They were gathered around a large table at their favorite Chinese restaurant well off the Strip. Far from the usual tourist-driven hubbub. Kiki had brought Luna, DJ showed up sans Aiden, Ava was enjoying the familiar company and then Deborah arrived.
She looked tired. Really tired.
"Deb-raw!" Luna does her best dinosaur roar before running at the woman who lifted her with ease.
"Hello, Miss Luna," Deb's voice was sing-songy. She glanced over at Ava but only briefly, chatting with the little one until the kid was returned to her booster chair.
DJ stood to kiss her mother on the cheek. "You look awful," she whispered. "Are you sick?"
"Thanks, honey," Deb said through gritted teeth.
They had all taken seats. Ava and Deb had never been huggers, so Ava hadn't budged. The times they had hugged could be counted on one hand. They weren't about to hug after all that had happened in recent months and certainly not with other people around who had no idea that the two had been working toward some sort of surrender. Deborah sat between Luna and DJ, leaving Ava across the table from her throughout the meal. She met her usually easy-to-read eyes for the first time and all she saw there was the same hollowness Deb herself often felt.
"Hello, Ava," she nodded to her and received a warm smile in return. It was as though Ava had been waiting for that validation. It wasn't as though they hadn't spoken every night for weeks. They weren't strangers. But that hardly meant seeing one another hadn't dumped a Superfund site of emotional refuse on them both. Thankfully, Kiki sensed the heaviness and was happy to distract everyone.
"Deborah, I'm so glad you came! Luna told me only you can show her how to use chopsticks. Mind you, she can't really use a fork, but she's determined," Kiki shrugged in the adorable way she always did when talking about her progeny.
"I will do my best," Deb looked to the kid adoringly.
Without appreciating that she was doing so, DJ looked at Deborah approvingly. The only other time Ava had seen such a look was after Deborah filmed her special. DJ had come around to accepting that her mother had made a truly terrible parent—the show's content actually helped their relationship in that respect—but that she was going to be an exceptional grandparent.
"How is L.A.?" Deborah found herself saying to Ava, fully knowing the answer, but unaware how much either Kiki or DJ knew about what had transpired over the last month. If either knew about the phone calls, they hadn't said anything to Deborah.
Ava launched into a rundown of everything she hated about working in a writers' room, but she spoke with an animation that revealed she was thriving with the creativity in her life. She complained about a few of the writers, all of whom Deborah knew by name, and gave a short update on the status of her condo which had flooded the week after she had resumed living in it. Something about a garbage disposal backing up. This was actually news to Deborah. Though they hadn't yet been talking then. Though that hadn't stopped Ava from leaving her long, sniveling voicemails. Those first weeks apart were absolute hell.
"When do you go back?" her question clearly caught Ava off guard, not because she didn't have an answer, but because she knew Deb already had the answer. This was where the waiter found them when he arrived with a cart of dim sum. Ava and Deb were in an odd type of standoff, DJ and Kiki were puzzled and Luna was rambling about pillows (her own rebranding effort for the food they were about to eat).
Dinner carried on uneventfully, the two former writing partners glancing at one another from time to time. Ava blushed once when she was caught staring for an unnatural amount of time. She was completely unaware she had been doing it. The conversation around the table was lively. Aiden stopped in to say hello and insisted on referring to Ava as "bridesmaid" which set off an entire speech on gendered wedding terms. He clearly found it amusing and, from the look on his mother-in-law's face, so did she.
Around the time DJ announced she would catch a ride home with her husband, Luna started to get cranky.
"I suppose we should get going, too," Kiki said. Ava's stomach lurched; she hated having to say goodbye to Deborah.
"Ava, you are welcome to stay at the house. Your—" Deb stopped herself in the nick of time and quickly buried the feelings that had surfaced with the thought that a room in her home was and would always feel like Ava's. "The guest room is available. It is nominally better than Kiki's couch."
Ava looked at Deborah as though she might cry. Kiki, in turn, looked at Ava and didn't know what she was supposed to say, but she suspected the right thing to do would be to encourage Ava to go home with Deborah.
"Home!" Luna wailed.
