Chapter Four
"Love Is The Drug"
(A Week Later)
Bo sighed for what felt like the tenth time in the past ten minutes, peeling a hand from the steering wheel to run through her dark hair absently. It was a dreary Tuesday morning, and Kenzi and her were on their way to the cottage. Yesterday had been the younger woman's last night staying in Bo's guest room and she was eager to see her new home now that the finishing touches had been completed. Bo had tried to match her excitement without much success, but Kenzi had noticed the effort and appreciated it nonetheless. Bo was grateful for that. She was curious to see the place again, but she couldn't stop thinking about what Kenzi had said about her neighbor. She had tried to convince herself that the woman Kenzi had told her about wasn't Lauren. That it absolutely could not be Lauren. Deep down, she knew she was deluding herself, but it was the only way she had gotten through this past week.
As the two pulled up, Bo took a moment to study Kenzi's new digs from the outside. It didn't look terribly different from the first time she had seen it. It had obviously been repaired here and there and spruced up a bit, but it still retained it's charm and that made Bo smile. Before she knew it, she was startled by Kenzi slamming the passenger side door and clapping her hands together gleefully.
"Okay Bodacious. Wait right here. I need to make sure my pad is ready for someone as sophisticated as yourself," Kenzi instructed her, a gleam in her eye that made Bo wonder a bit.
"Yes ma'am," she played along. Kenzi nodded before turning and practically skipping to the front door, leaving Bo to herself.
Kenzi flung her front door open and swept inside quite dramatically. Kicking the door shut gently with her foot, she turned around to appreciate her new home with a wide grin, which promptly fell from her face.
"What the shit?"
Kenzi swept her eyes across what was supposed to be her living room with her mouth hanging open. Her eyes were immediately bombarded with the fantastical sight of dozens upon dozens of pale white flowers overflowing and taking up every inch of what she could see of her home. Everywhere she looked, she was greeted with more lilies and orchids, most of them a uniform white, though there seemed to be a number of random ones that were tinged with soft hues of several different colors-mostly reds and pinks. They seemed to be everywhere-on the mantle, on the coffee table, on the floor. Hell, she wouldn't be surprised if there were flowers in her goddamn sock drawer. Kenzi was fairly sure that she had never seen so many flowers in her life. What she wasn't sure of was why they were there.
"Lewis!" she muttered to herself when the realization dawned on her. The blonde must've set this up, although Kenzi wasn't sure why. It was a truly strange gesture to make for a simple friend-five year separation or not. That aside, the blonde was supposed to have been inside waiting for Kenzi to arrive with an unknowing Bo, just as the two neighbors had agreed a week ago. But here Kenzi was with a room full of beautiful flowers and no leather jacket clad blonde. She stared hard at a random lily in exasperation and again cursed everyone in this town for their weird habits of secrecy. She swore under her breath and turned to retrieve Bo from outside, but the doorknob was already turning.
The door eased open and Bo stepped inside, eyes down and focused on her coat pocket where she was trying to shove her keys.
"Did you forget I was out there?" she asked absently, still unnoticing. Kenzi didn't answer and was instead trying to figure out how to explain the garden that had exploded in her house.
"No, I just-"
"Holy shit! Did you rob a greenhouse?" Bo cut her off loudly, finally noticing the flood of petals. She reached her hand out and touched one of the flowers gently, feeling the softness of the orchid under her fingertips. She smiled and leaned in to smell the ivory flower. Straightening up, she looked at Kenzi quizzically.
"So? What's this about?" the succubus asked, still a little in awe of the strange sight of so many flowers collected in the living room of a house. It was surreal, and beautiful and unexpected, and Bo felt her heart tug at the sight.
"Weeeeeell…" Kenzi drawled trying to stall. She really had no idea what the hell to say to explain.
"Are you in love with me, Kenz? It's okay, you can tell me," Bo joked, now holding a lily in her hands and staring at Kenzi expectantly. The smaller brunette chuckled nervously.
"Hardy har har," was all she got out before swallowing thickly.
"Ooooh! Or maybe you're secretly seeing someone?! Come on, you can spill your guts while I make some of that coffee you promised me," Bo near-shouted excitedly, shuffling to the kitchen, flower still in her hands. Kenzi stood stuck in her spot gathering her thoughts before hearing Bo shout from the kitchen.
