I hope you guys like terrible, terrible jokes, because there are two of those in here.
Bonus points to those of you who enjoyed the lameness of Nicky's "You think a druggie doesn't know how to do speed?" joke from the last chapter too.
Alex tried to execute a wave in Piper's direction that seemed both casual and flirtatious, but instead bumped Nicky's drink with her elbow, sending scorching caffeine into her friend's lap.
On the other side of the room, Piper did her best to rearrange her features into something a little subtler, but Polly was too quick, squirming in her seat to see what - or who - had caught her friend's attention.
Nicky yelped as the coffee collided with her jeans. "Watch your arms Al!"
She started to dab at the fabric as Alex plied her with napkins from the dispenser on the table, and Alex realised that if they hadn't been spotted before, they definitely would be now.
"You're like Stretch-fuckin'-Armstrong Vause, I ever tell you that?" Nicky continued, grinning through gritted teeth. "You've got arms like an ape."
Various patrons had turned to look when Nicky had yelled, and although Alex hoped her friend hadn't been too badly hurt, she also hoped she wasn't about to get Piper into bother.
Piper slumped in her seat a little, defeat seemingly imminent.
"Did that woman call her friend Al? Like Alex? Like your Alex? Is that why you're making weird eyes at the that side of the room?" Twisting back to face her, Polly's eyebrow was raised alarmingly high, and although she was quite clearly not a mathematician, Piper had to commend her hasty calculations here.
She liked the way the phrase "your Alex" sounded coming from someone else, although Polly would not have been her first choice to hear it from.
"Polly - "
"That is her, isn't it? Did she follow you here?"
"No, I - "
"Oh my God, did you invite her?"
This was the part that Piper had been afraid of. Her friend was already frustrated that Alex was encroaching on the time she had deemed to be theirs, and now her appearance in the coffee shop was less than ideal.
Piper could see Polly's train of thought from a mile off - you don't get to be friends for over a decade and not know how someone's brain works.
Polly believed that Alex was leading Piper astray, causing her 'straight' roommate to turn away from her friends, keeping her out late and getting her drunk, forgetting her name on the phone - Polly had gone on about that perceived slight for hours - and her invasion of their long-overdue meeting on that very morning was the nail in the coffin that contained an itemised list of reasons for Polly to despise Alex Vause.
"No, I didn't invite her."
"Then why is she here?"
"For a coffee?" Piper replied, weakly.
Polly rounded on Piper in the way she always had when Piper wasn't doing as she asked.
On the playground, when they were six.
Outside the cinema, when they were eleven.
On the bus, both fourteen and drunker than they should be.
At a house party, at the foot of the stairs with a boy's hand in hers.
Polly had just wanted a little time to catch up with her oldest friend, but somehow, miraculously, her latest fuck buddy was here too.
The woman who had been remarkably rude to her on the phone in the not-so-distant past.
Polly preferred to settle her scores in private, but here would do too.
Rising from her seat, Polly drained what was left of her coffee.
"What are you doing?" Piper's voice seemed a little strained, a barely-concealed edge to it.
"I'm going over to introduce myself to your friends." Polly gave her biggest, brightest smile, and Piper flinched.
Polly was an alligator baring her teeth, just close enough to the surface of the water to bite when harmlessness was less interesting.
"Polly, wait - "
Nicky's initial irritation had softened into sly digs and soft insults, which Alex welcomed with open arms.
Alex meanwhile was still delivering fistfuls of serviettes into Nicky's lap, which was now considerably drier than it had been.
Her anxiety only reappeared when she noted Piper's friend heading in their direction with a little more speed than she would've liked, as Piper looked helplessly on from behind.
"Alex, right?" Polly's brown eyes could be so kind, but in this moment they seemed dark, dangerous, and Alex was in no was inclined to welcome any fuckery this morning.
Willing herself to make eye contact, sliding from the bench begrudgingly, Alex rose to her feet, several inches taller than Polly in a way that reassured her about the coming conversation.
"You must be Holly. Nice to meet you." Alex extended a hand to shake, but Polly didn't respond immediately.
