"Best Friend's Sibling" Prompt from an anon on tumblr that got slightly (read: very) out of control. Comprised of nine parts, to be uploaded in three chunks. Parts 4-6 should be uploaded soon. Everything is written already (in four or five days pretty much, so it's not my best writing because it's kind of quantity over quality, but I like the story arc). A lot of this is based off of my own teenage years, particularly Gail's processing/denial of her feelings, so I'm quite proud of the story, even if the writing could be better.
This is by far the shortest section, when I was writing this bit I thought I would still finish in under 10,000 words. That, as you will see soon, did not happen.
Pt.1
Gail didn't even know that Alex had a sister until she went to her house for dinner for the first time, a few months after they met. Alex later informed her that she'd never mentioned the sister, Holly, before because she was "super boring", and a "massive geek". Gail accepted it without much questioning, Holly did have her head buried in a book the whole time they were in the same room, and the only thing Gail could take away from the encounter was that Holly intimidated her somewhat, probably because she was fourteen, whilst Gail and Alex were only ten.
Alex's other sibling, Rob, was far more interesting. He was eight, and would play PlayStation with them, helping Gail in her games against Alex. Unlike the Stewart children, the Pecks weren't allowed games consoles in the house, meaning those first few times Gail went over to their house she needed all the help she could get. Rob was more than happy to oblige; excited just to be included in his big sister's game.
Gail probably saw Holly no more than eight times before her thirteenth birthday. She didn't get to go over to Alex's house much, the two didn't go to school with each other, and lived a twenty minute drive apart that it always took some effort to persuade their parents to make. They met each other during the softball practice their parents made them attend as children, drawn to each other due to their mutual dislike of all things sporty. They never actually quit the team though, relishing their only chance to see each other every week, but of course they usually just sat in the bleachers and avoided getting involved in any way. When Gail was actually allowed to go to her best friend's house, Holly always seemed to be out, or working in her room. They would only properly see each other if Holly joined them for dinner, and even that was rare; Holly usually ate with her parents once her Dad got home from work, while Gail, Alex and Rob would eat earlier in front of the television –a novelty to Gail, who was used to sharing an uncomfortable silent meal at the table with her parents; although Alex assured her they were only allowed to eat in front of the television when she was visiting. The only words Gail and the eldest Stewart Sibling would be a quick "Hello" if they passed one another in the hallway.
When they were thirteen, Gail and Alex's coach politely suggested to their parents that their talents probably lay elsewhere, and their surprisingly long membership of South York Junior Softball Club ended. Fortunately, Holly had received her full driver's license a couple of months earlier, and was willing to drive them between each other's houses more often than their parents would. Those encounters too, were largely devoid of interaction beyond polite greetings, however. Holly usually drove in silence, while her sister and Gail would chat away in the back. Gail never really noticed that Holly was listening to their gossiping though, smiling to herself at the girls' juvenile discussions about the things they considered important in life.
Then Holly went to college. But that turned out not to matter too much, because the girls had started High School. While Gail's was still a different High School to Alex's, the transition meant both girls were now allowed to take public transport to visit one another.
Gail disliked the people at her high school as much as she had the ones at her junior high. However, at Alex's fifteenth birthday party she met her best friend's school friends, and it turned out she actually didn't mind them. There were two boys; Tim and Kyle, and one girl; Lizzie. More and more, Gail would be with Alex and the other three would turn up, and the blonde teenager found, surprisingly, she didn't care too much. Soon she was almost fully integrated into their friendship group, joining them most weekends in whatever activity they were doing; usually lazing in one of their living rooms watching television. They enjoyed her dry humour, and she actually enjoyed the company, it was certainly preferable to being with her mother or any of the God awful girls she went to school with.
~x~
"Hey, Gail, have you met Alex's sister?" Kyle asked one day, as they lay in Lizzie's garden drinking lemonade in the summer between their freshman and sophomore years.
"Huh? Holly? Yeah." Gail replied absently.
"Why didn't you tell us Alex had a smoking hot nineteen year old sister?" Kyle demanded jokingly.
Gail sat up in surprise. "What?!"
