A/N: With this chapter, I think we are about halfway done!
In the early hours of the morning, there was an insistent, wet press between Jane's shoulder blades: four, five, six times, and it woke her up. As soon as she opened her eyes and saw total darkness, she knew it had to be a mistake. But no, it continued until she groaned in disapproval. Then a cascade of words (what even was language at this hour?) tickled her back.
"Come do yoga with me," it said, and Jane wondered if she had lost her mind.
"No," she replied simply, firmly. Groggily.
"Please? I need exercise," the voice she now recognized as Maura's beckoned. Maura's hand splayed itself against her belly and it felt too good to get up.
"Hell no," said Jane, in case the first time wasn't clear enough. "Didn't we exercise enough last night? You go hang out in the yoga room and I can sleep til it's light outside."
"If we hurry, we can make the early class at Radiant," Maura whispered, ignoring the sass and asserting her desires.
Jane craned her neck to look behind her at that. "You actually wanna leave the house? How is a place called Radiant even open before the sun comes out?"
"Jane," Maura pleaded.
"Maura, no," Jane groaned.
"What happened to 'anything'?" Maura asked pointedly.
Jane sighed. She knew Maura had her then, bringing up her promises and knowing that Jane loved to keep her word when it came to her best friend. She was for sure toast when Maura climbed on top of her under the burrow of covers she had made and warmed her with her body instead.
"I just want it on the record that making me wake up before dawn, to go to yoga outside the house, and then make me walk there, is cruel and unusual," Jane shoved her hands into her hoodie pocket, hiding her cold lips and nose behind its funnel neck. "And to add no coffee on top of that…"
Maura laughed, her skin still flushed from exertion. She carried both her own yoga mat and the one Jane had borrowed from her on her back. "Oh please. It's five blocks. And we have espresso at home. Trust me - it's going to taste better than most of the coffee you'd find in a shop."
"The best tasting coffee is the one you don't have to make yourself," Jane mumbled, the sweat trapped in her compression leggings now uncomfortably cool against her skin. Beacon Hill had started to wake, with people pushing past them distracted by cell phone conversations, filing into all the coffee spots that Jane longed to patronize.
"Actually-"
"No, don't finish that!" Jane interrupted, "just let me be grumpy about having to wait for coffee. Let me have this one thing."
Maura scoffed. "If that's what you want. Have you noticed that your mother has been coming home awfully late lately?"
"Talk to me about anything but homemade coffee and my mother's… nighttime routines," Jane amended, "talk to me about Hope."
Maura twitched her nose. "And to think we were having such a lovely morning."
"Were we?" Jane snarked, and Maura smacked her arm. "We were, we were. That can be your off-limits topic if you want. Since I have two."
"No," Maura conceded, stuffing her hand into Jane's hoodie pocket to steal some of her warmth. She smiled when fingers wove around her own. "I think what you said last night is right. I can't not tell her, especially if I want an honest relationship with her. I just don't even know how to begin that conversation."
When they rounded the corner onto Maura's street. Jane spoke. "You just gotta go with honesty. Rip the Band-Aid off. Tell her you're her kid. But, you know, also tell her that you have a mom; you're not lookin' for one. Christ, you basically got two moms," she said as they approached home, nodding in the guesthouse's direction. "Three would definitely be too many."
Maura unlocked the door, letting go of Jane to do so. "You need to stop giving your mother so much grief."
They walked into the artificial heat of the house, and Jane immediately peeled off her sweatshirt. "Nonsense. That's what kids are for. To give parents grief."
"Well, I just don't want to give Hope actual grief. I'm sure she has a lot of it surrounding my birth already," Maura said. Jane acknowledged her with a straight-lipped frown, leaning on the counter while Maura took out the espresso machine and its various add-ons.
"So how long is this gonna take? I gotta be in the shower in like thirty-minutes."
"Don't be ridiculous. It will not take me thirty minutes to put a cup of coffee in your hands. Have some patience," Maura said, not looking behind her as she talked, but rather ahead, at the coffee-maker.
"You met me before?" was all Jane said when Maura scooped ground coffee into the portafilter and packed it in.
"I know it's a lot to ask," said Maura, chuckling. "But you've done harder things for me."
