"Vega."

A hand on her shoulder, shaking gently. "Hey, Vega, come on, wake up."

Tori gripped the pillow tighter and burrowed her head deeper under the covers. "Just...just five more minutes, Nic."

She heard a laugh but thought nothing of it because she was just so comfortable and there was no way she was going to get up before she had to. For Pete's sake, her alarm hadn't even gone off yet.

The hand on her shoulder moved down, sliding beneath the blanket, and she felt a warm palm against her back, fingers brushing against her spine. A thumb began rubbing gentle circles into her skin and she sighed in contentment because god that felt nice.

Though she couldn't figure out why Nicole would be-

Oh.

Her eyes flew open and she heard that laugh again, breath tickling her ear.

"Mornin, sunshine."

Jade.

Tori instinctively grabbed the blanket and pulled it up higher even though she was already fully covered. "Morning!" She rolled over so that she wasn't facing the wall, blinking desperately to get rid of the last vestiges of sleep. The image of Jade's smirking face swam in blurred vision and she reached up to rub her eyes with her hand, forgetting until it was too late that she still had her splint on. The metal poked the corner of her eye and she swore under her breath, prompting Jade to laugh again.

"Are you always this graceful in the morning?"

Tori dropped her hand and tried to shoot a glare in her general direction. "Shut up."

"Nah." Jade's smirk grew as she glanced down at the blanket covering Tori's chest. "Uh, Vega, you do realize that I've, one, already seen you naked, and two, that I'm also still naked?"

Tori could feel her face turning red, though she wasn't sure if it was from embarrassment or from the fact that the thought of a naked Jade had made her entire body grow warm. "Yeah, well...shut up!"

"Is that all you're going to be able to say? Because it's going to be hard to have any sort of conversation if you're incapable of saying more than just "shut up."

Tori glared at her. "I'm tired, words are hard." She paused, the cogs in her mind turning slowly. "Wait. It's morning."

"Absolutely astute observation there."

"Shut...ugh. What time is it?"

"Seven, I think."

She stared at her in disbelief. "Why the hell are we awake at seven in the morning, West?"

Jade shrugged. "Well, you see, this strange thing happened yesterday, and I thought that maybe, instead of straight up ignoring it, we should address it before either of us has to go to class?"

"Strange thing?"

Jade stared at her with a single raised eyebrow. "You can't seriously be this thick, right."

"I mean, I've been called thick before, but I don't think it was meant in the same...way..." Tori blinked again and shook her head. "Sorry, I don't...I'm very tired."

"Is like, deflection your coping mechanism now or something?"

She shook her head again. "Don't think so. But if I actually think about the fact that you're currently naked and like, less than three inches away from me, I think my brain might melt. So you might have to give me a second."

"Oh?" Jade's eyes flashed with something almost wicked. "My being naked is making your brain melt?"

Tori felt a leg brush against hers, felt a knee against her thigh, and shivered in a mixture of anticipation and apprehension. "Oh my god."

"I don't see any gray matter dripping out of your ears, so I don't think you've quite reached melting status, but-"

Tori reached down and placed a hand on the knee that was inching closer to her center and tried to ignore how badly she wanted to just let Jade continue her path upwards. "Did you seriously wake me up early just to tease me?"

Jade grinned, but shook her head. "No." She paused and tilted her head in thought. "Well, maybe. Honestly, though, I expected you to be freaking out a lot more, so..."

That's fair, Tori thought, and she let go of Jade's knee in favor of tucking her arms against her chest. "Oh."

"But if you're not, that's great, because-"

"Are you not freaking out?" Tori asked, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Jade started to answer, but then she paused and seemed to reconsider her answer. "No."

"No?"

Jade nodded, then shook her head. "Wait, no, I meant no as in "no, I definitely am freaking out". Sorry, guess that could be misconstrued, huh."

"Yeah, just a little bit."

"Hey, I said I was sorry."

"Gank."

Jade stuck her tongue out at her in response, and Tori continued to stare at her for a long moment before she felt a smile creeping onto her face and, before long, she was rolling onto her back and covering her face with her hands as giggles shook through her.

"Oh my god," she gasped through her laughter. "Oh my god, we had sex."

"Uh...Vega? I'm not sure that laughter is the appropriate response to that."

"Are you joking? It's absolutely the appropriate response!" Her hands moved to the sides of her head and she turned just enough to see the mildly-distressed look on Jade's face. "We had sex! Us!"

