Hello!

I'm kind of nervous to be posting this chapter if I'm being perfectly honest, I've never written something like this before. When I was asking for ideas for this story, I got a request from FenceMagma074603 to do a Mack & Lela one-shot. Now, like I said, I've never written for them before, so I apologise if this sucks but I tried my best considering that I have no experience with this ship. It was nice to have a go at writing something a bit different though, so I hope that I did your idea justice, FenceMagma074603!

A sharp knocking at the front door snapped Mack out of her haze of calculus sums. But within a nanosecond her expression had clouded over with confusion; no one was supposed to be coming over. Her grandfather was out of town visiting an old friend, Brady had texted her to say that he would be up in his workshop for the rest of the afternoon and Alyssa had taken a weekend trip to go and check out some potential colleges. So who on earth was trying to break the door down? No matter how many times that she called out 'I'm coming!' the frantic knocking didn't stop, which just confused her more. But as soon as she opened the front door, taking the wood away from the furiously pounding fist, she stumbled back in shock.

Of all of the people to be standing on her front door step, the possibility that it could be Lela never crossed her mind. But alas, here she was.

Mack opened her mouth to speak but caught herself just staring at Lela instead. Something was very wrong. Lela was completely and utterly soaking wet, wet to the point that sea water was dripping from the hemline of her dress, making a pattern on the wooden floorboards outside. Her usually thick, glossy, raven locks were tangled into skinny rat tails that were plastered to her face and bare shoulders and the sopping wet, red and white fabric of her dress clung to her torso, drawing Mack's eyes more than it probably should have.

"Mack?" Lela choked out, her voice barely above a whisper.

The mention of her name finally managed to snap Mack back to reality, dragging her eyes up to meet the terrified blue-grey orbs that belonged to the biker girl in front of her. Why did she look so scared?

"Lela, what on earth are you doing here?" Mack exclaimed, hissing the words out as if that would make them seem quieter.

"I...I needed to talk to you," Lela murmured, trying desperately not to let her voice falter under Mack's gaze.

"What? Why?"

"I-I just," Lela stuttered, having to tear her eyes away from the brunette because she could feel her cheeks starting to burn.

"Oh come on," Mack sighed, taking pity on the girl and taking her hand.

"Huh?" Lela mumbled, her eyes flitting from Mack's face to their linked hands and back up to her face.

"Well you can't stand out here like that, you'll freeze," Mack fussed, leading the young girl inside and trying desperately to ignore the tingling feeling that had shot up her arm from Lela's touch.

The two girls stood in silence for a few seconds, each one awkwardly avoiding the other's gaze. Mack was the first one to break it though, by grabbing a towel and wrapping it around Lela's shoulders to try to stop her from trembling. But as Mack draped the towel over Lela's arms she couldn't deny the strange warmth that seemed to pass from her. How can she be that warm if she's shivering so much? And how is it possible that I can still smell her perfume after it looks like she's been thrown around in the water for the last ten minutes?

"Mack, I really need to talk to you," Lela repeated, finally plucking up the courage to lift her gaze to Mack's.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Mack murmured, tripping over her words as she sheepishly coughed and stepped back.

"How are things with you and Brady?" Lela asked, nervously playing with the edge of the beach towel.

Mack was rather dumbfounded by this question. "Lela, you came all this way just to ask me that?" she shot back, starting to think that the biker girl was totally insane.

"Well no, but it's part of it," Lela replied curtly, shocking Mack with her sharp tongue.

"Um, alright, I guess," Mack answered after a short pause, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable under Lela's gaze, which had seemed to have lost its nervousness and was now fixed on the brunette. Mack couldn't bring herself to look at the biker girl for more than a second.

"Oh," was all that Lela could bring herself to say. Her tone flat and almost bored, it seemed like she'd lost all interest in the conversation now.

"Lela, what's all this about? You show up on my doorstep for apparently no reason and you're acting really oddly. I don't understand what you want," Mack said, dragging her eyes from the floorboards with all of the strength that she had before managing to lock them onto Lela's.

"You," Lela rasped. Her eyes watery and distant, almost like she was staring straight through Mack, as she spoke.

You could have knocked Mack down with a feather. She was completely speechless. After all, how do you respond to that? Her trouble of keeping her gaze on Lela had disappeared in an instant, now it was like she couldn't look away. She swallowed thickly before trying to speak, her words sticking in her throat like they were coated in glue. "What?" she choked, struggling to even form the word in her head, let alone say it.

"I miss you Mack," Lela carried on, oddly calm about the whole situation. While every area of Mack's mind was running on overdrive, Lela seemed to be completely serene. Her lips seemed to be the only thing moving, everything else was still. "Every single day. I have never met anyone who's like you, Mack, someone who's made such an impact on my life. You've taught me so much about being myself and not letting people get in the way of what I want for my future. So that's what I'm doing now."

"Lela-"

"I want to live my life to the fullest, like you, and I realise now that there's only one person I can do that with," Lela continued, not put off by Mack's attempt at an interruption.