"We were doing our maths homework in Alex's kitchen and she just walked in, just back from university, and we had no idea who she was. She was so hot!"
Gail looked at him in shock, and then across to Tim who was nodding his agreement.
Alex rolled her eyes. "Shut up you two, she's my sister. And she's not hot."
Gail glanced between them all in confusion, Tim and Kyle were looking at her like they genuinely wanted an explanation, Alex was grimacing at the sky in slight disgust, and Lizzie was just grinning to herself.
"Well, she is kind of hot, to be fair, Alex." Lizzie pointed out, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She beat away Alex's hand as she tried to swat at her knee.
Gail considered it. Holly was, now she thought about it properly, fairly attractive. She had long wavy brown hair, where Alex's was dead straight, and the sort of body Gail could only hope she would one day develop, although that didn't seem very likely. And on the two or three times Gail had seen her laugh, she had one of those wide, enchanting smiles that felt so genuine it could comfort every insecurity you could ever have. Gail had only met three people who had those sort of smiles, one was her first grade teacher Mrs Eisen, the second was the male nurse who had looked after her in the hospital when she broke her leg when she was eight, and the third, was Holly. To be honest, Gail was always kind of intimidated by that smile, unused to feelings of genuine appreciation or positivity being directed towards her.
"But you don't actually fancy her." Lizzie continued, turning to the boys. "You just have a thing for her because she's older and smarter and completely unobtainable. If you actually got to know her the illusion would disappear. It's normal, that's why people always fancy their teachers, it's not because you actually have feelings for her." Lizzie was the smart one of them, and Gail sighed quietly in relief, her heart had been starting to beat uncomfortably fast thinking about her best friend's older sister.
"Wait, you think she's hot too?" Tim asked, and Gail didn't think she'd ever seen him look so excited.
"Well, yeah, she is. Stop trying to hit me, Alex!"
"That's so hot." Tim murmured.
Alex shot him a steely glare.
"It's not like that, it's not like I want to be with her, so stop thinking about it like we are. I bet Gail feels the same, don't you?"
"Huh?" Gail glanced at Lizzie, she envied her friend's ability to talk about things without letting them bother her in the slightest; the discussion was getting her uncomfortably flustered. "Yeah, she's pretty, I guess. I mean, I've known her ages, I don't think I could see her that way." She lied. She wasn't quite sure why, Lizzie had just offered a perfectly rational explanation for her feelings without realising it, but she didn't feel like it was something she should be admitting. Lizzie was just way better at treating things like they weren't a big deal, Gail decided.
"That makes sense." Lizzie nodded, and the topic was forgotten for the rest of the day.
When she got home she did some googling, and it turned out Lizzie was right, teenagers got these crushes all the time, and it didn't mean anything. Even if they were the same sex, the websites told her, it meant nothing.
Pt. 2
Holly was mentioned many times that summer. Once, when her friend from university, Ellie, came to visit, the two sunbathed in the Stewart's garden together in their bikinis, unaware of four pairs of eyes observing them from Alex's bedroom window, while the Stewart they were actually friends with threw a tantrum on her bed. But largely the discussion of Holly had nothing to do with the older Stewart being around. Instead it occurred because Tim and Kyle greatly enjoyed how much they could provoke Alex by discussing her older sister, while Lizzie would roll her eyes and Gail would join in their teasing under the auspices of just enjoying winding her best friend up, as much because she was amused as because she was apparently just as attracted to the perfectly endowed (something Gail was increasingly aware of since bikini-gate) brunette.
When Holly went back to college, she slowly faded from their topics of conversation again. The boys didn't see her when she returned at Christmas, so didn't get a chance to resume their lusting, but Gail did. She was at the Stewart's house, waiting for Alex to return from her quick excursion to the store to get cheese puffs so they could resume talking about the middle Stewart's new boyfriend, Daniel. She took a trip to the bathroom, and discovered something she wasn't expecting for another two days. She looked in the bathroom cupboard, and in the drawer she knew Alex usually kept her sanitary products, but found nothing. Mr and Mrs Stewart were at work, the only people in were Rob, Holly, and Holly's friend Ellie, who was visiting again. Gail had thus far avoided seeing Holly at all this summer, and had been hoping to keep things that way.
