Whimsical Diva (A Whimsical Dreams Sapphic Romantic Suspense), page 25
“Oh, honey.” Isadora’s face was full of sympathy.
“She kept stroking the back of my head and murmuring to me really low in Spanish…trying to comfort me, I guess. I’ve never heard her be that gentle, since we’re usually too busy snarking at each other. When I finally calmed some, she uncapped a bottle of water on her nightstand, made me sit up and drink some, then handed me a handkerchief so I could blow my nose and clean up my face. I know I looked like a beast, with my eyes all swollen and the front of her T-shirt soaked in tears. I was really embarrassed.”
Delaney’s voice was soft as she smiled with perfect understanding at Alyssa. “Bet she didn’t care one bit though, did she?”
“She didn’t.” Alyssa sighed. “When I was done, she laid me back down again, wrapped herself back around me, and just held me. No pressure, no words. It’s like she knew I needed to know someone was there, that I need to feel safe. I f-felt…felt like there was nothing in this world that could get to me as long as I was in her arms. But then…” Alyssa’s voice faltered for a moment.
“Then, I looked up at her and I saw a look on her face I’d never seen before. She was looking at me almost in awe, like she couldn’t believe I was there with her. That I was something…precious to her. I couldn’t help it. I reached up and I…I kissed her.”
The room was dead quiet.
“She kissed me back for a minute, very tenderly, and then she raised her head up and stroked my cheek. She told me she’s wanted me forever, but she wasn’t going to take advantage of my state of mind. That it would be more than okay if we just slept in each other’s arms that night…because simply holding me and then waking up to me was a dream come true for her.” Alyssa closed her eyes for a moment, tears sliding down her face once again. “But she said I also needed to know that if I decided I still wanted this, wanted her, it meant that I was hers and she was never going to let me go.”
Nova blew her bangs out of her eyes then took in a deep breath. “And you still slept with her, even after she said that?”
“I did. And without giving any details…it was the most magical night of my life. Even with all our snarking and arguing, I know I will belong to Jaime Quintero for infinity. I fell completely and irrevocably in love with her that night, when I saw everything she was deep down inside under the surface.” Her tears ran faster.
“The world sees a kind, funny APS butch, one of the fabled Seven, who can also be a mean-as-fuck hardass when the situation calls for it. But just like the rest of the management team, when all’s said and done…it’s protecting women that’s her life. It’s the reason why she breathes, why any of them breathe.
“There are also complications I never saw coming.” The pain in Alyssa’s voice struck them all like a fist. “And if I would have known any of it before I slept with Jaime that night, I would have walked away from her without a backward glance.”
Chapter 21
“Why, Alyssa? Why?” Nova demanded, taking Alyssa by the shoulders. “You’re finally admitting you’re in love with Jaime. Without a doubt, she is also in love with you. You’re perfect for each other, despite all your snarking and bickering. The two of you are going to give new meaning to the word ‘combustible’…but what the fuck can we expect when a fiery Puerto Rican butch claims a stubborn redheaded femme? The gang has been calling you two Kelly and Riley 2.0 for months.”
Kelly shot Nova the finger.
“I have to keep her safe,” Alyssa whispered, her eyes still welling. “I know what she is, Nov, and I know what she’s capable of doing. She’s APS’s physical security risk assessment expert. You once told me Trill called her a ‘magician’ when it came to breaching physical locations, so I know there’s no one more capable of keeping me safe. But I refuse to put her at risk because of my shit…and I would if I continue to let things with her go any further. You have to swear to me you won’t ever tell a soul anything I’m about to tell you.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, sister. What in the actual fuck are you talking about?” A suddenly irate Kelly Armstrong jumped to her feet. “What the hell changed between the time you and Jaime connected that night, to you doing this fucked-up about-face a day later? I haven’t known you for very long, Lys, but the one thing I have figured out about you is that you’re a straight shooter. You’re not a tease nor are you one of these bitches who’s all over the place. You would have never in a million years accepted Jaime Quintero’s claim on you one minute, then turned around and changed your mind the next. That’s not how you fucking roll.”
