Nothing but a Fling: A Carlsbad Village Lesbian Romance Read online

  Nothing But A Fling

  A Carlsbad Village Lesbian Romance

  Sabrina Kane

  Copyright © 2020 Sabrina Kane

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781234567890

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Cover design by: Sabrina Kane

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  Nothing But A Fling

  A Carlsbad Village Lesbian Romance

  By Sabrina Kane

  Prologue

  January 2020

  Vanessa took a deep, calming breath and surveyed the room.

  Everything was ready. At least everything she could see. The wood-plank flooring was swept clean. The dozen tables—a funky and eclectic mix of sizes and shapes—were all wiped down. The two large sofas, one by the bay window, the other nestled in a little alcove which she and her staff had taken to calling “The Lover’s Nook,” both had their colorful throw cushions fluffed and arranged just so.

  The pastry cooler, attached to the ordering counter, was stocked with pastries and plastic containers of diced fresh fruit. The coffee machines were turned on, emitting an intoxicating mix of the different blends brewing, and the espresso maker positively gleamed, the result of Vanessa’s almost obsessive polishing the night before.

  Yes, everything I can control is ready.

  If there was a meteor hurtling towards Earth right this very minute to wipe out Carlsbad, California, she couldn’t do anything about that. Same for the San Andreas fault if it decided to suddenly shift and throw the entire state into the Pacific. Nope; completely out of her hands.

  All I can control is this coffeeshop and doing everything I can to make sure we’re a hit.

  Vanessa checked her watch. After thirty-five years on this planet, she was now only 10 minutes way from opening her very own coffeeshop, La Vida Mocha. Reaching into the pocket of her favorite black ripped jeans and extracting a hair tie, she pulled her long raven hair back into a ponytail, mindful of the fact that when she wears it down, she tends to look too fancy, too glamorous—at least that’s what people always told her. Like a goddamn supermodel on the red carpet, one of her ex-girlfriends had told her.

  The recall of that memory made Vanessa stop for a second. That had been Rebecca who’d made that comment. Rebecca, who was no slouch in the looks department herself but for some reason had terrible self-esteem and was intimidated by Vanessa’s own startling beauty. It was that lack of self-esteem which had eventually led to their breakup when Rebecca left Vanessa for a slightly overweight blonde with bad skin.

  Vanessa shook her head.

  Women! Can’t live with ‘em; can’t be straight.

  In any case, ponytail it was. Relaxed, casual, fun. Because this was supposed to be a relaxed, casual and fun coffeeshop.

  She took another deep breath and then said, “OK, we’re ready. We’re ready.”

  Chloë, one of Vanessa’s two employees, looked up from the table she was nervously re-polishing. Her pixie-cut platinum hair caught the early sunlight streaming through the picture window.

  “We’re more than ready, Vanessa,” Chloë said with a smile. “By the way, have you seen the line forming up outside?”

  No, Vanessa hadn’t seen, so focused had her attention been on the inside of her new business. But now she directed her gaze to the window and, sure enough, a line of about fifteen (hopefully future repeat!) customers was waiting. Something about the make-up of the line caused Vanessa to bite her bottom lip while she figured it out. When she did, she started laughing.

  Chloë, needlessly polishing yet another table, looked up again. “What’s up?”

  Vanessa nodded towards the waiting people.

  “They’re all women,” she said.

  Chloë looked.

  “Yeah, so?”

  Vanessa was still laughing.

  “Well, I mean look! There’s one...two...three...four couples holding hands and judging by the amount of flannel, I’m willing to bet the rest were last with a guy back in their experimental college years.” She looked over at Chloë. “As much as I love the ladies, I didn’t set out to open Carlsbad’s premier lesbian coffeeshop.”

  Of course, it made sense, she considered. In the run-up to this grand opening, Vanessa and her cadre of friends had promoted La Vida Mocha by posting flyers in every lesbian bar from Oceanside to San Diego; by creating a Facebook page for the shop—and then linking it to just about every lesbian Facebook group in Southern California; by posting photos of the shop’s transformation from empty former delicatessen to hip, So-Cal coffee hangout on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtags #lesbianownedbusiness and #lesbiansrule and by talking the shop up for the past three months to anyone they kissed, from significant others to one-night stands. Hell, even her only two employees were gay.

  “Eh, who cares?” Chloë said. “The boys have plenty of their own places and the straights still rule the world. I wouldn’t mind a chicks-only caffeine spot.”

  She came to stand by Vanessa, hooking her arm through hers. “It’s finally about to happen, Vanessa,” she told her boss with feeling. “You’ve been waiting a long time.” She squeezed Vanessa’s arm.

  Vanessa was so grateful for Chloë’s presence. The twenty-three-year-old may be a dozen years younger than herself but she had a good head on her shoulders and had been a calming influence for Vanessa when the rigors of opening a new business had gotten to be too much at times. The two had known each other since Chloë was still in high school and Vanessa had been her personal trainer, hired by Chloë’s parents to help their daughter rehabilitate her knee from a mountain biking accident.

