Twelve
Kenzi clicked her fingers in front of Bo's face. "Bo!"
Bo jumped in her seat on the third click and shoved Kenzi's hand out of her face. "What?"
"I said, how long are you going to do this for?" Kenzi said with her hands cupped around her mouth as though she were yelling from a great distance.
"Do what?"
"Look at yourself," Kenzi replied. "Take a good, long look at yourself." When Bo kept her eyes trained on Kenzi's face in confusion, Kenzi pointed downwards. It was late and Bo hadn't dressed yet; she was wearing what Kenzi referred to her as her "sexy lady porn type" underwear and her robe. But she hadn't applied make-up for a couple of days or done her hair, mainly because she'd barely left the house. Right now she'd just been staring off into space with her chin in her hands.
"I'm fine Kenzi, I'm just taking a little time for myself. It's healthy," Bo snapped.
"It'd be healthy if you were just trying to get over Dyson, but you're not. You're mooching around over Lauren, doing exactly what I made you promise not to do. You have to talk to her," Kenzi urged.
Bo denied it for a few moments and then had no choice but to admit that it were true, throwing her hands up. "Okay, alright. I've tried to call her. I had to call her like, three times before she picked up, and when asked if I could come around she said it wasn't a good time. She said she didn't want to see me any more but I didn't think she meant it. What if she did?"
Kenzi frowned and shook her head. "Maybe the Ash is keeping her busy, it could be anything. Why don't you just tell her you broke up with Dyson anyway?"
"I didn't even get a chance to do that. She didn't sound like she wanted to talk to me at all," Bo said morosely. It was chewing her up inside, and she couldn't stop worrying that maybe Lauren had grown tired of her and moved on. Or maybe what was happening with Ava was more serious than she'd ever thought, or Lauren was so pissed at her that she was never going to forgive her. Kenzi was right in that it 'could be anything'; she just couldn't imagine that it could possibly be anything she wanted to know about.
"Well dummy, you're never going to know unless you just ask," Kenzi said. "I don't know how you can act like you're Buffy The Vampire Slayer when you're out there kickin fae ass and then the Cowardly Lion in your love life. Grow a pair."
X X X
Bo knocked hesitantly on the door again, her eyebrows drawn down with worry. Although it was evening she'd tried the lab first knowing how likely it was that Lauren would be working late. What if Lauren were out with Ava? Intellectually she'd always known it were a possibility, but the thought infuriated her. It made her knock harder and more consistently on the door even though she was now quite sure that the apartment was empty.
She almost fell forward when the door opened just as she was leaning forward to bang on it. A noise of surprise rushed forward from her mouth. A surge of relief and then anger went through her when she realised that if Lauren were home it meant that Lauren had been purposefully ignoring her while she stood here like an idiot.
"Did you not hear me? I've been knocking for the past five minutes," Bo said, upset.
Lauren looked at her silently, her mouth opening to speak and then closing just as quickly. She stepped aside to let Bo in and she passed by Lauren closely, their eyes locking as Bo brushed against her.
Bo turned to glance at Lauren as she walked inside and saw Lauren with her arms crossed, her brown eyes sad.
When Bo had come over here she'd been full of fantasies about sweeping Lauren off her feet - making some big romantic speech - only now she was more angry than she ever meant to be. She felt that she'd been denied before she could even try, and dealing with rejection did not come easily for her. When she spoke she softened her tone so that Lauren might stop looking at her like that.
"Where have you been the last couple of days? I've been trying to call you . . ."
Lauren shrugged and finally spoke with difficulty. "Like I told you, I thought it was best if we didn't see one another for a while."
Bo shook her head, frustrated. After how connected she'd felt to Lauren that night, and how difficult it was to just let her leave like that, she found it hard to understand how Lauren could make that decision regardless of what she'd said. "So you thought you'd just ignore me? Treat me like I don't exist? Nice."
"It's no different to what you do to me when it suits you," Lauren said quietly, calmly, steadily holding her ground.
"When, after you screwed me because your boss told you so? I don't see how that's the same thing," Bo said, upset by Lauren's words. She noticed how Lauren flinched. Those wounds were still raw after all of this time but her words were unfair nonetheless – she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I think there a few things we need to talk about."
"I just need some space from you," Lauren said, her breath catching. Bo's presence was so big, she filled the whole room even now, and Lauren felt inexorably drawn to her.
"Lauren," Bo crossed over and went to take Lauren by the shoulders, to start to explain to Lauren how she felt, but Lauren quickly pulled out of her arms and took two steps back from her. "Wait."
