Page 38 of Saving Graces
Except that Kinsey existed. Rosalie was sat opposite Cassidy and Lane, and yet somehow, it was Kinsey, sitting next to her, that despite her best efforts and being in her periphery, seemed to be all she was able to see. Her glossy hair hung in a low braid, soft strands escaping around her face. Her hands, whether innocently handling cutlery or curled around the stem of a wineglass were distractingly beautiful and her forearms escaping from her maroon plaid shirt were straight up pornographic, especially since Rosalie knew intimately what they were capable of. Her smile - as she interacted with what to most people would be towering celebrity - was natural and confident. But oh god, her eyes, when their gaze occasionally met… Rosalie was not coping.
It was so much worse because Lane and Cassidy were there: the young person she’d known as a kid and the literal baby sister of her best friend. She remembered hearing stories of Cassie when she was three, for crying out loud. Having sex with one of their peers was such a clear sign of a mid-life crisis Rosalie wanted to laugh at herself, or cry, she wasn’t sure which.
Unfortunately, for all her self-recriminations, it didn’t stop the lust one bit. Around the time dessert was served and Kinsey licked a sweet spoon of creme brûlée into her mouth. Rosalie heard as clearly as if she’d said it now, Kinsey whispering you’re making me need to fuck you when you make sounds like that and she choked back a whimper.
As soon as dinner was finished, Rosalie made her excuses and fled to her room.
The next day was a little better. When she finally ventured out for coffee, Kinsey was nowhere to be seen. As it turned out, Lane had been given the day off and had whisked Cassidy and Kinsey on a hike through the forest, taking advantage of a lovely clear Vermont morning and a break in the snow. For the moment, at least, Rosalie felt like she could breathe again.
Savannah had gotten that focused dreamy expression that meant she had a song to write so Rosalie and Brynn headed up to the playroom and hung out with the kids together. Over the years, Rosalie had come to adore Brynn, for two primary reasons: she made Savannah happy beyond measure, and she was never threatened by Savannah and Rosalie’s closeness, making her a rare creature in both their lives. Beyond that, she was warm, steady, funny and easygoing, and - if Rosalie had been forced to admit it at gunpoint - it didn’t hurt that she was extremely easy on the eye. She was the perfect counterpoint to Savannah in every way.
She was also a lot more relaxing to be around than her wife right now, since she neither had psychic level knowledge of Rosalie, nor twenty years of baggage. The two of them talked easily around Tucker’s excited story-telling and inventive games and Emmeline’s happy gurgles. Rosalie lounged on the playroom floor while the adorable, chubby, blue-eyed baby practiced her sitting, surrounded by a semi-circle of cushions as she swayed.
It was a delicious, domesticated kind of morning, with some good coffee, and easy laughter; Brynn’s lovely voice employed by storybooks or silly songs, and the sweet baby scent of Emmeline’s silky blonde head that Rosalie could never get enough of. Savannah ducked in a couple of times to breastfeed and Rosalie felt a desperate warmth in her chest as she saw the way their lives seemed so beautifully effortless. She knew damn well it wasn’t, having helped Lane literally pick Savannah up off the floor nearly six months ago, which only made the tranquil scene more delightful.
She looked over at Savannah on the window seat of her giant luxurious winter mansion, baby on her breast, smiling at the small child holding her ankles, her beautiful wife lightly touching her hair as she brought her over a coffee. She had a sudden flash of the thin, wary, abandoned teen that Rosalie had first met and to her surprise, her eyes filled with tears. For the first time she wondered if it was not Rachel she was still trying to rescue over and over, but Savannah, too.
After lunch Rosalie had returned to her room and read for a while. She wondered how Lemonade was going with his hastily arranged house-sitter, Mabel, another of the center’s many ex-clients she kept touch with. Mabel was working as a vet nurse and jumped at the opportunity to take a break from her roommates. There were, Rosalie reminded herself, as Chloe’s sweet face jumped into her mind again, many happy stories that had come out of her time at the center. Keeping in contact with what she thought of as the center’s graduates was one of the things that kept her going when times were rough.
