Grease-Monkey
It was almost 4 o'clock.
Jasmine Thomas quickly filled the kettle and turned on the stove. If her calculations were correct, she had approximately 5 minutes before her best friend and roommate arrived home from another day at the garage. And when that happened, she needed to have a piping hot cup of strong tea ready.
As the water heated, she hastily pulled some papers out of the bag she'd brought home from the offices and spread them out on the counter like she'd been hard at work all this time. She placed herself over them busily, glancing from one to another with a pen in hand, as if she were deep in concentration. But she wasn't taking in a word of what she was reading. Her focus was entirely on the clock.
Two minutes…one minute thirty…one minute…
The door banged open, crashing against the wall opposite.
A tiny smile stole across her face that she ducked her head to hide. Jasmine loved that sound.
She could often tell by the way the door opened if Debbie had had a good day or not at the garage.
On days where business had been slow, it would open and shut quickly, writing the day off as a waste, Debbie hastily retreating from a lost cause. On days when business was good, it would hit the opposite wall cheerfully then swing back into place, Debbie having slipped through in the interval. On days when customers or, more often, Daz, were idiots, the door would crash against the wall, be caught by an enraged mechanic then slammed back into its frame with as much force as the frustrated mechanic could muster.
That was today's indicating sound.
"Afternoon Debs," Jasmine called cheerfully, turning away from her papers to lift the whistling kettle off of the burner as Debbie slammed the door hard enough to make the pots in the kitchen rattle. "Welcome home and all. Daz or one of the other idiots?"
The mechanic sighed heavily. "What gave it away?" She asked, fatigue and anger apparent in her voice.
Jasmine shrugged, the secret language of Debbie's door slamming remaining satisfyingly unknown to all but her. "I can just tell." She poured two cups of tea and turned around. She swallowed a laugh and instead shook with silent amusement.
Debbie glared at her. "What's the matter with you, smart-ass?"
Jasmine giggled and smiled at the other girl, not at all offended by the insult. Debbie's work trousers were hanging around her hips, like they always were, her trademark pink hoodie covering her top half. Her hair was stubbornly half-in and half-out of the messy bun Debbie had tied it back in. But her face was streaked and stained with grease and oil. It looked like she had had a car's oil reserves explode in her face. Or she had intentionally poured and smeared grease all over herself.
Jasmine wasn't quite sure which one was true. Probably the latter. "Good God Debbie, do you make any effort to keep clean at work?" She asked, biting her lower lip in amusement.
Debbie folded her arms, her brow low over her eyes. "I'm a flippin' mechanic, we're not well known for our hygiene." She growled good-naturedly.
Jasmine knew this of course. Debbie always came back from work smelling of oil and metal and very occasionally, burned rubber. The smells of home.
Jasmine placed the tea mugs on the counter next to her papers. "Well, thankfully, you live with me." She teased. "I'll keep you in line and keep your lovely face sparkling clean." She turned back to the sink and wet a towel. "No, no. Not yet." She scolded Debbie as the girl tried to pick up a mug of tea. "I need to clean you first."
"I'll clean up later." Debbie muttered, taking a sip of the tea (and leaving an imprint of grease on the lip of the mug, Jasmine was sure).
Jasmine placed one hand on her hip and shook the towel at Debbie. "Put the damn mug down and get over here." She demanded.
Debbie shook her head petulantly and stole another sip.
Jasmine cocked an eyebrow, starting to get a little suspicious. Was Debbie playing with her?
"Don't make me come to you…" She threatened in a low voice, her eyes glinting with mirth.
Debbie's only response was to put the mug down and back away. Jasmine advanced, towel at the ready, preparing for the other girl to bolt.
"Not soap!" Debbie cried dramatically, shielding her face as Jasmine rounded the counter. "Not my mortal enemy!"
Jasmine flicked the towel at her. "It's just water you dope. I know better than to jump you with soap the moment you walk through the door."
Debbie peeked around her greasy hands, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. "Do you? Cause I can't promise I wont get violent if you scrub to hard."
Jasmine chuckled darkly and grabbed Debbie by the wrist. "Come 'ere you dirty girl." She gave the girl a tug towards her.
It might have just been the words mixing in Debbie's dirty mind or perhaps there was a just hint of seduction in her voice but at that, the mechanic's face fell, all hints of mirth and teasing fading away into uncertain silence as she looked away.
They both stood there for a few seconds, Jasmine not taking her hand away and Debbie refusing to look at Jasmine. The short distance between them that had seconds ago been comfortable and respectful suddenly felt cramped and stifling. Jasmine could almost feel the boundaries of the personal bubble she was invading.