"Yeah, that's definitely a thing that happened. Multiple times." Jade frowned, and Tori knew that she should really stop laughing but the ridiculousness of the situation was just so fucking funny. "Vega, I really hope that your laughter is not indicative of how you thought I was, because I do still have a pair of scissors floating around here somewhere and I will use them."

Tori shook her head emphatically, finally dropping her hands back down to her chest. "No! No, you were...you were excellent. Sorry. I just...give me a minute, okay?"

"You can have thirty seconds."

Tori tried to shoot her a dirty look, but then she giggled again. "You're such an ass."

"Yeah, well, you have a nice ass."

"Oh my god." Tori fisted her hands in the blanket so she wouldn't do anything rash like reaching for Jade so that she could pull her closer to kiss her. "Why are you like this?"

Jade sat up, leaning back against the pillows propped up against the head of the bed. She pulled the blanket with her, causing Tori to yelp and grab for it as it began to slide off of her. Jade cast her a bemused look, but it didn't reach her eyes and that, more than anything, made Tori stop giggling. "I mean, I think the psych students would say it's because I'm overcompensating out of a deep inset need to not process my own emotions, but."

Tori stared at her, waiting for the smirk that would suggest that she was joking, but it didn't really come. The smirk was there, just barely dancing on her lips, but that same uneasy look was in her eyes and Tori hoped that it wouldn't soon be joined by regret.

"You're actually freaking out," she stated, and Jade shrugged.

"Maybe. But I thought that was already established like, a few minutes ago."

"Yeah, but..." Tori rolled onto her side so that she could see her better, using the pillow that Jade had given her the night before to prop herself up on her elbow, her head in her hand. The metal of her splint was cool against her skin, serving as a stark reminder of the seriousness of it all. "I honestly thought you were just trying to make me feel better about my own possible freak out."

"Yeah, well, maybe I was. But...ugh." She ran a hand through her hair. "Why aren't you like, freaking the fuck out right now, Vega?"

Tori gave a half-shrug, biting her bottom lip in thought. "I never said I wasn't."

"I've seen you freak out. Like, literally only a few hours ago. This isn't that."

"No, you saw me panicking a few hours ago. There's a difference."

She was met with an arched brow and a disbelieving look. "Bullshit."

Tori shrugged again. "There's also the distinct possibility that I actually went fucking insane and I'm going to wake up and this was all just a dream, so."

The disbelief on Jade's face shifted into amusement, the barest of grins tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Have you dreamt about me before, then?"

(glazed over eyes)

Tori flinched even though she tried not to. It was too late, though, and she saw Jade's amusement fade into concern. "Vega?"

Tori sat up a little more, scooting back a few inches so that her back hit the wall. She gripped the blanket around her tighter and shook her head. "Sorry. I know you meant that as a joke, I just..." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before re-opening them. "Dreams are a little complicated these days, I guess."

She didn't want to see the look on Jade's face so she kept her head bent and her arms crossed tight over her chest and tried to count her breaths as she waited for a response.

She didn't have to wait long.

"They really do kind of suck, don't they?"

Tori made a small noise of acknowledgment. "You can say that again."

She heard Jade chuckle. "Yeah, well...I can at least promise you that this? What's happening right now, and what happened yesterday? Definitely not a dream."

Tori glanced up, lifting her head just enough to see that Jade wasn't actually looking at her. She had shifted positions at some point, with her knees drawn up near her chest and her arms wrapped around them, her gaze focused on the space in front of her. Her hunched forward position had caused the blanket to fall completely away from her back and Tori couldn't help but take in the sight of the barely-faded scratches that criss-crossed pale skin.

(It did nothing to quell the faint ache that had blossomed deep inside of her)

"It kind of feels like one," Tori finally said, and Jade turned her head to look at her. Her eyebrow was arched again, but it didn't feel patronizing.

"That bad, huh?"

Tori shook her head. "That's not what I meant. I just..." She shrugged, her shoulders barely lifting before they fell back down. "You have to admit that this is all a little...strange."

"Yeah. I mean, I think that's literally what I called it a few minutes ago, so..." Jade rested her cheek against the inside of her upper arm and sighed. "We should probably stop dancing around this and just...talk, huh?"

A flash of fear surged through her, but Tori tried not to let it show. "Probably. We, uh...kind of skipped over that bit yesterday."

