Theo borrows the gloves Trish left in her car.
It’s February and she’s been sticking her hands in her pockets all winter and those two purple gloves are sitting on the other side of the gear shift with the ancient pair of headphones that had been rescued from the seat pocket the day before.
It’s ten degrees outside. The gloves are taunting her.
Her fingers are cold despite the heating cranking through the car, despite the way she’s been alternating shoving one hand between her thighs (jeans, Levi’s, Trish folding them with such care) as the other steered her through traffic.
The gloves are right there and the only parking spot she can find is at least a four minute walk from her office. Boston really tries her love, sometimes.
They are, after all, just a pair of fucking gloves.
It’s strange, how her old normal is now so uncomfortable. Theo can’t quite remember what it was like to go through every day like this, although she knows on some level what it was like. To be muted like that, to only ever half-feel. The sensation of pressure, but never warmth.
They slip on easy, like—well, like a pair of gloves. It’s unfamiliar and familiar all at once, a paradox of purple wool. It’s been a long time since she last wore gloves, months and months, but it’s February and Theo is tired of being stubborn.
She spies a better parking space at the last minute, her foot a little heavy on the gas to get there before someone else slides in. Parallel parking’s never come easier, the satisfaction of the short walk overloading her senses, directing her auto-pilot fluently. Her hands on the wheel, confident and warm.
Warm. The sensation of pressure, and also...also warm.
Theo puts the car in park, one hand still on the wheel, one hand on the gear shift. She slid the gloves on to keep her hands warm but her hands are warm .
It takes her a second: Trish’s gloves. Of course. Lovely Trish, leaving her warmth behind in ten thousand ways. It sinks into Theo’s hands and up her arms, the feeling—the sensation. The warmth. Trish on the phone as she walked to the coffee shop down the street, holding the door open for a stranger, slipping her change into the tips jar. Excitement and joy and a bit of nervousness as she hung up the phone, gloved hands wrapped around a hot tea.
Theo bites her lip, a smile pulling against it. She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, not like this, she never really does. She just wears Trish’s gloves to keep warm and if she happens to know the gloves have touched a little black ring box, that’s not her fault. Not her fault at all.
The walk from her car to her office is quick. Theo does not notice the cold.
//
The gloves come off once Theo’s in her office. She listens intently to little voices, big feelings—wonders if she'll ever feel like she's making a difference for a little girl rushed into a car in the middle of the night, who never sees her mom again. Who never sees her dad again either, really. She feels a little closer than most days.
Trish lingers under her skin.
//
The lock on their apartment door sticks; they still haven’t gotten around to trying to fix that. Theo drops her keys into the bowl on their hall table and kicks the door closed behind her, calling out a vague greeting.
“Hey, hun, did—“ Trish comes around the corner and stops, head tilted. She isn’t wearing pants, so she’s probably been home for a while. “Those are mine.” She’s looking at Theo’s hands, which are lowering the grocery bags to the floor so she can take off her coat.
“Well, so am I,” Theo says.
Trish blinks at her. “That’s so—“ Her words don’t trail off, per say; they more so get interrupted by her rush over, by the uncoordinated kiss she lands on the corner of Theo’s mouth.
“Gay?” Theo asks, a mumble against insistent lips.
“Sweet,” Trish insists. “Sweet as sugar, my Theodora.” Another kiss, a loud smack, this time on her jaw.
Theo smirks. “My darling Patricia—“
She expects the pinch to her side, but squirms the same at it anyway. As gracefully as she can, she shifts from that movement to bring her arm up and around Trish’s shoulders, and goes easily with the gentle sway she leads them in. It’s an almost-dance that reverberates of home.
Trish’s words are breathy against her jaw. “You alright?”
Theo hums, pushing her nose into Trish’s cheek. Love balloons out of the touch, homehomehome, the tiniest slip of worry weaving its way through. “Peachy,” she says. “Why?”
Trish’s hand makes its way down to hers; the touch is all pressure, no warmth. The feeling without the sensation. “Gloves,” she says. “Loud day?”
And Theo—Theo loves. Theo loves being loved. “Cold day,” she corrects, moving to take them off. Trish takes over before she can, following her lead but stepping in so gently, helping once she knows it’s wanted. “You left them in my car.”