Brooke snorted. “No, it’s not. Del and I have known this bitch since kindergarten…she’s one of the most real and most honest people we know.” With her arms folded across her chest, Delaney nodded silently, staring fixedly at Alyssa. “I’m thinking someone better start fucking talking and explain what the hell is going on because I’m about to lose my shit.”
Alyssa leaned forward and propped her elbows up on her thighs, leaning her head in her hands for a brief moment before she raised up to look at them all. “You know what I do, that I’m an art therapist, but I’m going to explain it a bit more in detail for a minute…for Isadora’s sake, if nothing else, because that’s kind of central to the discussion.” She turned to look at Isadora.
“I have a dual degree: a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology with a focus on narrative therapy, Is. In a nutshell, that means I use art to help people who have been severely limited in their lives because of things like horrible self-perception, feelings of inadequacy that can be downright crippling, nonexistent self-worth, or skewed notions of who and what they really are. Challenges like that.
“I teach them how to write a new story or ‘narrative’ about themselves, one that’s more positive and affirming. That’s what I do. I run group art sessions for people who have been sent to me by the state and other private institutions, to help them get a handle on any self-destructive tendencies they have…and to get them to a place where they can start to create a narrative about themselves that’s more constructive and productive.”
Isadora’s eyes were wide. “Now I know exactly why you were so amazing when we were on the movie set. You are one impressive woman, Alyssa Riker.”
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Brooke murmured.
“Anyhow…I don’t take clients who are parolees or have a history of violence of any kind or anything like that. That’s a whole different skill set and something I’m not adequately trained to handle. My clients have never been in trouble with the law, are nonviolent, and are more on the spectrum of having tough challenges managing their lives because of the things we’ve talked about. My clients are not anyone I would ever have to worry about in that capacity…or so I thought anyway.” The eyebrows on six pairs of eyes lowered.
“There’s this one client I had, who came to my weekly sessions for about three or four months, who had started getting…clingy. A big part of his issues came from the fact that he had been in love with this girl who hadn’t returned his feelings, which only exacerbated his self-perception and feelings of inadequacy.
“As a result, it’s a common occurrence in the therapy world for a client or a patient to project the feelings they have about an important figure in their life onto one of their therapists. It’s a phenomenon we call ‘transference,’ and it happens all the time.
“Normally, there are things we can do to make the client understand their feelings aren’t ‘real,’ and we can work through it…but I finally had to tell this guy about two weeks before Audrey hit that I didn’t think we could work together anymore.
“He had absolutely refused to manage the situation with me, and I couldn’t see where anything I had been doing was making a difference. No forward progress at all. I ended up calling his regular therapist to explain what was going on and I told the therapist I was ending our sessions, because his patient had gotten far too aggressive and obstinate. I thought that was the end of it.”
“Yeah, you left me notes about that dude and all the petty bullshit he was pulling,” Brooke rolled her eyes. “What a little tool.”
Alyssa continued, twisting her fingers in her lap. “The day after Jaime and I were…together…I told her I was going to go get my stuff from Nova and Trill’s, then go home for some clean clothes. Everything was fine, we were fine, and I fully expected to meet her at her apartment after she got off work. But…” Alyssa heaved a huge breath and started to cry again.
“When I got home, my apartment had been destroyed.” The femmes and Isadora gasped. “Someone had broken in and totally gutted the place. Ceramics were broken, all my artwork and supplies had been slashed to ribbons and thrown all over the place, everything in my kitchen cabinets had been pulled out and dumped on the floor. It was an absolute mess. There wasn’t one thing left intact or was salvageable.
“I called the Whimsy police and Noah Armstrong, of all fucking people, was the responding officer. He told me lootings and break-ins were not uncommon in the aftermath of a storm, but the extent of the destruction in my apartment seemed to be a little extreme for someone who was simply looting. I told him I had no idea who would do something like that, but…” She stopped before she wiped her eyes and continued.