She watched as a small smile, a sight that she was still so unfamiliar with, appeared on Jade's lips. "Yeah, that's one way to put it."

Heat settled lower and lower in her stomach and she tried not to focus on the memory of Jade's fingers buried deep inside of her or her lips on her neck or-

A hand waved in front of her face. "Earth to Vega? You there?"

Tori felt a deep blush spread across her cheeks. "Yeah!" she exclaimed, and the blush grew warmer at the squeak in her voice. She cleared her throat and cast her eyes down in an effort to look anywhere that wasn't Jade's bemused face. "Yep, nope, I'm fine!"

She could practically picture the smirk Jade was sure to be giving her. "You don't look fine."

"Yeah, well, I am."

"Uh huh. Sure."

"Can we just...what were you saying?"

"Well, I was about to ask which topic you'd like to discuss first: the fact that you definitely need to make an appointment with the school shrink, or the fact that we had a lot of sex?"

Her words made Tori's head snap up. "I might be fucking nuts, Jade, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who should be calling that shrink."

Jade's expression was completely unamused as she looked back at Tori. "I don't do shrinks, Vega. I've managed just fine on my own this far."

Tori stared at her, equally unamused. "Yeah, you're doing fine, all right. So fine that I held you on the beach for hours just because of how fucking fine you're doing."

Jade shot her a glare but after being on the receiving end of that same glare for literal years, Tori hardly even registered it. "You remember that?"

"Of course I do. I wasn't that drunk."

Surprise shined in Jade's eyes, the glare softening. "Then why didn't you say anything the next day? Or like, ever?"

"Why didn't you?"

Jade snorted and finally looked away. "Because I don't exactly enjoy the fact that I let you see me like that." She paused, and Tori was already about to respond when she continued. "That, and I felt you kiss me."

Tori didn't think that she could blush any harder. "What?"

"I'm a pretty light sleeper, Vega."

"You...oh my god." Tori buried her face in her hands. "Oh my god."

"I just assumed you were really drunk, so...I didn't want to read too deeply into it."

"Oh my god."

"Are you going to say anything else?"

Tori peeked through parted fingers, shaking her head. "I'm so sorry, I didn't even mean to do it, it just kinda happened, and-" Jade started laughing and Tori stopped shaking her head so that she could drop her hands and properly gape at her. "What now?"

"You're apologizing for kissing me...and like, on the head, not even on the lips...after we spent several hours last night boning like rabbits?"

"It's embarrassing!"

"You're an idiot," Jade said, before shaking her head. "Fuck, I'm an idiot."

Tori couldn't help but grin at that. "A pretty pink idiot?"

Jade groaned and extended her legs so that she could slide back down onto her back and hide her face in her hands. "Fucking Thornesmith."

Tori waited a moment to see if Jade was going to say anything else before she spoke. "So uh...why are you an idiot, exactly?"

Jade snorted again. "Because I spent the rest of that break obsessing over whether you were secretly into chicks or not."

Tori stared at her for a few seconds before bursting into uncontrolled giggles again.

"Oh come on, Vega, that isn't funny!"

"You..." Tori laid back down with her legs still crossed beneath the blanket and ran her hands through her hair, fingers tangling in the strands as she tried to stop laughing so hard. "Jesus Christ, I spent that week obsessing over whether or not that night even happened because you wouldn't fucking talk about it! And there you were, apparently trying to figure out if I'm fucking gay?"

"It was a valid question!"

Another round of giggles. "I mean, yeah, but for fuck's sake, West, you could have just asked!"

"Oh, yeah, that would have gone really well." Jade pitched her voice up into the terrible Southern accent that she had perfected over the years. "'Hey, Vega, do you like fucking chicks? Because I think you might, and it would be really swell if you did because so do I and gee whiz, maybe we could talk about that further over a soda pop!'"

"Why do you use that voice, you know I hate that voice," Tori muttered, and Jade groaned.

"Literally not the point, Vega!"

"Yeah, well, it's not like I knew that you were interested in anything other than boys, either! And there were kind of more important things to deal with, like...oh, I don't know, the fact that you were having nightmares, and I was having nightmares, and I had a boyfriend, and there was an evil frat bro who literally wanted to rape us both! So like, I'm sorry for not taking the time to come out to you in between all of that!"

