Lou blushed again. She didn’t need any encouragement to keep an eye on Stephanie.

Tania looked at her, opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it again.

“What?” asked Lou.

“I… Well, I was just going to say, um…” Tania seemed to be struggling with her words.

Lou made a rolling motion with her hands to encourage her to speak up, her curiosity overcoming her shyness. The action made Tania giggle.

“All right, I’ll just say it,” said Tania in a rush. “You’re incredibly shy, aren’t you?”

Lou glanced away and nodded, but before she could respond, Tania was speaking again.

“And you really like Stephanie, don’t you?”

Lou’s heart pounded in her chest. Oh shit, was it that obvious? What if Stephanie had realised? Was that why she’d been so cold with Lou today?

“Hey, don’t panic, please!” Tania’s voice was calm, and she tentatively laid a hand on Lou’s arm. “I only just realised it as we were speaking now. There’s no way she knows, okay?”

Lou dared to meet Tania’s gaze and found only friendliness and warmth there. She sighed. Something she couldn’t really understand told her Tania would not hurt or belittle her. In fact, her gut instinct told her that Tania could be a really good friend.

“I think she’s gorgeous,” whispered Lou. “But I am so shy. I have no idea how to go about even finding out if she’s gay, never mind if she’s single or interested in me. And no, I don’t have a working gaydar, but she has given me a couple of very confusing signals, and it’s doing my head in.”

Tania smiled at her. “I think you and me need to have lunch together today. What do you think?”

A warm flush of pure joy spread through Lou’s body. She grinned and nodded.

* * *

Lou was in a dilemma. It was Friday night, her preferred night to go to the club. As she sipped her coffee and listened to Billie Holiday, she struggled to come up with the enthusiasm to go or a plan of what she might look for when she got there. She couldn’t get Stephanie out of her mind.

Her amazing interaction with Tania yesterday had put her head into a spin too. It was refreshing to sit down to lunch and talk about gay things, which, of course, included her major crush on Stephanie. And talking about Stephanie meant all she could think about for the rest of that day was Stephanie’s beautiful face.

Friday was dress-down day in the office, and Stephanie had turned up in jeans and a tight tee shirt that showed off every gorgeous curve.