“There had been a note left in the center of my living room floor. It wasn’t signed, but I knew it was from Ivan Olsen. It said that I was his, and if I didn’t dump the piece of shit I had hooked up with the night before, that ‘woman thief’ was going to find herself with a bullet in her head before she knew what had hit her. Then it said I was to tell no one, or the people around me would start dropping like flies. That’s the real reason I’ve been avoiding you all, not just because I slept with Jaime. I figured the farther away I stayed from you, the safer you’d be.
“You c-c-can’t tell her and you have to pretend like you don’t kn-know any of this,” Alyssa stammered through her sobs. “I told Noah I didn’t want anyone from APS to know either because they would have lost their shit…not to mention, the twins and the Seven would have interrogated the hell out of me until I finally told them my suspicions. Then they would have tried to do something about it, gone after Ivan themselves, and one of them would have ended up getting killed.
“NO, Kelly,” Alyssa screamed defiantly when she saw the angry look on her friend’s face. “NO! You will not tell them! Ever! Especially Jaime. I’d rather she thought I was the biggest two-timing bitch in the galaxy rather than her end up dead because of me!”
“Ssshhh. It’s okay, Lys. We understand.” Nova wrapped her arms around her uncharacteristically hysterical friend and glanced at Kelly, whose face was filled with fury. “Calm down, honey. There has to be a way out of this eventually without putting anyone at risk. I respect your need to keep to yourself right now, considering what you’ve told us, but I want you to promise me one thing if you can. Okay?”
Alyssa raised her swollen, tear-stained face and nodded.
“I want you to promise me you’ll at least text us. That motherfucker can’t read your texts, so everyone will still be safe if you keep connected to us like that. You won’t feel so isolated, and we won’t worry about you so much. Can you do that?” Alyssa nodded again, considerably calmer. “As far as the bad asses are concerned, we met this afternoon to talk about the Wendy House housewarming and that’s it. Now, I’m going to assume the reason you haven’t gone back to work yet is because that dickhead plans to force his way back into your sessions?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, he’s really mad because I haven’t gone back to work yet, but I didn’t want to face him. I also didn’t want to put any of my other clients at risk if he started to perceive someone was getting more attention than he thought they should or anything like that.”
“Not to worry, sister, I got you.” Brooke’s voice was pissed. “Little Dick can fuck all the way the hell off for now. I’ll make sure all the available seats are taken and there’s no room in any of the sessions for his skanky ass. I have a big project coming up—a new craft brewery is opening up in St. Petersburg—but there’s no reason for me to think I can’t manage both for now.”
“Kelly.” Alyssa hiccupped. “I need you to promise me you’re not going to say anything to the bad asses. Promise me, Kel. We need to keep them safe and Ivan is unhinged as hell. I have no idea what he’s actually capable of doing, but his threats were enough to convince me that we can’t let them know.”
“I promise you from the bottom of my heart, Lys, that I am not about to do the first thing that will put any one of us in danger.” Kelly crossed her heart. “The priority is to keep everyone safe and I’m all over that.” Alyssa nodded, an obvious look of relief crossing her face, as she took the Kleenex Nova handed her and blew her nose.
Nova kept her expression impassive, but it didn’t escape her notice that Kelly hadn’t actually promised not to say anything to anyone—she’d only promised that she wouldn’t do anything that would put anyone in danger. Nova caught the subtle warning look that Kelly tossed at her and she nodded at Kelly discreetly, letting her know her message had been received and understood.
“I need to get back to my parents’ place. I told Mom and Dad there had been some damage to my place because of Audrey and I was staying at their house for a while. They were cool with that. I’m pretty sure Ivan knows where I am, but my dad has the security system from hell installed, and there’s no way that douchebag can get in there without setting off a million alarms. Dad is former Navy, and the man doesn’t ever play when it comes to security.”