Gail seriously considered waiting for Alex to return, but she had only just left, she could be another half an hour. Eventually she worked up the courage to knock on Holly's door. Gail heard someone swearing, then some footsteps and giggling, before the door opened. Holly smiled at her brightly, but Gail couldn't help notice she looked slightly less put together than usual. "Hey, Gail." Gail felt brown eyes running up and down the length of her body. "You look so much older than when I last saw you, you look great!"
"Hi." Gail murmured. The compliment would have on any other occasion caused her to near pass out in joy, even though she knew she looked good, the last remnants of her puppy fat were disappearing, she'd started bleaching her hair, hiding the reddish mousy brown she so despised, and she had grown boobs finally, but she was so nervous it barely registered. "Can I uh, ask you something?"
"Sure, what's up?"
Gail looked nervously at the open door behind the brunette, and Holly followed her gaze. She reached behind her to close the door. "Is everything ok?"
"Yeah, I uh… wheredoyoukeepyourtampons?" She spoke hurriedly.
"I'm sorry?" Holly's eyes narrowed as she tried to work out what had been said, her smile not faltering for a moment.
Gail glanced around to check Rob hadn't snuck out of his room and was listening to them. "Do you have a, uh, tampon?" She said, quietly. "Please."
Holly's eyes lit up. "Oh right, yes, of course. You almost scared me there, I thought something had happened to Alex. Doesn't she have any?"
"Buying cheesepuffs." Gail brushed off, desperate for this conversation to be over as soon as possible, she could feel how red she was turning. "Can you get me…?"
"I have some in here, come in." Holly opened the door to her room again, and Gail followed her in, eying suspiciously the black haired girl relaxing on her bed, reading a magazine. "How big?" She asked as she rooted through her drawers.
"Um, average? I mean medium, normal. Whatever, anything." Gail spluttered. This was going disastrously.
Holly just smiled and handed her the small packet, and Gail was sure she had deliberately angled the manoeuvre so Ellie couldn't see what item had just exchanged hands, even though it must have been obvious what it was from the context. But Gail appreciated that Holly was trying not to increase her discomfort. The blonde offered a quick smile and exited the room as quickly as possible.
When Holly and Ellie came down to the kitchen for dinner later, Holly tried to smile at her, but Gail was still mortified. It was then, she decided, that she would have to avoid all interaction with Holly Stewart until her hormones settled down to normal levels, which biology and teen movies told her should happen in two to three years.
~x~
The summer before their junior year, Alex and Daniel were getting serious. Unfortunately, this led to a conversation Gail really didn't want to be having. Having emotionally closed off parents really did not prepare her for conversations about sex, even with her closest friends.
"You really think you're ready?" Gail asked, for the fourth time.
"Yeah, he's coming over tonight, Holly's going to Rob's hockey game, and Mom and Dad are going for dinner. We'll have at least three hours, probably four. There's just one problem."
"What?"
"I don't have any condoms."
Gail looked at her blankly. "Well nor do I."
"Yeah, but I was wondering, if I gave you the money, would you…?"
"No." Gail cut her off.
"Please."
"No, I'm not buying johns for you."
"Johns? You're so weird, Gail."
"Why can't you get them?"
"Because… what if someone sees me?" Alex floundered.
"What if someone sees me? My parents would murder me."
"Fine. Shit. Do you think we need to use one?"
Gail looked at her best friend incredulously.
"Ok, stupid question. Fuck." Alex fell back on her bed, groaning.
"Why don't you ask Holly? She's twenty, she's got to have some?" Gail asked.
"She's out. She's picking Rob up from his friend's house later, she won't be coming home."
"Oh." While this did not help her friend out one bit, Gail couldn't help be glad the elder Stewart wasn't going to be coming home whilst she was still there.
"Let's go look through her drawers."
"What?"
"Well, like you said, she's got to have some, I'm sure she won't notice if one goes missing." Alex jumped out of her bed before Gail could stop her, and strode into her elder sister's bedroom.
She stopped just inside the doorway. "Where do you think she keeps them?"