From that point, Jane tried her best to attend to Maura's work. Making an Italian cup of coffee required skill and method, things that Maura had in spades. She measured carefully and pressed deliberately. All of these things ran contrary to what it took to make an Italian a cup of coffee, however. They were impatient and unbridled and rude. And, they tended to consume near-lethal amounts of caffeine. Maura paid all of that no mind as Jane looked on.
"Ah, the joy of controlling how the hot water rises before a torrent of pressure penetrates the tamped beans," she smiled with pleasure at the view of the group head steaming their first cup as she maneuvered the lever. She stood at the kitchen island in yoga pants, a stretchy lavender tank, and a black windbreaker, all juxtaposing the thousand-dollar contraption in front of her.
Jane shook her head, fresh out of patience. "Ok, I'm done watchin' coffee porn," she said, reaching into the cupboard on the top shelf where she knew Maura couldn't, pulling down a jar of Folger's instant.
Maura noticed everything eventually, however, and as soon as the glass hit the granite, she gasped. "How did instant get in my cupboard? You are so impatient!"
"Maura," Jane griped, "I just want a cup of coffee, not a roman orgy."
"You could just wait five minutes and get a far superior product. And while I am always trying to get you to expand your sexual palate, it better never include that," Maura warned with a good-natured grin. She walked over to Jane and pinched her jaw between forefinger and thumb, wagging her face. "Don't give my love away," she echoed Jane as she inhaled the sweat from her Boston PD workout shirt.
"Never ever," Jane replied through a smashed face, running her thumb under the side waistband of her own shorts to release some fidgety energy. To Maura's horror, when she was released, she filled her mug with tap water and spooned some coffee inside.
But before Maura could protest, Angela Rizzoli, as she often did, interrupted their banter by walking through the back door. She wore a form-accentuating bright blue dress and black heels, a black cardigan topping it all off. All to say, she was dressed much fancier than usual. "Morning," she said to Jane and Maura.
"Morning-" Jane stopped herself with a dropped jaw.
"Oh!" Maura said, smiling brightly at Angela's fashion choices.
"Where are you goin'? A garden party?" Jane inquired, suspicious already.
"Going to work," Angela shrugged, as if all were normal.
"Like that?" Jane asked.
"I am the mother and you are the daughter in this scenario, Jane," Angela threatened.
"I think she looks beautiful," Maura interjected, "and I love your shoes."
"I haven't worn high heels in a while," confessed Angela.
"Thirty years is more than a while," Jane snarked, pulling her mug out of the microwave and blowing on it to cool it down.
"Yeah yeah," Angela rolled her eyes, and grabbed a banana from the counter on her way out of the house. "Bye."
"Bye Ma," Jane waved. Then she said to Maura, "I think my mom has a gentleman caller."
"I told you she's been coming home late. But would that be so bad?" Maura watched after Angela had left, still in admiration.
"It would be so bad. Because then I have to put a BOLO out on every eligible bachelor over 50 in the city. Who has time for that?"
Maura laughed freely. "For as disinterested as you try to seem, you are both so nosey when it comes to each other's love lives."
Jane gasped. "I am not."
"Are so," countered Maura in a sing-song voice, "any ideas on who it is?"
Jane's mood turned conspiratorial when their eyes met. "My money's on this guy from the neighborhood, Mr. Zanotti. She's had a crush on him for years and he just got divorced. Works a block from the station, too."
"Really?" Maura asked, "I think it's Lieutenant Cavanaugh."
"What?!" Jane yelled.
"Mmhmm. I don't think anything has happened between them, but I see him at the cafe counter an awful lot. Always chatting with Angela," said Maura, proud of her deduction skills.
"God," Jane was in shock.
"She also told me all about his political leanings yesterday. I thought it was strange at the time, but if they are dating, or starting to date, it makes more sense."
"Why on Earth were you and Ma talking about Cavanaugh's 'political leanings'?"
"I think your Mother was trying to make sure I wasn't a closet Republican."
Jane guffawed at the thought of Maura, who rode on a horse naked in college to support women's rights, as a Republican. Then she considered the reasons that would come up in the first place. "Wait. Why would Ma care whether or not you're a Republican?" she asked suspiciously.
"Because you're both very nosey about each other's love lives, as I said," Maura replied. "I think she wanted to see if she should counsel you to break up with me. She started the conversation by very bluntly telling me that you're a Democrat. Which I knew. Because of course I knew. That's when the comparison between you and Cavanaugh was made."