"Aw. There aren't any flowers in here," the succubus whined childishly, making Kenzi crack a smile. Bo had apparently really liked the gesture. Too bad Lewis was still missing in action, she thought. Kenzi was about to join Bo in the kitchen when she heard a faint knock on the front door. Waiting for a moment to make sure Bo hadn't heard it, she yelled to her bestie.
"Make me some java too, Bo! I've gotta tinkle!" she lied. She heard a muffled 'kay' before she quietly padded to her front door. Upon opening it, she was greeted with the sight of Lewis standing in the smallish porch, damp from the light rain that had started sometime after Kenzi and Bo had entered the cottage.
"What in the actual hell is going on?!" the tiny girl whispered urgently before easing the door closed behind her, leaving herself and the blonde standing on the porch.
"My living room looks like a Macy's mother's day parade float!" she complained, still trying to be quiet.
"I don't think Macy's has a mother's day parade-" Lewis pointed out before being cut off.
"You were supposed to be here waiting for me and Bo!"
"I was! But then I sort of…fled? I'm sorry! I just-I panicked," the blonde stammered sheepishly.
"And the foliage?!"
"They're for Bo," she explained with a deep blush coloring her cheeks.
"Just friends my ass!" Kenzi muttered, before cracking her door back open and peering in. Seeing no sign of Bo, she grabbed a now terrified looking Lewis and dragged her through the front door.
"No no no I can't do this-" she stammered before Kenzi barked a stern 'shut up' at her.
Locking her front door yet again, the bootlegger tried to form a plan but was distracted by a shout from the kitchen.
"Coffee's ready when you are, Kenz!" her bestie called, making Kenzi swear silently under her breath and glance at Lewis, who suddenly looked like she was going to either throw up or pass out.
"What do we-" the blonde began asking before she jumped. The loud crash of Bo's mug hitting the floor startled both of the women out of their staring (more like glaring on Kenzi's side) match. They hadn't heard Bo's approaching footsteps.
"Oh…" the succubus breathed, standing in the kitchen doorway gaping at the blonde, who looked just as equally gripped by uncertainty and surprise. Bo swallowed thickly before speaking again.
"Lauren?" she asked tentatively, still unwilling to believe what she had known for sure since that infamous lunch days ago.
But you knew she was back, her subconscious pointed out.
Kenzi's eyes widened when she heard Bo say the name, remembering it from the mysterious letter Bo had been drunkenly reading that night. Meanwhile, Bo had inched closer to the blonde before quickly stopping herself and shaking the fog out of her own head. She instead leaned down to clean up the mess her shattered mug had made. Lauren watched on, not sure how to feel. She mostly just wanted to wrap her arms around Bo and just hold the other woman, but that was apparently not an option right now, and honestly, she felt too nervous to really move at all. The butterflies in her stomach were more like birds at this point, and she could only look at Kenzi helplessly.
Rolling her eyes at the sheer weirdness that this morning was piling on, Kenzi finally broke the tense silence.
"Just leave it, Bodacious. I'll clean it up later. Let's just…sit and chat?" she suggested, rather desperate to get answers from someone about the mysterious and fragile connection between the two.
Neither woman replied, instead they each eased into chairs on opposite ends of the room. Kenzi huffed quietly, and just about got her mouth open before Bo's soft voice stopped her.
"It's…really good to see you, Lauren," she spoke awkwardly. Lauren nodded dumbly before realizing that Bo wasn't even looking at her.
"You too," she answered, eyes falling to the floor in disappointment that Bo didn't seem all that excited to see her. Hell, the woman wouldn't even look at her.
Kenzi surveyed the tense scene before rolling her eyes and standing up.
"I just realized I've got a couple of last-minute things to do. You two can stay here, catch up or whatever," she told the pair, trying to act casual. Maybe if she acted like a normal human being, they would too. Or so she hoped.
"Kenzi, wait-I need to talk to you," Lauren blurted out, almost running after the other woman into the hallway that led to a bedroom, where Kenzi stood pulling a light jacket from a coat stand.
"This was a terrible idea! Why did you let me talk us into this?!" Lauren whispered roughly with panicked eyes and flailing hands.
"What are you doing?! Go back in there!" Kenzi urgently whispered back.
"I really can't!" Lauren refused, looking terrified. Kenzi buttoned the last button her coat before looking at Lauren with sympathy. She gripped the blonde's shoulders.
"Lewis. Listen to me," she began, watching Lauren swallow hard before nodding.
"You're just embarrassed. It's okay, Bo's embarrassed too," she assured Lauren.
