The envelope comes in the mail three weeks after Servando breaks up with her.
He’d done it so gently, so Servando, that it had taken her a few minutes to even piece together what was happening. Looking back, she’d known it was coming, aloof facetime dates and missed weekends in Seattle. Something closer to relief had pooled low in her gut when it was all over. He’d always known what was best for her.
So yeah, she’d known it was coming, she just wished he could have waited until after alumni weekend to do it.
She manages a paper-cut when she slides open the envelope and the corner of the heavy card-stock schedule gets smeared with a streak of red, and Alex doesn’t care how dramatic she’s letting this moment feel.
They’d both RSVP’d months ago, when they were still the Golden Bears’ golden couple, at least on the surface, and now Alex toys with the idea of tossing the itinerary in the trash and sleeping until the weekend has passed, but it isn’t really what she wants. She’d been excited at the chance to decompress up the coast, far enough away from training and camps, and the brighter spotlight that had come with a gold medal in London. She just doesn’t want to go alone.
“Hey, did you hear me?”
The voice comes from over her shoulder, cutting easily through the fog in Alex’s head.
“Where did you go?” Kelley laughs, her hair damp from saltwater. The top of her wetsuit is pushed down to her hips, and it drips fat beads of water onto the floor, but she’s oblivious to it, focused instead on the vacant way Alex must be staring back at her. “I was asking if you were on for dinner and a movie tonight? I’m starving.”
It’s been like this for weeks, Kelley trying to occupy her roommate’s free time with coffee dates and happy hours, movies and free nights at the art museum, anything to distract from the fact that this is the first time Alex has been single in five years. Alex knows she’d be fine on her own, but it feels just as easy to follow Kelley’s lead, to let herself get lost in bad jokes and good drinks, and her friend reassuring her that someone else, maybe someone better, will come along when she’s ready.
Alex considers the envelope in her hands then tosses it onto the counter with a shrug.
“Ok, but no health food this time. I need nachos.”
***
“Are you still going to your alumni thing?”
Alex looks over at her, questioning, and Kelley shrugs, “I saw the invitation while you were getting ready.”
They’re stuck in the slowest moving concessions line, Alex impatiently shifting her weight from foot to foot, until Kelley brings up what she was trying to avoid.
“Oh. That.”
Alex’s soft response is almost filtered away by the crowd of teenagers excitedly mumbling in front of them, their heads turning to look back at the two of them every so often in a group effort to determine if it’s really Alex Morgan in the popcorn line behind them.
Kelley is still staring at her, waiting for a response, and Alex shrugs.
“I was thinking I might just skip it.”
“No, why? You were looking forward to it,” Kelley insists, her eyebrows knotting up into soft disapproval.
“That was before Servando and I…” Alex trails off, her voice lowering as she remembers where she is. “If I went now it’d be an entire weekend of me, alone, answering questions about why I’m alone. Plus, my nemesis is chairing the whole event, and if I showed up single she’d be the first to notice.”
“Whoa. Wait, go back. Did you say that you have a nemesis?” Kelley’s eyes go wide with unrestrained joy, and Alex tries not to smile.
“Sort of.”
“Tell me.”
Alex sighs, glancing over the line in front of them, judging the amount of time she has to spill before they can finally order. They’re still three groups behind.
“I kind of knocked this girl out of the starting lineup when I got to Cal, and snagged Servando, who she didn’t really have a chance with anyway. She wasn’t super happy about either one so she tried to make my life miserable for the two years we played together. She sucks, and coming back isn’t about rubbing my success in anyone’s face, but it was maybe a little bit about pushing back at Erika Murphy.”
There’s a proud smile curling at Kelley’s lips, and the line of front of them inches forward.
“Well, what if I went with you?”
Alex looks at her like she’s lost it, “You want to go to alumni weekend at Cal? You hate Cal.”
“Hate is a strong word,” Kelley starts, quickly correcting herself when she sees the look Alex is giving her. “Ok, I hate Cal, but I love you.”
Alex barely has time to register her words before they’re bowled over with something a little more hurried, Kelley tugging at the sleeve of her coat, “Plus there’s an open bar. You know how much fun we have at an open bar. Come on, Alex.”
Alex wants to say no. It’s right there on the tip of her tongue, looming like an effortless decision, but before she can turn down Kelley’s offer, the group of girls in front of them finally work up the courage to ask them for a selfie.
“Oh, for sure,” Kelley grins, snatching away the offered phone and nudging Alex with her elbow. “Alex has the longest arms, she’s in charge.”
Alex takes the picture, forcing a wide smile that’ll look good on instagram. When she takes a second to check her handiwork, scanning for closed eyes before passing the phone back, Alex catches Kelley’s bright smile staring back at her. It’s the kind of smile that crinkles the edges of her eyes, and something in Alex relents.
“Ok, fine,” Alex says out of the corner of her mouth as the teen girls turn away to huddle around their phones. “Let’s go to Cal.”
***
“Oh my god, she owns a dog gym?”
Alex is three hours into their drive up the coast, and too caught up in Kelley’s road trip playlist filtering through the car speakers to be following along.
“Who does?”
“Your nemesis. That Murphy chick. She owns a dog gym in the city.”
“Wait, how do you know that?”
“From stalking her linkedin page. Duh. This is who you didn’t want to face at your alumni night? Alex?” Kelley shakes her head, Alex catching it from the corner of her eye. “What the hell is a dog gym?”
“I think that’s self-explanatory?” Alex offers.
“No, it’s not.”
“Well it’s a very successful business.”
“That’s even worse! I need to know what she looks like. And her college stats.”
There’s a charged stretch of silence while Kelley googles furiously and the playlist shifts to the next track. Alex recognizes it instantly, the soft indie folk song she’d been obsessed with for weeks, making like Kelley and playing it over and over again for days on end.
“Oh my god,” comes out like a gasp from the passenger seat, before the rest of it follows with a more aggressive tone, and Kelley’s phone shoved into the corner of Alex’s view. “Is this her?”
Alex takes a quick glance, and it’s her, a pinched face in Berkeley blue.
“Alex, your college nemesis is my college nemesis. And I don’t even mean that in a supportive friend way. I mean that I willingly hate this person all on my own.”
“How?”
“This chick got in the nastiest tackle of my life on me during my freshman year. She annihilated me, after the play. You know that scar I have just below my butt?” Kelley asks, pausing to wait for an answer.
Alex scoffs, the sunlight coming through the windows feeling warmer across her cheek, “Yes, I’ve seen it a few times. You’re not exactly shy about it.”
“Your girl Murphy gave it to me on a cheap shot. She dragged her studs across the back of my leg when I was trying to untangle myself from her. No call, by the way. Blood everywhere. And now I find out that I’ve been scarred for life by the owner of a dog gym?”
