Kate, Unexpected

By Amy Jo Cousins

Garden center manager Kate Rhee is on a mission. No more one-night hookups with women or second-guessing her recent break up with an unavailable man. Too bad the foxy, pink-haired bar owner she keeps running into around Chicago has sworn off girlfriends. Because Kate isn’t doing casual anymore. And she can totally resist that temptation. Totally.

Kate, Unexpected was originally published as "Kate Likes Girls" in Exposed: A Romance Anthology. It has a slightly expanded ending (more sexytimes!), but is 97% the same story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amy Jo Cousins
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463951033

Amy Jo Cousins

A.J. Cousins knows one thing for sure: the people who read and write romance novels are the smartest, funniest, kindest, and most optimistic souls on the planet and finding a place in this community has been like coming home. She lives in Chicago, where she writes contemporary romance, tweets more than she ought, and sometimes runs way too far. She loves her boy and the Cubs, who taught her that being awesome doesn't necessarily have anything to do with winning. Please visit her online!

Book preview

Chapter 1

Sweat ran down the side of Kate’s upside-down face and into her hairline, the tickle of it making her skin itch. The muscles in her butt burned like fire, and her hamstrings joined the protest chorus. The yoga studio was hot as hell with the radiators blasting to combat the winter chill, and Kate shut her eyes tight to avoid seeing her undoubtedly bright red face in the mirror.

Hold it. The instructor at the front of the room—her best friend and a sadistic monster—intoned the words, his voice low and soothing.

Every tenth pose, Jamie made them hold the lunge until Kate wanted to cry. One hundred and eight sun salutations, her ass. What was left of it, at least.

Fucker, she said under her breath. She knew she was busted when Jamie spoke and she heard the smirk in his voice.

Let’s just keep holding this one a little longer. In case some of you need to focus.

Kate plotted murder and reminded herself that three years of yoga meant she had a body that could bend in half, which had come in handy with Gabe on frequent occasion. With Gabe and whoever else they’d invited to join them for a night.

Callie.

And Uttanasana. Exhale.

Thinking of the dark-haired woman made her wobble as she brought her back foot forward and bent at the waist, pressing her chest to her thighs, her hands wrapped around her calves. She caught herself mid-wobble, imagined Jamie’s arched eyebrow, and focused on her technique.

In the back of her mind, though, the hum of her memories sent up a simmer in her blood that added to the heat in the yoga studio. By the time she’d slid through another three salutations, she might as well have been doing Bikram for the honeyed stretch in her bones and the flush that heated her face.

Mountain Pose. She inhaled, feeling the lift in her belly, remembering the curve of Callie’s abdominal muscles as she’d arched her back and cried out between the two of them, Gabe between her thighs and Kate at her breast. The slick of sweat on Kate’s own skin as she grabbed her legs and exhaled again reminded her of the salt she’d licked off the curve of Callie’s breast.

Callie.

Such an unexpected gift there. When Gabe had described his ex of many years ago, she’d been more than happy to meet her, with the intention that the introduction might indeed lead to the kind of night where sweat got licked off body parts. She enjoyed playing with Gabe like that. It excited her, the dance of flirtation among three people, the casual touches that led to held glances and an excuse to drop a hand to the curve of an ass. There was never a guarantee that any given trio would all feel a connection with each other at the same time. The layer of uncertainty added a frisson of risk and reward to sex that she enjoyed. Not knowing what might come next was her favorite place to be.

And sometimes what came next was entirely unpredictable. After all, she hadn’t expected that night to lead to the end of her relationship with Gabe.

Jamie’s voice buzzed low in her consciousness as she stepped into the lunge again, arching her back and glancing at the mirror for a second to check her posture. The curve of her spine looked fluid and effortless. The sweat dripping off the tips of her chopped short layers, pushed back in a stretchy headband, begged to differ. She could hear her mom now. Men don’t like women who sweat, Katie. She tried to imagine the response if she told her mother that both men and women seemed to like her willingness to sweat just fine . . .

She snorted.

Jamie shot her a look. Settle down, heifer.

She stuck her tongue out. Then settled her ass back down into downward facing dog before popping her feet back into plank. She quieted her monkey-mind chatter and let her body bend and flow through the remaining salutations until the class was finished and Jamie left them meditating on their backs in corpse pose.