Tori had intended for her tone to be joking, but as the words came pouring out of her mouth, the air grew more and more serious and she instantly regretted it. But it was too late to take any of it back, and so she sighed and pressed her palms against her eyes for a long second before she rolled over onto her side so that she faced the wall. "Fuck."

It was quiet for a few moments, the only sound coming from their breathing and the dim echoes of the rest of the dorm beginning to wake. Then, she heard the rustling of bedsheets and a low sigh from the woman next to her before she felt a hand on her shoulder again. She tried not to sink back into Jade's palm, tried not to let the warmth of her skin against her own break down the barrier she suddenly wanted desperately to erect again, but it was useless.

God, she never had a chance.

"Why did you kiss me that night?" Jade asked.

"Which night do you mean?" Tori asked back, feeling her heart beat a little faster at the sensation of Jade's fingers kneading into muscles she hadn't even realized had been tense. "The beach or the creek?"

"Does it really matter?"

"Maybe." She bit back a moan at the feeling of her knotted muscles beginning to release. "Maybe not." She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the feeling for a moment before exhaling slowly. "I thought you were beautiful. So, so beautiful. And I was drunk, and you looked so peaceful and...I thought you were asleep."

Jade hummed, her fingers pressing harder at a particularly tense spot on Tori's shoulderblade. "And the creek?"

(Oceans in her eyes and a hand on her chest and and)

"You made me feel safe," Tori whispered.

The hand stilled, and her veins immediately turned to ice with fear because she said too much. Way too much, really, and-

She felt Jade brush aside her hair, pushing it off of her shoulder completely before her lips pressed a gentle kiss at the base of her neck. They were gone just as quickly and if it wasn't for the shiver coursing down her spine, Tori wouldn't have been sure they had ever been there at all.

"You make me feel safe, too," Jade whispered.

Tori's heart lept at her words, tattooing a frantic rhythm against her ribs, but she tried to keep her breathing even so that it didn't show. "So what do we do now?"

"What do you want to do?"

Jade's voice was soft but Tori could hear a hint of apprehension in it; a deeper question that she didn't really know how to answer.

"I..." Tori paused, feeling Jade's hand settle on her shoulder again, though a little lower this time. "I don't want to lose you."

It was the same thing that Jade had said to her the day before, but there was a stark difference between the almost frantic way that Jade had uttered it then and Tori's barely-audible whisper now. She felt Jade stiffen behind her and she wished that they could just stop talking, could just start touching each other instead and forget everything else, but that was a folly and she knew it.

(Still could dream, though)

"I don't want you to push me away again," Jade finally said, and Tori felt her heart shatter at the tinge of fear she could hear in her voice.

"And I don't want you to leave," Tori whispered back.

Jade's hand moved then, slipping over her side to slowly settle on her stomach, giving Tori plenty of time to push her away. She didn't, of course, and so Jade pulled her closer to her, her arm wrapped securely around her midsection with Tori's back pressed flush against her chest.

"So where does that leave us?" Jade asked, and Tori tried to concentrate on her question rather than on the feeling of Jade's body against hers. It proved to be impossible, though, especially after she tucked her legs up a bit, bringing them even closer together.

"Good question."

There was a moment of silence that Tori didn't mind at all because it meant that she didn't have to say anything that would possibly make Jade let her go.

(She really, really didn't want Jade to let her go)

"I wasn't kidding about the shrink," Jade said, and Tori sighed.

"Neither was I. You need to talk to someone, too."

"I talk to you."

"And I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciate that, but...I'm not going unless you do, too."

Tori felt a puff of air tickle her ear as Jade sighed. "Think they'll give us a two-for-one deal?"

"We could probably ask," Tori replied, and she heard Jade chuckle.

"I'd say we should call and book appointments now, but...well, they're probably not open yet, anyway."

"Fine with me," Tori said. She shifted so that she was even closer to her, impossibly closer, relishing in the unexpected warmth radiating off of the other woman. "I'm not ready to get up yet, anyway."

"Oh?" Jade's lips were at the base of her neck again, peppering a light path down her shoulder. Tori tried not to shiver, but it was impossible when she felt the hand on her stomach inch down a little lower.

"You know, most people go on a date before they start doing...that," Tori said, her words ending in a breathless gasp as Jade's fingers brushed against soft curls.

"Tori, don't take this the wrong way," Jade said, lips tickling against her neck again. Tori let her head fall back just enough for Jade to have better access to her throat, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling of teeth grazing her skin. "But you and I have been more or less dating since February."