“Do you want to turn around and go home?” Alex asks, hopeful as she leans over to click the air conditioning a notch higher.
“Hell no, you and I are going to get back at Erika Murphy the best way we can.”
“How’s that?”
“By drinking too much and shoving her into the ocean at the end of the night.”
Alex’s laugh is loud and easy, and then swallowed away when Kelley turns in her seat and drops a hand down onto her thigh.
“Erika doesn’t get to win this weekend. I’ve got your back.” Kelley’s tone is as serious as she can get, like some version of a locker room pump up speech that’s very specifically meant for only one person, and Alex believes her.
When Kelley drags her hand away to turn up the radio, the spot where it had just been still burns warm on Alex’s leg.
***
The carpet in their hotel room is brand new, and Alex lets the tips of her bare toes trace over it while her legs dangle from over the edge of her queen-sized bed.
Kelley’s suitcase is flung open on her own bed, pieces of clothing scattered across the loud pattern of the comforter, and Alex checks the time on her phone again. There’s nothing to actually be late for but she feels antsy anyway.
Alex’s toes traces along a pattern in the carpet one more time before she turns towards the bathroom door to yell at Kelley.
“What is taking so long?”
The door handle rattles immediately and Kelley comes bounding out of the bathroom in a cocktail dress and flip flops, her hair still whipped up in the messy bun that had barely survived the hours long car ride, and the nap that had left her face pressed against the window while they passed through San Jose.
“Sorry, I was testing a couple options. I think this is the winner? With the gold strappy sandals?”
Alex looks her over once, a quick up and down, and then narrows her eyes.
“Are you serious?”
“What?” Kelley’s attempt at feigning ignorance is destroyed by the way she has to bite her lips to keep a grin at bay.
“You know what. You’re wearing Stanford colors to a Cal event.”
“Alex this is just a red dress. You’re being paranoid.” Kelley offers, moving to stand in front of the mirror, angling herself to catch a look at the back.
“Right,” Alex says, as her eyes follow Kelley.
It’s a color she rarely wears, and when Alex looks her over again she wonders why Kelley seems to avoid it, especially with the way it makes the beginnings of her early Spring tan glow warmer.
“Hey, earth to Alex.” Kelley’s snapping fingers snap Alex’s mouth shut. “The dress, come on. What do you think?”
“Yeah, with the gold strappy sandals. You look good in red, whatever.”
“All my blue was at the cleaners.”
“Alright, just take the dress off already.”
Kelley’s eyebrow shoots skyward with the corner of her mouth, and Alex knows what’s coming before she says it.
“Buy me a drink first, dang.”
There’s a roll low in her gut that Alex immediately blames on hunger.
“You wish, Stanford. I meant can you go get changed so we can get some dinner. We’ve been cooped up in this room forever.”
“We are drinking though, right?” Kelley asks, fumbling with the zipper on her dress that Alex doesn’t offer to help her with. “I know you have to be fresh for your alumni scrimmage tomorrow or whatever, but come on.”
Alex’s stomach rolls again, or maybe it just hasn’t stopped. This time she blames it on the thought of seeing Erika at the scrimmage, or of the hangover that tends to follow a night out with Kelley. Either way there’s only one solution.
“We’re definitely drinking.”
***
In the small crowd of spectators at the alumni scrimmage, Kelley is easy to pick out from Alex’s spot on the field, the lone cardinal red shirt in a sea of dark blue. But it’s the voice that gets Alex’s attention first.
Kelley had warned her on the walk to the field that her mere presence at the game was all the support Alex would be getting from her, but ten minutes in Kelley’s voice is the loudest, even if it’s only meant for Alex.
They’re generic chants of “come on, Alex” that cut easily through the otherwise dull crowd, but they come every time Alex has the ball at her feet in a scrimmage that doesn’t really mean anything, but she finds herself wanting the ball more and more, Kelley’s voice forcing confidence into her that she hadn’t realized she’d been missing.
Alex chips the keeper in her final play.
She finds Kelley standing along the railing of the practice field later, elbows leaned on the chain link fence, an iced coffee dangling from her hands.
“You look like you might need this.” Kelley offers.
“Thank you?” Alex says, taking the coffee and the pair of sunglasses Kelley offers. “I’m not that hungover, you know. All these nights out with you have really been boosting my tolerance.”
“You’re welcome for that.” Kelley scans the field over the top of Alex’s head, and then looks back down at her. “I feel great. Slept like a baby.”
“Passed out seems more accurate. On my bed, five minutes into stalking Erika’s facebook.”
“You could have taken the other bed.” Kelley challenges.
“My head was spinning a little too much to move anywhere, besides, you stayed on your own side. For the most part.” Alex teases.
Kelley doesn’t question the last bit, suddenly distracted by something happening on the field, and Alex rattles the ice in her cup.
“Lunch?” Kelley offers, breaking the silence, and Alex nods, motioning towards the field exit.
*
“Alex!” comes as they’re crossing the campus back towards the car, debating lunch spots with a little too much intensity.
Alex turns towards the voice, and smiles when she recognizes the face of an old teammate.
Rachel had been the senior captain that had taken Alex under her wing in that first year away from home, and they’d kept in touch sporadically ever since. The warm hug Rachel gives her makes Alex feel like a kid again.
“You look great,” Rachel tells her, tapping a few fingers to the crown of Alex’s head, close to the spot that semifinal goal had come off of. “I still can’t believe it.”
The praise from this person she admired is reassuring and warm, but she’s never been great at outwardly accepting it so her eyes flick away and land on Kelley, who’s staring right back at Rachel with a wide, almost proud smile. Alex realizes she hasn’t even introduced her, and she ducks Rachel’s praise to interrupt.
“Rachel, this is Kelley, my…”
“Her roommate. Hi. I’m just tagging along this weekend.”
Kelley extends her hand and Rachel shakes it with a quick glance towards Alex. There’s a question about Servando in that look and Alex doesn’t want to explain the answer to it in the middle of the quad, so she tugs at the end of Kelley’s shirt to break up their little group.
“We’re headed back to the hotel, but we’ll catch up tonight?” Alex offers, a lame attempt at a quick exit that Rachel seems to catch on to.
“Definitely, we’ll catch up tonight.”
When Rachel is out of earshot, and they’re halfway back to the car, Alex finally asks.
“Roommates?”
Kelley’s response is to laugh and bump against Alex’s side.
“I was just being humble,” Kelley grins up at her, and off Alex’s disbelieving look she relents. “Oh she was like a proud big sister, and you deserved to have that moment all to yourself. Besides, I’m just the plus one this weekend. No one needs to know that I have a gold medal shoved into my sock drawer too. No one would probably know anyway, because defenders get significantly less fame than forwards. Just an FYI for you.”
