Falling for Jillian Ashley: A Carlsbad Village Lesbian Romance

“Fuck!” Sally exclaimed, taking her eyes off the sizzling bacon still in the pan. “That’s, like, soon!”

“I know,” Amy replied, nodding. In truth, ever since her discussion with Makeda, she had hardly stopped thinking about the presentation and all the work she still needed to do to complete it and make it as kick-ass as possible. She not only wanted to prove to Makeda that Makeda’s trust in her was well-placed, but she also really, really wanted to get this amendment added to the county constitution. Okay, it wasn’t like amending the sacred U.S constitution but it would be a triumph nonetheless and would also be a warning shot across the bows of other municipalities across the nation that women were not going to sit idle while basic guarantees of equal rights were still missing from the charter documents of states, counties, cities and towns all over America.

“I know for sure I’m going to end up working on it after hours the next couple of days,” she went on. The omelets were ready and so she started plating them.

“For sure,” Sally said. “I should probably make sure to leave you in peace until you get it done.”

Fuck!

Keeping her eyes focused on plating the omelets, Amy pursed her lips. That hadn’t been what she meant when she mentioned to Sally how much effort and time the presentation would take. On the other hand, it would be better not to have any distractions around.

“Um…yeah, I guess so,” she told Sally. She hoped her voice wasn’t telegraphing her disappointment at the possibility of not seeing Sally the rest of the week.

Jesus, get a grip! It’s only a few days!

“I often have to bring work home when we’re doing a big job for a huge client, so I know what it’s like,” Sally said. “Do you think you’ll have any time this coming weekend to hang out, even if it’s just for a little while?”

Amy told herself to look on the bright side. At least the woman she was seeing was understanding about professional obligations and not getting bent out of shape because Amy wouldn’t be able to pay much attention to her. It was actually really, really sweet of Sally to suggest giving her some space.

“Of course,” Amy answered, giving Sally a full smile.

By the weekend, I’m going to want to eat you alive!

Chapter 22

Two days later, Sally logged into Facebook on her phone for the first time in over a week. The day after the interview on Amy’s podcast, Sally had turned off notifications from all of her social media apps because there were just too many of them. Now, looking at her Facebook account, she sighed.

There were over 500 notifications and by quickly skimming through them she could tell they were all about her circle of followers discovering that she was Jillian Ashley. What’s more, word was getting out beyond her normal Facebook bunch. Many of the notifications showed that she had been tagged in posts made by her Facebook friends to other people, identifying her as the extremely popular lesfic author. This in turn had led to countless friend requests as well as her Facebook inbox being jammed with direct messages from people she didn’t know.

Of all the notifications, she noticed three that were important to her: pictures of her six-year-old niece, Jodi, that had been shared by Sally’s sister, Camille.

Twitter and Instagram were the same: both accounts, which she had assiduously avoided over the past ten days, were overloaded with notifications and the discovery that she had gained thousands of new followers.

She closed the apps and set the phone down on her desk at BRX Graphic Design. A few weeks ago, the company had initiated a return-to-office scheme which was a hybrid model of working in the office one week and working from home the next week. Just until the pandemic was well and truly done. This was one of the work-from-office weeks.

Arrayed on her desktop were a collection of concept images her team had put together for one of their clients, a boutique music label which produced vinyl record albums. The client needed artwork for a new limited-edition series of LPs they were getting ready to release and Sally knew none of the concepts she was looking at would make the cut. Jamal’s concept was the most promising and so Sally spent some time making notes on his print and drawing some quick sketches which would demonstrate to the team how to take Jamal’s idea and enhance it until it became something more likely to match the client’s brief.

Done with that, she got up for some more coffee. In the breakroom, she had just popped her K-cup into the Keurig and hit Start when the new intern, Clara, came in. Clara had just joined the team on Wednesday and was still learning the ropes. Sally, as manager of the team and remembering her days as an intern had taken on the role of Clara’s mentor, making sure the super young college student wasn’t overwhelmed while still having interesting things to do each day.

“Hey, Clara, what’s up?” Sally greeted her.

Above the Spongebob Squarepants face mask Clara had on, her eyes were wide as she looked at Sally. She seemed too scared to approach her boss.

Sally frowned. Clara was very cute and Sally hoped none of the guys in the building had been behaving inappropriately towards her.

“Um…is everything okay?”

Clara nodded.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wanted to say that I’m a big fan of yours!”

Sally blinked. Sure, during her time at BRX she had worked on a few high-profile ad campaigns for some pretty big clients, and it still thrilled her each time she saw one of her designs out in the wild, but she had hardly made a name for herself. Then again, the world of graphic design was kind of niche. Maybe Clara had done some research before applying for one of the coveted internship slots here at BRX and had actually seen some of Sally’s work.

She smiled behind her mask.

“Thank you! That’s sweet!”

“I have read all your books!” Clara gushed.