Page 114 of Touch of Class

“That’s a good thing,” Tegan added. “I’ve only ever known her as ‘The Boss,’ but Sawyer and Brooke have all these stories of her from grad school where she’s fun or cocky or playful. She might not have been the instigator all the time, but she was freer then. Even Robin, who only knew her through work, tells stories about times when Gillian was a pusher who nudged them out of their comfort zone or went along on adventures. And I get glimpses of her wicked sense of humor from time to time, but I’ve never seen it fully unleashed, probably because I’m part of the reason her guard went up.”

“I don’t know. I’ve known Gillian longer than anyone, but I think her guard’s been up with me the vast majority of the time.”

Tegan shook her head. “No. You should’ve seen her the first day with me. She was all furrowed brow and steepled fingers in front of her tightly pressed lips. I’m not sure she’s ever fully relaxed since then. Brooke and I, we didn’t have the start to our relationship anyone would wish for, especially Gillian.”

“I don’t know the full story, but I did get the sense some things have put you all through the wringer in the last few years.”

“Be honest.” Tegan leaned forward conspiratorially. “How’d she describe it?”

“The phrase ‘series of provocations’ might’ve come up.”

Tegan threw back her head and laughed. “From her point of view, that’s fair, and also such a Gillian thing to say.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“No. And don’t get me wrong. I have zero regrets. At the end of the day, everything that happened led me to where I am now. I’m ridiculously happy with Brooke, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her, but Gillian didn’t get to reap similar rewards. She got only risk and anxiety and trauma with little return.”

“Not a high ROI,” Daphne recounted with the same sense of heaviness that had plagued her since breakfast. “I promise I don’t want to be one more thing upsetting Gillian. I’m doing the best I can to make this as smooth as—”

“No, no,” Tegan interrupted. “I’m not asking for you to dull the edges. I guess I’m not asking you for anything, really.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m merely saying, maybe you are upsetting Gillian’s life a bit, but that might be a good thing. Maybe having something in her life worth getting upset about is what she needs.”

She chuckled softly. “If upsetting Gillian is what you’re after, I’m practically a pro.”

“I like that about you, and I think deep down she does, too. It’s good for her to have a personality in her life as strong as hers. None of us have played that role lately. She got careful and we got careful around her at times because she means so much to us. We don’t want to let her down or disappoint her or cause more stress than we already have, and we’re all a bit in awe of her. Hell, if I’m being completely honest, I’m legitimately intimidated by her, but from day one, you were clearly not.”

“No.” She felt a bit of her strength return. “I feel a lot of things around Gillian, but intimidation isn’t one of them.”

“And maybe you don’t see it clearly because you only know who she is around you, but I only knew the version of her from between my arrival and your arrival, and I have to say there’s a contrast there. She’s been brightening ever since you swept her off her feet the first day. It’s been slow and deliberate, but yesterday made it clear there’s a transformation happening.”

“Yesterday?” Again, Daphne wondered how Tegan could know about any of the big shifts between them.

“The snow-day part. Not whatever came later,” she clarified with a grin to suggest she did suspect more may’ve happened after they’d gone their separate ways. “It was the first time I got to see the woman Gillian had been before, and maybe still could be.”

“I don’t know if one trip down a hill—”

“It was more than that. She was playful. She was adventurous. She called off clients to go on that death trap with you, for crying out loud.”

“She did?”

“Yeah, closed the office and rescheduled things, which is huge for her. And maybe even bigger, she hasn’t shied away from her attraction to you. I’ve known her over a year, and she’s never even cast a sideways glance at anyone around me, but when Brooke called her out about being into you, she didn’t even blink.”

Daphne didn’t know what to do with that most surprising piece of information amid the rest of this very unexpected conversation. “I hadn’t considered the prospect of Gillian talking to her friends about the two of us.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess that makes it feel more real, and I’ve been kind of afraid to let it feel real. If pressed, I guess I worried Gillian didn’t want us to be real, or worse, that she’d be embarrassed to admit we were a thing.”

Empathy filled Tegan’s hazel eyes. “I know that feeling, but it wasn’t real in my case, and it’s not in yours, either. She told us a couple of weeks ago that you’d kissed.”

Hope filled Daphne’s chest. “There’s so much I still don’t have a good handle on.”

“And that’s okay. New relationships are always disorienting even without so much water under the bridge, but I think you two can handle it, if you want. I guess that’s all I wanted to say at the end of it all. I get the sense whatever’s going on caught Gillian off guard, flummoxed her, maybe left her a little bemused or confused at times, and I figured you might be feeling some of the same things.”

Emotions clogged her throat at that summary, so she merely nodded.