“You’re right.”  Jo unexpectedly pried the champagne glass from Becca and laid it next to hers on the side table next to her.  “You’re right.  We won’t be able to do justice to what happened by talking through things here.  So … why don’t we start small, and just talk about what happened to each of us today?  I just want to talk, Becs.  About anything.  With you.”

She extended a hand out.  “Deal?  Let’s ease into things, and tell each other, um… the one thing that happened today that made you go, “Hmmmm….”

Becca blew a breath out, and mustered up a smile.  She shook Jo’s hand, gasping slightly at the contact.

The electric charge she got from touching Jo, or being touched by her, hadn’t dimmed one bit. 

“Well, I’m not going to start with today. I’m going to start with the stories we shared with each other as that train pulled out of Chicago, and we’d settled into each side of that surprisingly spacious cabin,” Becca’s smile became more sincere, and her eyes grew misty.  “That wonderful cabin that became our home for a couple more days than we anticipated, because of the snow storm along the way, remember?”  She knew better than to try to extricate her hand from Jo’s grasp.  Not that she wanted to.

She continued, “You started your story differently, of course.  You said you preferred the winter, and our story happened over the winter, so it felt right.  Mine, on the other hand, started in a place that’s always been a magical one for me.  Especially over the summer, in a small place by a deserted coast, far from everything else, undamaged by storms, blessed by soft sunny days and endless blue skies all summer long.”

Jo was beginning to tear up also.  “That felt right, too.  And I remember you asked me, “You’ve been there?  Oh, you were thinking of another place?  No matter, you seem to know what I’m talking about.  One of those places that you escape to in your mind, right?  When you’re back in the big city and it seems that everything is awry, so you retrieve that little bit of summertime magic to help keep you from losing your shit.”

She had to look away from Becca, for a sec, because this was unexpectedly getting emotional.  The last thing she wanted was, well, to lose her shit in front of Becca, not when they had so much to talk about.    She gathered herself, and looked up, unsurprised to see Becca looking back at her more softly than she had all night.  “You promised that you’d take me to your magical place, the one in that deserted coast, undamaged by storms, blessed by soft sunny days all summer long.  Remember?”