"I don't even want to know why my mother was comparing me to the man she may or may not be sleeping with," Jane cringed. "And now I'm trying to avoid thinking about them sleeping together."
"I think she just meant that you are both very moderate, blue collar Boston Democrats who don't get treated very well at work because of it," Maura qualified, "and your mother is a beautiful woman who deserves to have fun."
"My mother flosses in bed," Jane countered.
"And you fall asleep in your clothes. We can't all be perfect," Maura shimmied.
"Not like you?"
"Correct," said Maura, swirling the espresso cup under her nose as it settled. Her phone rang, and she picked it up off the counter. "Oh, it's Hope."
"Answer it!" Jane encouraged her.
"What do I say?"
"Hello, biological Mom Hope. My name is Maura. I didn't die at birth."
"Shut up."
"No, you shouldn't say shut up," Jane teased.
"Dr. Isles," Maura answered. "Oh hello, Dr. Martin! What a surprise." Jane nearly spit out some of her beverage from laughing at the faux enthusiasm. Maura just glared.
"I've just gotten the last box of ours unpacked this morning, Maura, and I was wondering if we could make our lunch a dinner," said the smooth voice on the other end of the phone.
"Um… oh. Oh, yes, I-I would love to have dinner with you," Maura agreed, powerless to say no when their interactions were still so fresh and intoxicating.
"How about tonight? I would love to hear all about how your case is going with that poor girl and the soap mummy."
"Tonight would be great. Uh, would you like to come over to my house? It would remedy having to pick a restaurant in a city you're still, um, getting to know." All of Maura's uncharacteristic 'ums' and 'uhs' made Jane want to pick her up and kiss her.
"That sounds wonderful. Should we say around seven? If it's alright with you, I'd like to bring Cailin, too. She hasn't gotten out much since we got here, and I want her to socialize a bit."
"Sure, you can bring Cailin. Ok, I will text you my address. I-I look forward to it."
"So do I. Bye, Maura."
"Bye," Maura said cordially.
"Wow. Dinner here, huh?" Jane said into her mug, her grin barely contained.
"Oh my god," Maura huffed as soon as she hung up. "Why did I invite them here? The place is a wreck!" She gestured to the immaculate house.
"Oh, I'd be so embarrassed to invite anyone but me here," complained Jane sarcastically.
"And what will I serve? I mean, she probably has a more refined palate than me, with all her international travel." Maura began to move about the kitchen, tidying as she went, Folger's jar in hand as she wiped counters and ran the garbage disposal.
"You kiddin' me? You were in MSF. You went to boarding school in France. She should be nervous about impressin' you." Jane assured her, but with a twitch of annoyance in her voice. Of course Maura was the more cultured of the two. Who could compete with her? Before Maura could reply, both of their phones went off. "Rizzoli," Jane answered. "Ok, got it." she hung up. "See that? Saved by murder. C'mon."
Maura recoiled from Jane's hand on her elbow and pulled open the dishwasher. "No, no. I can't go. I have way too much to do. Not to mention I have to cook an entire three course meal! I can't pull everything together in… 10 hours," she said as she looked at her watch.
Jane chuckled. "Yeah, considering it takes you four hours to make a cup of coffee." the punchline didn't land when Maura started to hyperventilate. "Oh hell. Not with the heavy breathing, babe. Stop and I'll help you."
"I'm trying," Maura dragged air into her lungs through her nostrils.
"That's all I'm askin'. So, here's what you do. You call my mother, a'right? You flatter her, you tell her what a great cook she is, what a good mother she's been to all her kids. She eats that up. She'll cook for you," explained Jane, gulping down the last few sips of coffee in her mug before putting it in the sink.
"Oh, that's such an imposition," Maura whined, guilt overtaking her stress.
Jane shrugged. "Not if you invite her to dinner. The only thing she likes more than cooking is gossip. How juicy to be at your first meal with your biological mother who doesn't know she's your biological mother yet."
Maura narrowed her eyes and smirked at Jane. "You have a… first class mind. It's quite impressive."
"Yeah yeah. I'm brilliant. Now can we get ready for work?"
"Oh no. I'm still not going. Your mother providing the food doesn't solve the problem of the cleaning."
Jane frowned. "Ok. I think I can do an autopsy by now. I've spent enough hours in the morgue."