“I appreciate the humility, my friend,” Alex says, draping an arm around Kelley’s shoulders. “But you’re rolling with very famous Alex Morgan this weekend, so please feel free to enjoy the perks.”
“You’re buying me lunch.”
***
Alex has game day level nerves in the shrinking hours before the party, and despite her best effort, Kelley’s hour long pre-game session in their hotel room just before they leave doesn’t do much to help. Now she’s just nervous and a little lightheaded, and desperately wishing she was neither.
Kelley grabs her hand at the base of the stairs that lead up to the party, and they linger for a few minutes, letting people filter in around them. Kelley gives her hand a quick squeeze, just like she’d done in the tunnel in the minutes just before the gold medal game.
“Let’s have fun tonight.”
Alex’s body feels warm, “I think I’m a little buzzed.”
“Perfect, you’re already having fun.”
“I also have like, freshman year level insecurity right now, and I don’t know why.” Alex admits.
“That’s natural,” Kelley promises. “Stuff like this is weird, but you’re going to be fine. No one but Erika is going to care about your breakup, and she’s actually super lame for caring anyway. That relationship doesn’t define you, even here. You’re Alex Morgan, dammit. Your face is on billboards.”
Kelley’s wearing that stupid red dress, and Alex nods along with the pump up speech, absorbing more of it than she lets on.
“Besides, we probably won’t even see her. This is a big group. I mean, just look at all these people who couldn’t make it into Stanford.”
*
“Oh shit, there’s Erika.”
They’re perched at the bar, the two of them making a beeline for it as soon as they’d walked inside, and Kelley’s gaze is suddenly focused just over Alex’s shoulder.
“She’s headed right for you. Wait, she stopped. She’s talking to someone else. God, she just looks rude. Oh, she’s looking over here now.”
Kelley’s play-by-play makes Alex jumpy, and she drains what’s left of her drink.
“Ok, here she comes. You got this, dude.”
Kelley’s eyes flick over her shoulder again, a minimal effort smile stretching at her lips, and then:
“Alex Morgan, I wasn’t sure you’d show.”
The turn on her heel is quick, and Alex follows Kelley’s lead and fakes a smile. Erika is right there, impeccably put together, the giant diamond ring on her finger catching every light in the room.
“I did RSVP months ago, but it’s nice to see you too, Erika.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought, you know, with how busy you are being a celebrity and all. Plus, I heard all the rumors about you and Servando.” Erika’s sympathetic pout is as fake as the smile that falls from Alex’s face.
It churns something inside of her, this wave of panic at someone, especially Erika, already knowing about this thing that still feels like some sort of failure to her. It sends a flash of heat across her skin, and her brain is left scrambling for a response, a rebuttal, anything to fill this doomed silence that’s sucked away all of the air around them,
Her eyes bounce around the room for anything, a metaphorical life jacket, or the actual edge of a cliff to jump from, and instead she finds Kelley staring back at her like she’s lost her mind.
Erika notices Kelley at the same time and looks her over with narrowed eyes, “Don’t I know you?”
Kelley’s face morphs instantly into something pompous, and it’s followed by a little puff out of her chest as she turns to step towards Erika, but Alex’s hand drops to her wrist and it stills her instantly. When Alex’s hand keeps sliding down, until her fingers are laced with Kelley’s, she feels her unwitting partner tense slightly.
“This is my girlfriend, Kelley.”
Alex’s heart is racing, and nothing about what she just did makes any sense, and it takes everything in her to not let the panic that’s pumping wildly through her veins reach her face. She doesn’t dare look over at Kelley, whose fingers are still laced with hers, sweaty palms mashed together in a mess of nerves.
Erika’s mouth can’t possibly hang open any wider, and Alex feels Kelley’s hand flinch and then pull away.
“Hi, I’m Kelley. Alex’s girlfriend.”
The hand that she’d pulled away is suddenly thrust towards Erika, who shakes it wordlessly, her mouth now firmly closed. Kelley’s voice is calm, refusing to betray her nerves, or her friend. “I was also on the Stanford team that knocked you out of the ncaa tournament your senior year. That’s probably why I look familiar. It’s nice to meet you in person though.”
Kelley takes control without hesitating, and Alex is grateful to step back and let her.
Erika pulls her hand away, and shakes off enough shock to point her finger at the two of them, “The two of you are together? You have to be joking.”
“That would be a weird thing to make a joke about,” Kelley says, feigning tired offense, like this is a question that they’re asked too often.
Erika looks over at Alex, narrowing her eyes like it’s easier to detect bullshit that way, but Alex doesn’t give away anything. She doesn’t speak either, not since she’d picked up an accidental girlfriend the last time she’d opened her mouth.
“You need another drink.” Kelley says, tapping her fingernail against Alex’s empty glass before moving to lace their fingers together again. “It was nice to meet you, Erika. I’m sure we’ll catch up with you later?”
“Oh, definitely.” Erika scoffs before taking off back into the crowd, turning back one more time to get a look at them like she’s expecting them to spring apart.
Kelley waits until she’s out of sight before yanking Alex towards the slower end of the bar, and speaking in that same tone from earlier, the one that seems too calm to be real in this moment, “She is not buying this at all. Also, dude, what the fuck?”
Kelley’s tone is playful, but it’s still enough to snap Alex out of her trance.
“I don’t know,” Alex’s groan is pushed through the hands she has covering her face.
“I thought we were just going to be low key this weekend, because this is definitely not low key. This is high key. She’s going to tell everyone in this room about us within ten minutes.”
It feels strange to be offended by what Kelley’s implying, but Alex is anyway, “Does that bother you, that people will think we’re together?”
“What? No,” Kelley insists, shaking Alex’s annoyance off with ease. “I’m just pointing out that you have a slightly higher profile now, and you just told an outrageous lie to someone who doesn’t like you all that much within five minutes of us walking inside. Five minutes.”
“I can’t explain it, ok? Erika already knowing threw me for a loop, and I panicked. I just didn’t want to be single in that moment, and then I looked over and I saw you, and I don’t know, you’ve been like my number one person through all of this, and you felt like my safe place right then.”
Kelley’s eyebrows raise at that, but Alex doesn’t want to slow down, not after the extent of what she’s done finally dawns on her once it’s spoken out loud.
“Nope, we’re screwed,” Alex exhales. “Let’s just bolt.”
“We’re not screwed,” Kelley promises with a flicker in her eyes that Alex doesn’t trust, her hand sliding into her teammates’ with too much ease. “Besides, you’re not single.”
“Oh god, this is such a bad idea,” but it’s an exhale that hides a bit of relief.
“We’re locked in now, my friend.” Kelley drains what’s left in her glass, the fingers on her other hand still laced with Alex’s. “Let’s get some more of these weakass drinks, then spend the rest of the night convincing Erika that you landed a total honey. And in a few weeks we can just quietly “break up” and everything will be cool. You never see these people anyway. Trust me, we can do this.”
