In Demand, Chapter 2

Previously: Chapter 1 [U]

Little bit more of this short-lived Spashley fluff.

Rated: U.

* * * * *

Spencer could feel herself staring at the other woman. She knew that what she was feeling was a fairly intense and instant attraction to the stranger, and she was nonplussed by this turn of events.

It would have been a lie to say that she hadn’t previously considered the fact that she might well be bisexual or gay. Even in college, she had checked out her female friends much more than her male friends. At work, she studied the female executives in meetings but could hardly tell the male brand managers apart. As time went by, she found that she was noticing women more and men less. It didn’t bother her that she had been feeling that way. It bothered her that she didn’t know for sure because she hadn’t had an opportunity to test her theory out in practice.

It was a bridge that she wasn’t afraid to cross when she came to it; it was merely that this strange chance meeting was by far the closest she had ever been to that particular precipice. The worst thing was that she wasn’t sure whether the other woman was genuinely interested in her or whether she had just fallen back onto what had become a fairly standard ruse for getting rid of unwanted male attention. Plenty of Spencer’s friends had lied that they were lesbians in similar situations. The only real difference was that someone else had made the insinuation for her.

The other woman coughed politely. Spencer shook her head almost imperceptibly, as if she might physically be able to clear the confusion in her mind.

“Sorry. Spaced out a little.”

“I got that.” The brunette gave a throaty chuckle.

Spencer picked up her coffee cup and took a sip of the cooling liquid, more to buy herself a few seconds to compose herself than anything else. She was actually quite surprised that her hand hadn’t been shaking. She certainly felt nervous enough on the inside.

“I meant what I said,” she finally commented. “I really appreciate your help with Phill. I’m just not used to getting hit on like that and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I find it hard to believe that you don’t get hit on pretty much twenty-four-seven.” The brunette gave her a slow smile. “I mean, look at you. You must be beating men off with the proverbial stick.”

“Actually, I’m really not usually very good at telling when someone’s interested in me in that way unless they hold up a neon sign. If he hadn’t started out with such an old and tired pick-up line, I would probably have thought that he was just being friendly.”

“Even after the invite to take a little ride on his boat?”

Spencer nodded forlornly. “Sadly, probably yes.”

The brunette thought for a moment before leaning slightly forward and dropping her voice to little more than a whisper and asking, “So, what if a person doesn’t have a neon sign to hand?”

Spencer’s breath hitched in her throat. No matter how unpracticed she might be in the subtleties of flirtation, she knew that statement could hardly be taken innocently. As her brain frantically searched for an appropriate response, she was jolted out of her panic by a commotion to her left.

“Spencer! I got your messages. Why didn’t you just call the salon? I’d have come back immediately if I’d have -” Her second-best friend, Abby, who was bearing down on her purposefully, stopped mid-sentence and clutched her hand to her chest. “Oh. My. God. Aren’t you Ashley Davies?”

The other woman – Ashley, apparently – gave Spencer a wry half-smile at their conversation having been interrupted and turned to the gushing young woman. “Yes, I am.”

“Oh my God, I am your biggest fan. I mean, I totally love all your stuff. I was at the show at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go last October. Oh my God, Spencer! Why didn’t you tell me that you knew Ashley Davies?” Abby nudged Spencer with her hip as she sat down on the bench seat next to her. “Are you playing here this weekend?”

“I’m, um, just here to see an old friend.”

“Oh.” Abby’s voice fell. “How do you know Spencer anyway?” The statement sounded suspiciously like an accusation.

“Oh, we don’t really know each other. I saved her life once.” Ashley smiled at Spencer, who immediately bowed her head to hide the deep blush she could feel spreading across her cheeks. Abby, meanwhile, was looking between the two of them with growing confusion and more than a shade of displeasure. Abby was a notorious gossip who hated being left out of anything.

“So, are you playing LA again soon?”

“I’m kinda concentrating on writing just now.”

Abby dumped her purse on the table in front of her and dug through it until she found a pen. “I know this is going to sound so lame and you must get this all the time, but would you? I mean, can I have an autograph?”

Ashley nodded. “Of course. Have you got something to write on?”

“Ah, yeah.” Abby fished back into her purse and brandished a notebook. “Here.” She handed it over. “It’s -”

“Abby,” Ashley finished for her. “Spencer,” she stressed the name as she said it for the first time, “told me all about you. Is it with a ‘y’ or an ‘ie’?”