The toddler broke the tension nicely and everyone began gathering their things. Ava slinked over to Deborah so she could whisper "you sure?" to the woman who nodded politely. However, her demeanor didn't scream confidence.
Luna allowed Ava to carry her to Kiki's car, arms and legs akimbo, where she was deposited in the car seat and buckled in. Ava kissed her forehead once for every year on the planet she had spent. She loved the kid dearly despite not seeing her often.
"Thanks, pancake," Kiki wrapped her arms around Ava. She lowered her voice and advised, "talk to her."
Ava's eyes were misty. It was the same advice Kiki had been giving since the events on the rooftop in L.A. They had been talking. That wasn't what Kiki was alluding to, though. Everyone knew Ava was in love with Deborah. Probably even Luna.
…
"You didn't have to put me up, D," a nervous Ava watched the driver's profile as she expertly navigated her city. She hadn't expected the weight of how much she missed riding in the passenger seat with Deborah at the wheel to hit her so hard. Turning to stare out the window, Ava took steadying, counted breaths. At least I've learned something from self-care TikTok, she supposed.
"I wanted to," Deborah didn't dare look at her passenger as she answered; she wasn't oblivious to the struggle taking place in the seat next to her. "Besides, you do not want to get up at the time Luna does. At my house at least I won't be running and jumping on your bed, screaming my head off, at 5:30 a.m."
"No, but you're welcome to," Ava gave a half-smirk.
"That's the first inappropriate thing you've said to me since you set eyes on me tonight," Deborah pursed her lips in a form of victory.
"I guess I have a lot of catching up to do," she grinned. "You've insulted my hands three times already."
"It's not an insult if it is true. Observational humor not insult humor," Deborah glanced at Ava and awaited her inevitably smartassed response. When she failed to come back with one, Deb was left taking a shaky breath. She could feel the girl's eyes boring into her. "Ava."
Hearing her name from the woman's mouth with a familiar tenderness but also an understandable frustration nearly brought Ava to tears. She stared out the window to avoid the scrutiny.
"65," she eventually mumbled.
"What?" Deborah either hadn't heard correctly or she simply didn't understand.
"You asked me if I knew how old I will be when you are 109. I'll be 65."
The paralyzing guilt that struck the comedian rendered her mute. She said nothing else as she maneuvered through the gated entrance to her lane, driving the mile or so to the driveway and parked the car. She kept her hands on the wheel for a moment. It was an uncomfortable silence.
"I'll go up and be out of your hair," Ava said, however pathetically. Deborah watched her exit the car and walk to the front door where she waited patiently. They recognized that it was Ava who needed a moment to clear her head and gain a hold of her emotions.
"Thanks," she muttered as the door was unlocked by Deborah and pushed open for her.
They were barely inside the house when Barry and Cara raced through the foyer to greet their friend Ava.
"I see how things are," Deb chirped.
"Hey, hi, I missed you, too," Ava said to them, kneeling at their level, giving ear scratches and accepting kisses to her chin. She was soon laughing. The beautiful sound overwhelmed Deborah. "Take a girl to dinner first, Cara. At least out for coffee!"
When she stood up, she looked to Deborah and found an intensity reflected there that was startling.
"Deb?" she asked cautiously.
Before Ava had time to react, her back was pressed up against the door and Deborah was kissing her with urgency and abandon. A flash of sapphire was all she saw before her own eyes closed involuntarily in response to the mind-blowing sensation. Hands instinctively grabbed for Deborah's hips. It was over before Ava had processed what was even happening. And then it all came into focus.
"What the fuck, Deborah?!" she hissed. Deb took a quick step backward, not at all expecting the forceful reaction. "What was that?"
"Clearly a mistake," the way she utilized tone had an uncanny ability to leave a room ice cold. Ava shivered. Deborah turned and started for the stairs. She was a coward when it came to consequences.
"Hey!" Ava was having none of it. She staggered after her, grabbing her by the wrist to prevent her from disappearing up to her room and potentially pretending that nothing had happened. She was hardly strong enough to keep her there for long, Deborah was stronger than she looked, and Ava would never be forceful. "Deb, look at me."
