"Hi."
Gail wasn't going to dignify that shitty little attempt at a conversation starter with a response. Instead, she breezed right by Holly with the air of a princess. The same princess that Lisa had rudely pointed out earlier that she most certainly was not.
"Okay," Holly said as Gail brushed past her. "I see you've got a game plan."
She shut the door and leaned against it, watching to see what her girlfriend would do. That Gail was kinda unpredictable sometimes. Impromptu haircutting sessions were not out of the question and she kinda liked hers at the current length.
Gail obviously still wasn't much in the talking mood. Not after what was said at the bar. She'd had a few more drinks at Fight Night, but even the alcohol and her pals' nonsensical bullshit wasn't easing the subtle ache in her chest. That was incredibly fucking annoying, too, because drinking her problems away was high on her list of priorities for the night.
She'd tried, Gail had. She really tried to just zone out and forget all that. Her phone just kept buzzing, though. It buzzed right through the inside pocket of her jacket and rattled around in her heart vicinity.
Fucking metaphors.
So, finally, for the sake of some peace, she answered the four calls, two voice mails, and eleven texts with her own text.
'1/2 hr'
That was all it took to make it stop.
Well, that and delivering on the implied promise.
True to her word, she angrily banged on Holly's door half an hour later.
There they stood, looking at each other. Holly stayed at the door while Gail waited with her back resting against the island.
It had all the makings of a classic stare down. Or stare-off, maybe. It was bound to be a duel for the ages with Gail's interrogation skills and the fact that Holly worked on dead bodies. Gail could wait forever for an admission of guilt and Holly could go hours without muttering a single word.
The stage was set.
Fight Night, indeed.
After who knows how long, Holly's phone pinged with an incoming text message. They both looked at the offending object on the counter and back to each other.
When Holly didn't move, Gail took two steps forward and chuckled without any sort of humor whatsoever. She stared at the phone with her arms still crossed, not bothering to swipe. Finally she broke her silence by reading the text aloud, "Lisa. Well, tell her when you see her that I'm sorry I was such a bitch. You know how I get when I've been drinking. El-oh-el. It'll be dot. dot. dot." Gail looked up to Holly. "I'm assuming the end of that was, 'it'll be fine'...maybe 'it'll be okay.' Possibly 'it'll be funny in the morning.' 'It'll be a real madhouse laugh riot.' Or...hey, 'It'll be awesome when you dump the peasant cop and run away with me to Doctorville with our perfect tits and we'll roll around in all of our piles of cash and be tools that only consort with people in our own league. Then we'll tell anatomy jokes that no dumbass cop would ever get." Gail ended with by practically screaming, "Laugh out loud!"
"Gail," Holly sighed.
"No, no, no," Gail shook it off. She picked up Holly's phone and made a show of slowly, but forcefully typing back a message. Then read her message out loud, too. "Fuuuuu-uuuck yooooo-ooou, Lisa."
Gail checked for Holly's reaction. When she didn't get much of one, she shrugged and dropped a very sarcastic, "She's like family, no worries."
"You done?" Holly asked.
"Are we?" Gail asked, indicating a much bigger finality than just the one signaling the end of her little rant.
"I'm not," Holly said, picking up on it. "Of course, not."
"Hm," Gail crossed her arms in defiance. "Is it because I'm so uncomplicated and simple?"
"Uncomplicated?" Holly grinned at the absurdity of anything about Gail Peck being uncomplicated. "We both know how unbelievably untrue that is, Gail. You're the furthest thing from uncomplicated. Nothing about you is or ever will be simple."
"Your buddy thinks so."
"When did you start caring what other people think?"
"When you started introducing me to people who are 'like family,'" Gail answered like it was fairly obvious.
"I've never been more challenged by anyone or anything in my life," Holly said. "And that's the truth."
Gail stared hard, gauging her sincerity.
"And that's probably why I can't get enough of you," Holly said more to herself, like she was having her own epiphany. "Hmm," she shrugged. "Makes sense."
