“Wow. Your building sounds like the people there totally care about each other.”
“I suppose you thought in a dumpy neighborhood you expected screaming, shouting, drugs in the hallway, holes in the walls…that kind of thing?”
“No!” Laney gripped the wheel, her face heating up with embarrassment. “I never thought that.”
“It’s okay. I know my place is small and dumpy and all my stuff is outdated. That’s not where I want to be forever.”
“No! I know that. I never thought that your place was dumpy or outdated!”
Morgun snorted. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“Okay.” She let it go easily. “I’m just really glad you didn’t mace Chester.”
“The hairspray was a crazy idea. I don’t know where I read that. I should just get real mace or nothing at all.”
“You should not get mace! At least hairspray might not blind someone.”
“Maybe I should just take a self defense class.”
“Yeah!” Morgun grew animated, her voice changing to reflect her excitement. “I’ve always wanted to take one of those! Maybe we can do one together!”
“I’d probably miss half of them, but maybe I can look at my schedule and pick out the nights I’m free and we could see if there’s anything being offered.”
“Okay. I’ll look around and see if I can find anything.” Morgun switched to another subject naturally and easily. “Is it alright if I give you the card from my camera? Yes, I know I should be using digital and upgrading my equipment so it just magically gets transported onto my computer, but I don’t have a laptop that can handle that, and buying a new camera is really expensive.”
“Sure. I don’t mind.” Laney let out a sigh of relief at Morgun not bringing up the subject of putting a label on them. She was scared to jinx it. What she had with Morgun was by far the most special thing she’d ever had with anyone.
Maybe Laney wasn’t only scared of jinxing it. Maybe she was scared of losing it. Which meant that she cared. A person couldn’t be afraid of losing something they didn’t care about losing. She’d found something rare and beautiful and wonderful, and that was terrifying in and of itself.
Lately, she’d been thinking about what her mom wasn’t saying. She wasn’t calling her and bugging her about dating or grandchildren. There’d been silence on that front, thanks to Jason and Natasha’s announcement, but Laney found herself thinking about, just hypothetically, what it would be like to not have to come home to an empty apartment. What sharing everything with someone would be like. Not just someone—Morgun.
She’d thought about it, especially while she was away. That was the time she missed Morgun most, when she was in another city and she couldn’t just head over to her place to see her or ask her out for a drink or dinner. In fact, Laney thought about Morgun a lot.
She worried she was thinking about her too much, too soon. She was scared of putting a label on them, but there she was thinking about Morgun in that sense of the other half of her, of the person she thought about almost all the time, of that special someone. Of the right person.
The right person that everyone always said she’d never met.
What if she’d finally met her and she did something to mess it all up? Laney was half afraid that she would because this was all new to her. She’d dated before, of course. She’d done both casual and more committed relationships, but she’d never considered someone her other half. She’d never thought about another person to distraction. In a good way. She’d never felt even a tenth of what Morgun made her feel. Which was currently undefinable, partly because she was too scared to try to define it.
“Laney?”
“Hmm?” She shook herself. She’d been paying attention to the road while her mind churned up a furious, messed up storm, but she could see how she’d completely zoned out on Morgun. “Sorry. I was…sorry.”
“That’s okay. I just said that I think it went well. That it’s going to turn out amazing.”
Laney nodded. She was somewhere around ninety-two and a half percent sure that Morgun meant the photos they’d done. But maybe she was talking about something else. Maybe she was talking about them, and she knew Laney well enough to leave it in code so that she wouldn’t scare her. Which made Laney want to cry because she was so thankful, and because that was totally sad and pathetic on her part.
She needed to do better. She knew that. Morgun was worth it. She was so freaking worth it. Laney didn’t have to change. She just had to get better at letting her real self shine through. Morgun was so right. There was nothing wrong with being yourself.
Unless you were an asshole. Then you should try to be better. But Laney knew she wasn’t. She was all heart. She needed to start letting that through, making it clear to Morgun how she felt. If she couldn’t do that, she might lose Morgun, and that was far more awful than growing a set of lady balls and womaning up and talking about her feelings for a change.
Chapter 25
Laney
Laney was walking into the lunchroom to get herself another cup of coffee. She was trying to cut back, but she’d been at the office early, doing some editing that she just wasn’t motivated to do at home. It was too easy to get distracted at her house when she wasn’t in the mood to sit down for hours and plug away doing edit after edit. She had a cubicle here where she could force herself to do the work that needed to be done, but the temptation of coffee that was always on was too great to ignore.