"What?" Tori's eyes flew open and Jade's hand stopped moving, though Tori could still feel her muscles twitching beneath her fingertips. It drove her a little nuts, but not quite in the same way that Jade's words had. "I was dating Jake, there's no way that..."

"And you took it the wrong way anyway," Jade murmured, and Tori almost turned her head to demand to know exactly what the hell she was talking about, but then Jade was kissing the underside of her jaw and she wasn't quite willing to give up that sensation in order to get her answer.

"I'm not really sure what way you wanted me to take it," she said, fighting back the urge to shiver as Jade's lips sucked gently at her pulse. "Because it sounds like you're saying I was cheating on my boyfriend when I absolutely was not."

"That's not at all what I'm saying," Jade replied. She pulled away, then, and laid her forehead to rest against Tori's shoulder. "Sorry. I keep saying things without putting enough thought into them." She laughed. "I guess I've always done that, huh? But I'm just saying that...well, we've kind of already done all the normal dating stuff, you know?"

Memories of all the times that they had gone to the Broken Record or the ice cream parlor or Antonio's flooded into her mind. The study sessions, and the dinners, and the creek, and the beach, and the hours where it was them and them alone and Tori realized that Jade was right.

She felt a wave of guilt wash over her before it settled low in her stomach and she almost threw off Jade's arm because the contradiction between her arousal and her guilt was too much to bear. But then Jade's hand was moving up again, settling in much safer territory.

"Other than the kiss at the creek, which I honestly don't think should count because let's be real, you weren't exactly in your right mind, did you and I ever do anything that would suggest that you were cheating on him?" Jade asked softly.

"No, but you can cheat on someone without physically cheating on them," Tori answered.

She heard Jade scoff. "We hung out together. You know, because we're friends?"

"I never did end up telling him that you and I were hanging out after rehearsals, though."

Jade sighed and Tori could feel her shake her head. "Hey Tor? I don't know about you, but even if we kinda did all the normal dating stuff already, it's not like I was thinking "oh hey, this is basically a date" when we were doing it. Were you?"

"No, but-"

"I'm pretty sure emotionally cheating on someone only counts when it's intentional."

Tori bit her lip and wished that Jade's words made her feel better than they did. "I just...it feels wrong."

"Oh."

Jade started to pull away, but Tori reached for her hand before she could remove her arm. "Not what I meant," she said. She laced their fingers together, squeezing gently. "Sorry. I just can't help but feel bad for...well, for everything, you know? Just because I didn't love him doesn't mean that I wanted to ever hurt him. And I did. I really, really did."

Jade was quiet for a moment, and Tori wished she could see her face because the silence was maddening, especially in the absence of an expression. But she just held on to her hand and hoped that she hadn't said anything that would make her leave.

"I don't want you to regret leaving him," Jade finally said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

Tori squeezed her hand again and pressed it tight against her stomach. "I regret hurting him. I don't regret you."

(How could I ever regret you, she thought, and she almost smiled because she knew Jade would call her corny if she said it out loud)

"Okay," Jade murmured, squeezing back. "Just wanted to check."

Her arm tightened around Tori's midsection, almost protectively, and Tori knew that if she focused on the fact that she felt so fucking safe in Jade's arms, safer than she had felt in months, she would probably start crying again.

(God, how did they even end up like this?)

"So..." Jade said a few moments later. "Can I touch you, or do I need to take you on an official date first?"

Tori smiled even though she knew Jade couldn't see it and moved their hands down a few inches before dropping her hand away. "I mean, I'd love to go on a date with you, but..."

"I'll keep that in mind for later, then," Jade murmured. Tori felt an open-mouthed kiss on her shoulder blade and a knee nudging at her thighs, and then fingers dipping lower as soon as she rolled back and parted her legs just enough to give Jade room to finally touch her. She sighed and let her eyes slide shut again as Jade stroked through her, sinking further into the mattress and her arms.

"Fuck, Tori, if I had known that you were this wet for me, I wouldn't have made you wait so long," Jade said, and Tori almost laughed.

"Yeah, well, you just have that effect on me," she said, intending it to be a joke but realizing half-way through that it definitely wasn't.

"Oh yeah?" A finger circled her clit and her hips reflexively pressed back to grind against Jade. She heard a sharp intake of breath and felt the rolling of hips against her and for the first time since they had laid down in that position, Tori wondered just how turned on Jade was.