“I owe you so big. Like, happy hour beers on me for a whole month, and I’ll do your laundry for two. Seriously, I owe you.” Alex can feel the look of panic she’s wearing transition to something closer to sheepishness, and Kelley just brushes it all off with a laugh.
“I’ll do my own laundry. I hate the way you fold shirts.” Kelley’s too calm, and it almost unnerves Alex more until she gives her hand a reassuring squeeze. “You’re my teammate, Al, and my friend, so I’ve always got your back. Just don’t fall in love with me for real though, huh?”
Kelley gives her an exaggerated wink and tugs her towards the bar.
***
“If I had a dollar for every time this one didn’t throw her laundry into the hamper I’d be a millionaire, but look at this face. I mean, she’s adorable, right?” Kelley coos, reaching over to pinch Alex’s chin between two fingers and giving it a little wiggle that Alex has to fake a smile through. “God, I love her.”
Kelley’s been holding court at the bar for a staggering amount of time, surrounded by a group of Alex’s closest former teammates, the elaborate lie about their life together growing more complicated with every story.
Kelley tells tall tales about date nights, and where they’re planning a long vacation in the summer. There’s an over the top story about slow dancing in the kitchen while dinner is in the oven that makes Alex’s cheeks turn red, and pictures saved on Kelley’s phone of the dog they’re thinking about adopting, which is absolutely her sly way of tossing out the idea to her actual roommate when she’s got nothing to lose.
Kelley’s voice lowers when she talks about their mutual agreement to keep things off social media because Servando doesn’t know about them yet. She mimes pulling a zipper across her lips then, a knowing wink at Alex’s rapt teammates, and Alex watches with wide eyes as they all nod in understanding.
Eventually Kelley circles back around to the trivial domestic moments, a random list of things so normal they could be real, Alex’s favorite dinner, or that laundry hamper thing that Kelley definitely doesn’t think is cute.
“And don’t even get me started on how she always wants to be the little spoon.”
That one is definitely fake.
“Ok,” Alex interrupts immediately, loudly enough to part the swarm of old teammates, a fake smile plastered on her face while she reaches for Kelley’s arm. “That’s enough secret telling for now, honey. Let’s dance.”
Alex pulls Kelley out of the group, catching the quiet grins from people who have fallen for their love story, and the sarcastic smile she’s still giving Kelley softens instantly into something warmer.
“You’re enjoying this a little too much,” Alex says after she’s weaved them through the small but busy dance floor, stopping them right in the middle where they can be forgotten.
The music is loud and Kelley falls into the beat, dismissing Alex’s words with a shrug and a laugh that’s pushed towards the sky. Alex traces the curve of her neck with her eyes.
“Dance!” Kelley yells, just once, but Alex can’t move.
She’s trying to remember how many drinks she’s had, counting them all off in her head. And then she counts again, but the number she keeps getting isn’t high enough to explain why she’s suddenly fixated on the way the fabric of Kelley’s dress moves across her skin while she bounces in a swarm of strangers.
When Alex watches the Kelley’s hair sweeps across her bare shoulders, something deep inside of her gut begs her not to question why.
The song fades into something slower, and the dance floor starts to empty around them. Alex, suddenly looking for an escape, grabs Kelley’s hand and starts to pull her towards fresh air and a clear head, but there’s resistance at the other end.
“Hey, come on, lover. We’ve got a romance to sell,” Kelley nods towards the edge of the dance floor, where Erika is now stationed with her very rich husband.
There’s a protest curling up in her throat, panic in her head, and a knot the size of a small car parked under her ribs, but it’s that feeling low in her gut, the same one that begged her not to question things, that pulls her in tight to Kelley.
“I think, uh, you should lead. You’re taller,” Kelley offers, her eyes trained on the spot on Alex’s hip where she eventually slips her hand.
There’s something building in Alex’s brain, and she just wants to get moving. She closes the gap between them, her hand fumbling for a spot to rest low on Kelley’s back, and when it finally settles, heavy and wide along her spine, there’s a flinch in Alex’s fingertips that leads to a firm press of fingers into the soft material of a little red dress.
Kelley laces the fingers on their free hands together, tucking their clasped hands in between the warm press of their chests and Alex swallows back a whimper that’s eager to escape.
“Stop fucking around, Alex,” is the demand from inside her head, in her own voice, through gritted teeth.
She can do this. She’s managed bigger things than this, whatever this is, confusion and loneliness mixed together with a heavy splash of vodka. Alex’s heart is beating too fast, too loud, and she works to tune it out like she does to a crowd of 40,000 cheering her every move on the pitch. She takes a deep breath, and then another, each one pressing her chest tighter against the locked pair of hands between them.
“Let’s just sway,” Alex whispers, taking control of something, and Kelley manages a nod.
Alex focuses on her breaths, which are deep and mostly calming, except when she picks up a hint of Kelley’s shampoo, which is actually Alex’s shampoo because Kelley’s toiletry bag is still on their bathroom counter back in LA. It smells nice on her, soft and clean, but Alex brushes that aside with another deep breath, and tries to remember the last time Kelley said a word.
Kelley’s bottom lip is between her teeth, and that telltale crease between her eyebrows is prominent, always a valley of either deep thought, or nagging worry. Alex watches Kelley’s eyes bounce around the room, and the way they sweep over her, Kelley staring through her like she isn’t there, and Alex wonders if the novelty of their scheme has started to wear off.
“Everything ok?” Alex asks finally, her voice steadier than she’d imagined it would be, a genuine concern for her friend edging out other things.
“Yeah, it’s all good,” Kelley smiles, bright and automatic. “Just keeping watch on your pal over there. And also trying not to step on your feet.”
Alex’s laugh is soft through her nose, “I appreciate both of those things, and you coming with me this weekend.”
Alex expects another mention of being teammates, or roommates, but Kelley shrugs instead.
“You’re my best friend,” she says slowly, with so much sincerity that Alex’s feet almost stop moving. And then, with less sincerity, “And this is what best friends are for, right?”
“Not really,” Alex says through a squint, and they both laugh.
Kelley’s hand shifts then, moving from Alex’s hip to the small of her back, her fingers playing along a bumpy stretch of vertebrae, and the rest of Alex’s laugh gets caught in her throat.
This again.
Alex hadn’t really expected that this thing could be solved with a couple of deep breaths and an extremely unhelpful visualization involving the two of them slow dancing in the middle of a pitch while 40,000 screaming fans yell at her to get her shit together. She’d just sort of hoped it would.
“So what’s the game plan for the rest of the night?” Kelley asks suddenly, looking straight into Alex’s eyes, calm, cool, and completely unaffected by what is happening in a way that makes Alex desperately jealous.
