"I don't think we should just walk in unannounced," Opal said as firmly as possible.
Bolin didn't seem to notice. "It'll be fine. Asami said I should feel free to drop by any time. She even gave me a key. Besides, we have ramen."
"When was this?" she asked.
Bolin looked confused. "Right now." He hefted the takeout bag in demonstration.
Opal closed her eyes, praying for strength. "Not the ramen. When did she give you the key?"
"Oh, just after that whole business with Amon." Right, Opal thought. In other words, when she was single and living alone. And then, later, Bolin's extended family had been her house guests for quite some time, so just dropping in would have been all right. Opal doubted that Asami, or Korra for that matter, had counted on the open door policy applying under their current living arrangement. Particularly not today.
"I think Korra and Asami were planning on having a quiet day at home together. Alone." She tried to put a little extra emphasis on the last word.
Bolin unlocked the kitchen door on the Sato mansion and opened it. "Ehhh, that's got to get boring, eventually." Opal very much doubted it.
She didn't like to think of herself as a controlling girlfriend, but sometimes Bolin just needed to be guided. And normally that wasn't a problem. But today, he just wasn't picking up on hints. And as for giving him a direct explanation…. She opened her mouth for the tenth time to try and felt the heat rise in her cheeks. "It's been over two weeks since they've managed to be in town at the same time. I think they'll have a lot of … catching up to do." I'm such a poltroon, she thought miserably.
Bolin set the takeout bag on the kitchen table. "We've got some catching up to do with them as well. It'll be a nice surprise." Well, he's right about the surprise part. Honestly, it was like balancing on an avalanche of good intentions and bad ideas. If she didn't stop him, they'd actually see Korra and Asami, and she'd die of embarrassment anyway. Still, she couldn't bring herself to actually say the words. She kept hoping against hope that Bolin would come to his senses and they could leave.
One of the service doors of the kitchen opened onto the main hallway. Bolin pushed his way through and stood looking around. Opal followed reluctantly. "Funny," he said, "The place is awfully quiet."
"I think they gave the staff the day off." Actually, she knew it for an absolute fact. Korra had mentioned it with a decided gleam in her eye.
Why couldn't she summon the words to penetrate his obliviousness? She would have liked to think that it was because she was too well brought up, except she was sure Mother would have spelled it out in words of one syllable a long time ago. With a slight smirk on her face.
Grandma Toph would probably have included illustrative hand gestures.
"Hello!" Bolin called out. Opal winced.
"Not so loud. Maybe they're napping." Or hiding.
"A quiet day at home is not going to wear anyone out to the point where they'd be napping at this hour." He really has no idea. Of course, Opal didn't either, at least not from personal experience. Sadly. Maybe if the two of them had, she'd have been able to find a way to clue him in.
"No, something's fishy here," Bolin continued sounding concerned. "What if something has happened?"
Opal stared at him. "Like what?"
"Like they've been attacked or kidnapped." Bolin was sounding increasingly agitated.
Opal attempted to inject some sanity into the conversation. "You are talking about the Avatar and a woman who has three black belts and a shock glove. Do you honestly believe that either of them, let alone both of them together, could be taken without the house getting trashed in the process?"
It was then that Opal glanced over Bolin's shoulder and through the door to the sitting room. The room was, in fact, in a bit of disarray. To her eye, it suggested the results of two people in desperate want of a flat surface clearing off the coffee table in the quickest way possible. She shuddered to think what Bolin would make of it. She forced herself to look him in the eye. Please, Spirits, don't let him turn around.
It didn't matter. Bolin had managed to work himself into a panic without any actual evidence. "I'm sure somethings not right here. Maybe we should call Mako." Opal looked at him in mounting horror. There was only one thing he could say that would be any worse, and she knew in her heart that he was about to say it. "Or Lin!"
"NO! Don't you dare!"
Opal raised a hand to her mouth, feeling a bit disoriented. Those very words had been bubbling up through her panicked brain, but she was pretty sure that she hadn't said them. Bolin turned away from her towards, she realized, the person that had actually spoken. She followed his gaze, and the mystery was solved.
Korra was roaring down the main staircase on an air scooter. Stark naked. She stopped in front of them and stood glaring. She seemed to be having difficulty speaking coherently. "What? You… Why?" This last one seemed to meet her needs, for she took a deep breath and repeated, "WHY?"
Saysomething,saysomething,saysomething,saysomething… "You got a tattoo!" Opal blurted. Korra's jaw dropped, and she stared at Opal. That wasn't the right thing.
"Really trying not to look right now," said Bolin. He had in fact clapped a hand over his eyes and, apparently as an added precaution, directed his non-gaze toward the ceiling.
It was a rather nice tattoo of an ornate heart-shaped gear. Unfortunately, as it was positioned at the top of Korra's left breast, it had probably been intended for Asami's eyes only.
Korra started to laugh. It was probably better than her yelling, but there was a slightly hysterical air to it. Her face started to turn a little red as she tried to catch her breath.