"Well probably with her tampons, in there." Gail mused, pointing at one of the drawers. Alex looked at her, confused.
Gail sighed. "She gave me one once, I'll look; watch the door in case your parents come upstairs."
Alex went to the doorway as Gail opened the door. There were the tampons, and next to them, some lube. However, no condoms. Gail frowned, they must be in this drawer too, surely.
She started rifling through the neatly folded clothes that filled the rest of the drawer, and was barely able to stifle her surprise at what she discovered next. Underneath a sweatshirt Gail had seen a few times, was a purple phallus. It wasn't hugely realistic – or what Gail imagined to be realistic, given her only relatively limited experience with penises – but that is definitely what it was. She was strangely impressed. She didn't think of Holly as the dildo type. But then dangerous images started to enter her mind. Images of Holly lying on the bed just a meter behind where Gail was currently stood, open legged, toy in hand…
She shook the image off, and started to carry on searching, but quickly stopped again when she noticed that the toy was attached to some black straps. Straps of a harness. Gail's breathing became heavier as she resumed her searching. It could mean anything, she told herself. Then her fingers brushed on something that felt like cardboard, and she grabbed it, hoping it was the prized box of condoms and she could get out of here. But it wasn't. It was a slightly tatty magazine. With an enormous pair of boobs on the front. Along with about ten other, less ridiculously proportioned, pairs of boobs. The boobs had all been doodled on, and written under them was a message. "Hols, I know this is completely not your kind of thing, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by pages twelve through seventeen. ;) ENJOY! –S."
Gail definitely did not want to know what was on pages twelve through seventeen, so she put it back where she found it and carried on searching. She was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this gross invasion of privacy, and was about to give up when she uncovered a book. 'The Ultimate Guide to Lesbian Sex.' She felt an immediate pang of guilt and returned it to the drawer hastily, starting to rearrange everything to the position it had been when she opened it, cursing herself for ever agreeing to this endeavour.
"Fuck." Alex said behind her, and Gail spun around, terrified her best friend had seen what she had discovered. But Alex was looking out the window. "Holly's home."
Gail looked at the drawer, it definitely did not look anything like it had ten minutes ago. "Shit, you said she wasn't coming back."
"She wasn't meant to, did you find any condoms?"
"No, I don't think she has any." Gail said, trying desperately to make everything look more orderly.
"Crap, ok, come on, let's get out of here, she's about to get into the house."
Gail took a last guilty look at the open drawer, before pushing it shut and letting Alex pull her out of the room.
~x~
Two hours later, as they sat playing on her games console, Alex spoke up.
"I should go ask her."
"Huh?"
"I should ask her if she has any condoms."
Gail looked across at her friend. "I really don't think she has any."
"Still, no harm in asking. Come with?"
Gail froze. "I don't think…"
Alex stood up and kicked her thigh lightly. "Come on, I know you've always been super embarrassed around her, but it's silly, she's such a dweeb; she's nothing to be intimidated by."
Gail sighed, knowing she wasn't getting out of this. She stood back, leaning against the wall as Alex knocked on her sister's door. Holly opened it, confused.
"Hi…?" Holly never had that huge smile she always gave Gail when she addressed her younger sister.
"Hi. Can we, uh, ask you something?"
Gail scowled at her best friend and coughed pointedly.
"Fine, can I ask you something." Alex corrected.
"Sure?" Holly looked suspicious.
"Do you promise not to tell Mom and Dad?"
Holly's eyes narrowed. "I suppose, as long as you're not in any danger…"
"What? No!" Alex said hurriedly, then glanced up and down the hallway. "Do you, uh, have any condoms?"
Whatever Holly was expecting, that clearly wasn't it. "No… why?"
"Are you sure? It's just me and Daniel…"
Holly cut her off. "Ew, no, don't finish that sentence." She appraised her sister. "Are you sure you're ready?"
Alex sighed exasperatedly. "We've been together for ages, Holly. And we're both sixteen. And we've done everything else…"
"No, stop, stop talking." Holly pondered her younger sister for a moment. "Why don't you go and buy them?"
"Because... what if someone sees and tells mom?"
