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

by Ashley Herring Blake

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

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

She had two queer best friends and a queer stepsister, so it’s not like she wasn’t aware these things happened . . . they’d just never happened to her. Surely—surely—they weren’t happening now. Not in this gilded movie theater with a bucket of popcorn between her thighs and the taste of a waxy cherry stem in her mouth.

so relatable as someone who also realized they were queer at ~30

“I should be the one tucking you in.” That’s what she’d said to Jordan when the other woman had literally tucked the sheets around her arms and legs. “Why’s that?” Jordan had asked. “Because,” Astrid had mumbled. “She left you like you didn’t mean anything. And you do. You mean something.”

With everything going on at the inn, Astrid kept forgetting that her stepsister was officially moving in with Claire and Ruby next week. While Claire had been taking things pretty slow because of her twelve-year-old daughter, everyone knew she and Delilah were the real deal. The forever kind of love.

She did go straight to Delilah, never even considered taking this to Iris or even Claire first. She already knew exactly how they’d react. Iris would squeal and pop some bubbly, even at this early hour, going on and on about how Astrid completed their queer coven. And Claire—gentle, cinnamon roll Claire—would simply be too sweet about the whole thing. She’d soothe and ask soul-probing questions, and Astrid didn’t want any of that. She wanted the hard stuff, the complicated truth, and she knew Delilah was the only one who would give it to her.

Jordan grinned back, and that first-crush, effervescent feeling bubbled through Astrid again—her chest, her fingertips, her toes. Finally, she turned back toward the shelves and pressed the rim of her wineglass to her still-smiling mouth. She stood there like that for a moment, pretending to scan the shelves while grinning like a teenager. Because she knew now. 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.

“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.”

“Well, I mean, not like I googled directions or anything, but it’s featured in most of those queer romances I’ve been reading, and when I watched a few videos, it looked—” “Holy shit, wait, you watched porn for this?” Astrid’s already pink face deepened to red, and she pressed her forehead against Jordan’s thigh. “Maybe,” she said against her skin.