The Fallback (Sample Chapters)

2. Conventional Meeting

Seattle, WA

Six Months Ago

    Tatiana had just pinned her visitor's badge for the convention on the lapel of her shirt when she almost bumped into the woman behind her. Not looking where she was going—again.

    "s**t!" she muttered. "Damn, I'm so sorry."

    "No worries," a pleasant voice said. Looking at the woman, Tatiana saw that she was a very beautiful female of around the same age as she. Perfect figure with medium brown hair and chocolate-colored eyes. The woman's high cheekbones were flushed with excited color, or possibly just wind-swept from the Arctic breeze that was sweeping down from the north. It was as bitter as an Alaska winter that day.

    Whatever the cause of the pink-tinged cheeks, the look was stunning on the female in front of Tatiana. She would have given her eyeteeth for the svelte figure, long lashes, and plump lips the woman had. Possibly more.

    Tatiana's mother had been a ballerina for the Russia Opera and had expected pretty much the same for her daughter. She tried to enroll her in dance classes early, but Tatiana would have rather played sports with the boys over twirling around in a pink tutu and leaping en pointe across a stage while thousands watched in awe and gave polite little golf claps at the end of the pretentious little dance numbers.

    In the end, her mother could not tame the wild girl who preferred baseball mitts over tap shoes, and she gave up on trying to direct her only child's life.

    Her weight was another matter, though. Tatiana was not model thin, nor was she chunky. She had wide hips with a thinner waist with just a hint of a tummy bulge. Definitely not the perfect specimen of female sexuality. Her breasts were too large for her frame no matter how much weight she gained or lost, and they bothered her back after a long day of classes.

    And while Tatiana never lacked for dates, she never truly believed the men who told her they didn't want a stick-thin girlfriend and wanted the curves that she had instead.

    The woman in front of her, however, probably had more opportunities for dates than any female she had ever seen.

    And she seemed nice. Ick. Tatiana almost hated when beautiful women with perfect figures didn't act like the snobby knock-outs you would assume they were. It made it difficult for her to hate them.

    Looking at the woman's clothing, Tatiana realized she must be from out of town. No one wore high heeled red boots without stockings in the middle of winter in Washington state. That was unless you wanted pneumonia.

    "From out of town?" Tatiana asked the gorgeous girl with a smile. When the woman grinned even wider back to her, Tatiana knew her suspicions were correct. "Are you staying in the hotel or with a friend?"   

    "Hotel," the woman responded. "I don't know anyone from around here, unless I can now count as knowing you."

    "You can." Tati nodded back at her and pulled the girl out of the way to keep the line behind them moving. "I'm Tatiana, by the way. Obviously, you're here for the conference. Are you fourth year or already graduated?"

    Many fourth-year students at her university were obligated to attend a physical therapy conference before the end of the year and, luckily for Tatiana, a convention was set in town for December of 2013.

    "I graduated last year," the woman told her. "My name's Freya Landon. This is my first convention, and I'm really not sure what to do here."

    The female that could make others quake with just a look at her stunning features and perfect physique was nervous to be there. Tatiana felt bad in regards to making assumptions about her, as she always did when faced with a crisis of conscience.

    "I'm sure we can figure it out together," Tatiana told her new friend and ally at the convention. Both were newbies when it came to journeying from lecture to exhibit, but they were sure they could manage if they put their heads together.

    Deciding that since it was only check-in day and not a lot was scheduled, Tatiana lured Freya away from the hotel with lurid tales of Seattle's Best Coffee. Literally. That's what the place was called. It beat the hell out of the hotel's fare, which was more than likely stale or too weak to even be palatable.

    Sitting down at a table near the window in the café, the two women talked about their love of physical therapy and which niches they wanted to focus on in the future.

    For Tatiana, she wanted to work with children who had physical disadvantages. Freya was the opposite, and wanted to work with the elderly, many of whom their daily PT session was their only means of social interaction outside of their homes and the chilly bingo halls of Denver, Colorado.

    "My mother wanted me to dance when I was younger," Tatiana explained when she told her new friend of her childhood living with a gorgeous and tall dancer of a mother. "I wanted to play baseball and field hockey. I thought of getting into Sports Medicine at some point, but I'm not good with blood and broken bones. At least not when it comes down to the injuries many can get on the playing field."

    "Tatiana, what does your father do for a living?" Freya asked her as they sipped their drinks.

    "He's in medical appliances," Tatiana told her. "And you can call me Ana. Most people do. Tatiana can be a bit of a mouthful at times."

    "Okay, Ana. Medical appliances like EKG machines and such?"

    "A little," she said as she shrugged. "It's mostly items like fake limbs and pacemakers. Things you can attach or stick into the body. He travels a lot for work, so I hardly ever see him anymore."

    "So, you're stuck with Cruella the evil Momster?" Freya asked with a wink.

    "Precisely," she agreed. Though she loved her mother, she could have done without the fat-shaming that her mother constantly plied her with. Nadia Minkov-Wheeler was still as slender as she was when she was dancing in Moscow and St. Petersburg in front of the likes of Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev. It made Ana slightly ill to think of.