With a bit of her spirit recovered, Alyssa rose from her seat. She looked around at her assembled friends and tears filled her eyes once more. “I haven’t been back to my own apartment in over two months. I hired someone to cart away anything that looked perishable or had the potential to rot or mildew, but beyond that, it’s still in the same condition it was when I found it. I just can’t face looking at it right now.” She hugged them all, one by one.
“Thank you,” Alyssa hiccupped again after she had embraced each one of them. “Truly. I hope you all realize that I have hated keeping anything from you, but I couldn’t take the chance that he would hurt one of you. I couldn’t live with myself if he ever did.”
Rowan hugged her again. “But now you know you can text us and not feel so alone, right? There may not be a lot we can do personally, but at least we can be there for you whenever you need to talk. We’ll see you at the housewarming, okay? We love you, Lys. We’ll figure this out.”
The minute Alyssa had left, Kelly whipped her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. “This is some motherfucking bullshit,” she fumed as her fingers flew through a text. “I’m letting the twins and the Seven know we need to have an emergency meeting right fucking now. I need to tell them what the hell’s been going on with Alyssa over the last several months because every single one of them has been confused. It hasn’t been like her, her behavior since the storm, and they don’t know to make of it.”
Kelly laughed slightly. “This is ironic as hell, considering I ran myself when I first got to Whimsy because I thought my presence would put them in danger, but I sure as fuck know better now. Jaim is going to freak when she finds out what’s been up and why Lys has been avoiding them.”
“Trill told me just last night that Jaime was at the end of her rope anyway, so this isn’t going to be pretty.” Nova shuddered. “Having been the recipient of an APS punishment spanking, I don’t envy Lys one bit…because there is no way in hell Jaime is going to let this slide.” She caught Isadora’s curious eyes. “Don’t even ask, sister,” Nova advised the blonde actress. Rowan, Kelly, and Delaney all shuddered in turn as Brooke rolled her eyes.
“Roll your eyes all you want, my bitch,” Nova told her as the rest of them headed to the door. “For your sake, I hope Blake doesn’t ever catch you doing something you’re not supposed to be doing, Brooke. As the head of Utopia, Blake is built for speed—with the reaction time from hell—and there would be no chance of ever escaping that.”
Brooke snorted and rolled her eyes again.
“Okay, bitches. I’ll report when there’s anything to report. I’m heading over to the APS complex now.” Kelly opened the front door. “I’m going to tell the twins and the Seven every single thing Lys told us today. I hope to hell Ms. Alyssa Riker is ready for the fiery Puerto Rican hurricane that’s about to hit her shores when Jaime Quintero finds out what the fuck has been going on.”
Epilogue
Jaime Quintero swiped the key card and punched the access code to her apartment when she got back to the APS apartment complex after her meeting with Kelly Armstrong, the twins, and the rest of the Seven. She calmly walked inside, took off her leather jacket, unstrapped her concealed carry holster, and went into her bedroom and master bathroom.
After a hot shower, letting the steaming water pound into the back of her neck and her shoulders in an effort to relieve some of her tension, she toweled off, put on a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then went back into the main room, her boots in her hand. Sitting on the edge of her sofa to put them on, she paused and settled back on the sofa to think for a couple of minutes, trying to calm her still-churning brain.
Alyssa Riker. The femme Jaime had been in love with practically her whole life.
When Jaime and her mother had moved to the Whimsy area from Puerto Rico after Jaime’s father had died when she was six years old, Jaime had been withdrawn and apprehensive: grieving, not knowing a word of English, and unsure of what her place in this new world should be. Two new classmates, Bryn and Riley Armstrong—whose mother was Puerto Rican—had befriended her immediately…along with their close friends, who had also accepted her right away. Despite Jaime’s determination to learn English as quickly as possible, it had been a huge relief to have friends who spoke Puerto Rican Spanish as if they were boricua, or Puerto Rican-born.
