Love Off Limits: A Lesbian Mother's Best Friend Romance Read online

  Love Off Limits (Mother's Best Friend)

  A Lesbian Romance

  Alexa Woods

  © 2022 Alexa Woods

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Also by Alexa Woods

  About Alexa Woods

  Chapter 1

  Neera

  Neera was in the middle of raking her hands through her hair, power walking away from the airline counter, when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse, grateful at least that wasn’t lost. For someone who thought she had it all worked out, her life sure had become a shit storm over the past month.

  “Hey, Mom.” Neera closed her eyes and winced when Elodie James’ happy, shrill tone drifted over the phone. Not even the clamor at the airport right before New Year’s could dampen the loudness pumping through the phone speaker and she turned it right down.

  There was a special kind of hell when it came to traveling, and Neera had somehow landed herself right in the thick of it. The murk between Christmas and New Years was when everyone was either flying in or flying out.

  “You’re here!” Elodie shrieked loudly as if she could picture the cacophony behind Neera. Actually, she could probably hear it through the phone. “Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. Why didn’t you call?”

  “How did you know that I was even off the plane yet?”

  “Oh, well, the flight times are posted, honey. I knew the second you touched down. I thought you’d be ready to go by now. I was worried when I didn’t hear from you.”

  “The airline lost my bag. I don’t exactly know how that’s possible, but they did. I had to go to the desk and describe my bag and give them all my information so when they find it, they can send it to me.”

  “Ach! What?” Elodie’s volume nearly blew out Neera’s eardrums. “That’s terrible! I hope you had your laptop and phone and stuff with you.”

  “Yeah, of course, I did. I only packed the essentials, you know, a change of clothes and my makeup and stuff in there. Things that I can easily replace if I really need to.”

  A young mother trying to corral four little kids who all looked to be under the age of eight glanced up from the spat over a teddy bear that she was trying to break up and gave Neera an understandingly frazzled look. Neera returned a shy, sad smile and hurried on towards the exit. Her bag was MIA, and it was going to have to stay that way because there was nothing she could do about it.

  “So, I should leave now?”

  “I thought you said the flight times were posted.” She tried hard not to make that sound accusatory.

  “Well, I don’t know. Sometimes things happen and flights run late. I didn’t want to leave the house and have to sit at the airport for hours and hours.”

  “Right. Okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just take a cab.”

  “No way! I’ll be there in thirty minutes. A cab would cost sixty dollars or more. I’m leaving now. Grabbing my keys. Hear that?” A jingling sound came through the phone.

  Neera cut through the throngs of people crowding the place. The airport was big, but during the holidays it seemed to shrink in size. People turned into short-tempered, travelling maniacs, and flights were scarce and overbooked. The airport was like a big, packed soup of broiling, short- tempered humanity.

  “Neera?”

  “Oh. Yes, that’s fine. It’ll probably take me more than thirty to get to the doors anyway. It’s freaking packed in here.”

  “Okay, I’m getting in the car right now. Hold on. Shoot, I’ll have to brush off the windows. They’re frozen over and full of snow. Is more like forty-five minutes, okay? That’s if the streets aren’t icy. Oh, I know they’re not icy. I didn’t realize that it was snowing out. I should have checked earlier, but I was reading, and I meant to put it down, but then I got lost in it, and you know how it goes.”

  “It’s fine, Mom.” Neera closed her eyes. She stopped walking and was nearly bowled over by a guy in a suit carting a wheeled briefcase thing behind him. He gave her a foul look as he sidestepped and continued on his way. “Totally. Fine.”

  “I detect dryness. Sarcasm. Is it not fine?”

  “No, no, it’s fine. Sorry. You know that I love having to leave San Jose, which was all warm and nice and pretty this time of year, to come back here to frigid winter and snow and storms. Speaking of which, my life has become one big shit storm. I was just thinking about that. My girlfriend of the past four years surprising me with an early Christmas present in the form of, oh, by the way, I’ve been cheating on you with your friend from work for months and I know she’s a legit nurse, but we still do nurse roleplay with the skimpy cliched costumes and everything. You know. That’s probably the dryness you heard.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry that you had to walk in on that vile scene, but at least you know the truth. I know it looks bad, but I promise things will get better. You’re home. It’s going to be a brand-new year. You’ll find a job here and a place in no time. Things are going to work out. Plus, that Stephanie was a butt waffle anyway. I’d like to kick her in the junk.”

  “Umm, Mom, you do know butt waffle isn’t a saying?”

