Chapter 10 has landed! I am overwhelmed by the positive response to this story and would like to thank each and every person who has followed, favorited, or reviewed it! I sincerely appreciate all the feedback and hope that there is more on the way!
I'd like to give a special thanks to Rose42095 for getting my butt in gear to finally finish and post this chapter and I'd also like to wish them a very happy birthday! I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope that this chapter puts a smile on your face and makes your birthday just a bit more special. :)
Without further ado, here it is:
The next morning, Gail lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling, hands tucked beneath her head. She needed coffee, desperately, but was too lazy to actually get out of bed, so she had no choice but to go without. She replayed last night in her head.
The rest of the night had passed slowly, Dov and Chloe taking turns reading and answering dumb questions that only losers knew the answers to long after she and Chris had lost interest. They'd stayed long into the night tossing back drink after toxic drink, awaiting the time when the two dorks would finally be through with their dumb trivia championship game. Had they not been Gail's ride home, she would have been out of there a long time ago.
Snappier and more icy than she usually was, Gail shot insults at them for hours, however unaffected they were by them. She had long since discovered that this was something she used as a defense mechanism when there was something far more concerning on her mind that was threatening to break through the carefully sealed cracks in her badass bitch persona. She decided to ignore this knowledge as she tried to get her short interaction with Holly out of her mind.
She chastised herself repeatedly for reacting so violently to Holly's being harassed by that creep, and for in turn making it clear that she actually cared about her. After all these years, she still cared about a woman who by most definitions was essentially a stranger to her. She didn't know her. She didn't know what had transpired in Holly's life since they parted ways years back. Remembering that she'd committed to becoming Holly's friend (yes, just friend, Gail) earlier that day, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and began typing out a message to Traci, who she knew was working late.
G: Trace- I need you to do me a favor.
T: Hm. Depends. What do I get in return?
G: I'll allow you to continue dating my brother.
T: Uhh.. Yeah, you really don't have any say in that, Gail.
G: Okay, fine. Then in return, I will not divulge the story of you on St. Patrick's Day two years ago to Steve.
T: Done. What do you need?
G: I need you to look up the cell phone number of Doctor Stewart.
T: The new forensic pathologist? Why?
G: My fingers are just itching to type out a text to Steve right now.. Boy do I miss my brother.
T: Okay, okay, no questions. Gimme a sec.
Gail smiled triumphantly at her phone, admiring herself for knowing how to get what she wanted when she wanted it.
A few moments later, her text tone sounded, and she was embarrassed by the speed with which she snatched her phone up off the table and read it.
T: +1 416-598-2476
G: Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Nash.
T: Yeah, yeah.
Hurriedly typing the number into her phone and adding it to her contacts, she began to type out a text to Holly.
G: Hey I was wondering if maybe you wanted to-
Stupid.
G: We should catch up someti-
Nope.
G: So I was thinking that maybe we cou-
Fuck.
Why did she even care? She didn't, she told herself, typing out a poorly thought-out text to prove it to herself.
Across town, Holly's phone buzzed against the coffee table where it sat. If Gail had been able to see her, she would have seen her eyebrows knitted together in confusion and a slight look of amusement.
G: So what have you been up to recently?
H: That depends on who this is. If it's a serial killer, I can't tell you.
Gail laughed out loud. Literally out loud, without any reservations, attracting weird looks from the few people left at the Penny. After shooting them all icy glares, Gail looked back to her phone. After the initial hilarity of Holly's response, Gail slapped herself on the forehead.
Idiot, she thought to herself. How the hell would Holly know who it was? It's not like Holly had the same phone number that she did years ago. That was abundantly clear when the line had been disconnected, leaving Gail very limited options for contact.
Backtracking but trying to redeem herself, she sent another text, this one very well thought-out.
G: It's embarrassing for you that you don't have my number. Only the coolest people have it. Now that I've texted you, you've become instantly cooler. You're welcome.
H: Hi, Gail.
Some things would never change.
G: You didn't answer my question.
H: You mean about what I've been up to? Well, I've been up to a lot. Many things can happen over the course of ten years.
G: I guess so. The only thing that's happened to me was becoming even more intelligent, more awesome, and more sexy.
H: Right. Are you saying you'd like to catch up Gail?
G: You want to catch up? If you insist. I'll meet you at the Penny tomorrow after work. Seven o'clock.
H: Whatever you say, Gail. I'll see you tomorrow at seven. Goodnight.
Gail began to type out a goodnight text, but thought better of it and tucked her phone safely into the pocket of her skin-tight jeans, slouching in her seat for the next hour before King and Queen Loser would finally call it quits for the trivia night.
Now here she lay the following morning, unsure about her decision to set up a meeting time and place to see Holly. She did still want to catch up with her, but she had her reservations about why. She never cared to see or speak to anyone, really. Not even those she considered to be her closest friends. Yet here she was, desperately trying to reconnect with someone she knew when she was a kid.
She briefly considered blowing her off and just not going, before she pushed this thought out of her mind, knowing that doing so would be the same as when Holly ran out on her all those years ago.
Set on going, she grabbed her duffel bag and began packing an outfit to change into after her shift before she would head over to the bar to meet Holly.
This was going to be a long day.
And a long day it was. After first being paired up with Chloe Never-Shuts-The-Hell-Up Price and having to listen to her incessant high-pitched cheery chatter about Dov and how great he was, she then had a run-in with Andy at the station.
She listened to her ramble about how she wished they could still be friends and how sorry she was that Gail was upset (all the while never actually apologizing for stealing her boyfriend) for about twenty seconds before pushing past her without a single word, shoulder checking her for good measure.
At long last, she was safely in the locker room without another soul around. She stood in front of her locker for several minutes, standing still, still having no idea why she wanted to see Holly in the first place. Well, aside from the fact that she was nice to look at. No, Gail. Bad. Knock it off.