“I, uh…” Alex’s voice is unsteady, and she doesn’t trust it, or herself, so she closes her mouth and shakes her head.
Alex wants the game plan to involve putting distance between them, and to bolt from this where nothing makes sense anymore. She wants to get in the car and drive straight back to LA where she used to love Servando and didn’t know what Kelley’s heartbeat felt like against her skin.
Kelley’s game plan is very different.
“Dude, touch my butt or something.”
Alex gets shoved out of the fog that’s surrounding her, and she can finally look at Kelley again, wide-eyed and completely confused.
“What? No. I don’t want to touch your butt. No way.”
“Murphy has been staring at us for like, five minutes. We need to sell it hard right now or we’re done. Like, done done. Done.”
“I get it.”
They’re still swaying, Kelley’s face pressed closer to Alex’s ear, so she can feel the words across her cheek, “Grab some tush or something.”
Ten minutes ago, ten days ago, Alex would have laughed and obliged, but now everything is different.
“I’d never do that anyway,” is her labored protest. “I don’t just grab butts.”
“Oh my god, just lightly graze it then,” Kelley huffs, quickly losing the calm veneer she’d been operating under. Alex can feel her hand nervously fidgeting across her back. “Alex, we are going to fuck this up, and then we’re going to look like a couple of weirdo liars. And why won’t this goddamn song end already? You know what, I’m just gonna touch your butt, ok? Spin us around a little and maybe look at me like you’re madly in lo--.”
Kelley’s words die against the sudden press of Alex’s mouth to hers, and then everything else stops too: the general concept of time, that damn song they’d been dancing to, Alex’s beating heart.
She doesn’t know how they got here, to this place where Alex’s first instinct in handling Kelley is to kiss her quiet in the middle of a room full of strangers, except that she does. When Kelley presses in tighter it’s like a stream of clarity, how somewhere in the last few weeks, maybe in the months since London, Kelley had gradually replaced Servando as the person Alex wanted to tell everything to, who she wanted to spend all her time with, whose laugh she wanted to hear all damn day, and maybe the person she doesn’t want to stop kissing.
It’s a lot, and Alex isn’t ready for any of it.
Her hands drop to Kelley’s waist, pushing her away instead of drawing her closer, and Kelley’s eyes open slowly.
“Ok,” is all Kelley manages, a slow nod while she collects herself.
People filter around them on the thinning dance floor, and Alex doesn’t have any words. She stares at Kelley, paralyzed by a hundred different feelings, knowing the one person she’d want to go to in a crisis like this is the same person standing across from her, the one with Alex’s lipstick across her mouth. Somewhere in the tornado of a hundred different feelings is a single question that Alex doesn’t know if she wants the answer to.
“Good work,” Kelley says, her steady voice piercing through Alex’s thoughts while she drags the back of her hand across her lips, subtly wiping away traces of her friend. “She definitely bought it.”
And that’s when Alex is sure of everything in the worst way.
“Wait a few minutes and then meet me in the bathroom. We can figure out what’s next in there. Less eyes.”
Kelley doesn’t wait for a response, not that Alex has one anyway.
There’s a numbness that overtakes her then, a blank stare, her feet rooted to the dance floor, and she fights to keep it that way, detached and foggy, because what’s creeping in around the edges is a sudden, blinding heartache that she never asked to feel.
People mill around her, and Alex isn’t really sure how to come back from this.
She doesn’t know how to forget what Kelley’s lips felt like against her own, warm, and tempting, and spiked with a misread eagerness that Alex had almost drowned in. She doesn’t know how to forget those things, or how to turn off feelings and want, but she just has to, so they can still share coffee on the balcony, and split rent, and so Alex can look Kelley in the face every single day without an ache to know ‘what if’. She just has to.
In a weekend of hasty decisions, Alex comes to this one just as quickly, her feelings shoved into a space in her head that she knows is only temporary because there’s still plenty of time to feel all this pain later, on the six hour drive home to LA, and maybe for a few weeks after that.
Alex smoothes down the edges of her dress, swallows away the lump in her throat, and frees her feet from the dance floor.
She can do this.
The mantra is soft and repetitive in her head when she swings open the bathroom door and finds Kelley braced against the sink, a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the countertops. Alex catches her deep breaths, methodical, slow, and the way her eyes are squeezed shut so tightly that the bridge of her nose is scrunched up too.
The door closes behind Alex while she stares, and the noise is enough to snap Kelley out of whatever is happening.
When her eyes shoot open, they catch Alex’s in the mirror almost immediately. There’s a pause, the slightest hint of hesitation, and then a wide smile creeps across her face before Kelley spins around to meet Alex’s eyes for real.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Alex says, taking note of the row of empty bathroom stalls. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine. Just a headache,” Kelley’s hands fidget, twisting at the ring she always wears on her right hand, one rotation, then three, again and again until Alex loses count, and Kelley catches on. Her hands get shoved behind her back, and Kelley’s laugh is shy. “It’s all good. I swear.”
Alex makes her nervous now.
“Look, I’m really sorry about earlier, ok? I shouldn’t have- .”
“Dude, no worries.” There’s an immediate shift in Kelley’s posture, calm and cool again as she pushes herself off the counter, and she shakes her head firmly enough that a few strands of hair fall free against her cheek, and Alex’s first instinct is to want to brush them back.
Jesus.
Kelley handles it without her, gathering up the loose pieces when she runs her hands through her hair, while a teasing smile curls at her lips, “Just so we’re clear though, you don’t touch butts, but you will kiss your friend square on the mouth just to shut her up? Those are some strange boundaries, dude, but you do you. Next time…”
“There won’t be a next time,” Alex interrupts. “I swear.”
“Right,” Kelley nods, her eyes dropping down to those gold, strappy sandals with the hint of a smile. “Obviously.”
Alex looks away, forcing a glance at herself in the mirror. She takes it as a chance to correct things, the tension in her shoulders, and the wariness in her eyes. Alex takes a deep breath, and smiles at herself so brightly she almost buys it.
“So, what’s the plan?”
“The plan.” Kelley repeats, giving herself time to think of one, until it’s like a lightbulb going off above her head. “The plan is one more drink and then let’s get the hell out of here? If Erika isn’t bought in at this point then she wouldn’t know fake true love if it smacked her right in her smug face.”
Alex means to say something else, but it comes out as an exhale of, “Oh thank god,” instead.
Kelley looks herself over in the mirror one last time, fussing with her hair, and sliding her finger along the edges of her lips, re-checking her fix work on the smudges Alex had left behind.
Alex’s eyes trace along the lines of Kelley’s bare shoulders, muscle and bone and dark flecks of pigment that can never be hers. She lets her gaze linger for an aching moment longer, because at least she’s not kissing her this time, and then she shakes it away. She is definitely not getting one more drink.