    "You do have a slight bit of an accent," Freya observed as if wondering if it was a west coast patois or courtesy of her mother's Russian dialect. The woman could barely be understood by her own husband at times when her dander was up.

    "So I've been told. Honestly, it's not affected at all. Some of my words just...come out strange, I guess."

    "It's cute," Freya remarked. "Some of my male friends would be all over you if they heard you speak."

    "Highly unlikely," Tati objected. "Not when they have you around at least. You put me in the shadows by a mile."

    Freya rolled her eyes while drinking her bitter brew. For someone who looked like she would order some nonsensical-sounding drink with the word half-caff or phrases like no whip, no foam in them, she was brutally simple. She had ordered her coffee black and bitter—just like the winds outside the cozy little café.

    "I would never date any of my friends—male or female," Freya told her. "They're friends for a reason."

    "And what is that reason?"

    "I like them as friends and nothing more," Freya told her. "Even if some of them are hot as Hades and s*x on a stick to boot."

    "Ugh, I seem to have made the wrong friends then," Tati asserted with a sigh.

    "Well, you could always meet them," Freya suggested, raising her finely manicured brows. "My friend Asher has to develop his own online chat room for one of his classes this year. It makes up a significant part of his grade. I'll have him send you an invite when the BETA version is completed. We can chat all the time in there."

    "Chat room? How very 1998 of him," Tati remarked wryly.

    "I know, right?" Freya exclaimed with a wicked grin. "I think it's just a stepping stone to his next project. Maybe an app for group texts—so you can chat with your friends on your phone or tablet."

    "That sounds more intriguing."

    "Yes, and a lot more fun. Who honestly sits behind a computer and goes into chat rooms anymore?" Freya questioned, shaking her head sadly.

    "Perverts who prey on the young," Tati answered immediately.

    "That's just what my friend Greyson said when Ash told him about the chat space," Freya said with a slight snicker.

    "Greyson?" The name sounded like a British actor and not someone who would live somewhere in the American Midwest.

    "Yes," Freya said. "He's a bit rough around the edges, but he's hot as hell. And his eyes, and body—good Lord! Enough to make you want to fan yourself when you're near him."

    "It sounds like Freya might be crushing on one of her besties," Tati remarked with a smirk.

    "Not at all," Freya replied. "We're close friends and that’s it. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good-looking man when I see one, though."

    "Tell me about your other friends," Tati encouraged. If she was going to chat with them in some weird, private online space, she wanted to know what flavor of person she was going to be conversing with.

    "Well, there's Greyson," Freya began. "He hates being called that, though I don't let that stop me. Besides being a stud in public, word has it he's a beast in the bedroom. He's in his third year of business college. Wants to open a chain of something-or-others across the nation. If anyone can do it, though, he can. He's determined as hell.

    “Jonathan is a couple of years our senior. Also, quite good-looking, but doesn't really want to settle yet. He's only 24. Kaylie is my best gal pal. She's the one who does my nails and hair. She works as a beautician, but really wants her own business. Her boyfriend Asher is my tech geek buddy, as you know. That's pretty much it. We're a small group of friends, but we're as close as if we were siblings. And that's how I think of them really."

    Tati had her own group of friends, though she wished she could say they were as close as they once were. She’d been so busy with classes after high school, that many of them just drifted apart.

    "And do you have a boyfriend?" Tati asked.

    "Yes. His name's Jared," Freya's eyes brightened at the thought of her man. "We've been dating for about 4 months. I met him while still at the hospital and doing internships. He broke his leg after a motorcycle accident and needed some therapeutic help after his compound fracture healed. We hit it off right away."

    "As long as he treats you right, that's all that matters," Tati told the older woman.

    "And what about you?" Freya asked with a smirk. "Who's the lucky man in your life?"

    Tati laughed. "I don't have time to date with school just now," she lied easily. Her last boyfriend was someone she didn’t feel comfortable talking about yet with her new friend. "My old roommate had to drag me out kicking and screaming for my 21st birthday. I had a hangover the next day. Worst birthday ever."

    "So, you're a bit of an introvert?"

    "A bit when it comes to social situations," Tati admitted. When it came to sports and her passions like physical therapy, she came out of her shell.

    The two women talked all the way through the hour and decided to head back to the hotel so that Freya could check into her room. By the time she had laid her suitcase on her bed, it was time for dinner, and they decided to order room service. They both split the cost and tip right down the middle. As well as the food.

    In fact, they got along so well that Freya invited her to stay in the hotel for a bit with her. She said she was lonely and missed her boyfriend, but Tati figured that she was probably missing her group of tight-knit friends more.

    And for the next several days, the two women chatted and watched television from their separate double beds and ordered Chinese and Thai food at night. It was like an extended sleepover—something Tati hadn't participated in for years.

    By the end of the week, it was like the two had known each other for eons instead of days, and they texted and talked for months on afterward.

    Freya was soon one of Tati's closest friends. All the way until she got an invitation letter to join A&S Chat Room hosted by Asher Spence, tech geek extraordinaire.