"Really?" the blonde asked quietly, looking a little saner. Kenzi smiled encouragingly and nodded.
"Really. Now stop being a baby and get back in there," she gave the blonde a light push before turning back to her room to find her rain boots.
Lauren slowly walked to the end of the short hallway and stopped. Quickly running a nervous hand through her still damp hair, she shed her wet leather jacket and draped it over her arm, trying to look at least a little presentable. Her heart raced and she could feel her palms getting clammy at the though of being alone with Bo. Bo, who had always made her nervous and giddy and so, so happy. Bo, who she hadn't seen in almost three years until mere moments ago. Lauren breathed deeply, half sure that she was seconds away from exploding into a thousand tiny pieces.
"Go!" she heard Kenzi whisper at her, hands on her hips and feet still bare. Lauren nodded, swallowing thickly.
She willed herself to finally move.
She had only been out for about an hour, if that, but Kenzi would later swear that it must have been longer because when she had later returned to the cottage, the atmosphere had transformed completely. She had come in through the back door, not wanting to track mud into her carpeted living area. She set down her single bag of groceries-if one could call a bag of various boxes of sugary cereals and a pint of ice cream groceries- and removed her boots.
Kenzi peeked into the flowery jungle where she had left her two friends. She furrowed her brow and hummed a bit in wonder at the pair- who now looked as comfortable with each other as possible. The two women had moved from their chairs and were now huddled together on the small sofa. Kenzi watched curiously as they spoke to each other in low, hushed voices, smitten smiles on each of their faces. Bo leaned into the blonde further and set her hand on Lauren's thigh unconsciously, making Lauren smile wider and kiss Bo on the cheek tenderly.
It was the first time Kenzi had ever seen Bo blush.
She turned back to the kitchen and went about putting her cereal away as noisily as she possibly could in an attempt to alert them of her return without her having to interrupt them directly. Shutting the freezer door with firm slam, Kenzi took a breath and walked back into the front room. She rolled her eyes as hard as humanly possible when she realized that neither Lauren nor Bo had even registered her obnoxiousness in the kitchen. The two remained sitting and talking, grinning like idiots, oblivious to the world around them. Kenzi cleared her throat. Loudly.
"See? I knew you two could get along," she told them lightly. Bo was the first to acknowledge Kenzi's arrival, slowly turning her head from Lauren to her best friend. Lauren was slower to give in, her eyes drawn to Bo's profile almost magnetically.
"Hey, Kenz. Me and Lauren were just talking," Bo told her happily, feeling almost drunk. Lauren nodded and smiled softly at the floor, suddenly a bit shy.
"I see that," she replied giving Bo the universal look for 'we're going to talk about this later'.
"Anyway, I brought a second breakfast in the form of yummy cereal. To the kitchen, ladies!" Kenzi grinned again before waving them up with her hands and almost dragging them to the kitchen table.
Over the next thirty or so minutes, the three women managed to polish off an entire box of cereal, mostly Kenzi's doing, and had simply sat around the table talking over reheated coffee. Kenzi was not oblivious to the subtle affection between Bo and Lauren, feeling more and more sure that they had at some point been more than 'friends', as Lauren had described them to her only a week prior. She couldn't wait to get Bo alone and question the hell out of her.
Another hour had passed while the three women had been simply enjoying each others company in Kenzi's warm kitchen. Bo had slowly grown more and more antsy as the minutes dragged on, knowing that she needed to leave soon and return to her own house, but she couldn't bring herself to leave. So she made up excuses in her head, whether it was not wanting to waste any of the coffee, or not wanting to drive while it was still drizzling outside. Anything seemed rational when she caught sight of Lauren's smile.
Eventually, her own flimsy excuses ran out and she knew she needed to go. Dyson would be waiting, probably worried. She had told him she'd be back at a certain time, and she was now officially a half our late. Bo didn't want to leave, but she knew that if she was going to keep Lauren from finding out about Dyson, and vice versa, she needed to make sure that she didn't rock the boat.
"I'm really sorry to just ditch you Kenz, but I've gotta jet," the succubus announced apologetically. She turned to Lauren to speak but the blonde beat her to it.
"I'll walk you to your car?" she offered politely, but with hesitance in her eyes and pink in her cheeks. Kenzi noticed the vibe coming from the two.
"It's all good, Bo Bo. Just know that I expect you to visit me like, literally, all the time," she informed Bo seriously, though she was smiling. Bo smiled and hugged her quickly before turning to Lauren again and smiling brilliantly.