“Y.” Abby nudged Spencer, who was still watching the brunette from under her lashes. “I hope you only said nice things about me.”

Spencer said nothing. She was in the middle of the most surreal experience of her life and was completely lost for words on every level. She watched as Ashley finished up the autograph with a flourish. As she was handing it back to Abby, a cellphone started to buzz. It was Ashley’s.

“I have to get this,” she announced. “Hey, you. You’re late… Ahh…”

Spencer could feel the brunette watching at her as she spoke on the phone, but she was intently staring down at her own hands, which were clasped firmly in the table in front of her. She wanted to look up, but Abby’s presence made her feel as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have. She was still trying to process the fact that the brunette wasn’t just a random stranger, but clearly some kind of celebrity.

“Right… Yeah, I can do that…”

Spencer was feeling even more embarrassed by her impetuous behaviour. She must have looked like a complete fool, launching herself at the woman and not even recognising who she was. She still wasn’t really sure who Ashley Davies was. The name meant nothing to her, but she didn’t exactly have the same taste in music as Abby, so maybe that wasn’t so surprising. All of her friends thought that her taste in music was pretty mainstream, if not downright old-fashioned.

She wondered if Ashley had thought she was some kind of crazed fan who had manipulated the whole Phill situation just to get close to her idol. Still, the brunette hadn’t seemed perturbed at the time. And she had been the one to come up with the whole hand-holding thing to chase Phill away. And she had definitely flirted with her. Of course, perhaps if she thought that Spencer was some kind of groupie, then maybe flirting was a natural response. But, then, why would she flirt with someone that she thought was a deranged fan? That made no sense. Still, none of her own actions and reactions in the previous ten minutes made any real sense to her, either.

The only logical summation of the facts that she could come up with was that most of their interaction had been real, even if it had started on a lie. She chewed her bottom lip as she considered what that conclusion meant.

“Uh-huh… Whatever, loser.” Ashley hung up. “That was my friend. He’s having a hair gel crisis and needs urgent help,” she joked.

“You can’t stay?” Abby sounded crestfallen.

“Believe me, I honestly wish that I could.”

Spencer knew that the comment had been directed to her, even though Ashley had addressed Abby. That pretty much confirmed her assumption that their flirtation had been real. She found herself genuinely disappointed that it was coming to an end.

“I can’t believe I’ve met you!” Abby exclaimed. “Things like this just never happen to me.”

“Well,” Ashley announced, standing up and exiting her side of the booth, “I hate to cut and run, but duty calls.” She waved her cellphone in the air to indicate she was referring to her friend with the hair crisis. “It has been a genuine pleasure. Seeing as you’re both here all weekend, then I hope we’ll bump into each other again.”

“Oh, I hope so!” That was Abby. Spencer just nodded.

Ashley looked down at Spencer, a distinctly private smile on her face. “Hey, if you should happen to see our mutual friend again, be sure to give him my best.”

With that final comment, the brunette headed out of the bar. She had hardly exited her seat when Abby shot around the table to sit facing Spencer. “What did she mean by that? How do you know Ashley Davies? God, Spencer, you’re a dark one.”

Spencer didn’t answer immediately. She was watching the retreating figure of the brunette heading through the hotel lobby, wishing that she had said something – anything – to make it clear that she had been interested back. She cursed her own reticence.

Before she disappeared from Spencer’s view entirely, however, Ashley turned around and ostentatiously blew her a kiss and gave her a wave. Spencer blushed a deep red, but smiled and nodded in silent reply anyway.

“Spencer!”

“What?”

“Are you even listening to me?”

She had no idea what Abby had just asked her, but she had a question of her own. “Who, exactly, is Ashley Davies anyway?”

* * *

Spencer had faced the third degree for a good half-hour from Abby. She had recounted the whole story from start to finish, leaving out only a few details. For instance, she hadn’t mentioned Ashley’s audacious flirting for Phill’s benefit. She had merely stated that the brunette had allowed her to sit at her table as an excuse to get away from the plastics salesman and that Abby had arrived literally minutes after they had first met.

