The Wait Is Over

  NICOLE PYLAND

  PYLAND PUBLISHING LLC

  Copyright © 2021 Nicole Pyland

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-949308-88-4 eBook

  ISBN-13: 978-1-949308-87-7 Paperback

  The Wait Is Over

  Holiday Series Book #6

  Scarlet Campbell’s friends had all coupled off, and it had happened this year. All five of them had found love while Scarlet had continued to go back and forth about coming out to her family, and on top of that, she still couldn’t talk to women. Every time she tried, she choked. She got nervous. She said something stupid. As a result, she was still a single nerd who worked as a data analyst and did coding on the side.

  Dakota Wagner was new to the marketing team of a software company, tasked with building a customer community. To do that, though, she needed data. When Dakota was sent Scarlet’s way, she found the woman endlessly adorable, so she wanted to get to know more about her other than her fascination with sugar and numbers.

  In Scarlet’s eyes, Dakota was sexy, smart, and would have no problem finding a girlfriend easily, so Scarlet didn’t think she’d have a chance. Little did she know that Dakota was exactly who she needed in her life to get the courage to be more herself, conquer her fears, and finally come out to her family.

  To contact the author or for any additional information,

  visit: https://nicolepyland.com

  By the Author

  Holiday Series:

  • Book #1 – The Writing on the Wall

  • Book #2 – The Block Party

  • Book #3 – The Fireworks

  • Book #4 – The Sweet Escape

  • Book #5 – The Misperception

  • Book #6 – The Wait Is Over

  • Series Finale – What Happened After...

  Lesbian Erotica:

  • Once a Month

  Stand-alone books:

  • Reality Check

  • The Show Must Go On

  • The Meet Cute Café

  Suspense stand-alone books:

  • The Fire

  • The Disappeared

  Young Adult / New Adult stand-alone books:

  • The Moments

  • Love Forged

  • Pride Festival

  Chicago Series:

  • Introduction – Fresh Start

  • Book #1 – The Best Lines

  • Book #2 – Just Tell Her

  • Book #3 – Love Walked into The Lantern

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  San Francisco Series:

  • Book #1 – Checking the Right Box

  • Book #2 – Macon’s Heart

  (recommended to read after Keep Tahoe Blue )

  • Book #3 – This Above All

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Tahoe Series:

  • Book #1 – Keep Tahoe Blue

  • Book #2 – Time of Day

  • Book #3 – The Perfect View

  • Book #4 – Begin Again

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Sports Series:

  • Book #1 – Always More

  • Book #2 – A Shot at Gold

  • Book #3 – The Unexpected Dream

  • Book #4 – Finding a Keeper

  Celebrities Series:

  • Book #1 – No After You

  • Book #2 – All the Love Songs

  • Book #3 – Midnight Tradition

  • Book #4 – Path Forward

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Boston Series:

  • Book #1 – Let Go

  • Book #2 – The Right Fit

  • Book #3 – All Good Plans

  • Book #4 – Around the World

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Wait Is Over

  By the Author

  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

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  EPILOGUE

  NEXT IN THE SERIES

  Holiday Series

  Chicago Series

  San Francisco Series

  Tahoe Series

  Boston Series

  Sports Series

  Celebrities Series

  Fire Universe

  Stand-alone books

  Afterword

  About The Author

  CHAPTER 1

  “I think I’m going to go home,” Scarlet said.

  “Yeah, me too. I still have to pack,” Paisley replied.

  “You should start packing for three trips in advance,” Scarlet suggested. “It would save you some of the last-minute stuff.”

  Paisley smiled over at her and replied, “It doesn’t take me long anymore. I bring the same things for the short trips and the same things for the long trips.”

  “It’s a good party, though… Maybe I should stay,” Scarlet commented, looking around at the backyard. “I still can’t get over all the work Carmen’s parents put in on the haunted house.”

  “They must love their daughter,” Paisley said. “My parents love me, but I can’t see them throwing me this kind of party for my birthday without trying to set me up with someone – or, multiple someones, really.”

  “It’s good that they’re supportive.” Scarlet twirled her empty water bottle on the table.

  “A little too supportive at times. Anyway, I think it’s time for me to get to bed.”

  “Yeah,” Scarlet said. “It’s been a long day. I’m not looking forward to the nightmares I’m about to have from this.”

  “Do you need to stay over at my place? Guest room has your name all over it. And if you have a nightmare, you can always cuddle with me – not like either of us has anyone else to cuddle with.”

  Scarlet smiled at her friend and said, “I think I’ll be okay. Besides, I doubt I’ll sleep right away. I want to work on those software updates we talked about.”

  “Tonight?” Paisley asked.

  “Yeah. I want to get them done in case you’re recommending it this week.”