“Alright, let’s do this,” Kelley says, turning around with her hand held out, offering up a high five that Alex accepts with a roll of her eyes.
It’s the most they’ve felt like ‘them’ all night, and Alex is grateful for it.
Kelley shuffles them out of the bathroom, pushing Alex out of the door first with one final, “Go team,” and a light pat to her butt that Alex shakes her head at, much to the delight of her friend.
*
They’re halfway to the bar, and their final home stretch, when Rachel comes out of nowhere to stop Alex in her tracks.
“Alex! Can we talk for a second?” Rachel’s smile has too many teeth, and the false confidence Alex has been building up takes all of a few seconds to start to crumble.
“Sure.”
Kelley breezes past them, waving at Rachel, and then miming downing a drink in Alex’s direction before continuing towards the bar.
“So, roommates, huh?” Rachel teases, nudging Alex with the hand she’s holding her drink in. The condensation of the glass is cool against Alex’s flushed skin.
She hates this day.
“Right,” through a forced laugh. “Busted.”
Alex wants to tell her the truth because Rachel still feels like her captain in the moment, and because her proud smile makes the lie feel that much worse. Alex thinks about Rachel’s wife, and she tells an almost truth.
“We weren’t really trying to hide it, I wouldn’t do that. It’s just tricky here with Servando not knowing.”
“Hey, I get it. Besides, it’s not like you guys were being that subtle anyway, especially with the way that Kelley looks at you.”
There’s a storm in Alex’s chest, immediate and wild, barely contained within the curve of her ribs, something like lightning striking at her heart so many times that it starts to beat differently, fast and sharp and painfully sure. It all moves faster than her brain, which is desperately playing catch up, trying to keep out what has already started to flood back in, that terrifying breath of hope.
“What? Alex asks, trying, and failing, to not sound like she’s just had the wind knocked out of her.
“Oh come on, you know what I’m talking about. She stares at you like you’re the moon and the sun and the only person on the planet, blah blah blah. It’s cute, and I’m really happy you let yourself find her.”
Alex thinks of the white knuckled grip on the bathroom counter, and that growing collection of moments of hesitation that had been so easily disarmed with a joke and a smile. Kelley’s classic tell. Alex had missed it so easily because there was never supposed to be a reason to look for it.
Until now.
“I have to go,” comes out too quickly, her hands reaching out for Rachel, squeezing an apology across her skin for the abrupt way Alex leaves her behind.
Alex can’t control anything then, not her racing heart, or the way her feet move so fast it’s practically a jog in heels to find Kelley. She bumps shoulders with more than one person, and there’s definitely at least one half-spilled drink left in her wake, but Alex doesn’t slow down, not until she reaches Kelley at the bar, and then she stops dead in her tracks.
Kelley’s in the center of a small swarm of old teammates, the same ones from earlier, but this time Erika is with them, stationed right next to Kelley with her arms folded across her chest, and Alex couldn’t care less.
She nudges her way through a border of brunettes and ends up squeezed right into the center, just across from Kelley, and suddenly aware that all eyes are on her.
“Sorry. For interrupting,” Alex actually stutters when Kelley stops talking to look at her. “But I really need to talk to you. Right now.”
“Yeah, ok, but I was just telling them about the first time we realized... you know? Erika was really curious,” Kelley gives her a look, and Alex reads everything differently now. “I’m almost done.”
Alex’s fingers twitch and she thinks about just kissing Kelley right then.
“So anyway, Alex spends forever picking out this Christmas tree. She’s testing branch strength, and hassling some poor boy scout about how fresh this shipment of trees is. It was ridiculous, and classic Alex, and I realized that I was weirdly charmed by it? I’m not talking in a friendly way, I’m talking in an ‘I want to maybe kiss my friend’ kind of way.”
Alex’s eyes flick up to Kelley’s then, but she’s smiling at someone else.
“But this is Alex, you know? She’s still sort of with someone, and she’s my teammate, and this is just not an actual thing. So I just ignore it, pawn it off on Christmas doing weird things to people, and move on.”
Kelley still won’t look at her.
“Now we finally get this tree home, and decorating it takes even longer, because those ornaments have to be neatly spaced out, and the whole time I’m just trying to ignore this weird Hallmark movie that’s playing in my head while we’re standing in the living room admiring our stellar decorating job. All the lights are off in the apartment except the ones on the tree, and we’re standing there so close together our shoulders are touching, and it just feels like a moment. And then Alex said something that just got me. Remember what you said, Al?”
Alex does remember what she said, because none of this is part of the outlandish stories Kelley’s dreamed up tonight. This is real.
Kelley looks at her then, finally, and her eyes are soft, and scared, and brave as she lays her soul bare.
This is real.
“I said, “our first family tree” and then I kissed you on the cheek.”
Insignificant memories are suddenly anything but, and Alex can picture Kelley’s face in the living room on that overcast day in December.
She’d said it as a joke, poking fun at these two friends and their perfectly decorated Christmas tree in their cozy apartment, but the way Kelley had looked away from its soft lights so suddenly, silence filling the space where Alex had expected a laugh, hadn’t made sense to her then.
She gets it now.
Alex had barely survived a night with this, and Kelley had carried it with her for months.
She’s sure her heart can’t beat any faster, until it does.
“Right, and I think you’re joking with me but there’s this tone in your voice. So I look over, convinced I’m reading this all wrong, and when I meet your eyes I know that I’m not. I don’t know how it happened, or why it happened, but you gave me this little nod, and I knew it was ok.”
Then her story is over, replaced by shallow breaths that Alex can only see but not hear, because everything is drowned out by the soft squeals of women who love love.
Kelley hasn’t looked away from her, and Alex gives her a little nod.
There’s no hesitation when Kelley steps across the center of their circle, her fingers already splayed when they reach for Alex. They trail along her jaw, and then curl into the back of Alex’s neck to tug her closer. It’s all so achingly slow, the weight of this moment, this decision, forcing the briefest pause before Kelley leans in.
Kelley kisses her, soft at first, and then a little braver, open mouths and hurried breath, that barely contained eagerness that comes with finally getting what you want. Alex’s lungs fill with Kelley’s exhales and she can’t remember a single moment in her life that’s better than this feeling. Maybe the gold medal, she thinks, and then Kelley’s fingers drag through her hair, a lazy arc across her scalp like they’ve forgotten where they are, her mouth hungry still against Alex’s, and this might definitely be better than that too.
And then someone clears their throat.
They ease apart, breathless and happy, completely baffled, but still uninterested in the circle of people that surround them. Kelley’s eyes are dark, and they don’t move from Alex’s when she says through messy lips, “Now we can get the hell out of here.”
Alex grabs her hand and leads her out of the group without a glance back at any of her wide-eyed teammates.
