Like a Best Friend | ✓

chapter twenty-five

I wake up on Saturday, our last day in Vegas, with Kitty's head on my chest and her chin poking my boob.

"Shabbat shalom, you sexy thing," she says, like she has been watching over me, waiting for me to open my eyes. The curtains are open, bright morning light pouring into the room, and I can see the Palazzo from here. I'll miss waking up to this view.

"Shabbat shalom," I say, my voice scratchy first thing in the morning. Kitty's curls are an adorable mess after last night, when she fell asleep with wet, unwashed hair without tying it up, and now it's all over the place. I pull on a frizzy curl. "How're you feeling?"

"Amazing. A new woman. Like I won the lottery," Kitty says. She's already dressed, a pretty purple dress that pools around her thighs when she sits on top of me. "But I have this mad craving for challah. I usually get a loaf from Bakey every Friday and now it's been two weeks in a row since I had any and that needs to be rectified, stat."

"I bet there's a kosher deli somewhere around here," I say, coughing to clear the husk from my voice. It's early, not yet nine o'clock, and she's already raring to go. "Actually, I know there is. I know you and your challah. I put a couple places on my food list."

"You really thought of everything," Kitty says, bopping my nose. "I didn't even think of it last week. What were we doing last week?"

"Um..." I purse my lips as I think and I blush when I remember the shitshow that was last week. "Well, on the Friday we got day drunk by the pool, you landed us tickets for the Seven Magic Mountains sunset trip, then you kissed me and sent me spiralling into a crisis for the next few days. Saturday, I was just trying to get through the day without letting you realize I was madly in love with you."

How was that only last week? It feels like forever ago that we took pictures with the brightly colored boulders of Seven Magic Mountains and Kitty turned my life upside down with a kiss. Which, I guess, meant way more to her at the time than I ever thought it did.

"Oh shit, yeah, guess we were kind of busy," Kitty says, laughing. She steals a scrunchie from my wrist and uses it to tie her hair off her face, her curls to be dealt with at another time. "What a difference a week makes, huh?"

"Let's see ... last Saturday I woke up panicking that I was going to lose you as a friend if you found out how I felt. Today, I get to wake up as your girlfriend, knowing I'm the only person who's ever made you come," I say, my hands on her thighs as she straddles mine, "so I'd say we've done a bit of a one eighty."

She bends down to kiss me and says, "I wouldn't have it any other way."

I get a waft of her perfume, rosehip and jasmine, that quintessentially Kitty smell. I kiss her again, my lips lingering on hers.

"I was nervous last night," she says, her fingers playing with mine.

I close my hand around hers. "I know."

"I'm sorry."

"Kitty, you have nothing to be sorry for. Nerves are totally normal. It's not every day that you sleep with a woman for the first time after realizing you're a lesbian," I say with a grin. "I had a fucking great time."

"Except for the cramp."

"Well, yeah, obviously. I totally understand the origins of cramp my style now."

"It was very stylish," Kitty says with a wink. "I'll share a shower with you any day."

"Next time, we're both standing," I say. "If we try shower sex again, we're getting a toy."

"Did you put adult stores on your list too?"

"Absolutely. I made a list of Jewish delis and sex stores," I deadpan. For a fraction of a second, Kitty believes me. "They are, of course, the two most important things for you as newlyweds."