Incredibly appropriate name, that. She was usually limp as a noodle and ready for a nap after Jamie’s class, both her body and her mind quiet and calm.

Usually.

Today, she was restless. As soon as she let her mind off the leash, her thoughts snapped immediately back to Callie. Kate’s stomach still dipped and rolled whenever she thought about that night. A length of red satin ribbon had the power to send a shiver up her spine and make her panties wet. No surprise really. She’d expected the hot sex.

She just hadn’t expected to like Callie so much.

This antsy feeling that dogged her since that night was unprecedented though. It had been enough to push her into calling a halt to her open relationship with Gabe. He might not care if Kate developed a crush on someone else, but that was Gabe’s deal, not hers. Kate liked her emotional life simpler than that. If she was catching feelings for someone else, reciprocated or not, her extended thing with Gabe had clearly come to an end.

Not to mention, Gabe was hardly telling himself the truth about what that night had meant to him either.

Toes nudged her shoulder. She knew without looking they’d be both perfectly manicured and lightly furred. You gonna nap here much longer, baby doll?

She opened her eyes and smiled up at Jamie, mesmerized by his beard still, so dark against his pale skin. For most of the six years she’d known him, he had presented to the world as a beautiful, gamine-like gay man or an explosively powerful female drag performer.

I can’t stop staring at your beard.

He rolled his eyes at her and stretched out a hand. Get over it. I like to butch it up every once in a while. Especially in the winter.

It makes me want to rub your face. She let him pull her upright, already feeling the ache in her muscles. God, how did I let you talk me into this torture?

Because you’re a slacker who blows off stretching after ten-mile runs, and if you didn’t have my yoga classes, you’d be an injured wreck by now? Jamie suggested dryly.

Right. I forgot. She slipped an arm around Jamie’s slim waist and tipped her head onto his shoulder. Thanks.

I’m just glad you stuck around. At least now I know I get to see you twice a week, no matter what. Even if you haven’t made it to a show or a bout since Thanksgiving.

Sorry. She grimaced and made a note to herself to block her calendar for the date of Jamie’s next drag performance or roller derby match. I’ve been feeling antisocial.

Breakups will do that. But you don’t normally lose focus so easily in class. He squeezed her hip before letting go to start straightening up and cleaning. Jamie always left the studio pristine for the next instructor. Something extra on your mind?

"Someone, more than something." She bent down to roll up her yoga mat. Holy sweat balls. She’d spray it down with tea tree oil and water at home for sure after today’s intense session.

Ooh, do tell? Or is this just more drama with Hephaestus? I thought you said that was over? Gabe didn’t work with a forge anymore, but the fiery oxy-acetylene welding he did was close enough that Jamie’s nickname for him had stuck.

There was never any drama with Gabe; you know that. Although they had been together for a long time, she had never really thought of Gabe as her boyfriend. That term included tones of possessiveness or fidelity that didn’t really track in the open relationships that were all he allowed himself. Either way, Gabe’s clearly expressed intentions—stay with me if you want and only if you want, and I will never limit your choices to be with other people, with or without me, if this doesn’t work for you, I understand—made it hard for conflict to arise. It was like getting angry at a ghost. You could never find your target.

So, if it’s not him, then who? You didn’t go home for Christmas, so it can’t be your mom messing with your head.

Smartest decision I made this year. Korean moms were not big fans of their daughters dropping out of med school to work with plants. Five years later, Kate still shipped her mom potted Cape Honeysuckles and bougainvillea for her birthday, even though she knew she’d find the climbing plants dead and brown in the backyard somewhere when she next made it home.

Passive-aggressive gardening neglect as a response to a daughter’s life choices was hell on flora. It would be easier to hold a grudge if her mom didn’t ship her a restaurant’s worth of home-cooked, dry ice-packed Korean food whenever Kate missed a trip home—showering her from a distance with love and kimchi and the chapssaltteok Kate’s college roommate had always insisted on calling mochi—even as Kate’s mother never stopped suggesting a return to med school.

Someone else, then? Jamie’s eyebrows rose, and his eyes grew big and round. "Did you meet someone? Oh God, please tell me you met someone, and we can move on from these years of wasted time with your angsty artiste."

She ignored the insult to Gabe. Jamie had never understood their relationship, and if a little snark leaked out around the edges