"She called me a beat cop," Gail said, the disdain dripping from her tone. "What the fuck?"
"She," Holly pointed out. "She doesn't know you."
"You do." It was accusatory as anything Gail had ever uttered at Holly.
"Which is why I would never call you a beat cop," Holly replied as she finally pushed off the door. "Or refer to you by any profession at all. Because I don't give a fuck whether you're a cop or a circus clown, Gail."
"But you let her."
"She was being an idiot," Holly said, getting closer. "I don't subscribe to that stupid elitist way of thinking and you know that. Besides, she's a fucking plastic surgeon. That's half a step above bag lady."
"I'm sure she has nicer bags."
"I don't care." Holly stopped right in front of Gail and mimicked her stance. "I don't care about her bags. I don't care what she thinks or says. I don't care, not when it comes to you. Because I know everything I need to know and I have since I met you."
Gail shuffled backward for a modicum of self-preservation. "Yeah?"
"The very moment," Holly stated. "You and your gorgeous ass in your uniform being all sassy and authoritative. Yes, you gave yourself away, Officer Peck."
"That's fairly accurate," Gail nodded. "Especially the part about my gorgeous ass."
"It's really perfect," Holly agreed.
Gail felt the tension leaking out of her muscles. The anger that she came in here fully armed with, was dwindling. She uncrossed her arms and used her hands to prop herself against Holly's sink. There was one more thing, though. The thing that had sunk into her brain and rooted around was still flashing in neon behind her eyelids.
"Are you just having fun, Holly?" Gail asked her quietly. "Am I just the bitchy, straight girl that you decided to turn and fuck with?"
"I am having fun," Holly said quickly. She crossed the small space between them to get closer. "I'm having so much fun with you. I thought you were, too. And maybe you were before tonight and maybe it's my fault for pushing too hard with my friends. But, I wanted to let you in, as far into my life as I possibly can and still stay on your pace."
"I-"
"No," Holly cut her off by holding her hand up. She chanced the smallest bit of contact when she reached for Gail's hip and tucked her finger into a belt loop. "I am having fun, Gail. The kind of fun that I want to have for a really, really long time. The kind of fun that's fun even when it's not really that fun anymore. I'm having that kind of fun. The kind of fun that could last forever just because it's you. You're my you. And that has nothing to do with my friends, or your job, or whether I'm gay and you're straight, or if you're stomping out of a bar and I'm waiting here patiently for you to come back and talk to me."
"I don't think I followed half of what you just said," Gail replied when Holly had stopped talking.
"Fuck, Lisa," Holly concluded with a tug on Gail's belt. "You're a gorgeous cop who's complicated as hell that I'm having a blast with because I love you."
"God, Holly," Gail rolled her eyes. "That was a shitty way to say that for the first time."
"You make it exceedingly difficult for things to go smoothly, Gail."
"Get used to it." Gail caught the hand on her hip and laced their fingers together.
"I'm trying," Holly said. She used her newfound leverage to pull Gail closer.
Gail huffed in her very Gail way and said, "Well, I love you, too."
Holly smiled. "I know."
That seemed to just piss Gail off. "Fine."
"It's kinda obvious," Holly said as she snuck a tiny kiss under Gail's ear.
Gail pulled back suddenly, "How do you know we won't get hurt?"
"I don't," Holly said truthfully. "But I know we both have the power to destroy the other, so I'm really hoping we won't."
"Yeah," Gail breathed thoughtfully.
"The way you looked at me...," Holly thought back to the bar. "I don't think I could ever handle you looking at me like that again."
"Okay, well, I don't want to meet any more of your friends for at least," Gail glanced at her watch, "two years."
"I can't promise that we won't accidentally run into them on the street or something," Holly warned. "That happens."
"You know what else happens?" Gail asked her girlfriend. "Parking tickets."
Holly let that sink in, "What did you do?"
"Nothing," Gail said innocently. "But, hey, next time you talk to ol' Lisa, you may want to let her know there's a warrant out for her arrest."