  “Fuck!”

  The exclamation startled both Vanessa and Chloë and they turned to see Luli, Vanessa’s second employee, emerge from the back room, staring at her phone. Vanessa’s heart thumped and her panicked eyes looked at her watch. Only five more minutes until opening! What the hell went wrong in the back? Did the walk-in fridge die? Did Luli discover rat droppings covering the sacks of coffee? Luli was looking at her phone...was there a meteor heading towards Carlsbad?

  “Lu?” Vanessa asked, her voice a little shaky.

  “Huh? Oh...sorry! Shit, we’re not open yet, are we?” She quickly scanned the room to see if there were any customers that might have been offended at her outburst, then breathed a sigh relief upon only seeing Vanessa and Chloë.

  Vanessa felt Chloë give her arm another squeeze, this time laced with meaning.

  Breathe.

  “Lu, what’s wrong?” Chloë asked.

  “My sister. She’s trapped in China!”

  “Oh no!” the other women exclaimed in unison.

  Luli’s sister, they knew, had left for China a month ago to visit relatives. She was due back any day.

  “Yeah, they fucking closed China!” Luli continued. “China! Because of that virus! No one in or out. Including my sister!”

  “Is she okay? I mean, does she have somewhere to stay and all that?” Vanessa asked. She and Chloë came to stand next to Luli and both looked down at her phone. It was open to the messaging app but all of the text was in Cantonese.

  Luli nodded. “Yeah, she’s fine. She’ll just have to stay with our relatives. I mean, it’s not bad; they own a string of electronics shops and are pretty well connected with the Party, so they’re more than well off. Jia will be living in a mansion at least.”

  “Thank God,” Vanessa said. “I’m sure she’ll be fine and be able to come home soon. This corona thing will blow over in no time. It’s not like China is a third-world country. They have the resources to fight this thing and contain it.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Luli shut off the phone, tucking it in her back pocket. “Anyway, my parents hate her boyfriend so Jia being trapped in the motherland is a blessing to them.” She looked up at Vanessa. “OK, let’s do this!”

  Vanessa nodded. It was time. Well, a minute early but what the hell?

  While Chloë and Luli took up stations behind the counter Vanessa smoothed down her fitted black tee (relaxed, casual, fun) and went to open the door. La Vida Mocha was open for business.

  “Hi,” she greeted the first person through. “Welcome to La Vida Mocha!”

  Chapter 1

  Six months later…

  Megan decided she was done being nice.

  One of her most dimwitted direct reports, Trevor, had just IM-ed her via Zoom for the sixth time today asking yet another stupid question, the answer to which was already supplied if Trevor would only do one of two things: look for it where he is supposed to look for it, or learn to read. What made it worse was that because he wasn’t on top of things like he should be, his team was going to be late releasing a major deliverable.

  Her lips pursed and her jaw tight, she typed out a reply in the chat box.

  Trevor, I remember SPECIFICALLY the answers to these questions being provided to us by Accounting in April during a meeting you attended. And n
ow you’re telling me that your team may be late with the release because somehow those answers did not make it to your developers?

  And why am I just hearing about this today? Why have you not brought this up during any of the release status meetings between April and now?

  Before you go log off today, I want you to set up a meeting with me, you, your lead devs and Andy for Monday morning. The release is still two weeks away. Your team WILL make the release date and on Monday we’re going to figure out how you’re going to do it.

  She clicked Send and then looked at her work laptop’s clock. 2:41 p.m. She typically logged off at three but 2:41 was close enough, especially on a Friday. Sometime later tonight she’d log back in and make sure Trevor set up that meeting. If he didn’t, there’d be hell to pay on Monday. No, scratch that…there’d be hell to pay tonight when she called him.

  After shutting her laptop lid, she stood, stretched her five-six frame and then reached up and untied her auburn hair from the ponytail she’d had it in all day, shaking her head to loosen the curls. As she started walking out of the spare bedroom that she had had to turn into a home office she frowned when she noticed a tightness in her left hip. Sure, she had been sitting for two hours straight, stuck on boring conference calls, but certainly twenty-six-years-old was still too young to feel decrepit after sitting for a while?

  Oh well. It was bound to happen eventually.

  Unlike most of her friends, Megan had no qualms about aging. Besides, she was doing this whole approaching-thirty thing quite well. Slim and toned with youthful features that made people think she hadn’t yet reached twenty-five, Megan knew she had no right to panic over her looks.

  Just as she entered her bedroom her phone rang. The caller ID said Abs.

  “Hey, Abby,” Megan answered.

  “Hey, what are you up to?”

  “About to change out of my work clothes,” Megan said. She put the phone on speaker, laid it on the bed and set about unbuttoning her slacks.

  “Oh my God! You are such a dork!” Abby screeched. “You’re still doing that?”

  Megan laughed. When California went on lockdown a few months ago the company she worked for, BeachSoft, ordered all their employees to work from home until further notice. But even though this meant Megan no longer had to commute to BeachSoft’s offices in Vista, she still awoke for work Monday through Friday at the same time and still got dressed in the mornings as if she was going to the office. Her rationale for keeping to that routine was that once things returned to normal and white-collar workers like her returned to the office it would be much easier to resume her old morning routines if she never stopped them in the first place.

