Loving Her Again

By Alex Turner

She knew Valerie had moved. Moved, and moved on.

But she didn't know that she'd opened up a boutique bed and breakfast in the beach town of every lesbian vacationer's dreams.

Laurel's friends knew, though. About Valerie and her new career. They knew exactly what she was doing with her life and where she was doing it.

Which was precisely why, without telling Laurel (or Valerie, for that matter), they booked a room at Valerie's bed and breakfast. For an entire weekend.

Because Laurel's friends were never convinced the two should have broken up. And now, they're determined to bring them back together.

When Laurel and Valerie see each other again, it's clear they've still got the same chemistry. The same wants. But will wanting be enough?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Turner
• Release date: Jan 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393289227

Alex Turner

Alex Turner writes queer romance novels whenever they’re not playing basketball, reading, or pretending to be good at video games. They can also frequently be found holding hands with their wife and babbling about astrophysics while stargazing.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Her summers used to fly by, a blissful mix of gorgeous days and even more incredible nights. She tried not to linger too long, thinking about those nights.

But now her summers dragged on, long and full of work and food and chaos.

It was a good chaos: the kind of chaos that continued to pay her bills during long and lonely winters.

Valerie lay in her king-size bed and tossed aside the novel she’d been trying to read. She rolled over, tank top riding up slightly – the night air was chilly, and she shivered, only in her black tank and red boy shorts – and grabbed at the pen and index cards perpetually resting on her night stand.

Gluten-free for the blue room

Vegan and sodium-free for the green room

All the meat in the land for the random straight couple in the white room

Valerie already had notes about all her guests’ dietary needs in the kitchen downstairs, but she could never quite sleep if she didn’t feel completely sure and settled into what she had to do the next morning.

She didn’t write any notes for the red room, not yet. There were three guests arriving the next day who would take the room closest to hers. Even though they weren’t getting in until the afternoon, she’d spent most of the evening making sure the en suite had fresh towels, that everything was clean and tidy and arranged to perfection, including the two extra blankets they’d requested.

Sexual tension. It had to be. Three people, probably queer – given that they were coming to this town, staying in this Airbnb – sharing a single (huge, but still) bed but asking for three separate blankets?

The person who’d applied for the room said it was going to be him, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s best friend. Valerie wondered what kind of history and tension and joy and potential drama there was in that arrangement.

And she would find out. She always found out.

Not that she was invasive: not in the slightest. The reason most people elected to stay at her place in the first place was because word of mouth was that what happened at Val’s stayed at Val’s.

No, Valerie wasn’t invasive. Just... insightful. And observant. Very observant.

Good that she was, too. Because most of her social interaction, now, was tied up in this business she’d started for herself.

When her aunt died and left her this house – thank God for rich lesbian aunts who had loved her more than anyone else ever had (except one person, maybe, but Valerie didn’t think about her) – it had felt like the best way to honor her was to move out here. To walk the grounds her aunt had walked every day, to really learn the community her aunt had taken her to when she’d first come out at fourteen.

She’d been so busy, with college and then with grad school and then with... her... that Valerie hadn’t noticed that her aunt had slipped into loneliness and despair that nothing but the bottom of a bottle could touch.

Valerie would never forgive herself. But she could do her best.

And her best meant opening this place as a refuge, a haven, a get-away, for queer women anywhere and everywhere, who needed to escape the rest of the world and recharge themselves in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

Everyone assumed it was called Val’s after Valerie herself, but most of them didn’t know that she’d been named for her aunt, who’d been named for her grandmother, who’d been named for her mother.

It didn’t feel like a special name, not really. But it was for her family. For her.

So Val’s it was.

She stared for a while longer at her list, wondering if it would disturb her guests if she got up to make herself a literal midnight snack of whatever morsels she didn’t have in her mini-fridge. It probably wouldn’t disturb anyone – she was pretty sure the couple in the green room was still out celebrating life at one of the local bars, and all of her guests knew that the kitchen was always open to them, no matter what time of day or night – but getting a snack from downstairs would mean putting on pants.

Valerie chuckled as she thought about pants, and who needed them (no one), and for a moment – just a moment – a surge of longing swept over her, even harder than that wave she’d ridden on the surf the other morning, much to the delight of the straight cis couple staying in the white room.

But she’d ridden waves harder than this one, harder than distinct memories brought on by little words, small thoughts, insignificant musings.

She tugged on a pair of sweatpants, cursed the sweetness of memories and touches and laughters and casual intimacies long gone, and went to get herself some chocolate pudding.

Chapter 2

"Laurel ," Amy called, for the fourteenth time that morning. Finally, mercifully, Laurel poked her head out of the steam-filled bathroom.

"God, do you have any idea how badly I have to pee?" Amy took advantage of the small gap in the door and shoved past Laurel, utterly unconcerned by the way Laurel’s towel barely covered her body, the water droplets and humidity highlighting the muscles and curves of her dark brown skin.

I mean shit, alright, go ahead. Laurel laughed and stepped out of the bathroom, leaving Amy to it, even as she continued to dry her hair. I’m gonna need my leave-in! she called as Amy kicked the door closed.

This morning, Amy half-yelled as Laurel shivered slightly, grateful the morning was almost unbearably hot already. Not ideal road trip weather, but it wouldn’t matter once they got where they were going – because it was perfect beach weather.

"You had to choose this morning to deep condition your hair."

Laurel shrugged, readjusting the towel over her body and examining the job she’d done shaving her legs. "You’re the one who said it, Ames. Oh, Laurel, it’s the bastion of the queer women and you’re definitely going to get yourself laid for the first time in two and a half years, Laurel and they’ll be falling all over you, Laurel. And then you think I’m not gonna deep condition my hair before we go?"

"It’s gonna go to waste, Laur, Amy flushed the water and kicked the door back open as she washed her hands. Laurel nudged her with the curve of her hip and Amy acquiesced to sharing the sink. We’re going to the beach."

But Laurel shook her head – hard, deliberately, like a wet puppy, so that as much water as possible sprayed onto Amy’s face and shoulders – and winked at her best friend in the mirror. We sure are. But we’re getting there in the afternoon, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna go out to a late brunch in the land of the lesbians when we get there with my hair frizzed out from this damn humidity.

"We’re on the west coast, Laur, it’s not really humid."

Maybe not by east coast standards, Laurel pffted, starting to work leave-in conditioner from the small tub on the counter into her hair, roots first and working outward.

Amy tilted her head as she stopped