There’s a voice at their backs just before they’re out of earshot, Erika trying to cover her defeat with a dismissive scoff, “Ok, rude. Too famous for goodbyes now?”
“Bye Erika,” Kelley turns to holler back, and then she raises her fist into the air and yells a little louder, “Still undefeated at Cal!”
*
Outside they can breathe again, cool air across their skin and in their lungs, and it jolts Alex back to reality. Words start and die against the back of her teeth but all she can do is stare. Kelley’s hand grips Alex’s tighter.
“Stop thinking,” Kelley purrs.
Alex’s smile is messy, drunk on weak drinks and the confidence in Kelley’s posture, “I can’t.”
Alex wants every answer to every question in her head, and she wants to kiss Kelley again and to not ever have to stop. Kelley pulls them into a waiting cab instead, her bottom lip held between her teeth when Alex doesn’t leave a gap between them in the backseat.
They pull away from the curb and Kelley moves even closer, the shifting of her bare legs on the fake leather seats building a soundtrack that makes Alex dizzy and warm, panicked in a way she doesn’t really mind. Kelley’s tongue traces her lips, and when she leans in closer, Alex closes her eyes and waits.
“Lotta people out tonight.”
Their cab driver’s voice cuts through the aching silence, and Alex can feel how close Kelley’s face is to hers without opening her eyes.
“Uh huh,” is all Kelley manages, hoping in vain that it’s enough.
“You girls look fancy. What’s the occasion?”
Alex’s eyes open then, and they meet Kelley’s just in time to catch her exaggerated disappointment before her head drops, and she slides back into her own seat.
Kelley and Andre talk about college football and the best spot for breakfast burritos near where they’re staying, and Alex can’t look away from the sharp lines of Kelley’s line while she goes on and on about the best pass rushers in the Pac 12 until they’re pulling up to the door of their hotel.
Alex pays for their ride, tipping Andre generously for giving them them a chance to breathe.
“Face on billboards money,” Alex jokes with a shrug, and the laugh it pulls from Kelley is exactly the one Alex wanted, soft and genuine, a smile so wide it crinkles the corners of her eyes and Alex moves to kiss Kelley before it falls away.
The booming voice at her back stops Alex halfway there, a “Welcome back!” from a hotel doorman with bad timing.
“Oh my god,” Kelley growls, before taking Alex’s hand and dragging them through the door being held open for them. “Hi, thanks so much.”
*
There’s the man who slips into the elevator with them just as the doors are closing and Alex is still feeling brave, her thumbs brushing arcs across the curves of Kelley’s cheeks. They bounce to opposite corners of the elevator while he tries to remember what floor he’s on. Kelley looks miserable tucked into hers, and something about it makes Alex feel shy.
*
When the key to their hotel room doesn’t work, after four increasingly frantic tries, Alex wonders if it’s a sign, until Kelley snatches the card key from her hands and stomps back towards the elevator without her.
Alone she has a chance to breathe, her back pressed into the wall of the hotel hallway, and the long exhale she releases lets her feel every nerve. They’re coiled in her stomach, and rippling in waves just under her skin, but they don’t mean what they used to, and Alex doesn’t want to ignore them, not anymore. Each coil, every ripple, feels alive with potential, and the promise of something terrifying and good.
Alex is ready for what comes next.
Kelley’s back quicker than she expected, frustrated and a little out of breath, the swish of her red dress making Alex’s head spin as she gets closer.
Her throat goes dry, and she’s sure she’s ready for most of what comes next.
She drags herself to her feet and there’s still that question that lingers, the one that doesn’t really matter, but Alex suddenly needs the answer to it anyway.
“If this doesn’t work, I swear to God.” Kelley grunts, but Alex catches her hand on its way to the door.
“How long?” Alex asks in a voice that’s even softer than the way Kelley kissed her for the first time.
“Huh?”
“How long have you felt this way? About me?”
“Oh,” Kelley smiles, a sudden shyness curling her spine and dropping her chin. “I don’t really know.”
Alex breathes her name like a plea, and Kelley’s gaze is so soft by the time it reaches her.
“Rochester. I knew for sure in Rochester.”
Alex counts the time that’s passed since then on her fingers, the same ones that are tucked behind her back and itching to trace lines across soft skin. Seven months.
“I wasn’t waiting for you or anything,” Kelley promises with the slightest edge of defensiveness in her voice. “I knew that you were you and that this could never-”
There’s no one around to interrupt them when Alex presses Kelley’s back into the door of their hotel room. It’s less gentle than she’d intended, anxiousness mixed with the slow simmer of false starts and chatty cab drivers slamming Alex’s lips against her friend’s, and the gasp it pulls from Kelley doesn’t do much to slow anything down.
Kelley’s mouth falls open under hers, and Alex falls too, deep and hard and fast, barreling towards a safety net already made flimsy by slow dances and the want that’s been blooming in her chest all night. Eager hands are knotted up in thin dress fabric, shaky breaths ghosting across wet lips, and what’s left of that safety net slips away the instant Kelley’s tongue sweeps across Alex’s.
It’s a breathless freefall after that, Kelley’s thumbs pressing tiny bruises along the curves of ribs, and Alex toeing off her heels in the hotel hallway, not to run, but to angle closer to Kelley’s mouth. She feels a grin under her lips then, a gentle bite at the edge of it, and it’s an automatic response the way her hips move to pin Kelley tighter against the door.
And that’s when the alarm bells start.
Sharp and sudden, the noise in her head is enough to drive Alex back a step, leaving Kelley to crane her neck, desperate to follow her for more until she realizes what’s happening.
Alex did that, with her hips, and her mouth, and she’s the cause of that breathless way Kelley is staring at her and it’s all so sudden and wild and…
“Who is calling you at midnight?” Kelley says, her words dripping out in slow motion, and Alex realizes she’s still staring at her lips.
“What?”
Kelley’s grin is hidden between her teeth, and she nods towards the floor, “Your phone is ringing.”
Alarm bells. Alex feels a blush like fire across her cheeks, and she bends down to scoop up the clutch she’d dropped at her feet when Kelley’s fingers had brushed up her thigh.
“Oh my god, it’s my mom.” Alex whispers, and the heat on her cheeks burns brighter.
Kelley’s fingers run through Alex’s hair then, quiet and too focused while she works to make her flustered friend look presentable again, as if Pam might be able to hear her daughter’s smeared lipstick and messy hair over the phone. Alex swallows hard at the way that Kelley’s chest is still quietly heaving, and the way the tips of her fingers drag across Alex’s bottom lip while she wipes away traces of her shade in a way that’s so much different from the last time.
“Ok,” Kelley says finally, admiring her work with one last sweep through Alex’s hair, and then, like it’s old habit, she leans in to kiss Alex soft at the corner of her mouth.