Maura hedged when Jane said this. "Well, I have to take a shower."
"Maura," Jane said firmly, "we only got time to shower together. Hot water gets shut off in three minutes if you don't hurry it up. Bathroom's that way," she pointed up the stairs when Maura stood in place, "move it."
Jane stood in the entrance of Maura's bedroom after the workday, watching Maura straighten herself up in the mirror and put a few finishing touch-ups on her lip gloss. "You look great," she said, walking further into the room and stopping a few feet short of the full length mirror. "I still look presentable?" She hadn't had time to go home and change, but counted it as a minor miracle that there were no stains or wrinkles on the front of her white-blue button up and gray slacks. Those even still looked mostly ironed.
Maura turned around to survey Jane at her request. "I am most attracted to you when you look like this," she said, maybe not the answer that Jane was expecting.
Jane glanced down at herself. "In corporate chic?" she scoffed, but Maura reached out to put fingertips on the exposed skin of her chest. Her top three buttons were undone, revealing just the dip of her undershirt and the tan over her collarbone.
"In clothes that complement me," Maura answered. She squeezed her hands all the way down Jane's arms until she reached just above her wrists. "Clean cut, crisp, authoritative. You look like I should take you seriously. We look like we match."
"We could not look more different, remember?" Jane observed, not disagreeing, but needing clarification.
"Exactly. It's the reason people like to watch us walk into a room. Have you ever noticed that?" Maura asked. She shivered when she saw Jane's gun and badge still at her hips.
"Hard not to," Jane replied.
"It's because we're so opposite. And opposites look striking. I think people imagine what we would look like in bed together."
Jane choked. "I don't know about that."
Maura smiled and she was nervous. "They at least like to think about how nice you look next to me. I'm going to be thinking about that too, all through this dinner, to ground myself. So I suppose the short answer is yes, you still look presentable," she said, smoothing a line on her skirt. When Jane reached up to put a hand on her cheek, Maura admired the neat roll of her button-up sleeve, how the basilic vein, fat and lively, pumped blood back to Jane's good heart, how the line of it against her skin made her look so potent.
"Well let's get down there, then," said Jane sweetly, "whatever Ma is making smells good."
Maura nodded, and then got scared when Jane opened the door and air from the rest of the house hit her. She grabbed Jane's hand, fingers intertwined, and then they walked down the stairs together. When she saw Angela, still in her dress and heels and finishing up a gourmet meal, she wondered if she needed all this business with Hope after all. She wondered if Hope was worth the trouble. "That looks… incredible. Gnocchi?"
Angela smiled warmly at her, a smile that communicated love, warmth, and worry all at once. "Yeah," she replied, "and I'm tryin' out this new wild boar ragout I saw in a magazine the other day. Tastes pretty darn good if I do say so myself."
"There's even vegetables," Jane pointed to a pot on the stove. "Can I do anything to help?"
"Cut the bread," said Angela with authority and Jane did, with the dexterity of a person who had been asked to do so countless times.
Maura walked over to the front hall, where there were three bouquets of fresh cut flowers, delivered early that afternoon and already in vases. She carried them, one by one, to the dining table, each to be set equidistant from one another and accentuated by large, fall-scented white candles.
In short, the ambience was set and the room was perfect. By any standards, there was nothing to worry about. Maura, however, made worrying into an art. "Take the gnocchi out of the hot water or it'll get sticky," she said towards the direction of the kitchen, too busy with rearranging all the centerpieces and silverware on the table to stop and make eye contact with just one person.
Angela was already on it, straining the pasta. "Jane, stir the ragout," she ordered.
"Jane, can you open the Montepulciano?" Maura asked her almost simultaneously.
Jane, to her credit, took it in stride. "Stirring boar, opening muntipulcianu," she said, stirring with vigor. When she screwed the bottle opener into the top of the bottle, the doorbell rang, and she froze, looking at Maura for any sign of hysterics.
They appeared. "Oh my god. They're a minute early!" Maura whisper-shouted at Jane. Then she noticed the drawing of Hope that Paddy had made, now back on her wall since Angela had returned. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed again, "what if she saw this?"
Jane popped the cork and wiped her hands on a dish towel over her shoulder. She waited, let Maura approach her. The doorbell rang again.
"Just a minute!" Maura called out. She hustled the frame over to Jane. "Hide it in the bathroom," she said, eyes wide and glossy.