Nicky watched them both tentatively, before leaning across the table in their direction, her own hand out in a gesture of greeting. "Polly. I've heard so much about you from Piper."
Whether Polly simply hadn't seen Nicky or she hadn't expected her participation was unclear, but she seemed startled by the interruption, choosing Nicky's hand over Alex's.
The taller woman's brow darkened as though a storm was coming, but Nicky ignored her, all charm and grins.
"And you are?"
"Nicky Nichols. Daughter of Marka Nichols, maybe you heard of her? She's dead now, but what a lady. Did you go to Saint Agnes with Piper?" Nicky was in full diversion mode, and Alex took the opportunity to step back.
She was getting some serious school flashbacks: preppy girls demanding to know where her hand-me-downs came from, the richer kids confronting her in the cafeteria as she ate another leftover burger from her mother's shift at the diner the day before, being stopped at the entrance to the bus because her trailer park poverty "might be contagious"...
But rather than heading for the door as her brain normally begged her to do, heart aching and legs screaming for escape, she found herself aiming in a completely different direction.
Piper's worried gaze met hers through the coffee house crowd, and Alex wanted nothing more than to sink into the soft embrace of Piper's arms, for them to return to the bed they'd shared that morning and just exist in the same space for a few hours.
This had just become a very different kind of need.
An assortment of chairs and tables became an informal barrier between them, neither wanting to move for fear of worsening the situation.
Alex's tendency to lapse back into literary references during points of pressure or times of tension resurfaced, and she wanted to make some Victor Hugo-esque pun about being "beyond the barricade", but her target audience was too far away, watching her with eyes that sought an easy resolution.
If Alex wanted to become a permanent fixture in Piper's life, she realised that even if Holly - Polly - was domineering and judgemental, she'd still need to ingratiate herself.
Piper would never ask that of her, but it seemed only fair to try.
Turning back to the conversation beside her - where Nicky was somehow neck-deep in a conversation of her own making about the types of soap she used - Alex cleared her throat.
Polly met her return to their social sphere with a raised eyebrow, and Alex fought not to mirror the gesture, all cocked hip and folded arms. She chose to smile instead.
"Small world, right?" Alex jerked her head in Piper's direction.
"Mm. All the coffee shops in this city and you miraculously found yourself in this one."
"Eh, there's no such thing as miracles," Nicky interjected, resentful that fate could have played any part in her autonomy. "But I picked the place."
Polly didn't turn away from Alex, but did follow the conversation. "You did?"
"Yeah. I've been before, and I thought, why the fuck not? The coffee here is decent."
Polly nodded, eyes still leveled on Alex. "Have you been to their other site downtown? The coffee's better there."
"We should go." Alex quirked an eyebrow at her, a suggestion of further time spent together, the implication of her being open to knowing Piper's friend better.
"Not today. Piper and I had plans to spend today alone."
Alex wanted to remind the diminutive woman before her that Piper was distinctly not her property, and that Piper was adult enough to make her own goddamn decisions, and…
"Another time then." She replied quietly. "It was nice to put a face to the name," Alex paused, wanting to close their conversation as smoothly as possible. "Polly."
There was a beat before Polly answered. "I'd say the same, but Piper already gave me a fairly detailed description." She rolled her eyes.
Alex was so intrigued that she forgot to rein in her curiosity. "She talks about me?"
Polly softened.
Alex seemed less like a college-level fuck boy when Piper was the focus, and for a moment, as the teacher glanced across to their mutual friend, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth, Polly caught a glimpse of someone she might not dislike after all
Piper was running her fingers around the rim of her coffee cup, apparently resigning herself to remaining behind, far removed even from the fringes of their conversation, and Alex understood why Holly - fuck, Polly - might feel protective.
She had already wondered more than once if Piper's was an easy heart to break, and she didn't wish to find out.
The thought had intruded late night on so many evenings since the creeping crush had climbed inside her head, and with each hour they spent together, the notion of she and Piper clambered closer to her chest, the surging, sanguine epicentre of every mistake she'd ever made.
