race ya’
It’s something, really, to wake to the sight of Jamie’s curly, bed-ruffled hair, the elegant line of her shoulder in the thin, anemic morning light. At some point in the night, she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom and Jamie rolled over onto her as soon as she was back in the bed, throwing her warm limbs over Dani’s body and tucking into her like they’d spent hundreds of nights sleeping side-by-side already. Like it wasn’t new and alien and absolutely monumental.
Dani is in bed with a woman. A woman she very much likes—who seems to like her back—who she’s kissed and touched and felt move beneath her. Her stomach does this...thing at the memory of it—the sounds Jamie made, the way her lips and hands felt all over her body. Part of her wants to scoot closer, do more than just arm around her waist—over the covers—but she’s still afraid of what will happen when Jamie wakes up. The last thing she wants to do is freak her out by being too forward.
She pulls away and goes to get up, just to go into the bathroom and maybe brush her teeth to try and remedy her morning breath. Her bra is on the floor where Jamie flung it last night and she pulls it on, going to her dresser and pulling out clean underwear and a shirt. A pair of jeans. A sweater.
There are marks up and down her ribs, the size of Jamie’s mouth and still red. Her heart feels like it might drum out of her chest if she lets herself think about that too much, but that’s okay because then there’s Flora out the window.
Flora sleepwalking and Flora scaring her and Dani runs faster than she’s ever run before, closing her bedroom door behind herself as she goes. Flora wakes in her arms. Comes back into herself. Doesn’t have an answer for any of Dani’s questions and isn’t that worrying?
She’ll have to call Henry again.
By the time she’s got Flora back in bed—tucked in safe and sound for the time being—and gotten back to her room, Jamie is awake. Sitting up in bed with the sheets tucked around herself. She looks lost in thought until the door shuts behind Dani and then her expression floods with relief as their eyes meet.
“Hey,” Dani greets. “You’re up.”
Jamie looks her over, eyebrow quirked. “So are you. Dressed, too.”
Dropping her gaze to inspect her own outfit, Dani gives a stuttering explanation that sounds sort of like, “Flora was sleepwalking again. I went out and got her. She’s okay.”
When she’s finished, Jamie is looking down at her hands, knees pulled up under the covers so they’re close to her chest, closing her off from the rest of the world. “Here I thought you ran off because you were freaking out or somethin’.”
Dani frowns. Begins drifting over towards the bed until she’s sitting on its edge, closer now. “Why would I freak out?” she asks, scared of the answer.
“Well,” Jamie says, finally looking up again. “Have a think.”
Dani looks away, remembering the way Jamie kissed her when she admitted that. Said something along the lines of, “Let me take care of you.”
“I’m...I’m fine. Totally...freak free,” Dani says. “Are you?”
Jamie’s cheeks are bright pink as she nods, bites her lip, says, “Yeah. I’m great. Just...y’know. Living the dream.”
Oh.
That’s when Dani remembers that Jamie is still naked beneath her sheets. In her bed. Where they had sex last night. More than once.
Holy crap.
No wonder the air between them feels so heavy.
“I didn’t...I didn’t run off,” Dani says. “I wouldn’t have. I...I know we didn’t really talk about it last night, but…” Fear grips Dani’s lungs tight, making the next breath hard, but she forces herself to continue. “I don’t want this to be a...a one-time thing...I want—”
The timidity, the worry that had been etching lines in Jamie’s forehead, immediately melt away. A smile blooms across her pretty, pink lips as she says, “Me, too.” A pause. “I...Can I kiss you? Would that be…?”
Dani traces Jamie’s face with her eyes, the mouth-shaped bruise on her neck that she put there. She wants to reach out and touch Jamie again. Beg to be touched in return. Instead, she nods. Says a simple, “Please,” and then Jamie is leaning forward—gorgeous and ruffled and still tired—and Dani does the same, meeting her halfway.
Jamie kisses her, lips softer than Dani remembers them being and she’s so surprised that it takes her a moment to remember that kissing isn’t usually a static act. She kisses Jamie back, reaching out to cup the base of her skull with her hand and pull her closer. It’s a slow kiss. Easy. Practiced. The kind of kiss two people share when they’ve begun to figure out what the other likes.
The familiarity that they already have with one another alone is almost enough to make Dani cry.
Jamie’s knees bump into her own, and then Jamie’s tongue is flicking into her mouth and Dani is making this embarrassing noise and then—
Footsteps. Little ones. Scurrying down the hall.
Dani pulls away. “The kids,” she whispers and Jamie nods, eyes still closed.
“Right,” she says. “Right.”
“I should…”
“Definitely.”
They stare at one another, neither quite willing to pull away yet.
“You know...Hannah is always up by now. She could...handle them for a few minutes. Just so I can...shower and everything,” Dani says, and Jamie must pick up on her meaning because she’s flushed now, all the way down her pale chest, and she’s nodding in agreement.
“Yeah, she can…She’s probably doing that as we speak.”
Dani frowns. Tries to gather her courage before saying, “Would you want to...join me?”
Jamie’s expression is one of fond amusement. Dani likes her so very much it feels like she could pass out from it.
Instead, she gets to her feet, shifting her weight back and forth nervously as she waits. There’s a huge part of her that is still terrified at the possibility that she’s overthinking this. That—despite their conversation the night before and everything else—someone like Jamie could never want her back.
But—
“Poppins,” Jamie begins, “that a serious offer?”
Dani nods. Resolute. “Y-yes,” she says, only a bit of stumble.
A grin. Her favorite kind—the one that lights Jamie’s eyes up, makes her whole face glow. The kind that makes Dani feel like she’s dying just the tiniest bit inside.
“Then,” Jamie says. She pauses a moment, looks over at the door to Dani’s bathroom. “Race ya’ there.”
In a flash, she’s up and off, darting across the short space and disappearing into the bathroom, leaving Dani to wonder how—despite everything—she could ever want for more than she has at this moment.
She doesn’t wonder long; she hears the shower turn on and the curtain being pulled back and she doesn’t let herself waste one more second.
..