Trish pulls all four fingers of the glove at a time, doesn’t bother with the thumb. It slides off easy. Theo used to go one by one—Trish is faster, more efficient, a fair bit messier.
And Theo loves so hard.
Trish slips the gloves into the pocket of her coat and then pushes it off her shoulders. “Let’s get you warm, then,” she says.
It’s no use , Theo could say. There’s no point. I’m always cold. I’ve always been cold . She doesn’t say, I’m already warm . She doesn’t say it, but she could—it’s true.
Instead: “You know what they say the fastest way to warm up is?”
Trish grins, her tongue poking out between her teeth, and leans down to grab one of the grocery bags. “Unpack these groceries and you can show me, Doctor.”
//
“Shirley called,” Trish mumbles into her shoulder, hours later. They’re touching in ten million ways—ten million little warmths digging into Theo so thoroughly she doesn’t think she’ll ever be cold again. She doesn’t know when Trish started doing that, when she realized; Theo hadn’t told her, that’s for sure. “I told her we’d bring pie for dinner on Saturday.”
“Why did you tell her that?” Saturday dinner is usual, but being in charge of dessert is not.
“Because she told us to bring pie for dinner on Saturday.”
Trish’s fingers, a tap tap tap on Theo’s hipbone. Happy sore content tired nervous happy; Theo pushes back into the touch and rolls her eyes. “She could’ve called me.”
“She likes me better.”
“She likes that you’ll agree to bring pie without a fight,” Theo corrects.
“Same thing.”
Theo turns her head on the pillow and Trish shifts until they’re nose to nose. “Do you even know how to make a pie?” Theo asks.
Trish brings a hand up, slides a fingertip along Theo’s eyebrow—there are those nerves again, bubbling up and into her. “I know how to buy one,” Trish says, “and how to take it out of the tinfoil and put it into a pie dish.”
Theo laughs and feels the love rise up—Trish’s, hers, the feedback loop that can get overwhelming in its depth.
Writing has always been Steve’s thing, really, but Theo was a voracious reader. She used to devour books of all kinds; fantasy, sci-fi—comic books, most of all. She kept at it as she got older, even if fewer books could draw her in and make her lose herself the way dancing always would. Trish brings her back to Morrison, sometimes, one of her lighter phrases:
I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.
What a wonder, to be a Crain woman who doesn’t fall, but rises.
Theo knows a lot: she knows she’s in love, that Trish loves her; she knows that there’s a ring box, that Trish is nervous about this Saturday; she knows every stretch of ink on Trish’s arms, legs, back.
“I love you,” Theo says. She inches forward, leans into the tiniest kiss. “I’ll love you even more if you convince Shirl you cooked a store bought pie.”
Boston is cold in February; the right pair of gloves can keep your hands warm; Theo’s sisters figured something out about love before she did. That’s okay—Theo doesn’t need to know everything. She can let the week rise up to meet her, can take Trish’s hand and see where she leads them.
“How much more?” Trish’s breath feels like a solid touch on her cheek.
Theo thinks it over. “At least three.”
Theo kisses and is kissed back. Trish’s lips slide against her own (happy content sleepy turned on amused in love love love) and the nerves dissolve away.
//
The store bought pie sits on the counter, unwrapped and re-tinned. Theo goes back and forth between a black blouse and a black blouse, fingers drumming on the hangers, lingering in the closet in a way she hasn’t since before Nellie’s wedding.
Thinking of Nell hits like a punch to the gut, is gentle like a lonely tear on her cheek. Nellie’s wedding was so perfect and so incredibly flawed, and it makes Theo miss her baby sister and the life she once lived that had her in it. All those moments piled up: laughing in the upstairs hallway, lipstick smudged and a dress partially unzipped—she wonders if someone could feel it all, if they touched her. They must be able to; it feels like it bleeds right out of Theo and into the air around her. She wasn’t a very good bridesmaid, really, but she also can’t bring herself to regret it. Shirley was better, and Nellie was better years earlier for Shirley. Theo didn’t sleep with anyone at Shirley’s, at least—a small victory, because she did get too drunk and dance more loosely than was necessarily appropriate.