Polly was lucky to be so close to Piper, and right to be cautious of callous newcomers.
But Alex was luckier, careful, and incomparable to the gift of a girlfriend she'd been so lucky to gain only hours earlier.
If Piper was the sun, Alex was but a bonfire on a cold fall evening: fleeting, nothing more than an accumulation of kindling and a catalyst.
Seldom were they present at the same time, and Piper's warmth and presence were far more valuable and welcome than Alex's fugacious novelty.
She was rambling internally, caught up for a moment in a non-existent quandary of her own creation; Shakespeare via Radiohead with a smattering of self-pitying, second-rate writer Meyer.
"She talks about me?" Alex repeated dumbly.
"Both too much and too little." Polly replied, studying her. "It's like you're always on the tip of her tongue."
Nicky was present again at Alex's elbow - the elbow that had somehow started this whole conversation in its clumsiness, which Alex refused to accept as her own unless there was some sort of happy ending to this - inviting and imploring with surprising subtlety.
"So let's grab a drink sometime, yeah? It's been great." She prompted. Nicky had always been an excellent mediator where intoxicants could be concerned, and this was no exception.
"Great." Polly echoed, nodding at Alex before starting to slip away through the tables.
Polly pulled her chair away from the table, and took great care in re-arranging her limbs as she placed herself back into her original seat.
"Well?"
She knew Piper would want answers, thoughts, opinions, but she'd have to wait.
She finished her drink.
She checked her nails.
She unlocked her phone.
She listened to the clock that hung above the coffee machine tick imperiously over their heads.
"Polly!"
Polly glanced up impassively from her mobile. "Yes?"
Piper groaned. "What happened over there?"
"Well, I met your -"
"Girlfriend." Piper blurted. "She's my girlfriend."
"So it's official now." Polly phrased it as a statement, rather than a question, as though she had both the inquiry and the answer already.
"I asked her last night. To be my girlfriend. She said yes."
Polly tilted her head, left, and then right. It was as though she was sizing Piper up. "So I gather. It's nice that you have someone."
That was an unexpected response, but Piper took it and ran with it. "Do you like her?"
"She seems nice enough. She definitely likes you."
"What does that mean?"
"You're the English teacher Piper. Surely you've encountered the word definitely before?"
Polly was teasing her, but Piper was impatient. Yes, Polly could be infuriating, but Piper still valued her opinion, and had done for years.
A disagreement over the suitability of a partner was nothing new, but the minutiae of their interaction was something she felt obligated to know.
"Were you mean to her?"
Polly scoffed. "No Piper, I wasn't mean to her. We're adults. We talked. Or at least," She paused. "Marka Nichols' daughter talked, a lot. Alex just seemed to spend most of her time staring at you." Piper blushed. "But either way, we're going for a drink soon."
"What?" The blonde blanched. She must have misheard.
"Alex and I. And probably Nicky. They seem to come as a pair."
"Why are you going for a drink?"
Polly shrugged and smiled. "It was Alex's suggestion. Ask your girlfriend."
Alex sat back down heavily, unaware that she'd even been standing for so long. She thumbed the worn wooden table they sat at, trailing her nail along the grooves in the sapwood surface.
"You okay Champ?" Nicky nudged her arm with the knuckles of a closed fist. "You handled that weirdly cosmopolitan confrontation surprisingly well."
"I'm fine. It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be."
"Yeah." Nicky finished the remains of her almost cold coffee. "I think she came for an argument, but I distracted her with my disarmingly good looks."
Alex's laugh was quiet, but the look she gave Nicky was grateful.
Many of the glances they'd exchanged since their friendship had started had been filled with gratitude, particularly after Alex's mother had passed. Nicky had become a surprisingly stoic rock in a storm Alex wasn't sure she could weather at the time, and they relied on one another now.
Appreciation wasn't something that either of them readily verbalised, but it was present nonetheless.
"You didn't need to speak to her for me." Alex murmured.
"Pssh." Nicky dismissed the thank you that wasn't there. "You'd've done the same."
