Chapter two

Karma leaned against the doorjamb of the art room and watched as Liam tried to reach for a bucket of paint. It sat on the top shelf and Liam stood on his toes in an attempt to reach it. He lifted his arms up for the paint and his shirt was ridden up, giving Karma a perfect view of his chiselled abs. It made her feel warm inside just from staring at it so, she focused her eyes on something else.

Yep, she was definitely still attracted to him.

Liam barely touched the top shelf despite being on his toes and he shook his head in frustration. Strands of his hair fell on his face and he tried blowing them away from his eyes. Karma thought it was cute.

"Need some help?" she asked, making Liam jump.

He turned and saw Karma near the door and smiled. "Hey. Yeah. I'm trying to get that." He pointed. "But as you can see I'm failing miserably."

They both laughed.

Karma pushed herself off the doorjamb and walked slowly up to him. She sidled herself between him and the shelf and looked up at the paint, trying to determine how high it was. With Karma's back towards him, Liam was free to check her out without getting caught.

Ever since their kiss, Liam couldn't stop thinking about her. Their kiss was hot and sexy but also surreal. He never in a million years thought a lesbian would ever kiss him. He also didn't think said lesbian would be here standing close to him. So close, he could practically feel the heat coming off her body.

"What're you waiting for? Lift me up." Karma said suddenly, snapping Liam out of his Karma-induced haze.

"Oh, right. Silly me." Silly me?! Why'd he say that?

He placed his hands on Karma's waist and her body tensed up. Maybe this is a bad idea. He could always use a chair.

"Sorry" He was about to drop his arms when warm hands covered his own.

"No, don't, your hands are just... really cold." She giggled.

Oh yeah. He remembered helping someone put an ice sculpture into the freezer earlier.

When Karma was sure that Liam's hands weren't leaving, she dropped hers and gazed up at the paint. Waiting for him to lift her up.

She was still on the ground moments later and it made her worry that maybe she was too heavy for him but when he gripped her waist and effortlessly lifted her off the ground, she was relieved and slightly turned on by it. She felt like she was in 'Dirty Dancing', even though this wasn't the position Frances was in when Jonny lifted her up but it still made her think she was in some romance movie. She saw the paint in front of her and grabbed it.

It was a lot easier than she thought.

Liam started lowering her down, and slowly moved his hands up her body as he did so. His hands made her shirt bunch up around her chest and he started to breathe raggedly at the sight of bare skin. He knew it was wrong to enjoy this too much because Karma was helping him out but he couldn't help it, Karma's skin was so soft. His calloused hands grazed against her skin and it left sparks of heat that spread throughout her body. She felt Liam rub his hands up and down the sides of her waist and she exploded.

She placed the paint on a lower shelf and turned around. Hands still on her waist as they stared silently at each other, heavy breathing as the only sound filling up the room. Without waiting a beat longer, they both pulled each other into a kiss.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

It felt amazing and without thinking she lightly bit his bottom lip, causing him to moan into her mouth. She was reminded of how Amy bit her lips the same way she did with Liam and it made her stomach turn. She tried keeping her eyes closed, afraid if she opened them she'd see Amy kissing her instead.

Best friends share kissing techniques all the time right? It's only natural she'd use it with the guy she's crushing on. It doesn't mean a thing.

She ran her hands through Liam's hair and was disappointed that it wasn't softer. She felt Liam's tongue lick her lips and it distracted her from thinking about Amy and instead focused on enjoying the kiss.

Liam was on cloud nine. He couldn't describe it any less cliché because how could anyone think when Karma was kissing him. It was better than their first kiss and mainly because Karma was pressed against him and he could feel her chest against his. Her fingers were lightly scratching his head and he couldn't take it anymore.

Something primal came over him and he pushed Karma against the shelf behind her. She gasped but it was muffled by his mouth deepening the kiss. He could hear things fall off the shelf but couldn't bring himself to care as he moved his hands down Karma's back, lifting her up.

Most of her weight was against the shelf but by nature, she wrapped her legs around his stomach, causing his heart to race. Tensed muscles against her thighs brought flashes of her dream where Amy's stomach tensed at her touch.

Her eyes snapped open.

What is wrong with her? She's kissing the hottest guy in school and all she can think about is her best friend. Focus, she told herself. She needed to focus her attention on Liam. His arms around her, his lips against hers and the feel of his body pressed against hers. It felt solid, she noticed.