She, in turn, had found out that Ashley Davies was a singer-songwriter with a small-ish but strong following. She had been born into money and was probably rich enough that she didn’t have to work at all. Her father had been in a rock band that Spencer had never heard of and she had a half-sister who had been a reality TV star in her late teens but seemed to have dropped from public view thereafter.

Abby had said that Ashley mostly wrote songs for other people, but still gigged in her own right – club venues, not stadiums – playing some of the famous hits she’d written for others and a lot of stuff that was a lot more personal. She had self-released a couple of albums, although she wasn’t attached to a major label. That made Spencer feel a little better about not having recognised her.

Spencer had been glad that their evening involved both a wedding rehearsal and a dinner for the wedding party and the two families, because it had allowed her a good excuse to escape from Abby’s inquisitiveness. They both needed to get changed, she had reasoned. Abby could hardly argue.

By the time they had run through the rehearsal and got to the hotel’s most exclusive restaurant, the one with the celebrity chef’s name above the door, the news of her brush with minor celebrity had apparently spread. Abby must have either knocked on every door in the hotel since they’d last spoken or started a game of Chinese Whispers during the rehearsal. She ended up having to re-tell her Phill and Ashley story about four times in all. It felt like she was the only person, apart from the older family members, who had not heard of Ashley Davies.

After the meal, they all moved to one of the hotel’s other bars, which had a terrace overlooking the pool and grounds. Spencer snuck out with Claudia so that her friend could have a cigarette. It amused Spencer that they were both twenty-five and Claudia was on the verge of becoming Brendan’s wife yet she still couldn’t tell her father that she smoked.

“How are you bearing up?” she asked, as she noticed Claudia’s extra-tight grip on the railing of the terrace.

“Oh, you know. The whole marrying Brendan part is good.”

Spencer chuckled. “Well, that’s a relief, seeing as you’re marrying him in the morning.”

“The difficult part will be getting through the day without killing Mom or Jewel.” Jewel, Brendan’s mother, was very much of the opinion that Nancy, Claudia’s mother, looked down on Brendan’s family. Spencer knew that the wedding planning had been stressful for her friend, simply because both mothers had felt that the other was having too much of a say.

“Well, as your Maid of Honour, just let me know if there’s anything you need me to do to help you out tomorrow.”

“Kidnap them both and keep them locked in their rooms till I’m throwing the bouquet?” Claudia looked down at her half-finished cigarette and stubbed it out on a nearby ashtray. “I assume it’s too late to elope?”

“Um, let me think about that one.” She paused for dramatic effect, tapping her finger against her chin. “Yes, it’s too late. Besides, your room’s on the eighth floor. Brendan’s going to need a pretty long ladder to climb up to your window.”

“He’s a naval aviator,” Claudia shrugged. “He could borrow a jet from the base. I bet we could be in Vegas or Reno in about thirty minutes.”

“I had five fittings for my dress, not to mention the fact that I flew all the way back to Ohio with you so we could spend a whole weekend with your mother shopping for yours. If you bail on me now, I’ll have to kill you.”

Claudia chuckled and sipped her glass of wine. She murmured thoughtfully, “I’m really glad you’re here, Spencer.”

“Where else would I be?” She put down her own glass and slipped an arm around her best friend’s waist, giving her a squeeze. “I’m pretty sure we made a spit-promise and you know what happens if you break a spit-promise.”

Claudia laughed. “Oh God, we did, didn’t we?”

“In the back of Mrs Thompson’s class. We promised that we would be each other’s Maid of Honour. Of course, I’m pretty sure you were planning to marry Nick Lachey back then.”

“I was not!” Claudia bumped her hip against Spencer’s. “Nick Lachey was in Junior High!”

“Oh, well, that makes it okay, then!”

“Hey, don’t make me remind you of your Lance Bass posters, Carlin.”

“I liked Timberlake!”

“Ha! Revisionist history. Everyone says that now that he’s the hot, successful one. I distinctly remember you drawing love hearts with LB in them on the cover of your notebook.”

Spencer laughed. “Maybe.”

They both looked out over the grounds of the hotel for a few moments, lost in memories of their shared childhood.

“What about you anyway?” Claudia asked, as she stepped away from Spencer and lit another cigarette, turning her head to blow the smoke away from her friend.

“What about me what?”

“I’m getting married. Abby’s got Jorge. Even Jason brought a date.”