Deborah turned slowly, arms crossed over her chest, and when she met Ava's eyes her own unshed tears and heartache were unmistakable. There was nowhere to hide her vulnerability.
"Deborah…" Ava couldn't believe what she was seeing. This was a woman who didn't believe in crying. This was the woman who had forced them apart. And yet she stood there breaking. She nearly buckled and allowed the woman to retreat. "…talk to me."
The strangled sob really worried Ava; she pulled Deb into her arms without a second thought. When Deborah's head had been on Ava's shoulder for a moment and the crying had all but subsided, a mumbled "I'm sorry" could be heard.
"Hmm?" Ava's cool hand was on the back of Deborah's neck and her thumb was moving in a soothing motion.
"I'm so sorry, Ava," she spoke louder. Maybe she wasn't a coward after all.
"It was a kiss, D, non-life threatening."
The familiar scent of the woman in her arms and a different degree of closeness than they had ever shared left Ava with a flurry of emotions. Overriding them all was her concern for Deborah. It had been immediate and powerful.
"Christ, you can't even let me apologize without snark," Deb jerked away and looked at her accusingly.
"People don't usually kiss me and quickly apologize. I tend to be the one acting impulsively," Ava defended herself in the unlikely situation that she in no way was prepared for. Comedy was her crutch. Especially with Deborah. If they didn't have comedy, what did they have?
"I wasn't apologizing for the kiss, you little shit," Deb softened, carefully placing a strand of auburn hair behind Ava's ear; her gesture was both deliberate and loving. "But given your reaction to it, perhaps that is where I should have started."
Taking both of Deborah's hands in her own, Ava allowed her gaze to do all the talking. The hope was that Deborah got the message loud and clear—the kiss was satisfying. This did not negate the fact that it came out of nowhere.
"We have to fix this," Ava implored. "I need to know that tomorrow I am not going back to L.A. without a clue of where you and I stand or when we will see each other again."
Shame radiated off of Deborah.
"Hey," Ava reeled her back in. She used an arm around Deborah's low back to keep her close. And again, a hand was on the back of her neck. That simple touch was grounding them both. What was Ava to say in the situation? For once, she said nothing.
"Umm…" Deborah's breath was ragged as she stepped out of Ava's arms and hurriedly wiped away the tracks of her tears. "Your room has everything you should need. Help yourself to whatever. Josephina will arrive as usual in the morning. Please don't yell over the noise of the vacuum. It only encourages her to make more noise."
"Deb…"
Deborah was moving up the stairs at a quick clip, not looking back. Four little eyes looked up at Ava in anticipation and all she could do was shrug, "I guess you're stuck with me for your bedtime snack."
Ava walked with the dogs into the kitchen, deliberately taking everything in and accepting how much more like home this place felt than where she was currently residing. Even the soda machine felt like a long-lost friend.
"Okay, okay," she responded to Barry's impatient yip. "Let's see what we've got."
She went about getting the dogs their treats and then gestured for them to go to bed. They stared at her. Rolling her eyes at how much they had managed to train her over her short few weeks in the house before the tour, she followed them to the room with their beds. Ava had always found it odd that the dogs had their own room, but then again, they were like children to Deborah. Children have bedrooms. And it wasn't as if the house was lacking for space. Hell, even the Christmas decorations had a room. She sat down with one dog then the other, rubbing bellies, scratching behind ears and cooing.
"Do you think your mommy will give me a chance to fix this?" she said, earning her two odd looks at the word 'mommy.' It was a word they only heard from Deborah. "I can't go on in this weird kind of purgatory. And what was that kiss? I mean, it was great, don't get me wrong. The woman knows how to kiss. It's just that she is notoriously in control. That was definitely not like her. Me? Yeah, you guys know me. I'm an act first, think later kind of gal, am I right?"
The dogs were paying her no heed at this point. It didn't stop her from talking out what she needed to. She wished that she and Deborah were in a place where they could do this kind of analyzing in the moment, but the fact that they were talking at all felt like gift.