Her eyes closed and tried kissing Liam more but it only made her notice his stubble face tickling hers and how his lips weren't as soft as Amy's.

Kissing Liam felt wrong and she wasn't sure why.

After a few more minute of kissing, Karma finally pried herself away from him and dropped her legs from his waist. She heard him whimper in disappointment and thought it was endearing. But it didn't make kissing him any less wrong.

"That was hot" he said once he could finally breathe.

"Totally." Or not. She wasn't sure but forced a smile anyways.

"Wait" he said, after realising something. "What about Amy?"

"Amy?"

"Yeah, Amy, your girlfriend." He said slowly.

Liam smiled in amusement when he saw Karma realised it too. He loved how he was able to kiss Karma so hard that she forgot about her own girlfriend. It was hot.

Little did he know that Karma, in reality, couldn't stop thinking about Amy throughout their kiss.

"Oh, she's not-" really my girlfriend. "-the jealous type, we have an open relationship... A 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' kind of thing." She lied.

"Cool" He leaned in for another kiss, knowing that it was indeed cool to do so but was stopped by Karma's hand on his chest.

"Oh my god, is that the time?" she couldn't kiss him again, not yet at least. "I have to go, you know, prom's tonight and I haven't done my make up so..." she didn't finish and instead kissed him on the cheek as a consolation and rushed out of the Art room.

Amy and Shane looked at each other as Amy's mother ran up the stairs. "Did she just-"

"Yep." Amy answered, already knowing what Shane was about to ask.

This was all Karma's fault. If it weren't for her, Amy wouldn't be here freaking out about her religious mother finding out she was a lesbian, faking as one to be exact, with a weirdly cowboy dressed Shane standing beside her.

Karma was probably too busy making out with Liam freaking Booker to even care. It bothered her just thinking about it and she didn't want to dwell into why that was.

"We have to fix this." She didn't wait for Shane's reply and instead opened the door, ready to head out.

She stopped when she saw Karma on her front porch. What is she doing here?

The moment Karma saw Amy, she felt safe and a nice kind of warmth filled her chest. It wasn't the kind that came with lust like with Liam but something different. Karma didn't know what it was but she liked it.

The kiss with Liam disturbed her and she was certain that kissing Liam shouldn't make her feel like that. Seeing Amy made her forget and she also made a mental note to get Amy to wear dresses more often. She looked beautiful in them.

"What're you doing here? I thought we agreed to meet up at prom later tonight?"

Karma looked away, realising she didn't want Amy to know that she had an urge to see her. And that she couldn't wait till prom. "Well, I... What is Shane doing here?" she finally noticed.

"Howdy." He said while tipping his hat off to her.

She smiled at how cute that was but it dropped when she saw Amy's face. "What's wrong?"

Amy put her hands on Karma's shoulder and shook her gently. She ignored how her stomach flipped at the touch. "My mum is going to be at prom."

"What? Why?"

"She said she's doing a report on us."

"Really?" That doesn't seem bad.

Amy looked at her like she knew what Karma was thinking and continued. "Not us us, she's reporting on 'us' the lesbian prom queens." She clarified.

"Oh, no."

"I know!" Amy shook her again but this time more roughly. "You have to do something. She can't know we're a couple."

"Me? Why me?"

"Because you're the one who wanted to..." Amy stopped and glanced at Shane.

She realised Amy couldn't say what she wanted in front of Shane but she knew what Amy was going to say, something along the lines of 'it was her idea to be fake lesbians so she had to fix it'.

She sighed. "Fine, do you have a plan?"

"Yeah I-"

"Karma, is that you?" Farrah was half-way down the stairs, all make-up ready, when she saw her daughter's best friend. "Well, don't you look stunning, sweetie."

"Thanks."

"Have you met Amy's date yet, isn't he something?" She smiled, touching Shane's arm. "Do you have your own handsome date?" she asked.

Amy and Karma panicked.

They couldn't very well, tell Farrah that Amy was her date. Lucky for them they didn't have to, Shane came to the rescue and distracted Amy's mother long enough to escape. He always knew that he had a talent for charming the pants off of parents. It was a gift.

Minutes later, Farrah had forgotten about Karma and was too busy fixated on herself to care, she also thought how lovely that a young fellow like Shane had appreciated her. Not that she didn't get enough appreciation from her fiancée.

Shane turned to the girls and mouthed 'you're welcome' before getting them to follow him to his car.

"There's the van" Amy pointed out.