"I've been waiting. I'm not going to hang around any more waiting for you to want to see me. I'm sick of the way you treat me," Lauren said. It was one of the only times Bo had seen Lauren angry. She was shaking with it, but Bo could read her well enough to know that it may not be the only reason. As always when they were in one another's presence they were sparking off one another, the energy between them rolling in waves.
Bo, undeterred due to that very fact, reached for Lauren again. This time Lauren didn't pull away but she stood stiffly staring at Bo.
Right, Bo thought to herself. It was time for that big romantic speech, only the problem was that she wasn't very good at this sort of thing. All she knew was that she couldn't leave without Lauren. She couldn't walk out of that door having Lauren still thinking that she was anything less than essential to her.
"I do want to see you, all the time. I think you're the most interesting, wonderful, smart, sexy . . . awesome person that I've ever met. That's what I've been wanting to tell you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that sooner," Bo said. Okay, so the words weren't exactly straight out of one of Shakespeare's Sonnets, but they would have to do.
Lauren's expression changed slightly, softening and easing, but her face was now clouded with confusion. "Of course you haven't – you can't. If you think I'm going to just take a little piece of you while you go home every night to Dyson, well then you don't know me at all - "
"That's not what I'm asking for. I ended things with Dyson." Bo ran her hands up and down Lauren's shoulders, and Lauren allowed her to.
"When?" Lauren asked sceptically, afraid to believe it.
"Just after the last time I saw you. I realised I had to make a choice, and well, it was actually an easy one to make. I know we don't know each other all that well yet, but what's there already . . . it's intense . . ." Bo said, still grappling with making her thoughts and words meet.
If you watched Lauren's face closely enough you could see the mix of emotions in her eyes, which had the lightest sheen barely visible tears. Now she was breathing more quickly, her chest rising and falling. Now she was watching Bo's lips intently.
Bo felt her heart give a tumble. She lifted her hands to Lauren's face, taking it in her hands. "So what do you say?"
Lauren didn't answer, she just leaned forward and their lips brushed together softly, both of them in-taking their breath sharply from the contact at the same time. Bo pulled away for a second; if they got started too soon she was never going to get out all of the other things she'd wanted to talk about.
"Wait – and what about you?" she was already breathless herself from the brief touch of Lauren's mouth.
Lauren rolled her eyes and smiled. Her hand was in Bo's hair and she brushed her thumb across Bo's cheek. "What about me? You must know how I feel about you by now . . . you must know I've been waiting for you . . . "
"No, I mean what about Ava? I know I maybe don't have the right to say anything after being with Dyson but are you going to talk to her soon? I'm serious about this, are you?" Bo asked biting her lip nervously. She was impatient to have this talk over and done with – Lauren's body was tantalisingly close - but found that she couldn't let the idea go too easily.
"Whatever we had, it's been over for quite a while now," Lauren said, bemused. She supposed she'd never gotten around to explaining any of it to Bo. It just hadn't seemed important.
"Oh. She said otherwise last time I saw her . . . are you sure?" Bo asked. She couldn't resist leaning in and stealing another kiss, this time gently biting Lauren's lower lip between her own. It was becoming hard to focus on the conversation when all she could think about was all of the things she was going to do to Lauren, now that there might be nothing keeping them apart.
"Sounds like she was just messing with you. She can be kind of a psychopath like that, but you might like her if you get to know her," Lauren commented, stealing a kiss of her own. This time the merging of their lips went on for longer, Lauren hooking her fingers into the waistband of Bo's pants and tugging her forward, earning a gasp from Bo. "You sound jealous," Lauren said against her mouth.
"That's because I am," Bo said, suddenly pushing her hand up Lauren's shirt and placing her palm over Lauren's heart. "I want to be the only one who gets to have you."
"You've never had anything to worry about, ever," Lauren said. They finally melted into kissing, fierce and hot, Lauren pulling at the back of Bo's hair as their tongues danced against one another's.
X X X
"We should go on a date," Bo said. Her whole body felt like liquid and her voice sounded lazy and slow. They were laying against one another, their bodies touching from almost the tips of their toes to the tops of their heads.
"Where would you take me?" Lauren replied, smiling. She sensed that Bo was almost asleep and she herself was drifting towards it. She felt achy and spent and deliriously happy, her skin slick with sweat. It hadn't been like the first time at all, when Bo had been so afraid of hurting her. It had been just as tender and sweet but there had been no holding back. As tired as she was she couldn't wait to feel it again – the sensation of being the object of the most intense desire and focus that she'd ever known.
"Anywhere you wanted to go," Bo whispered against Lauren's temple, kissing her gently into sleep.