"Bolin, Opal. What are you guys doing here?" came a bemused voice from the stairs. Asami was descending at a more leisurely pace than her girlfriend had. She had taken the time to drape a bed sheet around herself. A part of Opal's mind wondered if Asami might have her own tattoo in the same location as Korra's, and if so what its design was. She brutally suppressed the urge to ask. This, however, left her temporarily speechless.
"We brought ramen," Bolin said.
Asami just looked at him for a moment and then said, "Of course you did." Korra had been on the verge of calming down, but this set her off again. "Breathe, Precious," Asami said mildly. She handed her girlfriend a blanket. Between snorts and giggles, Korra wrapped it around her torso under her arms and tucked it secure.
"It's safe to look now, Bolin," Asami said.
He took his hand away from his eyes and tipped his head level, looking back and forth between the two lovers. He raised his hands in front of him, nervously drumming his fingertips together. "So…"
A smile quirked on Asami's lips. "Indeed," she said and arched one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. It was probably the first time Opal had seen the woman without make-up on. Her hair was disarranged for reasons that were probably obvious to everyone present. And she was clad in nothing but a sheet. And she still manages to be the most elegant person in the room. It just wasn't fair.
"It's partly my fault," Opal said. "I knew it was a bad idea, but Bolin wasn't picking up on any of my hints, and I was just too embarrassed to come straight out and say that the two of you were having sex."
"Wait," Bolin cried. "You knew?"
"Yes!" all three woman answered in simultaneous frustration. Bolin looked hurt.
Asami was the first to regain her composure. "Look, it's not like we told her, or anybody, straight out. We just kind of thought, under the circumstances…" At the last moment, she shied away from actually uttering the words "It was obvious," but they hung in the air. "Well, look," she added with an apologetic tone, "It kind of would have been overkill to give the staff the day off and disconnect the phone if we'd just planned to play Pai Sho all day long."
"All day?" Bolin repeated, picking up on the implications at precisely the wrong moment.
Asami closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "It's not like we've been going non-stop since dawn." A smug look flitted across Korra's face, suggesting that the two women had given it a damn good try. Opal did not dare look at Bolin's face.
An awkward silence followed. It was broken when Korra began to giggle again. "'Playing Pai Sho.' We could make that our code phrase. So if we tell you we'll be playing Pai Sho, you'll know that we probably shouldn't be disturbed. It does, after all, call for a great deal of … concentration." Asami rolled her eyes heavenward but was clearly fighting to keep a straight face.
Korra started gently but inexorably herding Opal and Bolin back toward the door to the kitchen. "Now I hope you know that Asami and I love you two dearly, and we really would like to get together again on some other day. But right now we'd like to … get back to our game. There's still a few gambits we'd like to try out on one another."
With mumbled goodbyes, Opal and Bolin fled into the kitchen before Korra could think up any more thematic innuendos. The door closed behind them, but not before Opal could hear the sound of cloth dropping to the floor. She picked up her pace to the door to the outside, not looking to see if Bolin was following.
She wasn't quite fast enough. There was thud from the main hall; an image sprang unbidden into her mind of entwined bodies fetching up against the wall suddenly. Korra's voice said something low that she couldn't make out. Asami's response was much more clear: an urgent gasp of "Don't stop." Then Opal was safely outside, Bolin at her heels. The outer door closed cutting off any more sound.
Opal stood on the stoop for a moment, face burning, wishing the ground would swallow her up.
"We left the ramen behind," Bolin said sadly.
She whirled on him. "You are not going back in there," she hissed.
He held up his hands placatingly. "Of course not. It's just…"
"After breaking in on them, the least we owe them is dinner."
"Yeah, but there were four bowls."
Opal huffed and started walking away from the mansion. "The way their day's been, they'll probably be glad of the extra portions to help keep their strength up."
The walk back to Bolin's neighborhood was conducted mostly in silence. At first, it was a tense silence. But as the embarrassment started to fade, different thoughts started rolling in Opal's head. She slackened her pace, and when Bolin caught up she took hold of his hand. She glanced sideways at him and smiled. He grinned back shyly. They walked like that for a while.
Near his apartment building, they ran into Mako on the street. "Hey, guys. I was just looking for you. Yuki just called me and she's had a shift change, so I'll be able to meet her for dinner. She asked me to see if you two would want to join us."
Yuki was Mako's current girlfriend. She was a foot-patroller on the police force. Opal liked the woman a lot, and hoped she and Mako would go the distance together. She would have liked to spend time with the couple. On another night. Before Bolin could answer, she spoke up. "I'm sorry, Mako. I was thinking Bolin and I would just have a quiet evening in."
Only the slightest widening of his eyes indicated that Mako was better at decoding than his brother. His smile was completely casual as he said "No problem. Have a nice night. I'll give her your regards." And he was off with a friendly wave. Give the man points for being a class act.
She turned to look at Bolin. A half hopeful, half panicked grin was plastered on his face. She guessed Mako didn't need to be much of a detective to figure out her meaning after all. On the other hand, he got a lot more points for staying casual.
"Is that all right with you?" she asked him.
"Absolutely!" he said quickly. Then he paused and looked sheepish. "Although before we do…" She arched her eyebrows at him questioningly. "Could we go get some more ramen?"
Opal laughed. "Of course. Want to make sure you keep your strength up as well."