  “I know. I’m trying to use decent language.”

  “But saying you want to kick her in the junk is okay?” As Neera passed by a group of packed chairs, an elderly lady gave her a confused look. She decided to lower her own volume and walked faster, picking her way through the crowds and dodging people who were walking at a much faster rate than she was. “I thought you liked her. You always said you liked her.”

  “I did,” Elodie protested. “Until she cheated on my daughter and wasn’t one bit sorry about it. Really? Nurse roleplay. You’d think she could get a little bit more creative. And telling you that things were stale? What kind of an excuse is that? Seems like she just doesn’t want to take responsibility for being totally dishonest.”

  “Mmmhmm.” What was stale supposed to mean anyway? It made Neera feel like a package of old, soggy crackers left open and suddenly found after months. The kind of crackers that no one in their right mind would be able to gag down.

  Needless to say, after finding out that Steph was cheating on her and breaking up with her, she wasn’t feeling at her sexiest. She knew she wouldn’t be able to find somewhere to stay on such short notice, especially with the holidays coming up. Her job was fine, but it wasn’t her dream job or anything. She’d taken it because she wa
nted to stay in San Jose and be near Steph. It was Steph’s apartment she’d moved into years ago. It was crazy strained having to be there for two weeks while she worked her last shifts and packed her things, but at least Steph had provided one small mercy and decided at the last minute to take her new girlfriend to Switzerland for the holidays.

  Mercy my ass. She never went on a vacation with me.

  “Okay, the windshield is good to go. I’m pulling out now,” Elodie said. Neera could hear the car noise starting up on the other end of the phone as her mom was driving. “Roads look good. Thirty minutes now. I’m sorry I didn’t leave sooner.”

  Neera hoisted her heavy backpack up a little higher on her shoulders and tucked her purse in at her hip. Her back was starting to ache, and the neck strain was giving her a headache. Or maybe that was just having to think about the past month in general.

  “No, that’s alright. I’m glad you’re coming. Thank you for picking me up and offering the house for me until I find somewhere else.”

  “My gosh, you don’t have to thank me! You’re my daughter. It’s always been just us, and, who knows. It might be fun.”

  “Fun?”

  “I didn’t tell you! You know that Scarlet’s divorce finally went through?”

  Neera froze. She stopped dead in her tracks. There was a scuffle of sneakers on the tile right after and she was roundly cursed out by a teenager who had been apparently shadowing her. Right. Don’t stop dead in the middle of rush hour airport pedestrian traffic. Her heart hammering wildly, Neera dodged over to a free spot in front of one of the many stores in the airport. She pretended to be enthralled by postcards so she wouldn’t feel guilty loitering.

  “Uh- okay. No, you didn’t tell me, but that’s cool.” That’s cool? Really? That’s what you have to say for something that you haven’t stopped thinking about for a year? She’d been going for casual because this was her mom she was talking to, and no, it would not be cool if her mother found out that her daughter had a crush on her much older best friend. A lifelong crush.

  Alright, so Scarlet Hunter was basically Neera’s first love. A very one sided, all consuming, slow burning, unrequited first love.

  “Yes! It just went through,” her mom’s excited voice pulled her out of her head. “And guess what! She’s been having some experiences since she separated from Bryan. He was hooking up with his nineteen-year-old secretary which actually turned out to be the best thing that could have ever happened. When you get older, as a woman, you become freer. Free from bad marriages. Free from the constraints of socially acceptable norms. Freer with your body and your sexuality.”

  “Mom!” Neera’s heart raced faster than the occasional person who was full tilt sprinting past where she was standing.

  “Hey. Forty is the new twenty. Don’t you forget it. Besides, Scarlet still has a couple years before she gets there. She’s two years younger than me, remember? And she was never happy with Bryan. He was a dolt. Everyone knew that. She knew that. I knew that. If I could only recount to you the years of misery-”

  “Okay, I get it. So, she’s had some experiences. That’s good for her.”

  “You sound a little breathless, honey, are you okay?”

  Damn it. “The airports just really crowded. I was walking fast to try and keep up with the pace.”

  “Yes, that’s the holidays for you, I guess. But, back to Scarlet, I think she’s a lesbian! I mean, she thinks she might be a lesbian! Now she’s not just doing it to get back at Bryan. Isn’t that great? Maybe you can give her some pointers.”

  Neera didn’t realize she was leaning a little too far forward into the rack of postcards until she felt like she was teetering and then she had to reach out to stop herself from falling as black dots leaped out in front of her eyes.