"Ok, ok, ok," Jane held her hands out in front of her to calm Maura, "I got it. Let me take care of it." She grabbed it and made her way into the guest bathroom while Maura went to the door. "Maura!" she called out from behind the door, and when Maura turned, she modeled a deep breath in and a smile.
Maura imitated her, even if just to trick her brain into believing she was calm, and opened the door. "Hi," she said, upon seeing Hope and the young brunette woman next to her in a hand-knitted cardigan and jeans, iPad in hand and headphones in ear. "Come in, please."
"Dr. Isles," Hope, stunning in lavender and cream, greeted her. "This is my daughter, Cailin."
"Hi, Cailin," Maura waved.
"Hey," Cailin said disinterestedly, blue eyes refusing to meet Maura's own green.
"Please sit. You're right on time; dinner just finished cooking." Maura led them to the table, where place settings were laid out for five people. Jane had made it out of the bathroom to stand next to her mother in the kitchen, not sure where to go. Maura walked up to her, pulled the towel from her shoulder, and then patted it. "You too," she said quietly.
Jane did as told, reaching her hand out to Cailin over the table. "Hi. Jane," she said simply and with her handsome, crooked half-smile.
Cailin lit up with something small and undefinable, and she half-smiled, too. "Maura's girlfriend?"
Jane sputtered, but kept the handshake strong. "Uh, yeah."
"Mom said you work together," Cailin said. Her flat tone masked whatever spark of emotion had bubbled up in her just before. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and fired off a few quick text messages.
"Yeah, we do. Sort of. I'm a homicide detective; Maura's the Medical Examiner. She helps us solve murders," said Jane. She draped her napkin over her lap while Angela put a plate in front of her.
Maura placed helpings in front of her biological mother and sister. "That's not entirely true. I provide you with evidence. It's up to you to do all the solving."
"Thank you," both Hope and Cailin said to her as she served them. She and Angela sat at the table last, Maura at the head, Angela on the far right side across from Jane.
Maura wondered if having so many guests was a good idea after all. Jane's presence comforted her, but Angela, so bubbly and happy, next to dour Cailin, made the ambience stilted and awkward. "So, how was the move?" Maura asked her guests, hoping that a little small talk would loosen them up - she'd always been told that it worked for people, even though she never really felt less uncomfortable for it. "I hope everything went well."
Hope smiled brightly at the welcome distraction. "Oh it was fine, thank you. We managed to get all of our things here without a scratch. But let me tell you, it costs a pretty penny to ship your entire life to another continent."
"I can imagine," Angela piped up, fork in hand. "I had to downsize from my home of thirty years to a one bedroom apartment after my divorce and it cost a small fortune. And I didn't even hire movers."
"Yeah she hired me and my two brothers," Jane faux-griped with a smirk on her face, "and we got paid in sub sandwiches and hugs. I carried so many boxes I couldn't feel my legs for the next week."
"I offered to pay for movers," Maura butted in, glaring playfully at the both of them, "but you both flat-out refused."
Angela just blushed, but Jane scoffed. "Why spend money on movers when you have three able-bodied adult children? We got it done."
"Yes," Maura said, "but you are not able-bodied. No one with lumbar spine disease should be lifting that much at a time."
"Oh, ouch," Hope chimed in, "bulging disks are no fun. Were you an athlete?"
"For a long time," Jane nodded.
"You know, Cailin is premed, and she was very interested in sports medicine during high school. She partnered with a research group at university to study the long term effects of sport of all different types on the lumbar spine," Hope said, looking to her daughter for any kind of engagement. Cailin only looked up and smiled with a closed mouth.
"Fascinating," Maura said earnestly, "I've often wondered how frequency and duration of such intense physical activity accelerates spinal degeneration over the life span. What did you find?"
"Well, I had to leave before they finished the study, obviously, so…" Cailin trailed off, as though that were something Maura should have gathered.
Maura only smiled politely and turned to Jane, not sure what else to do.
Jane, mouth full of pasta, chewed vigorously until she swallowed the lump of it. "I'm glad everything went well. I'm sure it's been a little bit of a culture shock."
"Well, I grew up in Boston, went to college here. But yes, after being abroad for so long, it takes a while to adjust to the… pace of life here. It's almost like having to relearn everything that used to be natural to me. But, I think that we really are settling into a… a new city. Right Cailin?" said Hope.