"Did you know that your mom had a couch delivered to me? She had Marcus ask my subletter about theirs. It's a nice couch. She also had him deliver a message that I'm a shit for not taking a co-writing credit for the special. I'm not sure those two things were connected, but maybe?"
Looking down at her two companions, she took the hint. Barry was bathing himself while Cara had already begun the light snoring that by midnight became a deafening roar. Perhaps Cara was why the dogs had their own bedroom.
"It was good to see you, guys. I've missed you," she whispered. She stood and made her way to the door, dimming the lights as she was once instructed to do.
Standing in the doorway for a moment, she lost herself in thought. When she agreed to stay at the house, the last thing she expected was to be kissed. No, the last thing she expected was to be witness to Deborah Vance sobbing. The woman storming up the stairs was much closer to what she expected.
Stopping in the kitchen for a drink, Ava sat on a stool and drank a bottle of water in silence. Her mind couldn't stop reliving the sensations that came with the kiss and, equally as visceral, the pain of seeing the heartache on Deb's face as she called the kiss a mistake. It was not a mistake. It was a surprise. And given their progress over the last few months, one they would have to address to continue moving forward. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out to find a text from Kiki.
You haven't killed each other, have you? it read.
Ava smiled at how well Kiki knew them both. Maybe everyone had been expecting a fight when she returned to Vegas.
Close, she typed. What she wanted to say but couldn't was: Deb kissed me.
Kiki was Ava's closest friend. Ava had been too much of an asshole to have friends before Vegas. Now that she did, she found herself wanting to tell them everything. But as much as she loved Kiki, she loved Deborah more and come to deeply respect the woman and her privacy. The NDA violation aside, Ava saw how much Deborah valued her own privacy as they wrote the show about her deeply painful and humiliating private life.
Another notification and a simple message: The night is young.
Shaking her head, Ava didn't agree. While she had been sitting there though, she heard the sound of water turning off upstairs and knew Deborah was out of the shower. She slowly went about turning off all the downstairs lights.
…
The bedroom door was cracked open. It was the strangest symbol of hope yet. Ava knew that if Deborah truly wanted to be left alone, the door would be closed and locked.
She paused in the hallway before reaching out and rapping lightly on the door.
"Deb?" she asked quietly.
"Come in," came the tired voice on the other side.
Ava slowly pushed the door open and entered to find a pajama-clad Deb sitting on her sofa with a book in hand. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Despite everything, she had never looked more beautiful to Ava.
"Hey," Ava was vibrating with nervousness.
"Hi," Deb took off her glasses and placed them with the book beside her, patting the couch. "Come sit."
Awkwardly, Ava came closer and sat at the other end of the couch. She couldn't help but remember a night on that very couch when she had fallen asleep watching television and somehow ended up with her head on Deb's lap, the woman's fingers stroking her hair. It had been a level of intimacy she had never shared with another person.
"Reading something good?" she finally spoke, nodding to the book she wasn't able to see the cover of.
"A novel about a door-to-door shoe salesman," Deborah responded flatly.
"Such people still exist? Or are we talking Willy Loman?" Ava beamed with pride that she remembered the reference correctly.
"That's a play not a novel."
Deborah hadn't said it to shut her down. Ava found her less approachable nonetheless. Pulling her legs up until she was effectively hugging her knees, Ava said nothing more.
"Did you need something?" Deb raised an eyebrow when the silence was dragging on and Ava still hadn't looked her in the eye.
"What don't I need?" Ava chuckled anxiously.
Scoffing at the comment, Deborah looked at the writer with doubt. In the weeks they had been talking, she had been relieved by how well Ava was actually doing on her own. She had taken responsibility for her life, was working on her relationship with her mother, was writing for a hit television show and, more than anything, had come to an acceptance of who she was and what she had to offer the world.
"Why did you kiss me?" she finally got up the nerve to ask. Her arms remained protectively embracing her legs.
"Ava, it was—"
"Don't say it was a mistake. You don't make impulsive mistakes like that."
Reaching out with a finger that touched Ava just under her chin, nudging it upward so their eyes could meet, Deb granted her the rare win. "You're right, I don't. Not like that."