"I'll buy you a beer next bar we hit."
"Sure. Or…" Nicky hesitated, and Alex leaned in. Apprehension wasn't a trait Nicky displayed often, and Alex's curiosity had been piqued. "Maybe you could keep a low profile tonight?"
A smirk spread across Alex's face. "Have you finally got company coming over?"
"It's possible. Just do me a favour, and don't be a dick, 'kay?"
"Would I ever?"
Nicky ignored Alex's rhetorical question, cramming the rest of her blueberry muffin into her mouth.
There were crude jokes to be made, but Alex let it slide. She owed Nicky one, for now.
Several stores later, and they were in the car again.
Nicky was driving this time, fingers beating against the sides of the steering wheel in time with the rhythm of the song playing.
Her mobile buzzed repeatedly in her lap as message after message filtered through, and she glanced down, trying to see who was so insistently trying to contact her.
"Hey, can you check what that is for me?" Nicky asked.
Alex leaned across the gap between their chairs and purloined the phone from between Nicky's thighs, pre-empting the innuendo she knew would be inevitable. "Nick, If you're going to keep your phone in your crotch, I'm going to have to go there."
Nicky pretended to appear forlorn, but Alex ignored her, unlocking the phone and opening the app.
Snapchat message after snapchat message lit up the digital display like a floodlight, and Alex raised an eyebrow.
"Want me to read them out?"
"Sure, whatever." Nicky replied dismissively, but Alex could feel her suppressing enthusiasm.
"Okay, first one says: what time do you want me to cum?, with 'cum' spelt c-u-m." Alex reserved the right to judge Nicky's choice in women later. "Second one says I mean come lol, but this time come is spelt -"
"Yeah, yeah." Nicky interrupted. "I get the picture. Anything else?"
"It's from someone called StellaC. Wait, don't we work with a Stella? Isn't it that music teacher?"
Nicky kept her eyes on the road. She'd already felt pretty trashy even agreeing to this, but having her friend read the messages aloud felt extra cheap.
"Oh wait, there's a picture." Alex paused, tapping the screen. "It's - oh, woah!" Fumbling with the phone, Alex dropped the device into the footwell and crossed her arms, staring off into the middle distance as she did her best to forget what she'd just seen.
"What? It's what?"
"It's gross." Alex's distaste was evident.
"What? Nudy Judy?"
"Let's just those tattoos don't stop at her arms."
Nicky let out a low whistle. "Pity you opened it. I don't think I can see it again now."
"I'm sure you'll see it in the flesh tonight." Alex muttered scathingly.
They continued further down the road, headlights and taillights drifting away into the late afternoon as a crepuscular darkness crept in around the edges of their day.
Alex broke the soft silence that settled around them like a blanket, an insurmountable question burrowing inside her brain.
"I'm sorry, just to clarify, are you fucking the new music teacher?"
Nicky laughed. "Not yet."
Alex could remember the way Piper had looked at Stella on their first night together. She wasn't sure she wanted the music teacher to be at their house too often.
She was probably over-thinking things.
That didn't negate the thought.
Checking her own notification-less phone, Alex ran her hand through her hair. "I think I'm going to get an early night."
The car crunched into their driveway and ground to a halt.
Nicky did her best not to make eye contact as she gathered her things. "You okay?"
She didn't like to intrude when Alex wasn't feeling great - low moods and anxiety were commonplace between them - but she still cared.
"I was gonna make a some food. And by food, I mean pizza. And by make, I mean reheat."
"I'm okay. I've got some papers to mark and some stuff to read. Besides, I've got to make myself scarce tonight." Alex tossed a wan smile in her friend's direction. "But I might join you for a glass of wine once you're done with Down Under."
"I think I'll be too busy down under for that."
Alex placed her palm flat on her stomach, looking ill. "That was probably the worst thing you've ever said. I do not want to hear about you guys having sex."
"Australians don't have sex, Vause." Nicky gave her a knowing look. "They mate."
Alex laughed in spite of herself. "You disgust me."