I’d talked to our therapist about my fear of rejection, the way I worried women might respond to me having never been with another woman before, or how they might view my commitment to exploring my bisexuality with my husband right by my side. I’d thought we’d worked through this, but I don’t know that I have until Jourdan’s smiling at me, and her other hand reaches for mine.

It takes me a few seconds to place my hand in hers, but when we finally touch, it feels good. Better than good. Jourdan feels great.

Her fingers smooth over my knuckles. “I’ve always wanted to be someone’s first,” she says in a heated whisper.

I haven’t laughed so loud all day.

first kiss

I’m tipsy, and that was not part of the plan.

Those sangrias were deceptively strong, or maybe I just let my nerves convince me not to think about my low tolerance for anything besides a couple of glasses of good wine. Maybe it’s hard to differentiate between the swirling lightness of sangria in my blood and the light swirls of Jourdan’s thumb across my arm as we talk about our jobs, the boys, how she found this place, everything but Darren. It’s not on purpose, but I think we both know that if we talk about him, the mood of this afterwork drink will change.

“Are you hungry?” Jourdan asks.

My stomach growls, and I nod.

She grabs my hand. “Okay, I know this other place.”

“You don’t want to eat here?”

She shakes her head and leans forward. “Online reviews say the sangria is great, but the food is just okay. Come on.”

We stand and grab our purses. “Oh, wait, let me go to the bathroom first.”

She nods, “Good idea,” and then pulls me down the hall.

The restaurant is loud as hell and has only become louder as the afterwork crowd meets the midweek dinner crowd. But in the back hallway, the sounds of too-loud trendy music and excited chatter die down to muffled white noise. Jourdan’s leading me down the hall by our joined hands. She turns to look at me over her shoulder. I suddenly feel the way I did when I came back to college sophomore year and saw Darren for the first time. He seemed to have grown a couple of inches in height over the summer. In the blink of an eye, he had muscles where I swear he hadn’t before. His glasses were sexy and not just adorable. To be honest, nothing about him had changed, but I saw him differently, and that changed everything.

I’m seeing Jourdan differently right now.