She’s jealous, suddenly: Shirley got all four of them at her wedding, even if Luke was stoned out of his mind and trying not to laugh through the service. Shirley got all four, and Theo won’t. It isn’t fair—that seems childish, but it’s still true. It isn't fair. She won’t be able to get Nellie drunk enough to dance on the bar at her bachelorette party, won’t have to listen to her complain about the way the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses is better suited for Shirley than her. It’s a loss that aches as deeply as the world is old.
Here is something she’s learned, in her time: not all ghosts are scary. Some are just sad. Some are just cold.
She goes with the black blouse (Christmas present from Leigh, bought off the clearance rack, wrapped carefully). It settles against her skin smoothly and Theo takes care to not put any jewelry on her hands.
Sometimes it’s better to keep them bare, if not to feel, then in anticipation.
“Ready?”
Theo looks up and finds Trish waiting, dressed up nicer than she ever does to go over to Shirley’s, where an almost-niece is sure to ask her to do something involving glitter.
“Just gotta put my shoes on,” Theo says. It’s too early for dinner, but she hadn’t said anything when Trish told her when to be ready.
“You look nice,” Trish says, stepping out of the way as Theo goes past her towards the door. Trish is careful, has her hands safe in her pockets. Theo bites down on a smile as she bends over to slip her shoes on.
“Found this in the back of the closet,” Theo says, “haven’t worn it in ages.” That’s true, at least. Trish comes closer as Theo pulls her coat on, turning off the living room lights as she goes. Her hand smoothes along Theo’s covered shoulders as she reaches for her own jacket—Theo keeps her face carefully neutral. “You look lovely,” she says softly; that’s also true. Trish pauses with her coat half on, shadows across her face from the lone overhead hallway light. Their eye contact holds for a suspended moment before she moves again.
“Flirt,” she accuses.
Theo finally cracks a smile. “Who, me?”
Trish pushes her out of the apartment, hands careful to touch only clothing, and Theo is warm warm warm. She turns around before the door closes, slipping back inside to grab the pie on the counter, and then lets herself get ushered to the passenger side of Trish’s car. She doesn’t even complain about not driving—maybe that’s her mistake.
Trish fiddles with her mirrors like she does every time, as though anyone else on the planet has ever driven her absolute piece of shit car. Theo watches her adjust her seat to exactly where it was before she started adjusting it, watches her jerk her seatbelt across herself. Trish looks over at her with one hand about to turn the ignition and finds her watching, a smile on her face and holding the pie in her lap. Theo smiles wider when their eyes meet, but it has the opposite of the desired effect. Instead of grinning back, Trish deflates.
“You know,” she says, resigned.
“Know what?” Theo tries. It’s unconvincing, even to her own ears, and she winces at Trish’s look.
“I was so careful ,” Trish bemoans. “I didn’t even keep the ring in the apartment.”
Theo cracks. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I was about to make a big show about how shit the heating in this car is,” Trish says, her forehead leaning against the wheel. “I put gloves in my jacket pocket last night.” She takes said gloves out and tosses them carelessly in the backseat, where they’re sure to be lost in the black hole that is her car.
Theo frowns. “For the drive?”
“You always hold my hand when I drive.” Trish smacks her forehead into the wheel. “ Fuck .”
Theo lets her sit there for a bit, freezing her ass off in a car that hasn’t even been turned on yet. She wants to wait for Trish to collect herself, but every second that passes finds Theo less and less patient.
“Are you going to ask?” Theo finally prods.
Trish’s head snaps up. “Here?”
Theo shrugs.
“But I—I had a plan. The gloves and...the park, and Shirley, and—“
“Shirley knew?” Theo interrupts. That fucking sneak. “Wait, are we actually going—“
“After,” Trish explains. “We were supposed to go after. Steve and Luke got in this morning.”
Strangely, even though Theo has been something between giddy and hysterical all week without ever really showing a sign of it, that’s what brings tears to her eyes. “Oh,” she says. Her voice sounds so small. “So, the pie...”
“Is for Leigh,” Trish says, still sounding dejected. “The crust is gluten free. I got it at Trader Joe’s. Our Saturday dinner gets us out and dressed reasonably okay, so I figured—oh, I knew this shirt was too fancy,” she interrupts herself. “I knew you’d be able to tell.”
“Ask me,” Theo gasps out.