"Yeah, we are," nodded Cailin distractedly, looking at her screen.
"How do you like Boston?" Jane asked.
It was Jane's voice asking the question that made Cailin look up, a practiced nonchalance to her smile. "I… I miss London," she replied. Even when Jane infused the question with longing, the way she inquired after Cailin's opinion of Boston as if any answer except I love everything about it would break her heart, Cailin still answered with sarcastic politeness. Then she went back to her phone.
Jane just pulled her lips back and nodded once, taking the hint. Not a win, but not a total loss, either. At least she'd gotten her to talk.
Hope, however, was not as forgiving. "Honey, would you stop texting?" she requested in a syrupy tone too nice to be anything but a warning.
"Sorry," Cailin snapped, locking eyes with her mother, "I'm just saying goodbye."
They all heard it, and Maura glanced over at Jane for confirmation. Jane's wide eyes and bit lower lip confirmed that yes, Cailin had just sassed her mom in front of all of them.
Jane's ass smarted from the whooping that Angela would've given her if she were in the same place. "You, uh, you in school?" she asked, catching the fear on Maura's face and willing to do anything to squash it.
"I was," Cailin said.
"Cailin was at Oxford," Hope elaborated.
Angela looked confused at that. "And you're not anymore?"
"Well…" Hope started, but she was cut off by her daughter.
"We had to move here," Cailin finished icily.
"She needs to take a semester off," said Hope. She stared at Cailin as if to plead for a ceasefire.
Cailin gave it to her, sort of. "Excuse me," she said, turning to Maura, "may I use your bathroom?"
"Of course," Maura nodded. She patted her lips with her napkin and pointed toward the front hall. "It's right over there." Cailin got up and only when Maura was sure she heard the door click shut did she turn to Hope and say, "it's a complicated relationship, mothers and daughters."
"Oh, yes it is," Hope agreed emphatically, releasing a breathy sort of laugh.
"It's a phase," Angela assured her. She pointed to Jane and rolled her eyes.
"I hope so," said Hope.
"I can see you," Jane said to her mother.
"Cailin just misses her friends," Hope continued, "She doesn't know anyone here in Boston."
"Well there's plenty of people to get to know, you just gotta give her time. I mean, look, you just got here and you already have Maura. I'd say you hit the friend jackpot." Jane winked at Maura when she spoke, even though the consolation she offered was to Hope.
"I would say so, too," Hope smiled demurely at Maura. "This meal was spectacular. Tell me, did your mother teach you how to cook?"
Maura reddened at the question and all she could think was you are my mother. Eventually she settled for, "Actually, Angela made dinner."
"Well, it's delicious," Hope said to Angela, who waved her off and mouthed thank you in humble return.
"My mother, uh… she didn't spend much time in the kitchen," Maura supplied, suddenly wanting Hope's eyes on her again.
Jane watched at attention, back straight against her chair. "Maura's mother is an artist and an art-history professor, so she traveled a lot," she said for Maura, who smiled warmly at the gesture. For Jane to know about her, to know the contours of her life, and to be able to share them with her biological mother - that was the most intimacy that had ever been afforded to her in a relationship. It made her feel like she was worth knowing.
"I traveled a lot when Cailin was young, too," explained Hope, "her father's my ex-husband. He… he had financial issues, so I always had to work."
"That's hard," Angela sympathized, thinking of all the hardships that Frank had put her through.
At that moment, Cailin came back from the bathroom and sat on one of the arm chairs in Maura's living area. Maura watched her from the corner of her eye, careful not to betray her secret study of her half-sister, and Jane watched her watching.
"I think I'll use your ladies' room, too," Hope said as she got up.
"Ah, good idea." Angela got up, and headed toward the guesthouse for the comfort of her own bathroom.
Jane stood when Maura did, not sure what to do or say, except be close when Maura, her own plate in hand, slid up next to her so that she could whisper. "Cailin hates me," she said seriously.
Jane rolled her eyes. "She's 18. She hates everybody over 18," she snarked, "and under 18."
"But she's my sister, Jane," Maura countered.
"But she doesn't know that. And even when they know they're related to you, families are still complicated."
Maura tilted her head as if to say she wasn't so sure about that, and then rubbed Jane's arm with an open palm before taking dishes to the kitchen.