“I know! What does she see in your baby brother?” Jason, the inveterate slacker, the boy who couldn’t hold a job for more than a couple of months, had brought a stunning young Asian woman who was smart and funny and had a real job, as a librarian. She didn’t even appear to have any tattoos or piercings. In fact, Jason himself had been almost metal-free, apart from a small eyebrow ring. Spencer almost hadn’t recognised him.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Because you sound like my mother.”

“What? I want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy being single.” Even Claudia didn’t know that it had been nearly two years since Spencer had been on any kind of date. It hadn’t been for lack of offers, either. It had been more of a lack of inclination and her growing questioning of her sexuality.

“Some of the Brendan’s Navy friends are pretty hot. Wait till you see them tomorrow. They’ll be in their Dress Whites.” Claudia sighed. “He looks amazing in that uniform.”

Spencer smiled fondly at her oldest’s friend’s appreciation of her husband-to-be. She’d never known two people so in love as they were.

“I could set you up with one of them. Come on, Maid of Honour and the Best Man is like a tradition!”

“No.”

“Spencey!”

“Claudey!” she wailed back.

“I hear you turned down a perfectly eligible guy today already,” her friend teased.

She rolled her eyes. “Not funny. He was a total nightmare. He actually did the whole ‘did it hurt when you fell from Heaven’ line.” She shuddered. “It was just creepy.”

“Did you really go up to a complete stranger and pretend she was Abby just to escape?”

“Kind of. Yeah.” She felt herself soften as she remembered the encounter with Ashley. “I did.” Unconsciously, she reached down and touched the back of her hand, the one that Ashley had stroked so gently and intimately. If she concentrated hard enough, she could feel those soft lips ghosting over the skin of her knuckles.

“Wow, that’s so… not-Spencer.”

She shook her head. “He was really grim. I was desperate.”

“Abby says she’s semi-famous.” Well, at least Spencer wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard of Ashley.

“Supposedly.”

“I bet she’s one of those Lillith-Fair-chicks-with-a-guitar types that Abby likes so much.”

“No! She’s more ballsy acoustic rock than Abby’s usual floaty-folk stuff.” The statement came out more forcefully than she’d intended.

“Yeah?” There must have been something beyond the ordinary in Spencer’s voice which struck Claudia as odd because she turned around and fixed her with a searching look. It was the look of a best friend who had a feeling that they might be latching onto something, although they weren’t quite sure yet of what that something might be.

“I googled her when I got back to my room,” she admitted. “She’s pretty good.” She had downloaded both of Ashley’s albums immediately and had taken her laptop into the bathroom so she could listen to them while she had been in the bath. She was pretty sure that she’d be playing them later as her bedtime music. She wasn’t about to admit that out loud, though.

She wasn’t really sure why she was deliberately underplaying the entire incident. She very much doubted that Claudia would judge her if she told her that she dug chicks. One chick. This chick. She sighed to herself because she hated the word ‘chick’, even in her own thoughts.

“Maybe I’ll check her out, too, then.” Claudia was now smiling in a very strange way. Her face had an almost gloating look, one that made Spencer feel distinctly uneasy.

“Oh, you totally should.” She tried to make that sound as matter-of-fact and commonplace as possible.

“Spence, is there -”

“Hey, hey, hey! Where’s my best girl?” Claudia’s father appeared at the terrace doors, interrupting his daughter, who flicked her cigarette out of her hand and off the balcony so quickly that Spencer hardly even saw it happen. She hoped no-one was walking in the hotel grounds beneath them.

“Just a minute, Dad. Spencer and I are just having a girls-only moment.”

“Well, your guests are waiting, honey. You two beautiful girls shouldn’t be hiding away out here.”

“We’ll be right in, Frank,” Spencer promised, giving him her most winning smile. He stepped back inside, shrugging as if the ways of young women were incomprehensible to him.

“Do you think he saw me?” Claudia asked, referring to her smoking.

“I think he already knows. I think he’s known since you were, like, seventeen.” Everyone knew. It was the worst-kept secret in all of Ohio. “We should go back in before your mother comes out as well.” And before we get back to the subject of Ashley Davies, she silently added.

Claudia rolled her eyes and linked her arm in Spencer’s and took a deep breath.

“Let’s go.”

* * * * *

Next up: Chapter 3 [U]

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