She grabbed Karma's hand and sneaked into the studio's parking lot with Karma in tow.

They agreed that Shane would stay in the car should they get caught and needed a quick getaway. Amy compared that to a bank robbery heist and saw no difference between them beside the fact that she and Karma aren't about to steal money.

They reached the van and squatted beside the front wheel.

During the car ride, Amy thought out a plan to sabotage her mum's ride by giving them flat tires. They both agreed and were about to execute the plan.

"Here," Amy pulled out an ice pick out of her bra and handed it to Karma. "Go to the other side and make a flat tire."

Karma was amazed that Amy was able to stuff that into her bra without being poked by it. "What about yo-"

Before she could finish Amy pulled out another ice pick from her bra. What the hell?! How'd she fit two in there?!

"Karma!" she shout-whispered. "What're you doing? Go to the other side."

"Okay!"

She took a step and instead of taking another, she turned. "Thanks for doing this, by the way."

Amy furrowed her brows. "For what? Stopping my mum from finding out that I'm a (fake) lesbian? You do know I'm doing this for my own selfish reason right?"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." She playfully slapped Amy's arm. "I meant, thanks for being there for me ...and following along with this being a fake couple thing."

Amy smiled and ignored how cramp her legs felt from squatting too long. "Always. Now go, are we doing this or not?"

Karma rolled her eyes before half-crawling to the other side and positioned the ice pick onto the tire. She signalled to Amy that she was ready and waited.

"Okay, on the count of three, we stab."

Amy counted to three and simultaneously, both she and Karma poked into the tires causing a wheezing sound to be released. They saw the van slump forward and grinned at their handy work.

"Karma?"

Both girls froze.

It was Farrah.

Shit!

Amy couldn't see anything with the van in the way but she assumed her mother caught Karma in the act.

"What do you think you're doing?" Farrah looked between Karma and the punctured tire. What on god's name is this child doing?

"I-I um." Karma slowly stood up, hoping it would give her time to think of an excuse.

Where the hell is Amy?

"Were you just vandalising our van?" Amy's mother didn't know what to think but if Karma was a vandal then she certainly doesn't want that kind of influence around her daughter.

Shit.

Amy banged her head lightly against the van and thought her life was ruined.

"Uh, well you see I-I was just..."

"Karma, if this is some sort of prank-"

"Wait!" Karma sighed in relief. Finally.

Amy popped out from behind the van and raised her arms in surrender. "Don't blame Karma, she was just being a good friend." They shared a smile at what she said. "A-and she was helping me try to stop you from going to prom."

Farrah frowned. Why would her daughter do this?

"Are you embarrassed by me?" she guessed.

"No!"Amy's arms were flying around, trying to figure a way out of this without spilling the beans, or in this case fake beans.

Farrah crossed her arms. She will not get upset in front of her daughter and blinked away her tears.
Couldn't Amy put her embarrassment aside and let her do this? It's a big break for her and Amy was stuck being immature about it.

She opened her mouth, ready to tell her daughter exactly that when her cameraman interrupted them.

"Farrah, we're ready to go." He said while climbing into the driver's seat of another van.

There's another van?! Both Amy and Karma thought.

"We'll talk about this later. I'll see you at prom."

"Wait, mum there's..." Amy couldn't let her mother go without telling her. Her mum shouldn't go reporting with unexpected surprises. "..Something I need to tell you."

"Farrah," The cameraman warned. They needed to go now if they wanted to be on time.

"Oh, honey, you can apologize to me later." She dismissed, getting into the van.

"No, wait." Farrah closed the door and smiled at her daughter.

"I'm a lesbian." Amy shouted.

She watched as her mother's face morphed into shock and it was the last thing she saw once the van turned a corner.

She felt Karma slid her hand into hers and squeezed it in a comforting way. They didn't say a word but Amy knew, just from the gesture, that Karma was saying sorry.

Liam glanced across the dance floor and saw Karma sitting with her elbows on the table. Just looking at her made him smile and it reminded him of their brief moment together.

He kissed a lesbian.

He tried not to think about what usually came after kissing since he didn't want to get his hopes up. Kissing a guy was one thing but to do more than that would probably freak Karma out, she is a lesbian after all.

His smile faded when he couldn't get Karma to meet his eyes. She hadn't noticed him yet and felt disappointed at the full attention Karma was giving to Amy.

He scrunched his face, confused by it because things with Karma were purely physical. He shouldn't be caring that Karma was too busy focused on her girlfriend. It was technically supposed to be like that, he was just a piece of ass on the side. And that bothered him more than when his parents interfered with his life. And that was saying a lot.

