“Still, I’m really, really sorry, honey,” Tina repeated, softly. “It’s such an unbalanced, disproportionate, really unfair distribution of all the work involved …”

Jade looked on, hoping that it didn’t seem to either one that she was gawking as the couple continued, fully focused on each other now. I wonder if I’ll ever meet someone with whom I’ll share something like this deep, special thing that Bette and Tina have? The way they look at each other, talk, smile, unconsciously touch each other, communicate without speaking ….guess it’s for people like them that all those love songs were written. Not so much for people like me, it seems.

Not to say that what I share with Ali isn’t great. It is. And the sex is hot. But … I have to admit whatever Ali and I have doesn’t feel like this thing that Bette and Tina have.

“…so it’s a good thing that Tina brought the bear spray that she’d gotten in Nebraska when we walked up this trail earlier, right?” Bette was saying, facing Jade now, and apparently continuing the story Tina was recounting about what they’d seen while they’d been out in the trail earlier that morning.

“Jade? Jade?” the brunette prompted their new dark-haired friend, who’d not reacted to what she’d been saying.

“Umm… yeah?” Jade asked, her cheeks aflame, embarrassed about having been caught being zoned out of the conversation, while she’d reflected on her impressions about Bette’s and Tina’s relationship. Once again, she reflexively rubbed her nape with her fingers, and nervously rubbed the rim of the glass she was holding with a finger of the other hand.  She looked down at her unlaced Chuck Los as she repeatedly scuffed her toe on a nearby rock. She nervously crushed the plastic cup with her long, graceful fingers.

“I was just saying that we were lucky to have bear spray with us, right?” Bette asked again, and then smiled warmly at Jade. “Not that we’d know how to use it, of course,” she continued, chuckling along with Tina.

I don’t know why this girl is so shy and self-conscious. Doesn’t seem to realize that she’s got a lot going for her. But it’s endearing, all the same, this shyness, and adds to her overall appeal. Can’t put my finger on what makes her so attractive, exactly, but she definitely has oodles of sex appeal. Maybe it’s this androgynous quality hanging about her? Just like Shane’s, and in her case it starts with her face. A delicate, pretty face, underpinned by fine bone structure, but slightly squarish around her jaws. Combined with those dark bushy eyebrows, high cheek-bones, striking, huge, mesmerizing green eyes, and full head of thick, silky, jet-black hair, she’s almost … boyishly cute. No, not almost. She’s definitely cute, with so much potential for becoming dangerously handsome. If she continues to grow, and she will, since she’s only twenty, she’ll probably top 6 feet by the time she finishes growing; and if she packs some muscle into that lean, sexy frame, and that delicate but boyish face matures … look out! She’ll have many a girl parting her legs with a mere snap of those long, graceful fingers …. Hmm… speaking of Shane … and Alice… and our own wedding …