respect her as a person, even now.”
“Thank you for saying so, but I’m not so sure it’ll be enough.” Jess sipped her wine slowly as if she relished every little drop. “My heart failure scared me. Not only because of what it could mean for me, but for Ella too. When you’re young and healthy, you think you’re immortal.” She snorted. “I should’ve known better. I’ve treated patients much younger than me. But somehow…”
“Somehow you never thought it applied to you?” Lena leaned forward and put one hand on Jess’s thigh. The muscles were hard as if she was ready to jump up at any second.
“Exactly. Stupid.”
“Or human? If you worried about every little thing, you wouldn’t be a good mother either or a good role model.” The tension under Lena’s fingers eased, and she reluctantly pulled her hand away.
“Good point.” Jess stretched out her legs and shifted so her right side rested against the back of the couch. “Enough about my sad, sad life. Do you want kids?”
Why did everything today poke into the same wound? Lena shuddered and placed her wine glass on the table before she spilled it on the couch. “Yeah. Someday.” She sighed.
“Why not now?”
“Apart from being single, broke, and working too many jobs?” Lena pulled one leg up and hugged it to her chest.
“Apart from that. Say
