Coming Back for You: Love Outlasts Temptation

By Ada Stone

Rox and Gloria are in a loving and committed relationship and have only found deeper love for each other after moving in together. The wonderful stability they’ve become accustomed to, however, comes crashing down when Rox’s ex-girlfriend Janna arrives in town with redemption on her mind.

Rox manages to avoid her ex well enough — that is, until a family emergency calls Gloria to leave the city. With Gloria’s return date hovering in the unknown and Janna determined to keep pressuring her, Rox finds her avoidance abilities stretched to the brink. When Gloria finally makes surprise reentry into their apartment, she is met with a suspicious scene. In the aftermath, Rox and Gloria are tasked with reconciling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Aug 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781094413327

Ada Stone

Ada Stone is a queer and trans book-obsessed human from the Pacific Northwest, where they live now. They love spending quiet time among trees and mountains, listening to their favorite albums on repeat, and receiving “your holds are ready for pickup” alerts from the library.

Book preview

Chapter One: Janna

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There are so many ways I could begin, but why not start here: Rox and Gloria announced their relationship to the social media world on May 7, 2016. A photo showed their glowing-in-golden-hour faces pressed together, cheek to cheek. It was an easy intimacy that suggested they had been relating — do people still say that? — for a while prior to the public reveal. Rox’s long chestnut hair was pinned up in a bulbous bun, and her long silver earrings brought out the shimmer in her copper eyes. It being spring, her middle-brown skin was shading into its darker iteration.

Gloria, in comparison, wasn’t much to look at. It wasn’t that she was ugly, not at all. She just wasn’t anywhere near as stunning as Rox. Gloria wore a short buzz cut that, while making an obvious statement of her butch-ness, didn’t suit her circular face. Her fair, freckled skin had turned rosey in the sunlight, suggesting a burgeoning sunburn. She did, however, have a cute smile: dual dimples that drew deep canyons in her cheeks, glowing straight teeth, a slight squeeze of her right eye. Then again, of course she looked happy; she was with Rox.

The post, which was captioned: The sculpture park is for lovers <3 <3 <3, received 154 likes and 38 comments. The reactions were of the predictable sort: OMG!!! LOVE!!!, Wow, power couple alert *3 kissy face emojis*, I cannot EVEN *winky face, heart*." Gloria was tagged, but her account was set to private. Rox had also included a location maker: Olympic Sculpture Park. I clicked the link and a map showed me a waterfront. Upon zooming out, I saw the location was just north of downtown Seattle. Since it had been so long since Rox had posted on her account, this information proved just as illuminating as the relationship announcement itself. Whereas, for the previous two years, I’d imagined Rox’s life taking place in a vast white cloud of uncertainty, now I could place her within a terrestrial setting. I found comfort in theorizing about what she might be up to, even if this included spending time with Gloria. This new information also aided me in a more practical sense. But more about that later. First, let me tell you more about these lovers.

Section Break

It was a late-winter night when Gloria and Rox first met. A chilly drizzle had been falling from gray clouds all day, though it was hardly enough to keep people in on a Friday night, especially when there was a birthday to be celebrated. The host — who was probably named Erica or Dylan or Trista — was Gloria and Rox’s all-important mutual friend, the force that was about to bring them together. The party supposedly began at 9 p.m., but guests only started to trickle in around 10:30 p.m. You know how it goes. The birthday person had paid for a professional DJ to play EDM in the combined living and dining area. The only light in the room came from streetlamps outside and the glow sticks attached to everyone’s wrists. Under the thumping pressure of the bass, bodies twined together, shyly at first. Then the alcohol and weed started to hit, and the guests became friendlier with each other.

In one corner of the living room, Rox danced alone, her eyes closed. Her edible was just starting to kick in, and she was feeling herself. She is an unconditionally brilliant person, and yet she only notices the full scope of her excellence with her inhibitions on mute. In the middle of the dance floor, Gloria was in search of a dance partner. It seemed everyone else was already pairing off, and she wasn’t about to waste the night away without getting her grind on. When the headlights of a passing car shone across Rox’s body, Gloria started to weave through the crowd without a second thought.

Over the sheer noise of the music, it was useless to try to talk, so Gloria simply held out her hand in an offering to her would-be partner. She had to wait a few moments for Rox to sense her presence and open her eyes. After she noticed Gloria, Rox accepted at once. Slithering back into the masses, hand in hand, the pair claimed a space just big enough for both of their bodies. Not that they needed any more space than that. Rox turned around and ground her ass against the front of Gloria’s pelvis, and Gloria wrapped her arms around her dance partner’s waist. Sweat beaded where their clothes rubbed together, and then up onto their necks and brows, but they didn’t mind.

Before the night was over, Gloria retrieved a sharpie from her pocket — which she had thought to bring along for this exact purpose — and wrote her name and number on Rox’s forearm. Rox smirked and nabbed the sharpie, taking her turn to ink her info on Gloria. She wrote in distinctive blocky capital letters that looked inhumanely neat, that is until the ink began to bleed outward through the tiny canyons of Gloria’s skin. They shared an exploratory kiss