Jane stood there for a few more seconds, letting the lingering input from Maura's touch diffuse into her sleeve and over her skin like a balm. She grabbed a plate with a slice of chocolate torte on it and exhaled through her nostrils, making up her mind. She walked it over to Cailin, stood over her to offer her the dessert. "Hey. This is pretty good," she said.
Cailin took out her earbuds and looked up at Jane, starting from the buckle of her belt all the way to her hairline. "Oh, no, thank you."
Jane frowned. "Really? Not even one bite?" She sat on the couch, plate still out between them. Cailin smirked, took the plate, and scooped up one tiny bite with her fork. Jane smiled in her genuine way, the way that disarmed most people, but Cailin only shrugged as she chewed. Jane nodded in defeat when one earbud went back in, but she still took the plate from Cailin and placed it gently on the coffee table in front of them. "What're you listenin' to?" she said in her own voice, done with pretense and propriety.
Cailin remained unfazed, clearly having decided to be closed off for the remainder of the evening. "Oh, music."
Jane didn't acknowledge the sarcasm. "What kinda stuff do you like? I like pretty much anything - Ambrosia, Led Zeppelin, Jodeci… newer stuff, too."
Cailin sighed, almost like she was battling herself. "It was nice of you to bring the cake over. But it's ok. You don't have to try to engage with me, or bond with me."
Jane's furrow lines appeared as she surveyed Cailin. "Are we really that awful?"
"Will you tell my mom that I decided to walk home?" Cailin asked, gathering her things and standing.
"Wait, what? C'mon," Jane stood, too, put her body in Cailin's space, let her proximity do its work.
To her credit, Cailin faltered, but she didn't give in. "It's not personal. I just would like to be alone," she whispered as she stormed off to the front door, slamming it behind her.
Of course Hope was exiting the restroom at the precise moment that Maura's door thudded back into the threshold. "Was that Cailin?" she asked Jane, jaw dropped.
Jane opened her arms in defeat. "She said she wanted to be alone, I…"
Maura, sensing distress, walked over to them from where she had been washing dishes. "Did Cailin leave?" she asked Jane. "Are you leaving?" When she saw Hope throwing her jacket on her arm and shouldering her purse, her gut roiled in disappointment.
"She's very fragile right now," said Hope, already on her way out as well. "Thank you for dinner. I'm so sorry."
Jane put her hand on her heart before she used it to touch Maura's forearm. "What the hell just happened?"
"What did you say to her?" Maura asked, not angry, but curious.
"Uh…" Jane thought back to their brief exchange, "I offered her dessert. Then I asked her what she was listenin' to and she didn't wanna answer that. I asked if we were really all that bad and she told me I didn't have to try so hard to get to know her."
Maura shrugged, unable to guess why Cailin or Hope did anything, really. "She hates us."
Jane chuckled. "I guess so. How could someone hate us, though? We're great."
"I actually think she likes you the most," Maura smiled, "I do, too." Jane dipped her head in humility and Maura pulled it to hers so that their foreheads touched. "But maybe there's more going on with her than we've been made privy to."
"Usually there is," said Jane, giving herself over to the affection in Maura's fingertips scratching against her scalp and drumming at her clavicle over her shirt. "You need help cleaning up?"
"Not tonight. Cleaning helps me destress. The more of it I can do by myself, the more well-adjusted I'll feel before bed."
"Ok, I better take off, then," Jane heaved out the sentence on a bellow of nasal breath, as though the thought itself disgusted her.
"You don't want to stay?" Maura asked, and the question wasn't suggestive or desparate. Just surprised.
"I do," said Jane, "but I don't have clothes for tomorrow. And I don't want to wake up early to drive across town and get some."
"Ok," Maura relented. She placed both hands on Jane's shoulders and squeezed.
"Ok?" asked Jane, unsure. When Maura nodded, she kissed her, short and loud. "Ok. See you in the morning." She picked up her keys from the bowl in the front hall, unhooked her blazer from the coat rack, and smiled at Maura from where she stood. "I'm sorry today ended so shitty, babe."
"It's not your fault. And Jane?" Maura leaned against the counter.
"Yeah?" asked Jane, hand on the doorknob.
"Next time you come over, bring some spare clothes."
"Will do." Jane blushed as she opened the door and trotted into the biting nighttime air.
