"Hey!" Rosalie beams as her brother stumbles out of his room. His stubble and red-rimmed eyes add a very 'gray' look to his face, that seems to fit his mood. He blinks blearily at Rosalie, who holds up the skillet higher. "You want pancakes?"
Jasper's face scrunches into one big question mark as he scuffles closer, staring down at the pan. "… You hate cooking?"
Rosalie laughs a little uneasily at his obvious confusion. She looks over at where Eli sits at the counter, already munching on a small stack – Eli told her that she preferred them lightly burnt around the edges, with butter. Which is perfect because that's exactly the only way Rosalie can make them.
"I do not – Eli has her big secret appointment today," Rosalie explains quickly, "so I'm just making sure she's had breakfast!"
Eli grins, waving around her knife. "She's tryin' to butter me up so I'll tell!" Eli says, smoothing the knife in the air in front of her – as though she's trying to butter Rosalie.
Jasper barks out one laugh that immediately makes him wince and scrabble for coffee. "That makes more sense," he replies, though he sits at the bench next to Eli and turns his nose up at the pancakes with their perfect ring of black. "Fuck no – that'll make me chuck."
Rosalie flips him off, and grins as Archie muzzily wishes the kitchen a good morning, wearing Jasper's blanket as a cape. Rosalie shows him the skillet with a little bit of pride. She didn't cookoften, after all, so she fully expects praise for her efforts – and so far Eli is the only grateful one.
"Pancakes?" Archie whispers in wonder. Then he swings his head and points accusingly in Rosalie's face. "Who are you and what did you do to my bestfriend!" he yells, "Give her back, you bitch!"
Rosalie, her hands full of a spatula and a skillet, attempts to knee him in the side to get his finger out of her face. "Shut up you don't have to eat them!" she snaps, very angry that she has only gotten one compliment.
"But they're really good!" Eli calls out, as though she knows Rosalie needs soothing after such an ungrateful aggressively Southern couple. Rosalie inclines her head graciously. "Barely any eggshell in them."
Rosalie's mouth falls into a scowl, and Archie sighs in relief. "Oh, it is you, Duchess!" Archie declares, flicking a finger across his forehead as though wiping away sweat. "Thank goodness!"
The other three laugh, and Rosalie never did take being the butt of the joke well. She drops the skillet and marches into her room.
"Don't be so sore, Dutch!" Jasper calls out after her.
"I'm not sore I'm having a shower!" she snaps, slamming her bedroom door behind her.
She's frustrated to the extreme as she bangs around her bathroom, yanking the tap of the shower on. She glares at the stream with her arms crossed and her foot tapping, fully aware of how ridiculous she looks. She knows she overreacted – again. She knows she has these outbursts, and it is a problem that she had to work on. But the awareness only serves to make her angrier, and more embarrassed.
Her phone starts to ring, and she let's out a short gnashed-teeth growl as she sees her fiance's name flashing on the screen. She swipes to take the call.
"Hey, I've called off the strippers, why are you still ignoring me?"
Rosalie hums, "I didn't get my 'good morning' text, Royce, I was just waiting for it."
"You know you get like this, babe. Stop holding all these grudges, it's so childish."
That hits closer to home at the moment than Rosalie cares for. She glances back to the kitchen, and sighs shortly.
"… I know, I know I get like this," she admits softly. It makes her feel raw, and in need of a little comforting. "You want to come over? I made pancakes."
"Preparing to by my perfect wifey already? Sounds good to me."
Rosalie laughs, no way was she setting some sort of cooking precedent. "As if – I made them for Jasper's hangover."
Royce's tone goes completely cold. "Just kidding, I got a maid for a reason, babe. I'm fuckin' swamped with shittoday, I'll text you, have fun with mommy."
Rosalie purses her lips, and weighs whether or not it's worth it to make this a big deal. "… Yeah, okay, I will," she decides, squeezing her phone off and tossing it onto the bed.
She flops down onto the bed after it, letting out a short growl into the mattress. Royce had so kindly reminded her of the luncheon with her future mother-in-law that Rosalie had to attend later today.
