Sunsets and Shades Read online

  Sunsets

  and

  Shades

  By: Erica Lee

  Copyright © 2019 By Erica Lee

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Dedication

  Dedicated to my perfect little family. Phil (the chinchilla) - Thanks for being the inspiration for Lenny. Parker (the dog) - Thanks for always providing me with snuggles as I wrote. Jett (the bunny) - Thanks for being a constant source of laughter when I started to get stressed. And to my beautiful wife - Thank you so much for being supportive of me disappearing on you most nights so I could write this book. Our life is a crazy one, filled with tons of ups and downs, but there is no one else I would rather be on this adventure with.

  Chapter 1: Kinsley

  I slowly lifted her shirt over her head and gasped at the first sight of her bare chest. I found myself inadvertently licking my lips as I thanked the Gods above that she wasn’t wearing a bra. My eyes lifted to look into those of the woman standing in front of me. She looked nervous, so I took both of her hands in mine and squeezed gently.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked softly.

  The look in her eyes suddenly went from one of apprehension to complete and utter desire. “I’ve never wanted something more in my entire life,” she breathed, before crashing her lips against mine.

  The kiss was short lived since her lips quickly moved across my jawline and down my neck. A moan left my mouth as she took control, swiftly removing my shirt and tossing it across the room. She discarded the rest of my clothes in this same desperate manner. Soon her lips were back on my body, as if they had never left. My disappointment over her apparent lack of interest in my boobs subsided when I noticed that she had a different destination in mind. She kneeled in front of me as her tongue formed a blazing trail down my stomach. My hands grabbed onto her hair as I directed her the rest of the way.

  “Oh God. Yes. That’s what I’m talking about.” My celebration and focus were both interrupted by a knock on my bedroom door.

  “Are you having sex in there, or are you just getting really into your writing?” my roommate, Leah King, questioned from the other side. Before I could answer, I heard the door knob turning, and she was in my room, leaning on my desk.

  “I’m just nailing this sex scene. Pun totally intended.” I gave her a cocky smile and wink, then made a fist and reached it out toward her. “Celebratory fist bump time. Let’s go.”

  Leah rolled her eyes at me, refusing to give in to my little celebration. “You know it doesn’t impress me when you write good sex scenes. It’s easy to write about something you know. What impresses me is when you somehow pull off these amazing romances filled with love and mushiness.”

  I leaned back in my chair and lifted my feet onto the desk. “It’s a gift,” I bragged, completely aware of how arrogant I looked with the smug grin on my face. I proceeded to lift one eyebrow at Leah. “Speaking of sex. What if that is what I had been doing in here, and you had just marched right in?”

  Leah waved a hand at me nonchalantly. “You know we don’t have any boundaries. I would have survived.”

  I cackled at my roommate. “You would probably do it on purpose, so you could give your man pointers on how to truly satisfy a woman.”

  Leah rolled her eyes at me for the second time. “What is it with you lesbians thinking you are like God’s gift to sex? Trust me, Liam doesn’t need any help in that department. Why do you think I keep him around?”

  Honestly, I couldn’t figure that out. Leah was gorgeous with her flowing blonde hair, long legs, and piercing blue eyes. Liam always looked like he had just rolled out of bed, and the stubble on his chin just made him look dirty. I wasn’t sure what she saw in him, but then again, I didn’t understand what any girls saw in guys. I snapped back to the present moment and smirked at Leah. “First off, it’s not a thought. Years of research have found that lesbians have better sex lives and a ton more orgasms. I personally take some credit for boosting that statistic. Also, I’m still mad at you for keeping Liam around. You broke our pact.”

  “We didn’t have a pact,” Leah pointed out.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I mean it was never explicitly stated, but I thought we were on the same page. Relationships suck. Hookups rock.”

  Leah took a hair tie off of her wrist and somehow easily pulled her hair back into the perfect ponytail. “Hookups are great, but eventually you meet someone who is worth more than a hookup. I mean, come on, isn’t that what all of your lovey-dovey romance novels are about? Girls getting swept off their feet by their princess charming.”

  Her words made me laugh, even if she was technically right. “My books are crap. I don’t actually believe the words I write. I’m just good at stringing them together in a way that makes women swoon.”

  “Speaking of which - that actually has something to do with the reason I came in here.” Her tone made me believe she was about to drop a bomb on me that I wasn’t going to particularly like. “I told my childhood best friend that she could come stay with us next weekend and I need you to be on your best behavior.”

  I cleared my throat and crossed my arms in front of my chest, giving her an indignant look. “Excuse me? Your best friend stays with you every weekend and every other day of the week because we live together.”

  “I said childhood best friend,” Leah repeated, adding another eye roll for good measure. “Her name is Grace Harper.”

  I kept my arms crossed in front of me. “How come I’ve never heard about this friend?”

  “She still lives in our hometown back in Maryland, and we kind of just drifted apart after I moved to Philly. I honestly can’t remember the last time I talked to her before a few weeks ago when she reached out to me. She’s just one of those people that I’ll always be close to no matter how much time passes.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at her. “And why do I have to be on my best behavior?”