Dropping her hand, Deborah placed it on the girl's forearm. The gentle touch was causing havoc with their heart rates.
"You didn't have too much to drink, right?" Ava's suspicion was put on. She knew Deb hadn't or she wouldn't have driven them home.
"It wasn't a drunken kiss," Deborah asserted firmly. While she kept claiming it was a mistake, if that's what it would go down as, it would be her clear-headed mistake.
"No," Ava nodded in agreement. "It was nice."
Deborah was momentarily speechless. She caught herself grasping Ava's forearm tightly and slowly let up. Ava's eyes were watching Deb's fingers in fascination.
"Nice? It was—" Deb stopped as she rewound what was said and identified how genuine Ava had been when saying so. "Then why did you act as if I had slapped you again?"
Placing a hand on top of Deborah's, the young woman shook her head at both memories.
"I have spent months trying to get over you, Deb," she spoke her truth and only hoped it would be well received. Shoot your shot, Ava, she told herself.
To her credit, Deborah Vance did not run away. Not twice in one night. She held eye contact and didn't pull her hand away. "I didn't know," she exhaled.
Ava's brow furrows in confusion as she continues to look to Deborah for clarification.
"When you told me you wanted to be wherever I was…" The look on her face said that it was all starting to make sense now.
"You didn't know that I was saying that about you and not the Deborah Vance empire?" Ava couldn't fault her either way. Their relationship had always been poorly defined. And as much as she had wanted Deborah in a non-platonic sense, remaining close to the woman was paramount.
Deb's eyelids flutter closed for a moment and when they opened, she was shaking her head in disbelief.
"Don't get me wrong, I miss the work. Collaborating with you was a rush. But not being near you? Not talking for over a month and then only through text or over the phone?" Ava paused to ward off tears. "I wondered if I would ever see you again. If you would ever allow me to see you again."
Turning to her right and blinking a few times to fight off tears of her own, Deborah felt Ava scoot toward her. When she turned back, she found Ava watching with rapt interest. Ava had put all of her cards on the table, it was now up to her.
"I never thought I would find another partner, Ava. Not someone I could write and create with so seamlessly. It became comfortable with you. You spoke my language and you knew the real me underneath the sequins, wigs and stage makeup."
"Deb—" Ava placed a hand on her shoulder but was stopped from continuing her thought.
"I've lived an entire life already." Deborah's shoulders dropped, suggesting this was something to be ashamed of. "You have your entire life in front of you."
"This sounds awfully familiar," Ava sighed. "For insisting I have an entire life in front of me, you sure aren't willing to let me make my own choices about how to live it."
"65." Ava rolled her eyes at this symbolic number that Deborah was now throwing back in her face. "And there's no guarantee I'll be around until I'm 109."
"Hold on a second. Are you admitting that the great Deborah Vance might not be right about something?" Ava tutted.
"I'm trying to warn you off, you little shit," Deborah clenched her teeth.
"I think writing a show with you, living in this house with you and going on tour with you would have warned me off if I was going to be warned off, D."
"I don't have any work to offer you right now." Deborah's jaw was set. Her eyes darted from Ava's face to where the hand was touching her shoulder and back again. "I don't have anything to offer you."
"Love isn't currency, Deb."
"Christ!" She reacted like she had been stung, removing herself from the couch. "What does that even mean?"
"You don't give love with the expectation of receiving something in return. That's not how love works."
To her credit, Ava didn't jump up and follow Deborah. The honesty of her words could be perceived as threatening enough without physical proximity.
"Ava, I am too tired for this psychobabble."
Deborah was moving her book and reading glasses to her nightstand as she began the task of turning down the bed. She was putting physical and emotional space between them. Ava knew she had to proceed carefully.
"Hey, I don't want to fight with you." Ava turned her body to look over the couch at the woman she was in love with.
"You keep saying that." Deborah turned on her lamp and used the position with her back turned to surreptitiously wipe the tears that were falling down her cheeks.
"It's the truth."
"Why?" she looked to the ceiling, her breath ragged. When her eyes were again on Ava, she felt her heart rise to her throat once again.