Holly rolled her eyes, and glanced at her watch. "Give me a twenty."
"What?"
"Twenty, and I'll go get some."
"They cost twenty dollars?"
"No, but I'm taking commission." Gail smiled at that, and Holly seemed to notice because she glanced over and flashed a quick but large smile at her. Gail, naturally, instantly flushed bright red.
"Fine, I'm going to get my purse." Alex said, turning to head to her room. Holly made to do the same, but stopped herself at the last moment.
"Hey Alex, wait." Holly called, and Alex turned around, clearly hoping that Holly was about to retract her monetary demands.
"You didn't go looking for some in my room already did you?" Gail's heart immediately sank. She had been silently convincing herself for the past two hours that she had done a good enough job of restoring order to what had been, until she pillaged it, a very neat and well organised drawer. But in her heart she knew she had been kidding herself, and Holly was bound to realise someone had been in there.
"What?" Thank God Alex was a relatively accomplished liar.
Holly searched her sister's eyes. "You didn't try and… you know, never mind, I'm just going to grab a jacket." Holly gave in. She didn't look quite like she believed Alex wholeheartedly, but Gail suspected that Holly knew if Alex had found what she had, that she wouldn't have been able to hide it.
Holly left for the shop, and Gail went home in her absence, not keen to face her again when she returned. In her bed that night she finally had a chance to stop and process. Holly Stewart was almost certainly a lesbian. The girl she had a crush, a harmless, superficial crush, she reminded herself, on, was a lesbian. Fuck.
Pt. 3
Gail never told Alex what she found in her sister's drawers. But she did nearly punch her the next day when Alex casually informed her that their quest for prophylactics had been entirely pointless because Daniel had turned up to her house with a box of condoms twice the size of the one Holly had bought her.
Holly was back at University soon, and the next year was remarkably similar to the one previous. The boys' jokes about Holly continued, then dwindled in exactly the same manner as they had before. The only difference was that now it wasn't just Alex who had a boyfriend, but Gail too, and Kyle had a girlfriend. Although, come October, Alex didn't actually have a boyfriend anymore anyway. After successfully avoiding Holly all Christmas, Alex and Gail recreated their search for condoms, but this time for Gail's benefit, and with a lot more success, largely due to Alex no longer being terrified of purchasing them.
Gail understood now, the obsession with sex. Her boyfriend, Andrew's fingers and tongue didn't possess any overwhelming talents, but when they got into a rhythm, when he started to understand the pace and force Gail liked, she enjoyed it. She enjoyed it multiple times over. When she and Andrew eventually broke up, just before the summer, she was almost sadder about the fact sex was stopping than that they were breaking up.
She considered phoning up Holly and asking where she bought the purple dildo so she could go and buy something for herself, probably not a dildo, maybe something that vibrated, she liked the idea of that – she was absolutely not ordering something online with her mother's tendency to do random spot checks on incoming packages. But that consideration disappeared almost immediately, when she remembered on exactly how many levels that would be weird. Least of all it would involve admitting that she even knew about the existence of the purple dildo in the first place.
She had barely thought about Holly this year, somehow. There was one awkward moment during sex when she had closed her eyes and images of Holly's face had flashed across her imagination, but she shut that down pretty quickly.
In fact, when Holly came back in the summer, Gail managed to behave like a normal human being in front of her. Something she put down to the fact she was four months off turning eighteen now, and her hormones must be somewhere near calming down.
~x~
They were sat around the Stewart's kitchen table early one evening; she, Alex, Lizzie, Tim, Kyle, and Kyle's irritating girlfriend Lucy, who had somehow infiltrated their friendship group at some point in the past six months. Kyle was teaching them all to play poker, in theory. But in actuality, Gail and Kyle were watching the garden where Holly was practising yoga in only a sports bra and shorts, Lucy and Alex were poring over a takeout menu, and Tim and Lizzie were not-so-surreptitiously feeling each other up under the table. That had been a recent development in the past couple of months. They had yet to tell the others, even though it was painfully obvious, but the rest of them; Kyle, Alex and Gail, along with, to Gail's disgust, Lucy, had agreed to let them tell them in their own time. When stuff like this happened Gail desperately wanted to yell at them that everyone knew, though.