She does shower and dress before she comes back out. Since she's been gone Archie had taken over the pancake making and they were looking decidedly less burnt than when Rosalie had the spatula.
Eli is sitting in front of her empty plate, and she immediately perks up when Rosalie walks over to her. Though she doesn't seem very perky; she actually seems quite contrite. Her voice is low, lightly beseeching, "Sorry we were makin' fun."
Rosalie shrugs once, crossing her arms and tucking them under her tits. "It's fine, I'm used to it," she says with a sad little sigh, looking at the sink full of dishes. "Everyone always laughs at me."
"Really?" Eli's brows bounce up. "People get away with laughing at you?"
"What are you talking about?" Rosalie asks her in return, nose wrinkling. "I never said anyone gets away with it?"
Eli booms out a laugh, grinning from ear-to-ear as she leans a bit closer to Rosalie, conspiratorially. "Should I be scared?"
"Oh please, you're a guest!" Rosalie laughs, battling at Eli's thick arm before she rests her hand on the woman's bicep, and curls her nails in. "You get a warning." Rosalie releases her, and Eli gives an exaggerated shudder.
Eli nods to where Jasper and Archie flirt in front of the stove. "Should they be scared?" Eli asks, and Rosalie only shrugs. Eli throws her head back to laugh.
Breakfast finishes with little aplomb, and Rosalie has to go back to her room and change into a nicer blouse and blazer. By the time she comes back out, Eli was at the door, and Archie was giving her a big kiss on the cheek.
"Good luck at the Doctor!" the man cheers, and Eli gives them all a wave before Jasper leads her out of the door.
Archie looks Rosalie over critically. "You look like you're going for a job at Anthropology," he informs her with no small amount of disgust.
Rosalie shrugs, bunching her lips up towards her nose. "I have lunch with Mill."
Archie cackles, "Oooh, have fun!"
Mrs King is perfumed, plume-haired, white suit white bread. She keeps in touch with her sorority sisters, she has her hair styled weekly, and she still mourned Bloomingdale's. The biggest WASP Rosalie has ever met. Not that she has met very many – she came from a distinctly different set; her father is a town planner, her mother had been the local Weather Girl. Jasper's mother is a Sociology professor, but those first in their families to go to college did not surround Mrs King's social circle.
Mrs King, who reminds her that the very second 'Rollie' kissed her at the alter, she expected to be called 'mom', is trying her very best to prove how P.C. she is – never-mind that Rosalie was a blue-eyed blonde and fairly sure Mrs King didn't know they spoke Portuguese, not Spanish, in Brazil.
"Your man-of-honor is such an interesting little thing!" Mrs King declares after their entrees but before their second drinks have arrived. "You know, I was telling the girls at the club about how Rollie is joining your familiar."
"Wonderful," Rosalie replies, "I'm so excited to meet them all."
"And you will, darling!" Mrs King thrills, "I'm so glad you'll have the wedding at the club, you know, it's very lucky I managed to finagle the date you wanted." The woman gives her a wink. "Just another perk, darling."
"Of course," Rosalie says, knowing the woman was trying to placate her. "I just hate that you went to all that trouble," she lets the anger heat her chest, but she breathes through it, lets it simmer down again. "You know, when my avó was more than happy to organize the church."
"Well, religion is such a touchy subject dear, this is really the best way to go about it," Mrs King is quick to move on from the subject she herself had brought up. "Oh! I'm just so excited for your honeymoon! Hubby and I went to Bali for ours too, and you know, the locals are so friendly, so many of them speak English …."
Rosalie comes back from the lunch, drained and bored in equal measure. She never could understand how someone spoke so much and said so little. She walks into a loud pop from the kitchen that makes her jump. Her subsequent stumble in her heels alerts Archie, Eli and Jasper – the latter of which holds a bottle of fizzing cider.
"Hey – what did I miss?" Rosalie asks them.
Eli beams, throwing her arms out wide. "The doctor went really,really, well!" she declares, downright giddy. Rosalie can't help but beam along with her.
"Let's celebrate!" Archie declares, jumping down from the stool. "Glad-rags – we're going out!"