"Tanner! It's Tanner, right?" Mack awkwardly laughed, taking a step backwards since Lela had started to move towards her. However the biker girl stopped in her tracks at the mention of her supposed boyfriend's name. Lela gave the tiniest shake of her head and Mack felt her knees go weak beneath her. "Lela, of course it's Tanner," she tried to tell her, hoping to convince herself as much as the raven-haired girl in front of her. "He's the one you're meant to be with."

"I'm not so sure," Lela croaked, lightly coughing to steady her voice again before continuing.

"Lela, you love him."

"Yes, I do love him, and I always will. But, Mack, I've come to realise that no matter how much I love him, I'll never be in love with him," the biker girl replied, trying not to let herself get discouraged by the way that Mack was looking at her. It looked like she was on the brink of hysteria.

The reason why Mack had been thrown into such a panic was because as soon as Lela said how she felt about Tanner the same thoughts about Brady flooded over Mack. It was like she'd been lying to herself since she'd started her relationship with him. Yes, she loved him and thought the world of him, but now that she thought back to it the kisses felt empty, the hugs had no passion behind them and all of the 'goodnight, babe' texts were a chore. She definitely felt connected to him, but not so much as a love interest anymore.

"Mack, you told me something very important the last time I was here," Lela said, attempting another step towards the tanned brunette. This time she didn't back away. "Being with the right person can make your life more full, if you have the same passion and drive. And I think I've found that person."

"You have?" Mack asked, not daring to raise her voice above a whisper as Lela's hand crept up her arm.

The biker girl let out a breathy laugh as she parted her red-painted lips into a smile, the air tickling Mack's skin as she did so. "You know, I've always felt a connection to you, Mack. It just wasn't until now that I realised what it was," Lela sighed, her gaze almost dreamily fixed on Mack.

"What is it?"

Lela didn't bother to answer with a word, instead with an action. In one calm movement that happened in a mere second, although it felt like hours to Mack, Lela cupped Mack's cheek in her hand and planted a kiss on her lips, unintentionally leaving a cherry red reminder of it behind.

Mack had never been so overwhelmed in her life; it was like every fibre in her body was running on three litres of energy drink and somehow, she didn't want it to stop. She had to force herself to heave out breaths so that she didn't pass out because frankly, she didn't feel like she had control of herself anymore.

"Mack?" Lela croaked, her smile having vanished in a second. If this wasn't going to turn out like she'd hoped that it would then she'd just completely humiliated herself for nothing.

"Ha-have you told Tanner?" Mack stuttered, feeling like changing the subject was the best option right now. Thinking about what had just happened was too much to bear, let alone speaking about it.

"What?" Lela murmured, devastated that that was all Mack had to say after she'd put herself out there like that. "No," she finally answered, bluntly brushing the question off.

"Lela, you can't keep something like this from him. He's going to be crushed when he finds out."

"Oh Tanner will move on, I don't doubt that for a second," Lela chuckled, obviously finding the situation a lot more amusing than Mack did.

"How do you know?"

"Because Tanner just wants me to be happy, Mack. And I'm sure that Brady wants the same for you," Lela replied. "I care too much about Tanner to keep him in a one-sided relationship, it's not fair to give him false hope and it's not fair on me if I'm not happy."

"Lela, I can't tell Brady," Mack tried, the very thought of watching his face as she ended things with him breaking her heart. "It'll kill him."

"Mack, stop thinking about Brady. It's your life, don't live it for him," Lela said curtly.

"Lela-"

"Mack, it's really sweet of you to be thinking about how this affects other people but none of that matters now," Lela cut it, growing impatient as she waited for an answer from Mack. "This is about you. What do you want?"

Mack held Lela's gaze for a few seconds, trying to find what she wanted herself within the mass of thoughts ricocheting around her brain. Eventually she realised that she had nothing to say…well, nothing that she could put into a coherent sentence. So instead she did exactly what Lela had done: she pressed her lips to the biker girl's. This time, neither pulled away, softening into the kiss, deepening it as each second passed. Eventually, the pair prised apart and found themselves staring at each other again, taking in their entire being as if they were committing it to memory for the moments when they were apart.

"I don't know what I want long term yet," Mack said shakily, having strung what few words she could pluck from the adrenaline-fuelled haze that was where her brain should have been together. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from chuckling though as she saw Lela's mouth drop open, after all, Lela didn't know where she was going with this yet. "But for now, I'd like it if you stayed," she finished with a smile that gently progressed to a laugh as she watched Lela's eyes light up. And before she knew what was happening, Lela had thrown her arms around her neck in such a vice-like grip that Mack didn't think that she would ever let go. Not that she wanted her to though. She could have stayed in the biker girl's arms for hours. Apparently all of those nights rewinding Wet Side Story to Lela's parts were a sign that she should have paid a little bit more attention to…

And there you have it, I hope that you liked it! Was is any good? Are you interested in me writing more stuff for Mack & Lela? This was pretty fun for me to put together and it was a nice challenge since it was totally new territory for me. So I hope that my efforts paid off.

Ok, I think that's finally everything now. Thank you ever so much for reading! Let me know what you've thought of these little one-shot things, maybe I'll do more in the future.

Bye for now!

-cherrygorilla