Gail's trance was broken when Holly stopped stretching to answer her phone. She and Kyle slumped back into their seats, searching for something to distract them. Yes, her hormones may be settling down, and she may be able to form whole sentences in front of her crush now, but that didn't mean she had to stop admiring her beauty. Gail knew from the way her peers talked about the body of Beyoncé that there was nothing necessarily gay about admiring another woman's physique. And in her opinion, Holly had a far better body than Beyoncé, so she really was completely justified in her leering.
She didn't have to be distracted for long though, because just then Holly entered the kitchen, a rare scowl on her face. Up close, Gail didn't know whether she'd rather be looking at her ample breasts, her ridiculously toned chest, or her long, shapely legs. She didn't have to decide though, because Holly, unexpectedly, started speaking to them, forcing Gail's gaze to be drawn to her face. Not that that was much of a hardship.
"Do any of you guys play softball?" She asked, and they looked at each other suspiciously. Gail leant back in her seat, satisfied that she was going to be obliged to do nothing here. She saw Alex do the same.
"Why?" Tim asked.
"I have a game this weekend with some of my friends from high school, it's just a casual league, but one of my team dropped out, and if we don't get a replacement we'll have to forfeit the game."
The whole group sighed in relief. "We have a field trip this weekend." Kyle explained. "Sorry."
"Oh, all of you?"
"Yeah." Alex replied. "Oh, except Gail, obviously, she's not at our school."
Holly looked over at the blonde, a definite wary look on her face. Holly had watched a couple of her games when she and Alex were in their team, Gail was not surprised that she was taking her time deciding if she actually wanted her on her team.
"I don't suppose you're any better than you were when you were twelve?" The brunette asked, hopefully.
"Not unless you can improve without actually playing." Gail retorted. "Don't worry, I'm really not interested."
"You may be the only person we know who's available." Holly said. "Look, I'll try phoning around to find someone, but if I can't get someone, will you think about it? Please." Holly gave her a pleading smile.
Gail narrowed her eyes. "Maybe. I'm not promising anything. I don't usually hang out with nerds at the weekend."
Holly gave her that smile. The big, complete one that made her feel uncomfortable since she was ten years old. Her heart flipped.
Holly then rested her chin on the top of her sister's head. "Are you getting Thai?" She asked, glancing down at the takeout menu.
Alex frowned. "Yes."
"Mm, could you order me a Green Curry please? Shrimp."
Alex twisted her head to direct her scowl directly at Holly.
"Don't worry, I won't insist on sitting here and eating it with you." Holly rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't want to ruin your mojo."
Alex's scowl was not abated. "Fine." She eventually conceded.
"Thank you, Lexie." Holly smiled, leaning down to kiss her sister's cheek before bouncing out of the room.
Alex glared around at them all, daring any of them to use her nickname. Only Gail gave in.
"Hurry up then Lexie, order our dinner!" She grinned, and received a smack to the back of the head for her audacity.
~x~
Holly sauntered back into the kitchen half an hour later, a glum look on her face. She fell into the seat next to Gail. She and Lucy had quickly exited the poker game they had eventually started, and unlike Lucy, Gail did not have a boyfriend to keep touching up to give her something to do. She was almost grateful for the sudden company.
"I don't suppose you've decided you do want to play softball on Saturday?"
Gail groaned. "No luck?"
"None at all. Sorry." Holly sighed.
"I'm really, really bad."
"I know." Holly conceded. "You'd just need to turn up and stand around, try and hit a ball a few times. I'm not asking you to be good, just make up the numbers. Please?"
Gail considered it. "You can't hate me when I'm useless."
Holly smiled. "I won't, I promise. No expectations, whatsoever. The rest of my team is pretty good, we should be ok on our own, we just need you so we don't have to forfeit."
Gail considered the brunette. That smile, with the pleading look in her eyes meant she never stood a chance. "Fine."
"Oh my, thank you!" Holly smiled widely. For a moment, Gail thought she was going to hug her, but that moment, if it even existed, passed quickly.