She looked away, her hand dropping. "Or…you could just go up and take a shower…" She muttered. Jasmine quickly walked back to the sink and wrung the towel out with shaking hands. Her stomach was doing unpleasant somersaults and she couldn't seem to stop licking her lips. Why did she have to ruin the moment like that? One second they were teasing and having fun like they always did and now…
Now she felt like she had sullied it. Well, she was known to ruin all the best moments between them.
As she went to hang the towel back up, a small voice stopped her.
"Hey…Jas?" She turned back and saw Debbie back at the counter, tracing the patterns in the marble with her fingertip. "Actually…I'd like it…if you could help me…clean up a bit." The mechanic admitted timidly, coloring slightly under her mask of grease.
Jasmine was silent, her brain incapable of responding.
Debbie looked up, eye glinting with a tiny hint of a smile. "you'll just complain that I missed a spot if I do it myself."
The tension broke and relief flooded through Jasmine. "Just want to pass inspection, huh?" She teased, grinning.
Debbie leaned over the counter obligingly, grinning right back. "Gotta do what I can to please my roommate."
Jasmine hid her reaction to that statement by wetting the towel again. She gestured Debbie closer and softly rubbed the mechanic's greasy nose. She should have been used to the teasing by now, the way Debbie knew how to always make her feel better when she screwed something up. But the sheer number of ways the other girl knew how to make her smile or relax never failed to amaze her. Or stop her chest from tightening.
She scrubbed Debbie's face gently, marveling at how easily the grease lifted away from the other girl's skin at the motion. Like it had just been applied.
"So do you want to talk about what happened today?" Jasmine asked, rising the towel and wringing it out to start on a new section of Debbie's face.
Debbie closed her eyes as Jasmine moved to clean her cheek. "nah…I'm good. Doesn't really matter in the long run."
"Really?"
Debbie shrugged. "Jus' some stupid book error…lost a little bit on the last job thanks to Mr. Employee of the Month..."
"Daz works hard." Jasmine defended their old friend, pinching the mechanic's nose slightly as she wiped away a streak of oil. "Maybe he'd do better if you gave him some time off once in awhile."
The mechanic's eyes snapped open at the abuse. Debbie pouted slightly and rolled her eyes. "You would say that."
"Say what?" Jasmine asked, confused.
"That I should cut him a break."
Jasmine rinsed and wrung the towel again. "That's because maybe you should."
"Maybe, but when was the last time you had some time off?"
"This is not about me!" Jasmine chastised her as she tried to flip the conversation around. "A…long time ago…" She admitted under Debbie's even gaze.
The mechanic pinched the reporter's cheek with a greasy hand. "You work too hard…" Debbie scolded her, tapping her friend's cheek humorously.
Jasmine flicked her with the towel. "Says the one covered in their work…quit touchin' me, then I'll need a shower as much as you do!" She held Debbie's chin still and wiped at a particularly nasty splotch of grease on the mechanic's upper lip.
Debbie smirked triumphantly at her. "I'm just sayin' Jas, you need to have some fun once in awhile."
With Debbie's lips so close to her fingers at that statement, Jasmine had a hard time holding onto the towel. She let go of Debbie rather suddenly. "I have fun." She defended herself, forcefully stopping herself from wringing the towel worryingly in her hands.
Debbie seemed not to notice Jasmine's discomfort. "Sure with your boyfriend maybe but that's not the same. How is what's-his-name anyways? Sean or Seamus or something?"
"Shane." Jasmine replied, completely at ease with Debbie's spur-of-the-moment topic change. Her best friend brought up the cop any chance she got. But hopefully, the topic would never again be addressed after tonight. "We're done." Jasmine told Debbie carelessly as she wet the towel and turned back to face her charge. "We never really were. I just wanted to see what he knew about the drug ring. It was nothing serious."
To Jasmine's surprise, Debbie only smirked. "Called it."
Jasmine wiped Debbie's brow, most of the grease coming off with barely any pressure being applied. "Called what?"
"Didn't I tell you it wouldn't last long?" Debbie challenged her.
"You told me he was bad news and to stay away." Jasmine reminded her, running the towel down a streak of oil on Debbie's left cheek.
The mechanic stuck out her tongue. "And here you are, takin' my advice. And not his."
Jasmine paused, dirty towel hanging limply in her hand. "How did you know he tried to get me to stay with him?" She asked quietly.
"The same way I know that you told him he'd never be right for you." The mechanic replied.
Even for Debbie, that was remarkably intuitive. Jasmine was stunned. "How did you…?"