(She hoped it was at least half as much as she was)

"Yeah," she breathed.

Fingertips teased her entrance, just barely pushing in before stroking back upwards. A whimper escaped her throat before she could contain it, and she felt Jade laugh against her.

"Eager, much?"

Tori gritted her teeth and slowly rocked her hips backwards again, relishing in the whispered "fuck" in her ear and the sudden appearance of Jade's other hand at the top of her spine.

"Stop being a tease and fuck me," Tori said, and Jade apparently didn't need to hear it twice because it only took another few seconds before a finger was pushing inside of her, quickly joined by a second a moment later. The angle of Jade's thrusts was different than Tori was used to,-

(the very nature of being used to anything in relation to Jade touching her was almost too strange to think about)

-a result of their positioning, but it wasn't a bad thing at all because it led to a curling of the fingers inside of her against an exceedingly sensitive area that had her gasping breathlessly. She made sure to maintain the rocking of her hips, though, even when Jade's palm brushed against her clit and her vision erupted with stars. She wanted so badly to reach behind her and touch Jade too; wanted to hear her gasping her name at the same time that she would be gasping hers, but her good hand was trapped beneath herself and-

And the heat had coiled so tightly inside of her, so tight that it was almost too much to bear, and Jesus Christ, she was not going to be able to keep it together for much longer.

She was dimly aware of Jade's lips on her neck, dimly aware of the fingers of Jade's left hand running through and pulling gently on the hairs at the nape of her neck, and she wanted to turn and kiss her so badly but another deep, curling thrust had her eyes screwing shut and another whimpering gasp leaving her mouth as the heat snapped and the resulting wave of pleasure threatened to drown her completely.

She expected that to be it; for her to slowly blink away the stars still floating in her eyesight as she came back down to Earth, but she quickly realized that that wasn't going to be the case. She wasn't even sure if Jade knew she had come because the speed of her thrusts hadn't slowed at all, and neither had the grinding against her or the pressure of her palm against her clit, and she almost told her to slow down because she was already done, it was going to be too much, but then it was too late because she was crying out and falling over the edge again.

She felt Jade shiver and felt the hand at the base of her neck grip a little tighter, fingernails digging into her skin almost painfully. She thought she heard a gasp, but blood was rushing in her ears and the only thing she could actually be certain of was that there were teeth gently biting against her shoulder as the hand inside of her finally, mercifully, began to slow.

They laid like that for a few minutes, Jade's hand finally withdrawing from inside of her but not leaving the inside of her thigh. Tori could feel how slick her hand was, could feel her own arousal drying against her skin, and she almost laughed because she still couldn't believe that it was real, that any of it was real.

"I could get used to waking up like this," she heard Jade murmur against her shoulder, and she smiled because fuck, she definitely agreed.

She managed to wait a few more minutes before breaking the silence with a question that she knew needed to be asked.

Didn't make her any less nervous to do so, though.

"So, uh...does this mean that we're dating?" She managed to keep her tone even, but there were butterflies in her stomach and it was all she could do to hope that she didn't sound as anxious as she felt.

She felt Jade's arm tighten around her and for a moment she feared that she had upset her, but then she felt her pull her even closer against her chest. "Is that what you want?"

Tori paused and took a moment to actually consider the prospect.

She thought about Beck; about all the times that he had tried to hook up with her, of almost-kisses and almost-feelings. She thought about Jake, of his slightly-crooked smile and his kind touch and the pain in his eyes when he realized she didn't love him back.

And then she thought about Jade. Jade, who had shattered her into pieces and torn her apart from the inside out. Jade, who was all sharp edges and even sharper words, who didn't hold back even if it hurt.

Jade, who was none of those things. Not anymore. Not to her.

"I want you to be my girlfriend," Tori answered, feeling more certain of her words than she was of anything else in her life.

She felt Jade shift, felt lips press against her shoulder. "Good," she heard her reply a moment later. "Because I'd really like you to be my girlfriend, too." A pause. "But..."

Panic bloomed deep inside her gut and she tried to keep her breathing even. "But?"

"You're not worried about it being too soon? You know, since-"

"Since I broke up with Jake?" Tori finished for her, and she felt Jade nod.

"Yeah."