And then the door rang. Holly went to get it, and came back into the kitchen carrying their dinner. There seemed to a general consensus that food was a priority over poker, much to Gail's relief. She was surprised when, after everyone had plated up their food, Holly returned to the seat next to her. Alex shot her sister a not so subtle glare, but Holly ignored it.
"So can you remember the rules?" Holly asked.
"Sure, hit the ball when you're batting, catch it when you're fielding." Gail shrugged.
Holly laughed, and reached for the paper bag the food had arrived in, flattening it and pulling a pen from her pocket, before she drew out a playing field diagram.
"I know what a playing field looks like, Holly."
"Ok, where's the foul territory?"
Gail tried to remember anything she had ever been taught by her coach. Holly laughed again and started explaining, in more depth than she had any chance of remembering, the exact rules of softball.
Almost an hour later, the diagram had been lost in a heap of trash, and the others had returned to their game. Gail, meanwhile, was well aware that she was still engaging in by far the longest, and least awkward, interaction she'd ever had with her best friend's elder sister, and she knew she definitely did not want it to end any time soon. She cursed internally when Holly's phone rang, interrupting her explanation of the thesis she was planning on writing in the forthcoming academic year. Holly looked at it, and smiled widely.
"Sorry, I need to take this. But I'll see you on Saturday. Thank you so much, again, for this." Holly beamed, and answered the phone. "Hey, El, sorry, give me thirty seconds and I'm all yours. Thanks."
She took the phone away from her ear. "Do you want me to pick you up early? We can go practice before."
"What time is early?" Gail asked warily.
"Well, the game starts at two so… twelve thirty?"
Gail considered the offer. "Ok, sure. You remember where I live?"
"I've driven to your house about fifty times; yes I remember."
Gail nodded. "Ok, see you Saturday."
"See you Saturday." Holly repeated back at her, smiling, and put the phone back to her ear. "Hey, sorry, I was just with my sister's friends; I'm heading back to my room now."
Gail watched Holly exit the room, and returned her attention back to the table, and noticed Lizzie, too, was now out of the game, and was watching her curiously.
"What?" Gail asked, defensively.
"Nothing."
Lizzie's attempt at a reassuring smile reminded Gail of what she had said three years ago, that the boys' crush on Holly would fade if they got to know her. She scowled. That had been the logic she had lived off since that day. But she had just had a conversation with Holly; a long, comfortable conversation, and she still wanted to check out her ass as she left the room, and felt a slight loss inside at her absence. Fuck harmless crushes. That was definitely not what this was. Not that she knew what it was, but it certainly was not what she had been pretending it was for the past two years.
~x~
Twelve thirty on Saturday, Gail was sat nervously in her front room, wearing the running shorts her mother had hopefully bought for her two years previously, and the loosest tank top she owned. It was 29 degrees outside, and she had already applied so much sun screen that her skin was saturated and some of it refused to rub in.
Holly arrived two minutes late, and on the drive to the field, they discussed only the heat.
"It's good tanning weather, at least." Holly commented.
Gail looked across at her, eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, maybe you were the wrong person to make that argument to."
"Maybe." Gail groaned. "I swear, Holly, if I end up burnt looking like a lobster tomorrow, you will owe me so badly."
"I'll make sure you're fielding in the shade."
"I could field in the bleachers; they have shade."
Holly laughed. "Hey, you signed up, you're in this now."
Gail groaned again. "Lord knows why."
Holly smiled and they continued the drive in silence.
At the field Holly tried pitching to her, hoping she may have somehow improved since she was a child, to no avail. In fact, almost to her death, when Gail hurled the bat in her direction on her first try. When Holly had stopped laughing, and Gail had stopped apologising, they reset, and the next five attempts were only marginally more successful, in that Gail kept hold of her bat, but still had not hit a ball.
"It's your posture." Holly offered.
"You sound like my mother."
"No, I mean, you need put your legs further apart." Holly demonstrated the position Gail should be taking, and the blonde tried to emulate it, without much success.
"Further apart." Holly said, standing behind her and kicking the inside of her foot to move her legs apart. Gail obliged.