  Leah gave me a guilty smile and tilted her head to the side. It was probably her (successful) attempt to look cute in order to soften whatever blow was coming. “So, at some point, I may have mentioned to her that I live with Laurel Lake.”

  Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “You don’t live with Laurel Lake. You live with Kinsley Scott.”

  “I know I do, and that’s the thing. I love Kinsley Scott. Kinsley Scott is cool and fun and obviously my best friend in the whole world. Also, if the sounds I hear coming through these thin walls are any indication, she’s excellent in bed. But Kinsley Scott is also the complete opposite of Laurel Lake. Laurel Lake is every hopeless romantic lesbian’s dream girl. Grace just so happens to be the biggest hopeless romantic of them all and also a huge fan of all of Laurel Lake’s books.”

  I huffed my disapproval. “This is exactly why I have a pen name. My own family doesn’t even know the name I write under. Sure, that’s mostly so my mother doesn’t have a heart attack reading my sex scenes, but there is a reason I don’t tell anyone, especially girls.”

  I had done a very good job keeping my identity a secret throughout my career. I was like the literary version of Supergirl. With my glasses, I was the beloved lesbian romance author named Laurel Lake who believed in everything good in the world. Without my glasses, I was the cynical, but realistic, Kinsley Scott. I was the girl who could knock a girl’s socks off with one touch, but let’s be honest, they were losing much more than their socks. It worked out well this way. The l
ast thing I wanted was for one of my hookups to get the wrong idea and think I was looking for something more.

  “So, what you’re saying is that you want me to be Laurel Lake, the writer, when she’s here, so I don’t break her fragile lesbian heart?”

  Leah’s smile grew. “Exactly. She’s going through a lot right now. She just got dumped by her long term girlfriend a few months ago, and she’s having a really hard time moving on. That’s why I suggested she come to visit. She needs to get away from that town for a bit. We’re from a small town, and she still runs into her ex, along with her ex’s new girlfriend, everywhere.”

  “Ouch. That must be rough,” I replied sincerely. “For you, I’m willing to not be myself for a weekend. You owe me though.”

  “Of course,” Leah answered with a wink, before skipping back toward my door. Before leaving, she turned back around to face me. “Oh yeah. Just one more thing. Under no circumstance are you to sleep with her. I mean it.”

  I laughed as she made her way out of my room. Why would I ever want to sleep with a girl who thought my stories were anything more than complete fantasy?

  Chapter 2: Grace

  I groaned as I crammed my car full of more of my belongings. I had much more than I would need for a weekend trip, but I honestly wasn’t planning on staying for just the weekend. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind until Leah suggested that I come visit in order to get away for a bit. It had been at least a year since Leah and I had seen each other and that was just in passing. The thought of getting away to the city to spend time with her seemed so appealing, that the more I thought about it, the less it made sense to come back home. Since I was an elementary school teacher, and the school year had just ended, I had a few months to figure out what I was going to do next.

  This was very unlike me. I wasn’t the type of girl to fly by the seat of my pants. I liked plans and a clear cut path into the future, but it was hard to stay on any sort of path when you find your girlfriend of four years in bed with another woman. It wasn’t just any other woman. It was a teacher at the school we both worked at; someone who I happened to believe was a good friend. As if seeing them together for the past six months since catching them wasn’t bad enough, I had been forced to move back in with my parents. You don’t really want to stay in a place with such bad memories, do you? my ex, Becky, had asked. While she was right, it was still heartbreaking that she and her new flame (if I could really call her that since they had been hooking up behind my back for months before I found out) had immediately made our place into their own.

  I didn’t want to see this as running away though. I wanted to believe I was running toward something better. I mean, isn’t this how all the best love stories go? Life falls apart to set up the fairytale. I wanted to believe I was being led to Philadelphia to meet the girl of my dreams; however, there was an even bigger part of me still holding onto the hope that once I was gone, Becky would realize what she was missing and beg me to come back to her. In this fantasy, I obviously didn’t make it easy on her, but I knew I would take her back in the end. She was my one true love, and part of me still wanted to believe that.

  As I began my drive to Philadelphia, my thoughts drifted back to Leah. I hadn’t told her my tentative plan of staying in Philly because I didn’t want to freak her out. It’s not like I was planning on mooching off of her. I was going to spend the few days we planned on and then stay in a hotel until I actually figured out what I was doing. I had a decent amount of savings, and once my mom found out my plans, she wrote me a check for more money than she should have. I tried to refuse it, but she insisted it was a small price to pay for my happiness.

  Since my small Maryland hometown was just five minutes from the Delaware state line, my drive into Philadelphia took me just shy of an hour and a half. This didn’t seem like nearly enough time to process all of my feelings. By the time I arrived at Leah’s apartment complex, I hadn’t even considered the fact that I would soon be meeting one of my idols. Laurel Lake was by far my favorite writer. When I discovered her first book 7 years ago (a year after she had published it), I immediately fell in love. I had always been a hopeless romantic, but since her book was the first lesbian love story I read, it felt different. Since I was a complete nerd, I had read books by a bunch of other lesbian authors since then, but her books remained my favorites. She had a way of writing about love that made me never want to give up. Even in my darkest times the last few months, it was her writing that got me through. I had to believe I was on the path to my happily ever after if it started with her. I needed to keep it cool though. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself in front of her.