  “Aah!” She grabbed the rack at the wrong angle, and the whole thing went crashing down. She went airborne, gravity became that bitch everyone talked about karma being, and the next thing she knew, she was lying in a heap of postcards and metal racks- because of course, it would have to come apart into six different pieces when it fell, her backpack at an odd angle and her purse nearly choking her with the strap.

  “Neera? Neera? What’s happening?”

  Somehow, she’d managed to hold onto her phone when she fell. “Nothing, I’m good. I’m going to have to call you back, though. Actually, my phone’s almost dead. I’ll just stand outside and watch for you, so you don’t have to park. Just pull up. I know where you’ll be. Same spot as always.”

  Neera hung up and stuffed her phone back into her bag after she untangled it from around her throat. She picked herself up just in time to see the store employee come racing out with a scowl on his face.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “I’m all good. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Worry about you?” the man sniffed. He was wearing a maroon turtleneck and very tight jeans. When he angled to the side, she could see them riding up his butt cheeks. “What about my merchandise, you clumsy oaf? You think you can just wreck everything and not pay for it?”

  Neera was astounded. So much for the Christmas spirit and all that. Technically, it was already over, but still. Plus, the guy’s pants were really tight. Maybe that’s what he was actually so pissed about. The whole wedgie, ball squish thing he had going on couldn’t be comfortable. “I’m truly sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll pick everything up. I don’t think anything’s wrecked.”

  “You had better hope not.” The guy clapped his hands. “Well, get to it. Start picking it up.”

  She barely resisted the urge to bite out a sarcastic yes, sir as she scrambled to pick up the endless postcards. The store worker picked up the metal rack and between the two of them, they had the cards sorted out in short order.

  “Next time, be more careful,” he snapped at her as a parting shot.

  “Next time secure your display so someone doesn’t get hurt and sue your ass,” she quipped, at her breaking point for niceness. The past few weeks had worn her down. As a nurse, she was used to dealing with difficult people. She knew she should do better, but she just couldn’t help herself. “Have a great day.” She walked fast, putting distance between herself and Mr. Cranky Tight Pants.

  Whatever. Maybe the dude’s life was going to straight up shit too. What did she know? She felt bad, thought about going back and apologizing, but knew she didn’t really have time. She really should be where she said she was going to be when her mom got there or Elodie would worry endlessly and panic and drive around in circles and cause a lot of traffic chaos.

  Scarlet Hunter. That’s who Neera really couldn’t stop thinking about. Was she just experimenting? Expressing her freedom as a newly single, smoking hot woman who hadn’t had her needs properly met in a very long time because her husband really was a tool? Or was she serious?

  What does it matter? You have zero chances. Mom’s best friend, remember? Huge age gap. Totally off limits. That’s the Scarlet Hunter you know and love.

  Neera was walking so fast she nearly tripped over an elderly man’s cane which was sticking out in the walking area. She apologized quickly as she managed to catch herself in time and not do another faceplant.

  Stop thinking about Scarlet and get your ass out the door and safely into your mom’s vehicle without another mishap. You don’t need more mess in your life. No need for more mess in my life. Stop. Thinking. About. Scarlet.

  Neera had been telling herself that for years, and for years, she’d never been able to actually follow her own advice.

  Chapter 2

  Scarlet

  “It’s cold enough to freeze your arse straight off,” Elodie said as soon as Scarlet was parked on the big cuddle chair, a huge round thing that could fit an army of cats if Elodie had liked them. As it was, she was extremely allergic. She’d always wanted one, though.

  A nice cuddly cat would be the perfect touch to a frigid winter’s morning, Scarlet mused. “I just about lost my arse walking over, and I only live
four minutes away.”

  “Doesn’t bode well for our New Year’s party.”

  “I doubt that anyone would refuse to come because their cars won’t start. They generally cab it over here anyways.”

  “Good point. Coffee?”

  “Yes. Please. Where would we be without our morning fuel?”

  “I was thinking for the warmth, but the fact that it does double duty doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  Elodie’s house was as it always was. Warm, safe, and just a little bit cinnamon scented because Elodie loved candles. She switched out her vanilla and fresh rain and fruit scents during the holidays, opting for the more traditional flavors of trees and cinnamon, and even eggnog. Scarlet’s eyes flicked to the coffee table. Sure enough, there was a big red jar candle burning there, even at ten on a well-lit Sunday morning, the only day that Scarlet had off because the boutique was closed.