"Ok, stick your butt out more, get lower." Holly moved around in front of her to observe.
"I thought you were going to stand behind me and guide me into position, like in the movies." Gail pouted.
"Yeah I don't really do rom-coms." Holly laughed.
"Me neither." Gail conceded.
"Ok, you look better now. Three more balls, and then we'll practice catching."
"I'm not five, you know, Holly."
"I know!" Holly smirked.
The game was not a complete disaster. Their team won, apparently. Not that Gail really understood why. She had been focussing on Holly's three instructions. "Try not to get out, but don't worry if you do because we need three people out to end the innings, and you can only be one of them", "If you manage to hit the ball, run." and "if you catch the ball, throw it to whoever's shouting at you loudest."
As it turned out, she did manage to hit the ball once, although it did go straight into the hands of an outfielder. She was just proud she hit it though, and she could have sworn it looked like Holly was too. But she did catch someone out. Holly had definitely looked proud at that one.
"That wasn't too bad, huh?" Holly grinned and bumped Gail's shoulder when the game was over.
"Well I don't think the Jets will be calling me up anytime soon."
"You mean the Mets, the Jets are football." Holly corrected. Gail shrugged.
"Hey, we're going to John's house for a barbeque, you should come."
"You want me to crash your barbeque?"
"It's not crashing, you're part of the team."
Gail checked the time on her phone. "I need to be home by ten thirty, but I can come for a while."
"Great! He lives in Lawrence Park too, so it'll be dead easy for you to get back to your house."
At the barbeque, everyone was sat around the table in John's garden, chatting and drinking beer. Gail felt out of place for the first time that day. They had been part of a team when they were playing softball, but now they were a group of friends who had gone through high school together. A group of twenty one year old friends. Everyone except Gail, that is. She cursed herself for not thinking through her agreeing to come
Holly fell into the seat next to her, holding out a beer for the blonde.
"You realise you're committing a felony, right?" Gail asked, as she took the bottle.
"I wasn't going to invite you to hang out with a load of twenty one year olds and not provide you with any alcohol; that would be kind of cruel." Holly explained. "Besides, giving you a beer is the least I can do to thank you for today."
"It's ok, I had a good time."
"You did?
Gail nodded.
"I'm glad. And you were actually kind of good. Maybe not so much at the batting, but you got someone out, that's something to be proud of." Holly smiled.
"It was a fluke." Gail dismissed.
"No, it was good." Holly said firmly.
Gail looked the brunette in the eyes, trying to gauge what she wanted, but she could see nothing. And the staring was apparently making Holly uncomfortable.
"Lex said you broke up with your boyfriend." Holly restarted their conversation.
"Yeah, well, we broke up with each other, I guess."
"I'm sorry." Holly offered.
Gail shrugged. "It's fine, it didn't bother me that much. I do kind of miss the sex though."
Holly almost spat out her beer, but recovered herself. "I'm sorry. I just find it so weird when people my sister's age talk about sex. That day you two came to me for condoms was a bit of a shock to the system, to be honest."
A part of Gail desperately wanted to tell Holly what she had discovered that day. To tell her she didn't care, that if Holly wanted to talk to someone she could talk to her. But even Gail, with her lacking of normal social boundaries, knew that would be obtrusive.
"So are you seeing someone?" She tried, on the slightest hope Holly may come out of her own accord right there and then.
"Did Lex ask you to ask me that?"
"No, why?"
Holly shook her head. "She's convinced I have a boyfriend in Montreal, she won't stop bugging me about it."
"What, like an exotic Quebecois lover?" Gail teased.
"Something like that." Holly smiled. "I'll answer your question only if you promise not to tell her."
"Cross my heart."
"Yes, I am seeing someone. But I'm not telling you any more than that. In case you lied and you do tell Lex; I don't need her having more ammo than knowing I'm in a relationship."
Gail raised her eyebrows. "I wouldn't tell. But I understand your point." Gail took a swig of her beer.
"Thanks." Holly smiled. "Do you like anyone? If you fancy any of my friends I'll put in a good word for you."
Gail didn't need to look around the table to be able to answer that one. "I'm good, but thanks."