"Because I know you Jas…" The mechanic said, her voice softening considerably. "And I know that none of the guys you've ever dated have known you the way I do. I know you haven't let any of them get that far." Debbie reached for the towel and placed it and Jasmine's hand on her half-clean face, trying to encourage the younger girl to resume her cleaning.
Jasmine found her hands would not work. "How can you possibly be so sure of that?"
"Come on Jas, you know me better than that. Some things we don't have to say to know."
"Yeah, how?"
Debbie slid her hand down, moving it past the towel to rest on the hand holding it against her face. "Because I know that you know, or at least suspect, that I covered my face in grease on purpose…just to ask you to help me clean up."
She knew it. Jasmine playfully shoved her but not enough to dislodge their hands. "Damn grease-monkey." She muttered, smiling.
Debbie stuck her tongue out again. "You love me anyway."
The simple sentence was enough to make every vital organ in Jasmine's body stop functioning instantly. Her hand went limp under Debbie's, suddenly feeling like the contact of their skin was shocking her to incoherency. Debbie had stopped moving too, but her eyes were boring into Jasmine, pleading with the girl to look at her, to understand what she was trying to silently convey.
Jasmine looked away, fighting back tears all of the sudden.
The hand on hers suddenly tightened. "Jas…I didn't mean to imply…"
Jasmine pulled away, letting her hand slip from Debbie's face. "You know what you meant, Debbie. And so did I." The towel hung flaccidly from her fingers, dirtied and damp like memories better forgotten.
The mechanic was still watching her carefully, grease-smeared face, mugs of tea and bantering completely forgotten. "And…do you…?" Debbie asked softly.
It had been these quiet conversations, the ones had in soft, intimate voices with no hope of teasing or room for joking that had always made her heart flutter and the less-rational part of her mind dare to hope for more. "Debbie…everything's changed…" Jasmine managed to choke out, her throat tight. "I…cant…"
"Cant or wont?"
Jasmine couldn't answer.
"I've always loved you Jas…" Debbie was leaning in, practically laying on the counter just to be closer to Jasmine. "and I know on some level you still love me…"
Jasmine couldn't deny that if her life depended on it. But for the sake of them both, she had to be the stronger one here. "I haven't ever stopped…" She admitted, choking on the words. "but you can't trust me with your heart Debbie…I'll only hurt you again." Debbie had trusted her with her heart once. But all Jasmine had done was break it and shatter the trust of their friendship into a million fragments that they were still trying to piece back together.
"You won't."
Jasmine wished for nothing more than the same trust in herself that Debbie was currently certain of. "You can't know that Debbie…."
"The same way I don't know that you've actually just been pretending to work this entire week when I get home?"
Caught in the act, Jasmine could utter little else except a quiet: "Debs…"
"I've noticed Jasmine, don't think I haven't." Debbie was shifting closer, so much so that every instinct in Jasmine's body screamed at her to close the gap. But her head was demanding that she lean away…
Debbie stretched out a hand tentatively, afraid of rejection. Jasmine didn't breathe. "I see the way you look at me, the things that go through your mind when you speak to me. You don't need to say these things for me to understand them. To know they're there."
Debbie gently cupped Jasmine's cheek with a level of delicate attention Jasmine hadn't been aware existed. "Jas…" Her thumb traced softly over a cheekbone, prompting Jasmine to finally let out the breath that had been trapped inside her.
Debbie's eyes glimmered and she pursed her lips slightly.
Jasmine could have given her a hundred reasons why they should never be that again. But a hundred seemed weak compared to the million reasons that they absolutely should that had immediately jumped to mind the moment Debbie said her name like that.
In that simple syllable was three years worth of repressed feelings and a guarantee of a lifetime of making up for it. It was an apology, a plea and a promise all in one.
The look Debbie was giving her filled in any possible gaps and crushed any lingering doubts.
Jasmine didn't need a long, eloquent speech about love or passion or their convoluted past to understand exactly how much Debbie wanted her in that moment. Just her and no one else ever again. And she didn't have to doubt that Debbie knew the same just by looking at her. Debbie had always been able to read her. And she'd always been able to understand Debbie.
Because they'd always been this way. They'd always known each other inside and out. Ever since the day they met, they'd understood each other completely.
And that was what made them so dangerous to each other. And so perfect together.
And Jasmine realized, she couldn't bring herself to hold back any longer.
Dropping the towel on her papers, Jasmine leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to Debbie's lips. Her hand lingered on the curve of Debbie's neck as she pulled away, tracing the last of the grease stains she had yet to wipe away. The last of the bad memories she had to clean up. Chocolate-brown eyes met hazel.
"Yes."
And Debbie didn't even have to ask what the question was that Jasmine had just answered.