  “Scar, I can recommend it without the updates.”

  “There’s a patch I want to get finished, and the latency issue needs addressing,” she replied instead.

  “Why aren’t you a developer?” Paisley asked her once again.

  “It’s a hobby; I like my day job. I can sit at my desk, work with numbers and charts, and not talk to many people. It works for me.”

  “Whatever you say,” Paisley replied. “Ready?”

  Scarlet just nodded in response before she stood and took one last look around the Halloween-themed birthday party for Carmen McClain, Eleanor’s new girlfriend, hosted by Carmen’s parents in their spacious backyard.

  ◆◆◆

  After driving herself home to her small one-bedroom apartment, Scarlet pulled out her computer, grabbed a bag of Twizzlers from the kitchen to snack on, and got to work. Not all that long ago, Paisley had come to Scarlet to ask if she knew any developers who could help Paisley create a software of her own after seeing where the ones on the market at the time failed her clients.

  Scarlet was a business analyst at work, but she’d been coding for a while and liked the hobby. She’d even built an app that wasn’t strictly legal, which was why it was only on her phone and her friends’ phones and not in any of the app stores. It essentially hacked into any restaurant that used software to manage the waitlist and helped them find the best place to eat with the shortest wait time in the city. It also allowed any of them to make covert reservations for restaurants that had that option. Scarlet had been really proud of that app, but considering she’d gotten access to the data from her previous employer, which was restaurant software, she couldn’t exactly brag about it.

  Working with Paisley on the software she wanted with a friend Scarlet had met online years ago, who was also a coder, was fun and a way to spend her time. It also helped Scarlet make a little money on the side: Paisley paid her a percentage for every sale and compensated for the hours she put in. Scarlet only told t
he woman about half of them, though, because she felt guilty taking Paisley’s money for something she enjoyed doing. Her job paid her well enough to get by and even save a little, so Paisley’s money just went straight into savings. She hoped that one day she’d be able to buy a house with someone she loved with that money.

  Of course, to do that, Scarlet had to get better at talking to women, to begin with. She’d tried, too. Her friends had also offered help. Yet, there had been bars where Scarlet had blushed so red, the woman could see her cheeks even in the dim lighting. There used to be her favorite bookstore – that was now out of business – where Scarlet had sat for hours near the small LGBTQ+ section and hoped she’d see a woman who was interested in reading lesbian romance. She usually left there with a new book, but not anyone’s phone number. She’d tried coffee shops; she’d sat at the bakery owned by Carmen, Mariah, and London; she’d been to the library, sat outside in the park, tried going to places where lesbians might be – and nothing. She had even joined not one but several dating apps, but every time someone sent her a message, it was either from a woman interested in a hookup, or if it appeared there could be something more to it, Scarlet couldn’t get up enough courage to respond.

  That had been fine when all of her friends were single. Sure, Weston and Talon had had girlfriends last year, but Paisley, Aria, and Eleanor were all single at the time, and at least one of them had had someone special ever since they all met in college about ten years ago. Scarlet had been the only perpetually single one. Paisley had been single for a while now, choosing work over relationships, but she also still had sex. Aria had had a lot of sex over the years and hadn’t dated anyone seriously in a long time, but now she had London, and when Scarlet saw them together, she understood why the woman had been the way she’d been all those years – Aria had always known London was the one for her. Being with anyone else in a relationship like the one they had now just wasn’t an option for Aria, so she’d had meaningless sex instead, which was a choice. It was a choice Scarlet hadn’t made herself.

  Now that almost all of her friends were taken, and Paisley was busy with work all the time, that just left Scarlet. Her friends had been so supportive over the years, but they’d also been so focused on finding love for themselves. Now that they had pretty much all done that, it meant they’d start focusing more on helping Scarlet find her love – the woman Scarlet knew was waiting out there for her. She had no clue how she’d get up the courage to actually speak to her when she found her, but that was the least of her worries.

  First, she had to come out to her family. Well, it didn’t have to happen first; she could wait. That had been her plan all along. To Scarlet, it wasn’t worth telling them until she had someone to bring home and introduce to them. If she’d been with a woman for maybe six months or a year, then it would be serious, and her parents might not say it was just a phase. They might be okay with it. Or, they might throw her out of the house. This wasn’t a topic in their household, and Scarlet wasn’t sure at all how they’d react to their youngest child being gay. They didn’t have any gay friends that Scarlet knew about, and they didn’t seem to have strong beliefs in either direction, but if she told them, and they said they no longer loved her or that she wasn’t their daughter, Scarlet didn’t know what she would do.