Alex still hasn’t caught her breath.
“You should really take that.” Kelley grins, her hand along Alex’s ribs again, this time to nudge her away so she can search the floor for the forgotten key card.
“Hi mom,” Alex answers, her eyes still trained on Kelley. “No, it’s not too late. No, I’m fine. I’m not even breathing that hard. I had to run across the room to find my phone and it was far?”
Alex can feel that familiar blush again, just as Kelley’s hand slaps over her own mouth to hold back a laugh that’s still obvious in her wide eyes. Kelley’s free hand, the one with the found key card, slips across Alex’s wrist, and when she squeezes support into her skin, the easy, familiar touch makes Alex’s heart beat out of sync.
She can hear her mom on the other end, muffled and far away, the phone falling from her ear while she watches Kelley turn to unlock the door with deliberate breaths filling her lungs. There’s one last glance over her shoulder at Alex, and then Kelley’s suddenly shy smile disappears behind the closing door.
Alex’s mom hasn’t stopped calling her name.
“Sorry, yeah, I’m still here,” Alex paces the hallway in her bare feet, and she can’t help the smile that creeps across her face. “Everything went ok, I promise. Kelley being here helped a lot.”
*
It takes twenty minutes to convince Pam Morgan that she got out of the night unscathed, and when Alex finally makes it back into their room Kelley is leaning against the headboard of her bed, already changed out of the dress that had made Alex’s head spin and into sweatpants and an old t-shirt that hangs loose at the neck.
It’s an outfit that asserts no one is having sex tonight. Alex remembers alarm bells that weren’t, and her shoulders drop with a release of tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Everything about the next step scares her, how suddenly it’s become an option, how badly she wants it, and how easily Kelley can read her already.
“What’s with the pajamas?” she asks, fighting through the waver in her voice that Kelley definitely catches anyway, based on the smug smile she gets in return.
“I don’t put out on the first date,” Kelley shrugs, and then, like something is dawning on her, she points a finger at Alex. “Despite what you might have heard.”
“Who says this was a date?” Alex asks, stationing herself at the edge of the bed, her fingers itching to reach out for the spot where Kelley’s foot is poking up from under the blanket.
“Drinks, dancing, destroying a mutual enemy? That’s a date, my friend.”
“Well who said I wanted you to put out?”
It’s a joke that Alex doesn’t stumble her way through, because the possibility of it is real and tempting, and easier to handle now that’s it’s somewhere further out in the distance.
Kelley answers with a scoffed, “Please.”
“Shut up,” Alex grins, and then the room is quiet save for her fidgeting feet on the carpet, and the gentle hum of the air conditioner always Kelley cranks down too low.
“Hey,” Kelley says, her voice cutting through the quiet, soft and patient, “Pajamas, and then other things.”
*
In the bathroom Alex takes her time. She washes her face and brushes her teeth, and every time she catches her reflection in the mirror she smiles back at herself wider than the last time.
*
Kelley’s pretending to watch tv when Alex steps back into the room, and Alex pretends to debate which bed she should slip into when she pauses in the empty space between both of them.
Kelley clicks off the tv and looks up at her then, just as Alex is reaching for the corner of Kelley’s blankets, peeling them back with a steady hand before sliding in underneath. She presses tight into Kelley’s side, heat in all the places their limbs meet.
“So,” Kelley starts, a dramatic pause in between breaths. “A lot of things happened tonight.”
The edges of her raspy laugh catch in her throat, and Alex’s bare foot finds Kelley’s underneath the blanket.
“Alex?”
“Hm?”
“We should talk about this, right?” Kelley doesn’t wait for Alex to answer before she launches into a string of words that come out too fast. “I don’t know how this works, me and you like this, and I’m not usually one to think these things through, but this is different. This is like, very different. And I just- I want you to be comfortable, ok?”
“Kelley, I’m comfortable.” Alex says, a promise that’s so close to being true.
“You turned ghost white when you grinded up on me in the hallway.”
Kelley’s never looked more pleased at a combination of words.
“Shut up!” Alex doesn’t bother correcting her because they both know it’s true, but she pokes a finger into Kelley’s ribs anyway, and when she laughs and squirms away, Alex follows the noise to kiss her quiet.
They pull apart when they want to, soft breaths and cool hands across the slopes of warm cheeks, and Kelley shakes her head just before she presses in for one more, like she still can’t quite believe it, and Alex is the one to kiss her until she does.
“You’re my best friend,” Kelley says when she pulls away, her fingers curled around Alex’s forearm. “And I love you.”
Alex’s eyes go wide at that, until Kelley rolls her in response.
“In the best friend sort of way. God, slow your roll.”
Alex narrows her eyes, and ignores the flutter inside her ribs, “I know that.”
“I said I wasn’t waiting for you and I meant it, but I did think about it sometimes, what it would be like if you suddenly, weirdly, just out of left field felt the same way. And it always ended with a lot of fireworks and, you know? I mean, you know.” Kelley says, her suggestion lacking in any subtlety, a joke meant to disarm.
“I think I figured it out,” Alex deadpans.
“Well now it’s real, and it’s right in front of me, and I think it scares me a little bit too, the idea of me and you and crossing that line. It’s a big deal, and I don’t want to mess it up. So the fireworks and everything else, that can wait. I’ve spent the last seven months with a very decent handle on this, and I can go seven more if you need. I just want you, Alex, when you’re ready.”
The warmth in Kelley’s words is enough to finally tame the wild way her heart has been beating all night, and in the quiet wake it leaves behind, Alex finds something else.
She studies the sharp angles of Kelley’s profile, the familiar lines now feeling completely new in the soft light of their room and the aftermath of their night, and Alex wonders how quickly she can fall in love.
She pushes back the blankets tucked up around their waist and moves without a word, her legs settling on either side of Kelley’s, her bony knees making an unwelcoming seat that Alex doesn’t plan to stay in for long. When Alex leans forward, hands pressing into the top of her friend’s thighs, Kelley’s eyes close first and Alex takes a second to marvel at the naked hope trembling across the lines of her eyelids.
“I won’t need seven months,” Alex whispers, her words ghosting across the spot where Kelley is expecting her lips. “Not with you.”
Alex waits for her eyes to open, fast and wide like a kid on Christmas morning, before she pulls away the pillow still tucked behind Kelley, her back pressing flat into the mattress without it.
Everything shifts in silence, and Alex lets herself hover just above, mapping out which of the constellations across Kelley’s skin she wants to drag her lips along first while her long hair falls like a curtain around them.
In the fading seconds just before she leans down to kiss her best friend in a way that’s sure to change everything, Alex wonders if she’s ever felt braver than this moment.
And when she finally presses her lips to the cluster of freckles on Kelley’s chin, Alex is sure she hasn’t.