  I found a spot in the complex parking garage, then grabbed my suitcase and used the detailed directions that Leah had given me to find her apartment. I took a deep breath before knocking. A few seconds later, the door was swinging open, and I saw Leah standing on the other side. She immediately pulled me into a tight hug. “Grace-Face! It’s so good to see you. How long has it been? A year? Two? Let’s not ever go that long again, OK?”

  She pulled back from the hug and studied me for a minute, seeming a bit surprised that I was actually standing in front of her. “It really has been too long,” I answered. “I can’t thank you enough for letting me come visit.”

  Before anything else could be said, I heard footsteps coming toward us and looked beyond Leah to see Laurel Lake making her way over to me. Breathe. Breathe. Keep breathing. Once she joined us by the door, she placed one hand on Leah’s shoulder and reached the other out toward me. “Nice to meet you. I’m…” Before she could finish, Leah cut in. “This is Laurel Lake. But I’m sure you already realized that,” she announced.

  I could have sworn I saw Laurel rolling her eyes at Leah, but the moment passed by so quickly I couldn’t be sure. I looked down at our hands and noticed that I was still awkwardly holding onto Laurel’s. I quickly pulled it away, wiping my sweaty palm on my shirt. “It’s nice to meet you,” I stuttered. “I’m Harper...No. I mean I’m Grace. Grace Harper. You can call me Grace-Face. That’s what Leah calls me. No. Actually, don’t call me that. I don’t know why I said that. Just Grace. Call me Grace. Well, I mean, you can call me whatever you want.” I cringed as the words left my mouth. So much for keeping it cool.

  Luckily, Laurel didn’t seem thrown off by my rambling. She let out a slight chuckle, that was sweet instead of judgmental. “It’s nice to meet you, Just Grace,” she said with a wink that made me weak in the knees. I had always known Laurel’s words were beautiful, but I never realized just how good looking she was. She had one picture that she used on all of her social media platforms and, if you asked me, it just didn’t do her justice. She had straight dark brown hair that fell just below her shoulders and behind her glasses were crystal blue eyes that were easy to get lost in. She stood just a few inches taller than me and had an athletic build. I had to gain control of myself though. It wasn’t right for me to be drooling over Leah’s roommate.

  I was able to collect myself enough to walk fully into the apartment. It was bigger than I expected, with a large living room connecting into a smaller kitchen and a hallway that led the way to two bedrooms and a bathroom. Leah gave me a quick tour in which we stopped in her room to drop off my bag, before heading back to the living room where Laurel had started watching TV. I sat down in the chair the furthest from where she was sitting, hoping the distance would lessen some of my ongoing fangirling.

  Chapter 3: Kinsley

  We were only two hours into Grace’s visit, and I already felt exhausted from this Laurel charade. I was initially pissed Leah wouldn’t even let me use my real name around her but then decided it might have been her weird way of trying to protect me. Then again, it made more sense that she was actually trying to protect Grace. Either way, I was stuck playing this part I didn’t want to play. I knew it was only going to get worse when the topic of Grace’s ex came up.

  “So, not to talk about the elephant in the room,” L
eah spoke more gently than she had ever spoken to me. “But how are you feeling? I know things have been hard since the break-up.”

  Grace sighed and slid her glasses back up her nose in an adorably geeky way. Even though the girl hadn’t done a ton to win me over since arriving, I did have to admit that I found her strangely endearing. She had light skin that was sprinkled with freckles and wavy auburn hair that fell halfway down her back. She had a tendency to avoid eye contact, at least with me, and damn that was cute, even if it did hide those brilliant green eyes away. There was no denying she had the whole sexy nerd thing going for her, but her personality left something to be desired.

  “I’m getting by,” she said with a small, completely unconvincing smile. “I think I might just need some time.”

  “Understandable,” Leah soothed, while patting her on the knee. “I just can’t believe that bitch had the nerve to cheat on you and then make you move out.”

  Grace’s head shot up upon hearing Leah’s words. “I wouldn’t say she’s a bitch,” Grace said softly. “She’s a good person. She just made a mistake. A big one. But still… just a mistake. And we both agreed it made the most sense if I left.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how pathetic she sounded. My tears apparently weren’t the ones we had to worry about though. In a matter of seconds, Grace began to whimper and tears streamed down her face.

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “It’s just that… she’s not horrible. She was always a really good girlfriend. She’s a wonderful teacher. People love her. I love her, but she didn’t love me. I’m the one who wasn’t good enough. It makes me think there must be something wrong with me.”

  With this confession, Leah moved closer to Grace and wrapped her in a big hug. The hug only seemed to make things worse, and soon Grace was sobbing on Leah’s shoulder. Leah looked past her and over at me as she mouthed help me.