Frustrated, she banged her head into her locker door several times before opening it and quickly changing into the outfit she had brought. Twenty minutes and about nine thousand peeks at her reflection later, Gail hailed a cab and was off to the bar.
When she arrived, she scanned the room quickly for Holly. When she didn't see her, she made her way up to the bar, ordering a rum and coke.
"Make that two," she heard a voice say a few seats down the bar.
She glanced at the woman, who had dark hair and beautifully tanned skin just like-
"Holly?!" Gail exclaimed, realizing that this gorgeous woman was in fact the very woman for whom she'd been waiting.
Gail gaped at her unabashedly. She looked.. flawless. She wore a pair of black leather pants with strappy heels and a sheer red top the clung to her toned figure. Her hair cascaded in loose curls around her face, which was free of glasses tonight. Her top hung off of one shoulder, allowing her collarbone to stand out against the rest of her olive skin. It sat low enough on her chest that you could see the beginnings of her boobs, and Gail found herself wondering if Holly had made this extra effort for her.
Well if she did, she succeeded, Gail thought.
When Gail's gaze finally landed on Holly's eyes, she found that Holly was looking her up and down.
She didn't look too bad either. Her hair was pulled back but bumped up in the front. Her eyes popped out from behind black makeup, accentuating their crystal blue color. A plain white t-shirt covered her torso, one that left little to the imagination when it came to her chest. A black leather jacket was worn over the top of it, with skin tight black jeans (were they painted on her? Holly marveled) and black leather combat boots.
Always oozing confidence, Gail smirked when she noticed Holly checking her out. "You like what you see?"
Holly pushed her chest out a little bit. "Do you?" she challenged Gail.
Loving that Holly still had it in her to bite back at Gail just as hard as she'd bitten her, Gail bit her bottom lip but said nothing. She wasn't sure why, but she was loving this flirtatious banter. It wasn't that she was attracted to women, necessarily. No, no, it was that it was becoming more clear that she was attracted to Holly. That she was still attracted to Holly after all this time.
Holly let out a laugh. Gail could insist on her heterosexuality all she wanted, but she knew that she had some sort of effect on the gorgeous blond. "So Gail, what's your story? I see you ended up going through with the continuation of the Peck dynasty," she began, sipping the drink that had just been placed in from of her.
Gail rolled her eyes. "Don't ever call it that again. But yes, I did decide to go into police work. I guess when something is engrained in you since birth, it's kind of hard to not want to do that thing with your life. What about you? You always were a nerd. Glad to see nothing's changed."
Holly laughed again, shaking her head, causing her curls to swing back and forth. Gail realized that she loved hearing Holly's laugh, and she hated herself for it.
"Ahh, yes. I had decided on forensics not long after high school and ended up going all the way to get my M.D." Holly crossed her legs and turned her body directly toward Gail, looking very sexy atop her barstool. "I just love the idea of giving people a voice even after they're dead.. of looking at a body and discovering all these things about someone based on something found on their bones or in their bloodstream or-" Holly blushed, realizing that her geekiness was becoming more prominent by the second.
Gail smiled, let out a small laugh, and urged Holly to continue. She liked listening to the brunette talk. She liked to watch her lips move, to watch her hands wave frantically when she got excited about something. It was undeniably adorable.
After a long-winded discussion about why and how Holly had gotten to where she is today, Gail decided to ask a question that she had been wanting to ask since she first found out that Holly was gay.
She fiddled with her keys and then grabbed her drink and swished it around needlessly before finally throwing caution to the wind. "So like, when you say that you're gay.." she began, not really asking what she'd wanted to ask. She opened her mouth several times to continue, but couldn't string together a coherent sentence in her mind.
"I mean that I sleep with women." Holly stated, as though she were saying that the sky was blue.
Gail spit out the sip she had just taken, slapping her hands over her ears. "Ahhhh! My virgin ears!" Gail screamed, dramatically rocking back and forth in panic.
Holly laughed at the ridiculous display in front of her, and remembered why she had fallen for Gail when they were in high school. Gail never cared what anybody thought of her. She would make a fool out of herself a hundred times and not care who was watching. That was something that Holly had never managed; she always cared about what people would think or say.
"Ha! Yeah right. Nothing about you is virgin." Holly said, looking Gail dead in the eye.
Gail could swear that there was a flirtatious sparkle in her eyes, but decided not to dwell on it. They were just having fun, just as they always had.
Gail stared her down for several seconds before seemingly giving up and letting out a long, exaggerated sigh. "You're right. The men can't keep their hands off of me. I've got to beat them back with a stick." She arranged her features into a look of pure agony, as though this issue of having men all over her was an unbearable curse with which she struggled on an everyday basis.
"And the women?" Holly asked, her voice dropping lower and her eyebrow arching in flirtatious curiosity.
Never one to be stopped dead in her tracks but having absolutely no idea what to say in response to the brunette, Gail floundered for just a moment before standing up, turning her back on Holly, and bending over slowly, pretending to fix the zipper on her boot.
She stood back up just as slowly and began to strut away, swaying her hips as she went.
"I guess we'll see," she tossed over her shoulder before making her way out the door and into the cold night air, knowing that Holly would eventually follow.
Holly sat there for several moments, mouth agape, before shaking herself out of it. She got the feeling that she and Gail had been playing a never-ending game of cat and mouse since they were in high school, but couldn't quite figure out who played which part. Holly was determined to be the mouse. She wanted to be chased, and she was going to make damn sure that Gail would chase her.
She grabbed her keys and vowed that this would be the last time she would follow Gail.
Yes, from now on, Gail would definitely be the cat.
A/N: As always, reviews are welcomed and very much appreciated!