She imagined, as she often did, what Rachel would be like now, what kind of life she’d have for herself and what she’d make of Savannah’s spectacular success and Rosalie’s currently monastic lifestyle. She spluttered out a giggle. It was probably exactly what Rachel would have projected for her. She could see her sister in her mind, perpetually a teenager and fixing Rosalie with a disdainful stare. Of course you’re a cat lady, Ros, since you dress like that.
A knock came on the door. When she answered it, there stood Savannah, childfree and smiling.
“Get your swimsuit,” she said. “We have a date, remember?”
Fifteen minutes later, Rosalie sighed with contentment. Savannah and Brynn had recently installed an outdoor jacuzzi, tucked away in the trees. The outside air was freezing, snowdrifts on the ground around them, but the water was deliciously hot. As she tipped her head back, all she could see were sparse snow-covered branches and the big empty sky, dull and heavily clouded, the threat of snow upon them.
“Enough stalling,” Savannah raised her eyebrows. “You promised to tell me all about that time you seduced a hot young thing and had your wicked way with her.”
“It was the opposite, actually,” Rosalie admitted and Savannah cocked her head.
“Oh?”
Rosalie told her the whole story of Kinsey’s confident seduction, including a very brief outline of what had gone down behind the curtain. Savannah’s eyes went wide.
“That’s… okay, that’s just extremely, indecently hot,” she whispered. “God. I may need to go find my wife soon,” she added, sinking her teeth into her lower lip. “Just to pretend we’re not an old married couple with children and could live the kind of exciting life you suddenly lead again.”
Rosalie gazed skyward, but she couldn’t help her small smirk.
“It did feel a little like that,” she admitted. “Like I was remembering how I used to be able to just throw myself into experiences for the hell of it. Without worrying about consequences.”
“Mm.” Savannah still seemed diverted. Then she sat up straight, hot water fizzing around her shoulders. “So then what? Did you go home with her?”
“No,” Rosalie sighed, “then I started worrying about consequences.” As she told Savannah the rest of the story, she watched her best friend’s face fall.
“Oh honey,” Savannah said, looking strangely sad. “That sounds about right.”
“Excuse me?”
A happy shriek cut through the air. Rosalie and Savannah’s heads shot up, scanning the trees. Lane, Cassidy and Kinsey had returned from their hike and now all three streaked through the snow, wearing bathrobes and rainboots. Cassidy squealed at top volume in the biting cold.
“Oh!” she said, all three of them pausing before the hottub.“Mind if we join you?”
“Of course not,” Savannah instantly hostessed and Rosalie nearly died. Kinsey’s hair was scooped up in a silky knot on top of her head and she already looked tempting enough in a bathrobe. She looked directly at Rosalie and held her eyes as she neatly dropped the robe. Rosalie really did die then, immediately, on the spot. Kinsey wore a fluorescent pink bikini, softly straining across her breasts and covering very little of her glowing skin. Rosalie was distantly aware that she was staring but all she could see was the body she’d felt against her that night. She drank in the lovely curve of Kinsey’s waist flaring to her hips, the long line of her abdomen disappearing into low-cut bikini bottoms, her strong thighs and shapely legs. She swallowed as she caught the clear outline of hard nipples behind the lycra, which was probably due to the cold, but also, based on Kinsey’s frank gaze, equally might not be.
Underneath the fizzing bubbles, Savannah grabbed her knee and squeezed it hard, clearly not out of support but because otherwise she’d explode from not being able to tease Rosalie right now. Kinsey took her sweet time about getting into the water, but finally her body was submerged from view, though Rosalie still didn’t quite feel like she could catch her breath.
Cassidy smiled over at them, glowing with prettiness and clear happiness, obviously none the wiser as to what was going on around her. Lane looked ridiculously in their natural element, flanked by two beautiful, bikini-clad babes, one on either side of them, though as always, they wouldn’t have even noticed if they’d all been naked as long as Cassidy was around.