Amy was standing a few feet from Karma, with a camera facing her. Her smile was forced and she stopped herself from rolling her eyes as her mother lied through her teeth about being accepting and how lovely this year's prom was different. And on live TV no less. She knew her mother was lying, her eyes twitched and her voice cracked every so often when she said the word 'lesbian', they were Farrah's tell tale signs.

But all that aside, Amy was impressed by her mother's professionalism. She had imagined the entire news report going a little different. More of a disaster than anything else but it wasn't. So, she tried to be civilised on camera, for her mum's sake.

She turned from the camera and met Karma's gaze. Her head was tilted and her cheek rested on her hand. It was kind of adorable and, she was right. The queen tiara looked better on Karma than it did on her. Without thinking Amy touched her own crown.

Even with the dim lighting and flashes of coloured laser obscuring people's vision, Amy was still able to see the smile on Karma's face and it tugged oddly at her heart. She wasn't sure what happened but ever since they kissed it was becoming increasingly hard to look at her best friend without getting a heart attack. Figuratively, of course.

After a few minutes of staring, Karma gave a confused smile and Amy realised she wasn't smiling back. She looked away and was startled by her mum staring expectantly at her. Did her mum say something? She hadn't noticed.

Her mum turned to the camera and smiled. "Amy, why don't we meet the other prom queen and let the viewers see you girls together."

"Oh, okay," She gestured for Karma to come over and within seconds, she felt arms snaking around her waist and a body pressed against her back. Her stomach flipped.

The music was slow, the melody was sweet and everything seemed like a dream. She was dancing with Amy, her hands on her shoulder and Amy's on her waist with still enough space between them, arms length to be exact, and it was nice. Deep down, Karma thought it was more than nice, it was romantic.

They swayed in time with the beat as they stared into each other's eyes.

Amy's eyes twinkled under the spinning disco ball and it made her eyes bluer than it really was. Her eyes were actually greyish blue and she would never tell Amy this but her favourite colour was and would always be greyish blue.

"Your mum seemed pretty cool, considering she just found out her daughter was-" Karma stopped when Amy flinched.

Instead of saying anything else, Karma wrapped her arms around her neck and pulled their bodies close. Her chin rested on Amy's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry. I know this whole faking thing was my idea and I didn't expect your mum to be involved or ruin your relationship with her...and-"

Amy laughed. "You didn't ruin anything that hadn't been ruined before."

"t-that's sort of true."

"Yeah and my life's already dysfunctional as it is, without me being ...gay." She hesitated at the end. It shocked Amy how right it sounded in her mouth. "Well, fake gay, and did you forget that I live with Lauren?" she joked.

There was a beat of silent where they just enjoyed being in each other's arms before Karma spoke. "You sure?"

"Yes, I'm super fine with it."

Amy slightly pulled away, her hands still on Karma, and made sure a smile was on her face. She wanted Karma to see that she was fine. In all honesty, she kind of enjoyed see her mum being uncomfortable, it felt like payback for bringing Lauren into her life. She was partly joking about that.

Karma blinked. She moved her eyes back and forth on Amy's face, trying to see whether she was lying. Amy had a thing for hiding her true feelings and Karma needed to know if Amy was actually fine. She didn't want to feel guilty.

"Okay" she finally said when she determined that Amy was telling the truth.

She went back to resting her chin on Amy and nuzzled her nose into her neck. Amy's hair smells like strawberries and it reminded her of the time they tried to make peanut butter & jelly when they were eight. But they tried without peanut butter, for obvious reasons, and they only had strawberry jam. And by then it was too late, Amy had already became obsessed with eating strawberry jam sandwiches and from then on, loved all things strawberry.

Amy tensed, and Karma realised what she was doing. Her lips brushed against skin and her body shivered, and her lips felt tingly. She whipped her head away and kicked herself for thinking that resting her forehead against Amy's was a better position. Her face warmed and saw Amy piercing into her eyes, like she was searching for something. A sign maybe? She didn't know.

Their noses were close to touching, they were breathing the same air and her arms around Amy tightened. The small gap between them was closing and her stomach flipped in anticipation.

'You Belong with Me' by Taylor swift started playing and even though both girls didn't notice, Karma would later look back on this moment and realise that Taylor swift was part of the reason to what she did next.

She leaned in and kissed her best friend.