Secret Kiss (Arrilana)
“Suzie invited us out for drinks tonight, you in?”
Lana raised a brow, looking up from her laptop. “Neither of us are 21 yet, in case you forgot.”
“That’s literally never stopped us before.” Jewels bounced over, draping herself over the side of Lana’s bed and looking up at her with wide hopeful eyes. “Please? This is the first time Suzie asked me out for drinks — I need you there to be my wingwoman.”
Lana pursed her lips, closing her laptop and turning her attention fully towards her roommate. “Why don’t you ask Kori or Lydia?”
“Because there’s no way in hell a bouncer will buy that Lydia is 21, and Kori will spill the beans about my crush as soon as she gets half a drink in her. Plus you’re my best friend,” Jewels whined, lips set in an adorable pout.
“I’d love to—“ she started to say and Jewels perked up instantly. “But I can’t.”
She felt a bit like a monster as she watched Jewels’ face fall. “It’s Arri’s birthday, I promised I’d spend the night with her,” she jumped into an explanation quickly.
Jewels bit her lip, brow furrowing. “Well, she and Suzie get along fine, right? Why don’t we just invite her?”
“Invite who?” Came a smooth voice from the doorway.
Lana’s heart fluttered as she caught sight of her girlfriend, leaning against the doorframe, smiling at Lana as if there was nobody else in the world. If Jewels wasn’t there, Lana would already have Arrietty in her arms, those perfect lips captured in her own. But Jewels was there, so she just smiled back.
Jewels popped up immediately, a glint in her eyes. “Arrietty, you like Suzie, right?”
Arrietty tilted her head to the side, a few strands of dark hair falling out of her loose braid. “She’s fine. We don’t talk all that much.”
“Okay, great. perfect,” Jewels barreled forward, entirely ignoring Arrietty’s response. “She invited us out for drinks tonight. You should come! I’ll buy you a birthday drink. Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
“Lana and I have dinner plans,” she said smoothly, walking over to the bed. Lana’s heart raced and her hand twitched with the urge to touch, to pull her girlfriend onto the shitty twin mattress and kiss every inch of tanned skin she could reach.
Jewels, however, didn’t seem to notice anything. “After, then?”
Lana had to hand it to her, she was nothing if not persistent. She looked at her girlfriend, raising her brows in a silent question.
“My roommate isn’t home tonight,” Arri murmured, so soft that Lana wondered for a second if she had imagined it.
Shifting imperceptibly closer, Lana let her hand ‘accidentally’ brush against Arrietty’s. “Sorry, Jewels. I’ll make it up to you next time,” Lana breathed, letting herself drown in the depths of Arrietty’s heated gaze.
Jewels said something in response — Lana was pretty sure she did at least — but she didn’t hear a word of it. Not when Arrietty was staring at her like that, making her entire body prickle with anticipation.
Suddenly, there were soft lips against hers, a familiar tongue gently teasing her lips apart. Lana’s eyes fluttered shut, hand coming up to cup her cheek as she kissed back — until a sudden bolt of fear shot down her spine.
Scrambling away as quickly as she could, her head whipped around wildly to find Jewels, already trying to come up with some sort of excuse, some lie to save face.
“Wow. Even on my birthday, I don’t get to kiss my girlfriend? I’m wounded.” Arrietty sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping her arms around Lana’s waist to pull her onto her lap.
Lana tried to calm her racing heart. “What about Jewels? What if she saw us—“ she swallowed thickly.
Rolling her eyes, Arrietty tilted her head up to peck Lana’s lips once more. “She left, baby. She’s off to try and convince Sam to go to the bar with her. It’s just us now.”
Looking over to the door and then back to Arrietty, she let herself be shifted onto her lap properly, arms snaking around her neck. “She could come back any minute…”
It was a half-assed protest and Arrietty knew it, leaning in to place a warm kiss on the tender flesh where Lana’s throat met her jaw. “That still gives us a minute or two to do whatever we please,” she breathed out against the soft skin, an electric current running through her body at the sensation. If she wasn’t careful, she could lose herself in this, let herself spend the rest of the night getting taken apart by Arrietty’s devilish mouth, Jewels be damned.
Moving carefully, she tucked two fingers underneath Arrietty’s chin, tilting her head up. Staring down into her dark twinkling eyes, the love she was suddenly hit with felt overwhelming – a semi-truck ramming into her at full speed. It was moments like this where she thought maybe she could let the world know about them; she wanted to be able to shout from the rooftops that Arrietty was hers and nobody else's.
Leaning in, she connected their lips gently, warmth blooming like a flower in her chest as they kissed, bodies melting together to become one.
The familiar click of the door being unlocked filled Lana’s ears like a gunshot. Shoving Arrietty away, Lana scrambled for purchase, praying she didn’t look too disheveled.
Someday. Someday she would tell Jewels; she would tell everyone.
Just not today.