Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail (Bright Falls, #2)

by Ashley Herring Blake

She felt suddenly ancient. She was barely thirty-one. She’d already met, courted, married, and lost the love of her life. She was too young to feel this goddamn old.

The Two of Cups whispered of romance and love, of new relationships. A perfect pairing. Matched souls.

Oh no, not tangled hair and dirt.

“The network is cool with you wearing that necklace on screen?” Jordan asked, motioning toward the single gold charm around Natasha’s neck, that same double wishbone Astrid remembered from their first meeting last week. Natasha laughed and picked up the charm, looking down at it. “Most people have no clue what this is.” Jordan rolled her eyes. “I’m gay. Of course I know what it is.”

“It’s the clitoris.” “It’s the . . .” Astrid trailed off. Blinked. She didn’t think she’d ever said that word out loud. “The clit,” Jordan said.

“Imagine it’s something you hate. Or someone. The forty-fifth president. Racists and homophobes. Brussels sprouts.”

Now Jordan laughed. “I’d love to see what you actually consider resisting, then. Poor guy.” Jordan watched Astrid’s reaction carefully. Yes, she said guy one hundred percent on purpose. Yes, she was looking for any sign that Astrid wasn’t straight, because goddammit, she was getting vibes. One didn’t date women and nonbinary people exclusively for nearly two decades and not pick up on these kinds of things.

Until her shaggy bangs and buttoned-up outfits and adorable ignorance over what a clitoris looked like. Jordan could educate her. She could teach her all about how the clit—

but she was starting to believe you were never too old to feel lonely, to wonder where you belonged in the world.

She told her all about growing up with Delilah—her father dying of cancer when she was three, her stepfather dying of an aneurysm when she was ten, how both Delilah and Astrid spent the bulk of their adolescence believing the other one hated them, when really, they were just kids who had lost too much and didn’t know how to process it all.

She’d never been comfortable talking about her grief, her loneliness as a kid.

“She left me,” Jordan said. “After she got better, once she was officially in remission. Said cancer made her realize she wasn’t living the life she really wanted.

“A Tarot card?” Astrid asked. “Not just any Tarot card,” Jordan said. “The Tarot card I drew this morning. Oh, and yesterday. Three days ago. Four times last week, and so on and so on for the past month.” Astrid looked from Jordan to the card, from the card back to Jordan. Jordan laughed and snatched the card back, glaring down at it. “It’s the soul mates card. Perfect pairs. True love.”

“Get that tongue ready, Parker.”

“She left you like you didn’t mean anything. And you do. You mean something.”

“Sexuality is complicated. It’s not static. People change and sexuality can change too.” She took a sip of her coffee. “But this is you we’re talking about here. You’re pretty much the poster kid for compulsory heterosexuality.”

“I want to kiss you,” Jordan went on. “Dammit, I really do, but if that’s ever going to happen, I need the same from you.” Astrid shook her head. “What do you mean? I thought it was pretty obvious that I want—” “No. You want to kiss a woman, and I happen to be the first one you find yourself really attracted to. I need you to want to kiss me.”

“I want . . . I want a partnership.” Her words fluttered between them, and Jordan suddenly had a hard time getting a full breath. A partnership. A partner.

Astrid wondered how one recovered so quickly from what seemed to be mind-blowing sex.

Iris scoffed. “Are we talking about the same woman? Tattoos? New York City attitude for days? A general disdain for clothes in any shade lighter than the ninth circle of hell?” Claire wacked Iris’s butt with a towel. “That’s my girlfriend you’re insulting.” “I’m not insulting her,” Iris said. “I’m making simple observations.” “I can hear you, you know!” Delilah called from the living room. She lifted her bourbon in a mock toast. “And I like my black clothes, fuck you very much.”

“Maybe one day I’ll sing for you,” Jordan said. “You will?” Jordan nodded. “If you bake a cake for me.”

She knew it with one hundred percent certainty—she wanted to kiss Jordan Everwood. Not just any woman or person. Jordan. No one else would do.

Within the span of just a few hours and a couple hundred pages, she had to stop reading to get herself off. Twice. What’s more, she didn’t picture some nameless, faceless person when she slipped her hand into her underwear, as she circled her middle finger around her clit. She didn’t picture the characters in the book. She pictured Jordan Everwood, every single time.

“Like this. The way I feel when I’m with you. Like I’m twelve years old and going through my first crush. Like I might explode if I don’t see you, talk to you. Like I don’t care about anything else in this whole messed-up world but what you think about me. Feel about me.”

“I want to kiss you,”

“I want to touch you, and not so I can know what it’s like to be with a woman.” “Why then?” Jordan asked. Her voice was deliciously ragged, and Astrid couldn’t help but smile a little. “So I can know what it’s like to be with you,”

But as she joined Claire in the doorway, she did glance back to see a grin settle over Jordan’s face as she looked at her phone, no doubt seeing the name Astrid had entered for herself in Jordan’s contacts. Semi-Decent Human Who Wants to Kiss You Again

“By kick her ass, I mean kick her ass true lesbian style, where I glare at her with my mouth all twisted up like a butthole and give her the silent treatment.”

She tried not to let it bother her, but she hadn’t seen the Two of Cups since the day before she and Astrid kissed at Claire’s party a week ago.

“You’re goddamn right here we go,” Jordan said, yanking Astrid against her, lower lip brushing her own. “I bet I can make you come without ever touching your skin, Parker.”

“You are one in a million, Astrid Parker.”

She reached out and slid a thumb up Astrid’s wet center, then . . . sucked that thumb into her mouth.

“Jo.” “My name is Jordan.”

“You deserve every good thing, okay?”

“You deserve a destiny, Jordan Everwood.”

“It’s a fascinating organ, having nothing to do with reproduction whatsoever. It literally exists for pleasure. The clit is badass.”

And for the second time in Jordan’s life, she watched a woman she loved walk out the front door.

Jordan deserved a great love. She deserved a destiny. And goddammit, she wasn’t going to settle for anything less.

A Tarot card. But not just any Tarot card. A Two of Cups.

She was about to call out, when she saw the second card. It was about fifteen feet away, lying in front of her workshop. She ran to pick it up and was greeted by another Two of Cups. This one was a black-and-white sketch, the only color from the red petals of two roses crossed over two goblets. She stared at it, her breathing suddenly so hard and fast, she started to feel dizzy. She tucked this card with the first, then scanned for any sign of who— There. About twenty feet away from her workshop door, in the direction of the inn, was a third card.

She placed the box in front of her. Astrid’s eyes went wide. “Um, what—” “It’s not a ring,” Jordan said, her expression completely serious. “I know the joke about lesbians bringing a U-Haul to the second date, and that’s not what this is.”

“God, we must be in love or something.” “It’s like it’s fate.” “Astrid Parker, are you saying that you’re my destiny?”