  Abby, on the other hand, used work from home as an excuse to sleep an extra hour each workday and to stay in her pajamas until bedtime, when she would change into different pajamas.

  Megan now pulled off her navy striped blouse and went to her closet to determine what to wear now.

  “Anyway, dork,” Abby continued, “I want to make sure you haven’t forgotten about tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Megan replied. “Seven o’clock. I’m picking you up.”

  Their friends Angela and Desiree had just gotten engaged and were having a small party at their place here in Carlsbad. Not exactly Covid-19 protocol but Megan saw nothing wrong with it. She trusted Angela and Dee to use good judgment in their arrangements. Besides, it would be nice to get out of the house and see others because even she was starting to get a little crazy with all the forced isolation.

  Giving up on choosing what to change into while Abby then chewed Megan’s ear off about a “large and in charge” woman who had winked at her last night in the grocery store, Megan remained in her underwear until the call ended a few minutes later. When it did, Megan blew out a relieved breath.

  Finally!

  She loved Abby to bits, but her best friend was like a Chatty Cathy doll with a broken string.

  And it was Friday! At this moment, Megan wanted nothing more than to change into some shorts and one of the cute yoga crop tops Amazon just delivered Wednesday and head out for a stroll along the seawall of Carlsbad State Beach and then find a nice quiet bench somewhere to sit and do some drawing.

  ***

  An hour later, Megan was leaving the seawall after taking a good long walk south to the Cabrillo Power Plant before turning around to head back north to Carlsbad Village Drive. She was carrying her leather messenger bag that contained her iPad, wallet, phone and headphones. It was another perfect California day, sunny with a very slight breeze blowing in from the Pacific, tinged with salt and the scents of the ocean and beach, scents which always made Megan feel safe and at home. Despite the continuing lockdown there were plenty of folks out strolling, like her, all wearing face masks and trying their hardest to maintain some kind of distance between themselves and others. Megan found it funny how face masks had become a new fashion accessory and a form of personal expression. She herself wore a plain black one. Nonetheless, nowadays, when she went for one of her walks, she made a game out of trying to spot the most interesting mask. Today’s winner (so far) had been a young girl of around ten whose mask depicted a cartoon mouth with its tongue sticking out.

  As Megan waited for the light to change in order to cross Carlsbad Boulevard, she yawned...a huge one. The second one in as many minutes, in fact. God, why was she so tired? The idea of going back to her condo and taking a nap was seductively appealing but damn it, it was Friday! She was not going to waste this lovely early-evening at home in bed. Well, in bed alone, at least.

  Coffee!

  Coffee, after all, was the solution to a lot of life’s problems. And when coffee failed, wine was always Plan B.

  It was then that her eyes picked up on something across the street. She blinked to be sure it wasn’t some kind of hopeful mirage because such a scene was now a rarity in this pandemic era. But...yes, it looked like…

  On the corner was a coffeeshop, Brawn Brothers. That in itself was not unusual, coffeeshops were everywhere, but the fact that Brawn Brothers had a patio full of guests was odd! And from what she could see, there were guests inside too!

  Were cafes now allowed to have sit-in guests? With all the changing rules in California about who could do what Megan supposed it was possible. Quite frankly, she had lost track. But hadn’t she read that the Carlsbad/Oceanside region had recently experienced a surge in Covid cases after an earlier attempt at reopening the state?

  Megan felt a tiny but hopeful pang of excitement. She hadn’t enjoyed sitting in a coffeeshop working on her drawings since before everything shut down back in March. Unfortunately, that establishment, Your Best Shot, her absolute favorite, would never re-open, a permanent casualty of the pandemic.

  Even though the light had changed and she could cross, Megan stayed on the curb, instead using her iPhone to find other nearby cafes. She had been such a loyal patron of Your Best Shot that she hadn’t set foot into any other local places in at least three years. And Brawn Brothers was out. The place was obnoxious, she remembered, the customers too young and the vibe too frat house.

  Wait...here was a place. And it was just up the street a bit on Grand Avenue. Four and a half stars on Yelp and Google. La Vida Mocha. Megan seemed to remember some of her friends mentioning it some time back when it first opened. And if they were open, really open, and she could sit and chill in a nice coffeehouse vibe...

  Okay...why not?

  Chapter 2

  “Holy fuck,” Vanessa said into the phone, not really caring that it was her mother on the other end. “Remind me again that we live in America.”

  Her mother tutted but did not reprimand her daughter’s language.

  “Still no luck?”

  “Only in that I have now memorized every single word on the website because I only ever get to see this one page,” Vanessa answered.

  “Just keep trying.”

  Vanessa bit her tongue to stop a sarcastic comment from leaping out of her mouth. Moms were great, but why did they insist of offering such useless advice at times?

  Instead, Vanessa said, “I will definitely keep trying, Mom. Look, I’d better go...”