"How much time have we spent arguing?" Ava posed a question that couldn't be answered with specifics.
"If we are talking, we are arguing, Ava."
"About problematic jokes, yeah. About your need to ruin the environment, definitely. But don't you think we have wasted enough time arguing about things that don't matter in the slightest?" Ava stood from the couch and squared her shoulders, perhaps expecting to be told off. When she wasn't, she slowly made her way around the sofa toward Deborah who had nowhere to go. "We tend to be on the same page about the things that matter."
"If that were the case, why did I send you away?" Deb was contrite as the words tumbled from her mouth uncensored. Ava continued her advance.
"Because you were afraid? Because we weren't communicating about what was obvious? I don't know, you thought you owed me something and pushed me out the door as soon as somebody else had opportunities for me? You tell me, D. I told you what I wanted—still want—that night on the rooftop."
Ava placed a hand on Deborah's shoulder, wanting to brush her cheek but know that the mention of the rooftop alongside such a gesture would bring all of those feelings roaring back and she would have no choice but to crumble. When Deb's hand reached up to cover hers, crossing her arm over her chest the way she had in the past when her shoulder had been touched, Ava felt like just maybe everything was going to be okay.
"I was afraid," Deb nodded with the admission. "I was afraid you were throwing away your career for mine. My coattails could only take you so far. And I knew that you wouldn't leave, not again. I had to be the one to tell you to go."
Hearing Deborah say not again finally broke Ava. Tears flowed. She had left once. It had been a mutual decision, but she had left. She left Deborah to take that stage alone and although Deborah was always the only person physically standing on any stage, Ava had always been there to wish her luck from the wings and celebrate the laughs when Deb walked off the stage.
"You were afraid of something else, weren't you?" Ava croaked. She swallowed and fought to regain steadiness or, at the very least, footing as steady as Deborah's.
"It turns out I was afraid of exactly what you have told me tonight," Deborah's confession was surprising.
"That I might love you…?" As Ava said the words, she felt the truth of them in a way she hadn't before. She had fallen hard for the frustrating as hell, beautiful, intelligent and profoundly funny comedian. Even before she had fallen in love with her, she had loved her.
"Yes."
"Believe me, I understand how scary that is. I see myself in the mirror every morning," the girl smirked and broke into an all-out grin when Deborah resorted to her patented eyeroll. It was a small victory.
"Speaking of the morning," Deb began and grasped Ava's hand tighter when she tried to retract it. "Maybe we can talk over breakfast?"
"You mean you will actually let me talk at the breakfast table? Who are you and what have you done with Deborah Vance?" Ava joked. She wasn't expecting the very serious response she received.
"Oh, she's in here, but I think maybe my persona is not be the right version of me to lead with."
"I, yeah, of course," Ava tripped all over herself. "We should probably get some sleep. Thank you again for putting me up."
Deborah released Ava's hand and immediately missed its warmth. Neither woman moved nor spoke. They were at an impasse. While Deborah struggled to know where the line was, given that Ava had both blown up after the kiss downstairs while also admitting it was nice, Ava couldn't possibly know what exactly it was the older woman felt for her.
Ever the impatient diva, Deborah leaned in and placed a kiss to Ava's cheek. Her soft lips lingered there as she took in the fresh scent of Ava's facewash. She had been the one who finally taught Ava to take care of her skin and was pleased to find the fundamentals had become habit. When it was clear she was struggling to break away, Deborah felt that grounding hand at the nape of her neck again. With a relieved exhale, Deborah put a sliver of distance between her lips and Ava's skin. Lips found her own; a tender, loving offering from Ava. Nothing like the kiss downstairs. Ava, too, had to do things her way.
"Goodnight, Deb," Ava breathed against her lips.
"Goodnight, honey."
Ava released her and made for the door, stopping and turning around to find the woman touching her lips in bewilderment.
"Deb? Whichever version of you will allow me to be near you is the one to lead with at breakfast," Ava's eyes sparkled as she spoke. And then she was gone.
For the first night since returning from L.A. without Ava, Deborah slept soundly.
To be continued…