  Long ago, she had decided to wait; she’d tell them when there was really something to tell them. She had also decided to wait on something else. Not thinking she’d be almost twenty-nine years old and still a virgin, she had decided to wait until she was in love before having sex for the first time. There were no boys in high school. She’d already known she was a lesbian back then, and she would have been too shy to talk to boys had she not been gay anyway. In college, she’d dated a little. It had been easier then. There were always dorm parties or frat and sorority parties, and when her friends wanted to go, Scarlet had tagged along. She could have met someone there, taken them back to her dorm, and had her first time, but that wasn’t what she’d wanted then, and she still believed she made the right choice.

  At this point in her life, though, Scarlet had no clue how she’d have these conversations. Eventually, she would have to come out to her parents and her brother and sister, and she’d have to tell the woman she was falling in love with that she’d never been with anyone before. Scarlet had kissed only three women in her entire life, and she hadn’t kissed anyone in the past two years. How would that even come up in conversation? Would it be on a first date? Second? Before she said, ‘I do?’ She had lived in her head her entire life. She’d had these conversations with herself over and over again, and she still didn’t have the answers.

  Scarlet finished with what she could get done tonight on the software – considering her eyes were blurring the code on the screen together, and she was now out of Twizzlers – and decided it was time for bed. She would shower in the morning, so she changed out of her clothes and slid into the bed in her comfiest pajamas, putting her headphones into her ears and pressing play on the book she’d been reading. Well, listening to, at least. During the day, she usually read e-books on her phone, but before bed, Scarlet listened to audiobooks to give her tired eyes a rest. She blushed instantly when she remembered she’d left off last night right at the beginning of a sex scene between the two main characters.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. I want you.”

  “We can stop. We can slow–”

  “No, I’m ready. We’ve waited long enough.”

  Scarlet rolled onto her back and closed her eyes as the two characters kissed and clothes started to come off. Romance novels were about the only way Scarlet would be getting any action until she found someone, or they found her. As she listened, Scarlet allowed her hand to move between her legs in one of her rituals. It wasn’t a daily ritual – she was usually too tired – but maybe once a week or so, Scarlet touched herself as she listened to two fictional characters have sex. Sometimes, it was in a book she was reading, and other times, she pulled up a favorite chapter from a book she had already read.

  Scarlet liked to build it up, listen to the entire scene as she touched herself, and when she was finally ready, she’d replay her favorite part and let herself come. Sometimes, it took hours, which was why she was typically too tired to do it at all. Other times, it would only take minutes. Either way, the orgasm was nice, and it definitely helped relieve some of her tension, but it was never this mind-blowing experience for Scarlet. The romance books she read, though, always portrayed it that way, and now, her friends wouldn’t stop talking about how great their sex was with their current girlfriends. For example, Eleanor’s girlfriend, Carmen, had a thing about morning sex – she liked it every single day. And while Eleanor seemed pretty happy about that, when Scarlet listened to them talk about their sex lives with their girlfriends, it made her sad.

  Scarlet didn’t have that. She never had. And it wasn’t the sex or even the mind-blowing orgasms she missed – although both of those things sounded nice – Scarlet missed the connection her friends seemed to have with their girlfriends. She could watch Aria working on her laptop while Scarlet had a muffin and a coffee in the bakery, and the moment the kitchen door opened and London walked out, Aria would smile. The woman wouldn’t even look up; she’d just smile. Scarlet had tested this over the past few months: Aria never smiled when Mariah, Carmen, or any of their employees walked out of the kitchen. She also never looked up, but she somehow knew it was London walking through that door every time.

  Scarlet stopped touching herself and sighed – it wasn’t going to happen tonight. The book was a good one, and the sex scene was great; it just wasn’t working for her. Scarlet favorited the chapter in the book to return back to later, then shifted, got out of bed, and washed her hands. She splashed water on her face, too, feeling frustrated now. Deciding sleep wasn’t going to come anytime soon, she went back out to the living room and turned on the TV. Since she was out of Twizzlers, Scarlet grabbed the Milk Duds she had bought at Target the day before and snacked on those as she binge-watched a TV show she’d seen a thousand times already.

  Waking in the morning, she found herself on her couch, with a Milk Dud pressed between her cheek and the small pillow and the TV asking her if she was still watching. She wondered how long that had been there. Scarlet turned it off, wiped the Milk Dud off her face, took a drink from the glass of water she had on the table, and stood up. After stretching, though, she sat right back down – she had nothing to do today. Paisley would be out of town soon, if she wasn’t already. Eleanor was probably having morning sex with her girlfriend. Aria was likely staring at London from across the bakery. Weston and Annie were probably writing a book together right now about how to be in a relationship with a writer or something. Talon and Emerson were probably having hot sex over ice cream, or maybe using the ice cream in sex; Scarlet didn’t know. She shook her head and stood back up.