"Finally," Rosalie declares, and Archie smacks her on the ass as she hurries into her room to change into something sluttier.
Rosalie is sipping a Cosmo at the bar when she remembers she was going to tell Eli the funny joke her co-worker Angela had told her a few days ago. Angela had told her twice to teach her, because Rosalie is working on her humor skills, along with her temper. Often her jokes seem to come off as really bitchy, mean and not very funny at all.
She eagerly looks around to try and spot Eli. She spots her in a corner, and feels her whole body go cold.
Eli is grinning cutely, chest puffed out, as a small girl with her hair piled high gropes her elbow. Her bicep, Rosalie realizes numbly. Rosalie feels something hard pressing against her chest, causing her to lurch upwards, shouldering through the crowd to get to them.
"Eli!" Rosie yells quickly, regretting how accusatory her tone was. Eli jumps a little at her name, and she grins at Rosalie.
"Hiya, Dutch!" Eli calls, putting on arm on the curly haired little woman. "This is Jessica, she was asking me where I worked out," Eli introduces them, and Jessica giggles, leaning against Eli, just a touch.
Rosalie forcibly relaxes her glare, but she has a deep urge to keep Jessica away from Eli. Rosalie is sure it's because of the story Eli told her the other night – she's just feeling protective of the woman.
"Eli, I was hoping you'd walk me to a taxi?" Rosalie says, ignoring Jessica entirely as she looks solely at Eli.
Eli looks a little taken aback, but she gives a little smile with a nod. That's all Rosie cares to stick around for, she turns on her heel and marches out of the club.
She waits outside for Eli, but after a moment she regrets it. It's a sport night, people, mostly men, were out loudly with matching jerseys. Rosalie feels a slight ripple of fear shoot through her, and shrinks to the side.
"Hey, you look lonely …" A man calls out, practically being carried with his arms slung around two other men's shoulders. One of them is texting and the other is lighting up, and neither of them tells their friend to cut it out.
Rosalie tries to find her voice as the plastered man swings the trio closer to her, but her words are stuck in her throat, though she feels her own lip curling in mounting disgust. She knows she's going to snap, and say something that she could deeply regret later –
"She isn't – as you can see she's got all the company she needs," Eli's voice rings out over Rosie's head. Immediately, Rosie feels safe, feeling the heat from Eli at her back makes her braver.
Rosalie stamps down the urge to let herself cower against Eli's chest, and holds her chin up high to stare the men down. The other two have looked up at the sound of Eli's voice, and Rosalie's proud for Eli's sake when she sees the man's phone go slack in his hand as he mouths 'wow' while looking up. No doubt he can see how powerful Eli was.
"Fuckin' dyke," the middleman spits, which snaps both his friends out of their stupor, and they mutter some kind of apology while they drag him away.
"That's right!" Eli calls after them, a laugh in her voice.
Rosalie lets herself lean back against Eli when they're gone around the corner. A touch to her right side, so the hand that Jessica groped comes up to steady her shoulders
"A'right Duchess?" Eli asks, brow furrowed, and Rosalie wants to shake out her hair, cover Eli's arm with it and brush away where Jessica had touched.
"Yeah, I just don't feel good," Rosalie mutters, and that is true. She feels kind of sad and upset. She didn't like Jessica, and while Rosalie knew her first impressions usually stuck: she couldn't pin-point why Jessica irked her. That isn't a problem she normally has; she usually goes with her first impressions of someone, but this instance feels different. I'm just over-protective now. Rosalie reasons. After all, Eli is new to the big city and while she didn't seem naive, that didn't mean she was used to city-life, or city girls.
But Eli just pets her shoulder before letting her go, and heading toward the taxi rank. Rosalie follows, just a beat behind her.
Some of the clumps of jerseys glance over at Rosie, and then Eli, and then turn their heads away. Rosie had noticed that often; men just didn't like looking at Eli, some women too. It makes her feel … better than them. She couldn'tstop looking at Eli, half the time she has to rip her gaze away. Rosie knows she is superior to them, after all, Eli is always looking at her too.
Oh.
Oh no.
Eli is always looking at her.