Trish blinks. “Theo, I—“
“Ask me.” A demand, this time. “Before I steal all your thunder.”
Trish inhales shakily at that, slowly reaching for the center console. She pops it open and sticks her hand inside, rummages around; when it comes back out, there’s a little, black ring box in the curl of her fingers. “Theodora Crain,” she starts.
The first tear slides down Theo’s cheek. It’s warm.
Time stretches like putty—a metal touch around her finger, a center console squished between them. Whispered words that reach out and caress, gentle but unwavering. The pie is still in her lap, kept from sliding to the floor by sheer luck. Theo certainly isn’t holding it. Theo certainly isn’t holding anything but Trish’s face between her palms for the rest of eternity.
“You know what this means?”
Trish raises an eyebrow. “That we’re engaged?”
“No,” Theo says, rolling her eyes. “You told Shirley we’d be there at...seven? Eight?” she guesses.
“Oh,” Trish breathes out. “Yes. I did.”
“That’s plenty of time,” Theo declares, popping open the passenger side door. “Can you even be late to your own engagement party?” She leaves the pie behind on the passenger seat—it’s the same as leaving it in the fridge, really.
“Who cares?” Trish asks, shouldering her door open. “I think there’s gonna be loads of traffic on our way there.”
Theo grins. “Oh, definitely. Wicked traffic for sure.”
//
Trish kisses her up against the apartment door, in the darkness of the living room, on their bed. Theo’s hands are greedy, grasping at any skin she can find, palms dragging along well known tattoos. Their feedback loop is overwhelming in the best way; she wants to be touching everywhere.
Love pressed against her lower back, grazing the side of her neck, grasping Theo’s hand. She is surrounded—devoured, consumed. Buried and digested.
But oh, what a way to go.
The late afternoon passes in blurry snapshots, out of focus and saturated so deeply that the ink bleeds through. The feeling and the sensation, simultaneously far too much and never quite enough.
Theo thinks—Theo thinks she will never need to wear gloves again.
//
Later, there’s Steve and Luke and Shirley, smiling their annoying ass knowing smirks. There's little Allie nearly vibrating with excitement and Jayden feigning casual disinterest. There’s Leigh scrutinizing the ring carefully, and Shirley eyeing it with a satisfied expression that tells Theo she’s seen it before.
That fucking sneak.
Trish gets predictably dragged off by Allie; Theo pretends not to be sore that she’s been replaced as the favorite. Leigh and Steve seem good, seem better , and Theo is dizzy from it all. There’s a lull where she’s left alone for a moment, and it’s only after she’s turned to look for Nell that she remembers. They feel like an unmatched set, all of them, like a board game that’s lost one of the most important pieces but keeps getting played anyway, forever a slightly different game, one that’s never quite complete. Arthur had asked for Theo’s input when he was buying a ring, and Nell had known immediately, seeking her eyes out in the crowd. Theo’s just done exactly the same thing with Shirl; she wishes it didn’t sting. She wishes the four of them didn’t always stand just a bit off center when getting their photo taken together, making space for someone who isn’t there. She wishes—
“I’m assuming you’ve talked to her about all the important stuff.” It’s Luke, materializing at her shoulder like he knew exactly what she was thinking about. He looks solid on his feet, even better than he had the last time she’d seen him in person. It’s a change so good she doesn’t know how to condense it into a single feeling. “Life stuff.”
“Duh,” Theo responds, her heart thumping dopily in her chest. Fiancé. Engaged. Her brain is running through them now—political affiliation, recycling, music taste, kids, adoption—and as she's thinking Luke pulls at the neck of her blouse and pokes at what's probably a developing hickey.
"Nice."
She smacks his hand away. "Fuck off."
“She’s from New Jersey?” It’s phrased like a question.
Theo blinks, surprised at the change of subject. “Yeah,” she answers slowly, vaguely suspicious. She loves her younger brother with her entire soul and he is such a little shit.
“You’ve asked her if she’s a Yankees fan, right? If her family is?”
Theo turns on her heel and beelines for where she last saw Trish immediately, leaving a cackling Luke behind.
//
On their wedding day, their friends and family throw rice as they walk by, hands tightly clasped.
It falls easy, the way Nellie’s arm used to around her shoulders.
It falls like confetti.
..