roisa high school fake dating au pt. 6
Luisa looked at Clara. Really looked at her. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen her before – wasn’t as though she wasn’t seeing her now – but she hadn’t really expected Clara to dare her to do such a thing. Not that there was anything wrong with it, not after she’d dared Clara to kiss her. Normally, she would feel – not frustrated, not really, because she liked kissing girls – really, she did, she liked kissing girls – but she didn’t want to just be one of those one-off kisses. She couldn’t handle that. Not with Clara.
Her lips pressed together and she gave a little nod. She wasn’t going to double check with Clara or question her – she knew the sort of look Clara was giving her now, knew that determined look, knew the taking a deep breath before saying something – those were all actions she did, once upon a time, and not so once upon a time – she did them now, too, when she needed the gumption to get herself to do something she wanted to do – or knew she had to do and didn’t want to do. Her eyes met Clara’s. “Any kind of kiss?” she asked.
Clara pressed her lips together and then shook her head.
Luisa could feel her heart drop. Of course, she didn’t want a real kiss. Or she did. She knew what Clara wanted, knew that Clara had admitted to wanting to kiss her, knew that Clara…had kissed her but hadn’t really kissed her – and she knew that Clara had been kissed before, but maybe it was just hard for her to initiate. She understood that. Some people were like that.
Or maybe Clara just hadn’t kissed a girl before and wasn’t sure how to go about doing it.
“What kind of kiss do you want, then?” Luisa asked, meeting Clara’s eyes. She wasn’t going to hold out hope, wasn’t going to expect anything, wasn’t going to—
“Like you’d kiss me if your dad walked in,” Clara said, dropping her gaze and not meeting her eyes. “Like you’d kiss me if I was actually your girlfriend.”
Oh.
Oh.
Luisa bit her lower lip as she began to smile. She could do that. She could really, really do that. That was, after all, what she’d hoped Clara would do. Maybe Clara really just didn’t know how to start these things. But that was a question for later.
“Stay very still,” Luisa whispered, and she reached over, her fingers tracing Clara’s face before she pushed strands of her frizzy red hair back out of her face. It was an excuse to lean closer – she didn’t really need an excuse, given the dare, which was enough of an excuse in and of itself – but she liked having one anyway. Besides, she didn’t want to just all up and kiss her. There was a certain comfortability level that came first, a certain build-up of tension.
Her eyes met Clara’s, but Clara’s searched hers, unable to hold still.
Luisa shifted positions. Her eyes flicked down to Clara’s lips, focused there for a few seconds, and then back up to Clara’s eyes. Then she leaned forward so that their noses just touched, brushing hers against Clara’s. She waited for Clara’s eyes to close, waited for her to brush her nose against hers, too, for her to lean forward so that their lips were just touching. Then—
“Luisa Alver.”
Clara jumped back all at once, smacking her head against the headboard. She rubbed her head with one hand. “What was that?”
Luisa winced. “My dad.” As soon as she said it, there came a pounding at the door, and Clara’s eyes met hers, not afraid because she didn’t think Clara looked afraid, but glancing from her eyes to her lips as though questioning whether they should be doing anything at all. Luisa shook her head. “Just stay there. Don’t say anything.” She crept off of her treasure box bed, pushing herself up with the flats of her hands, and walked over to the door, opening it with a sheepish grin. “Hey, Dad.”
Her father pushed the door open, revealing Clara sitting on the bed where Luisa had abandoned her. Luisa turned to face her friend, not so much watching her dad’s reaction to her as watching her reaction to him, gauging it. Clara sat completely still, focused only on Luisa, occasionally letting her gaze drift to Luisa’s dad, but nevertheless appearing just as confident as Luisa knew she could. She felt her heart swell with happiness.
“Who is this?” her father asked.
She hated when he asked her questions and he sounded mad at her. He wasn’t nearly as mad at her half of the time as he was at Rafael, other than when she and her – not friends but – party members had broken into his liquor cabinet, and he sounded mad at her now. Not nearly as mad as either of those occasions, but still mad.
“This is my girlfriend,” Luisa said, her lips turning up into what she hoped looked like a comfortable, smug, and not at all awkward smile. “Her name’s Clara. I thought it would be nice to bring her back so that she could meet you.” She glanced up and met her dad’s eyes. He was still taller than her, which was frustrating, but she was sure she still had a little bit of a growth spurt left, and when that was done, she would be taller than him.
Clara was already taller than both of them. That was maybe part of the appeal. Luisa was easily average height, which meant there was rarely a huge height gap, and while Clara wasn’t that much taller than her, Luisa liked that she was smaller than Clara was. It made her feel comfortable. She couldn’t say why.
“And you didn’t consider asking me before bringing her here?”
Luisa shrugged. “I didn’t think you would mind. It’s just one person – and my girlfriend – so I thought, since she wasn’t a friend but a date, you’d be fine with that.” She met her dad’s eyes. “You are fine with it, aren’t you?”
Her father glanced down and met her eyes. “We will talk about this later.” Then he glanced over and gave Clara a nod. “I’ll talk to you at dinner.”
Clara nodded once. “Yes, sir.”
Then her father closed the door behind him, leaving them alone.
Luisa let out a deeply held breath and made her way back to her bed before collapsing backwards. “That went better than I hoped.”
“You said he would be fine!” Clara said, staring at her. “You said this was all okay!”
Luisa grinned, and she was sure it was awkward this time. “I hoped it would be. And it was! So we’re fine.” She propped herself up on her elbows and then stared at Clara. “No worries. He wasn’t mad at you. And dinner will be fine.” She slowly sat back up. “Now where were we?”