Rosalie feels dread seep into her through the sharp soles of her heels. After all, she is engaged, to a goofy rich guy that gave her a honking big diamond. Besides, Eli is looking for Dolly Parton – gay Dolly Parton.
Rosalie makes sure to be looking elsewhere every time Eli glances back at her out of the corner of her eye, with that easy smile.
Eli is still a touch over tipsy, humming 'Islands in the Stream' with her hands stuffed in her pockets. Rosalie tries to hum along with her, but she isn't feeling half so chipper.
She keeps replaying that scene in her mind: Eli, laughing with pink ears, as that woman felt up her biceps shamelessly. Rosalie feels so guilty for being as disgusted as she was, and she is focusing on how nice it feels to be walking with Eli now. She really thought she wasn't homophobic, and she wasn't sure why she was going backwards.
"I'm sorry for taking you away from," Rosalie mutters, feeling her stomach twist and breathing through it, "the club." she settles on. She just can't bring herself to feel sad for taking Eli away from Jessica.
"Of course! Anything to help!" Eli chirps. Rosalie smiles, but it feels wooden. The dread is still in her though. She can't let Eli continue to look at her like that, it just isn't right. Rosalie is obviously in need of reworking her biases, and Eli needs some nice, soft girl to take care of her. And Rosie needs Royce, and her wedding and being a bride and her honeymoon. After all, ever since she saw Princess Diana sitting on the diving board of a yacht in her bright blue one-piece, Rosalie knew exactly what her goals were. To be a gorgeous woman on a yacht in a bright blue one-piece.
"Here we are!" Eli declares, standing under the taxi sign. Rosie looks at the big sweet woman, hands tucked into her pockets.
"Eli, you should …" Rosalie begins, but even as she's speaking, she can't think of how to voice her feelings. "You're really very nice …."
"Thaank you, you too!" Eli chirps at her. Rosie feels panic claw up her throat. Because Eli looks so flushed and content.
"But I think it's for the best if, after tomorrow, you head back home," Rosalie says numbly, as she feels almost as if her mouth is disconnected from the rest of her.
Eli cocks her head to the side, and frowns. "Oh … yeah, okay," she says, ducking her head and nodding just slightly, scratching the back of her neck. "I don't mean to overstay my welcome …."
"It's just," Rosalie feels awful for making Eli look so sad, and all but threw up her hands. "You're attracted to me, aren't you?" she asks bluntly. Because she knew exactly what it looked like when a man found her attractive. Not that Eli was anything like that. If anything, Rosalie was much more comfortable with Eleanor's desire than any man's, mostly because the woman was such a huge sweetheart. But it didn't change the fact that Rosalie had a ring and the man that came along with it. Eli tellingly flushes all the way to her ears.
"You're my type," Eli agrees quietly, glancing down the street, "but it's not like I'd try and make a move," she says, her voice sad and, for once, small.
Rosalie shakes her head. "It's not that," she says briskly, "I'm just engaged and it's not appropriate." Because she loved Royce, and she was engaged to Royce.
Eli looks like she's been slapped in the face. "I'd never do anything to make you feel uncomfortable," the large woman says, intense and raw.
Rosalie feels a little lost in such earnestness. "I know you wouldn't, that's not what I'm trying to say," she says quietly. She feels bad for Eleanor, a little; Rosalie is straight, after all. Eleanor should be attracted to a nice, gay girl – which Rosalie isn't.
"But you aren't comfortable with me," Eleanor says sadly, as though she's defeated. Rosalie didn't say anything, because the truth was that Eleanor did make her a little nervous. "It's, well, no helpin' it. I'm sorry." Eli looks at Rosalie straight in the eyes with such guilt Rosalie feels her own stomach roll dangerously.
"Don't apologize," Rosalie whispers, her voice and will weak, dropping her gaze and focusing on the door handle of a cab that had pulled up. "I'm going home …."
"'Kay, get back safe."
Rosalie climbs in the car, gives the driver her address, and cries quietly until she was climbing into bed. She ends up crying herself to sleep and being dead to the world in the morning.
What? I thought everyone liked the 'Oh' in Italics moment?