"Well, too soon was probably when you had me bent over a piano, if we're being honest. Or, you know, literally five minutes ago. So, like, we might be a little past the point of "too soon.""

She felt Jade's hand against her stomach again, her palm hot and her touch causing Tori's muscles to flutter beneath her fingertips. "You might have a point, there."

"Mhm," Tori hummed in reply. "So unless you're intending on taking a massive step back, I think that dating might be the next logical step."

"Oh, so we're being logical now?"

"Figure we ought to be at some point, right?"

Jade snorted, causing Tori to smile. "Logic is overrated," she muttered, and Tori couldn't help but begin to laugh. It was almost-silent, but even though Jade couldn't see her face, the shaking of her shoulders gave her away.

"What's so funny? Jade asked, and Tori shook her head, biting her lip so that she wouldn't start outwardly giggling.

"I just...never saw this coming, you know?"

She felt Jade's forehead come to rest against her shoulder and felt her chuckle against her skin. "Your roommate did."

"She what?" Tori rolled over so that she could face her, almost throwing off Jade's arm in the process.

There was a hint of pink in Jade's cheeks and she looked anywhere but at Tori as she answered. "That's what the bet was about. She thought that I had feelings for you, and I said she was wrong, so...I guess she knew something that we didn't."

"That little...wait." Tori narrowed her eyes. "When was this bet even made?"

Jade glanced up towards the ceiling, the pink rapidly growing brighter. "Uhm. Early March?"

"Over a month ago?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Why the hell did you even agree to that bet?"

A small shrug. "Thought it would be an easy ten bucks."

"You didn't know that you had feelings for me then?"

A shake of the head. "I mean...not exactly. I just kinda thought that that's what friendship felt like...it's not like I've had many female friends, so..."

Tori stared at her, not bothering to keep her smirk hidden. "You thought that's what friendship felt like?"

Jade pulled her arm off of her and fell onto her back, covering her face with her hands and letting out a dramatic groan. "Shut up! It's not like you were any better!"

"Yeah, but at least Nicole never made a bet with me about whether I secretly liked you or not!"

Jade glared at her through the cracks in her fingers. "I hate you."

"Uh huh. Sure." Tori shook her head and reached out to rest a hand on Jade's arm, pulling on it gently until Jade dropped her hands away from her face. "If you hated me, I don't think you would have lost that bet."

"It's possible to have more than one kind of feeling towards a person, Vega. I'm a complex individual capable of many emotions."

"Complex individual my ass," Tori replied. "You just hate the idea of someone else knowing that I make you feel all gooey inside."

"I have never said that you make me feel gooey inside, what the hell are you on about?"

"Yeah, but you haven't denied it, either."

Jade glared at her. "Vega, I swear to god-"

"You like me," Tori sang, and Jade tried to cover her face again, but Tori wouldn't let her pull her arm away. "You really like me!"

"I'm literally dating you!" Jade exclaimed.

"Yeah, but you liiike me!"

"Why are you like this?"

Tori grinned and leaned forward so that she could press her lips to the corner of Jade's mouth. "Because you secretly like it."

"Lies. All lies."

"Yeah, yeah," Tori said, moving her lips just enough to capture Jade's bottom lip between her own. She almost expected Jade to refuse to kiss her back, anticipating the stubbornness that she had come to expect from the other woman, but she felt her lips move against hers almost immediately. She pulled back when she felt Jade's tongue swipe against her lip and grinned at the groan she received in response. "You like me, you dork."

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure that you like me, too, so," Jade grumbled before she tried to lean back in for another kiss. Tori pulled back an inch or two, only allowing their lips to brush.

"I do like you," she whispered. She lifted her gaze so that it met Jade's, smiling when she saw the softness in her eyes. "Even if you've been conspiring with my roommate behind my back."

"I wasn't...ugh." Jade reached for her, wrapping an arm around her back so that she could pull her closer. "You're annoying."

"Maybe, but at least I'm pretty!" Tori joked.

Jade tilted her head, dragging her gaze down Tori's body slowly. "Yeah, you've definitely got that going for you."

"Gank."

"Your gank," Jade corrected, and Tori felt a surge of warmth flood through her as Jade's eyes rose to meet her gaze again."So. Does this mean you're my girlfriend?"

"Yeah," Tori agreed, and as she watched, Jade began to smile.

"Hey, I think we left our backpacks in the conservatory," Jade said a few minutes later, and Tori dissolved into giggles again.