"You offered me an escort?"
Lauren smiled back, and stood to follow Bo to the front door. She nimbly reached around Bo and opened the door, holding it for the brunette, who couldn't fight off what felt like the fiftieth blush to paint her cheeks that day.
"After you," she heard Lauren mumble, all nerves. The two were slow to walk to Bo's powder blue breezer, which had the top up to combat the rain that had seemed to pause for now. The sky was still a soft whirl of grey and white and the still air smelled of fresh rain. It was peaceful, and couldn't be more unlike the disorder in Bo's head.
"So you're Kenzi's neighbor, huh? Small world," she broke the silence. Lauren nodded.
"Yeah. I live there, actually," she answered with a tilt of her head toward the brownstone on the right of the cottage. Bo followed Lauren's gesture and stared at the large house, thinking it stunning. Lauren noticed Bo's look.
"Would you maybe want to come inside? Just for a minute or two? I could give you a little tour," the slender blonde offered hopefully. She watched as Bo seemed to think it over with every cog of her brain, and it made her swallow nervously as she waited for an answer.
Bo, for her part, was trying to think clearly over the roaring sounds of all of her blood rushing to her head. This was it, wasn't it?
This was one of those moments that she'd remember for the rest of her life, if not for the words themselves but for the things that came after. It was such a small decision, and such an outwardly innocent question on Lauren's part. But Bo knew. She knew that her answer, no matter what it was, would tip her world on its axis somehow.
So she took a deep breath and found herself speaking.
"I'd like that."
And all at once she swears she feels everything in the universe shift.
Kenzi sat back on her sofa, sock covered feet resting on the coffee table in front of her. It had only been twenty minutes at the most since Bo and Lauren had slinked away and out of her house, but already Kenzi felt something in her own world changing. She felt heavier in a way, like observing Bo and Lauren had come with an unspoken rule of secrecy. She wasn't the same breed of person as these West or East Egg socialites, not by birth or by new money or even just by her new geographical closeness to them, but she was still able to tell that everything that had taken place in her flower-ridden living room today was fragile and better left not talked about. At least, not yet.
Watching her best friend interact with her blonde neighbor had been one part intriguing and one part confusing. She was intrigued because despite Bo's insistence that she was 'absolutely fine', Kenzi hadn't seen her look that happy in a long while. But it was all so confusing to her, because while she had known Bo all of her life, not once had the succubus ever mentioned Lauren. Not years ago when the two had apparently somehow met under circumstances still unknown to Kenzi, and not in the time that she had been staying with Bo until she snagged the cottage. Obviously, there was a good reason Bo didn't tell her. At least, that's what Kenzi hoped, because otherwise, she was going to be one hurt bestie.
Part of her couldn't help but also feel a little terrified. Not for herself really, but for Bo and for Lauren. Bo was obviously playing with fire. Hell, maybe even more than one flame. Not once had Bo mentioned Dyson or her engagement in front of Lauren, making it clear to Kenzi that it was a subject that was not to be talked about while the blonde was around. It only cemented her belief that the women were more than friends, not only in the past but maybe even now. But the succubus was taken, so what the hell was Bo doing?
And then there was Lauren herself, who had apparently known that Bo lived in West Egg but not that she was completely spoken for. How does that even work? Had Bo been communicating with Lauren even after meeting Dyson? Or had Lauren learned Bo's whereabouts in some other roundabout way?
Who fuckin' knows? she moaned internally, cursing herself for only confusing her even more.
Then there's that letter...she wondered further before moaning in frustration.
Bo. She needed to talk to Bo. More like interrogate the hell out of her, but either way, she needed some answers before she drove herself insane. So Kenzi decided to take a drive over to Bo's place tomorrow, and hopefully Dyson wouldn't be hanging around. That would be one hell of a wrench in her plan. Momentarily content to wait until tomorrow, the bootlegger leaned back into the soft plush of her sofa and sighed, looking around her living room.
"What the hell am I gonna do with all these flowers?"
Just as Lauren had promised, the tour had been brief. Bo was a little saddened, but it was truly hard to feel too bad when Lauren was next to her, nervously geeking out about random appliances and house plants. The two ended up standing on the dock behind the brownstone, shoulders barely brushing. They both stared at the vast, limitless expanse of water before them, hearts beating rapidly. Finally, Bo broke the silence, noticing something across the water.
"That's…" Bo trailed off quietly, eyes pinned to the faint outline of her large home resting on the horizon of the Bay. She was suddenly hit with a monumental wave of guilt. There, in the lavish house miles across from where she was standing with…with Lauren, was most likely Dyson. Waiting for her, his fiancé.
"Your house. I know," Lauren finished nervously. Her hands were shaking a bit, so she had shoved them deep into the pockets of her jacket. Her right hand grasped smooth metal, flipping it over and over in her palm. It was a habit she had picked up shortly after Bo had gifted her the lighter, and she had yet to break it.
"Can you…can you see me? From here, if I'm outside?" Bo asked, a light touch of awe lining her words. Lauren shook her head.
"No. But there's this little green light at the end of your dock that I can see at night. It shines all the way here, over the water," she answered, not yet mentioning her almost nightly habit of gazing at the small light with nothing but a cigarette to keep her company.
Bo nodded and then dropped her eyes to the water directly in front of her shoes. Minutes passed with neither of them knowing what to say, much less how to say it. Lauren was considering asking if the brunette was upset with her when Bo abruptly broke the silence by clearing her throat. She forced herself to meet Lauren's eyes for the first time since the two had come outside.
"I really fucking missed you," she laugh-sobbed, smiling as widely as she could through the tears gathering in her eyes. Lauren lit up as bright as the sun that they couldn't see behind the clouds, and smiled back at the succubus radiantly, not without some tears herself.
"I missed you too."
"All those flowers were totally for me, weren't they?" Bo asked with a smug grin, using her sleeve to wipe her eyes.
"They were, yes," Lauren admitted shyly, and with a tiny grin of her own.
"What kind are they? They looked…familiar."
"Orchids and star-gazer lilies. They're the same species of flowers that were in the garden on the roof, the first night we met," Lauren explained. Bo felt heart melt at the words. Letting out a slow breath to control her emotions, she reached for Lauren's hand and entwined their fingers.
"You remember the exact types of flowers from that night? Why, Miss Lewis, I think your inner geek is showing," she teased with more fondness than she thought she could hold in her heart at once.
"I remember because you kept staring at them. When you weren't staring at me, anyway," Lauren replied honestly and without arrogance.
"Well, who could blame me? You looked beautiful."
"I was wearing a tie," Lauren pointed out disbelievingly.
"A cute tie," Bo assured her. Lauren shook her head, chuckling. The two remained comfortably silent for the next few minutes until Lauren couldn't hold it in any longer.
"Bo? Why didn't you write me back?" she asked tentatively, not wanting to do or say anything to scare the brunette off. But this was something Lauren really wanted to ask.
She thought back to the day she wrote the letter. She had been traveling for days, weeks even. Finally, she had gotten off a train in Vancouver, still a long ways away from her destination of New York City. The urge to tell Bo all about her imminent arrival in New York had finally overtaken her, and so she had snagged some blank paper from a newsstand and caught a taxi to a small diner near her tiny motel room. She had sat in a booth by herself for over two hours, watching the sun go down while she wrote. When she had finally finished, she made sure to include a New York P.O. box number for Bo to reply to, since she had yet to know where she would be living in the big apple. Since finally arriving in West Egg almost a week after that day in Vancouver, she had been by the post office nearly every day to check the box.
They had yet to talk about that or the events within the years that separated them, or anything too deep, really. And while she wanted to talk about all of that soon, what she really wanted an answer to in this moment was the question that had bounced around in her head for the last sixty or so days that she had spent waiting for Bo to reply.
"I meant to…I just didn't know what to say," Bo answered lamely, and with a sharp pang of shame for the lack of complete truth in her reply because really, what was she supposed to say? 'I didn't write you back because I had just gotten engaged a few days before I got your letter'? No, that was too much truth in too little time. She had just gotten Lauren back for God's sake. She'd figure the rest out later. At least, that's what she told herself.
"Anything would have been nice," Lauren admitted. Bo nodded and looked ashamed. But her face quickly gave way to a wide and brilliant smile.
"I know, I know. I was just so surprised and excited. I mean, Lauren…you did it. You really did it," Bo told her proudly. Lauren's face broke into a crooked grin, face reddening.
"I just followed the science," she downplayed. Bo shook her head, unwilling to let the blonde be modest.
"You did it," she repeated again softly, eyes filling with tears yet again. Lauren would've responded, but any words she had been about to say disappeared in her brain, replaced by the powerfully electric feeling of Bo's mouth on hers.
A/N: Kudos to anyone who spots the tiny Orphan Black reference...