(two)
A hand threading through her hair, sure and confident, it is a touch that has been here before. A touch that knows the scalp, fingernails that know when to dig in, fists that know when to lightly tug.
And then the kiss.
Warm and gentle, it probes softly and with intention, it asks for nothing more than affection and love. This kiss wants the world, but it'll settle for less than that.
This kiss against her lips does not make the world spin. This kiss doesn't make her heart pound like a drum. This kiss does not make her blood boil.
Spencer is no good at ruining someone, though.
And so they keep kissing, in between stop lights and leaning against the car, kissing languidly as the drive fills up and the streets are taken over by over-eager teenagers, as this secluded section of prime real estate is transformed into something bigger and louder than a premiere gala.
Then again, it is the end of school. And grades are decent. Parents pleased. Dreams on the cusp of being realized.
And they will drink until the bar is dry. And there will be lines in the bathroom and there will be blue smoke by the pool.
There will be sex, so much sex - the attempts, the fumbles, those coming on strong and those not coming on strong enough - this is the July the third and summer is here and everyone is feeling decadent and free.
Everyone except Spencer, an arm about her waist and smiling as Kate nuzzles into her neck and they walk into Jessica's massive house.
Spencer isn't sure that she's ever felt truly happy in her entire life.
Its just been varying levels of okay-ness.
And she should change this fact, make it better, be real for a change.
"Want your usual, Spence?"
And Kate's grin is smooth and simple and nice and sweet.
And Spencer is already suppressing the urge to recoil from it.
"Yea, sure."
Once again, she is reminded - watching Kate weave past bobbing heads and flirty glances - of how completely awful she truly is.
\
Leaning against his chest, his voice moving in and out of conversation, it is a decent night so far. He's only had a couple of drinks and she's had more than a few and they teased each other a lot on the way over - grazes of palms to sensitive areas, laughter, an actual soft kiss or two.
She wonders why it cannot always be like this, why it cannot always be relaxed between the two of them. Maybe she cannot let things be. Maybe he cannot always go against his nature.
They've been doing this for years, though.
First day of sixth grade and he asked her out and all her friends were so jealous. Hell, that was the original reason she dated him - to be better than the other girls her age.
After that, it just mutated into this unexplainable... thing.
Boyfriend and girlfriend. Aiden and Ashley. Fighting and fucking and breaking up and making up. It's what they do and everyone expects it now.
Even he does.
Even she does.
She tugs on the bottom of his t-shirt and he looks down at her upturned face.
"Let's go outside. It's too loud in here."
His lips brush against her ear and she lazily smiles. She's not turned on, though.
She just wants to go outside and cool off. She wants to kick off her shoes - she hates wearing shoes anyway.
"Bet its really private out there, too."
She rolls her eyes and fishes around the counter he is propped against, finding a small bowl that someone offered her earlier. The guy that Aiden has been talking to lights it up and she takes a hit.
She is already pretty mellow and this will just make it better.
"Don't want to do that. Just want to walk around."
Aiden rolls his eyes this time and she is too chilled out to get angry, but there is this flicker of annoyance that rumbles to life in her bones and she steps away from him.
"Ash..."
"Stay here and, you know, talk about whatever. I'm going outside."
She takes the bowl and the lighter, not planning on returning either, bumping into people with a grin as she opens the doors to the back patio and drifts out.
\
Jessica Barnes has never really been in the actual yard that rests all around her home.
She's been by the pool. She's taken a couple of guys to the pool house and slept with them.
She's looked out of her bedroom window, once in a while, and glanced at the manicured acres of land - shrubs and trees and hedges.
But she is not the type of girl to go exploring, even as a child.
She kept to dolls in their tiny houses. Pink cars and cosmetics, magazines about being older, pop music and braids and practicing future sneers.
There was never time, nor interest, in taking off across the lawn and running around the landscape, climbing onto limbs and hiding beneath brambles.
Jessica Barnes doesn't even like the idea of having sex outside.
And she'll never understand why some of the people who come here for her parties end up out there, stains you cannot get out of clothing and bugs in your hair and dirt on your naked body.
It kind of grosses Jessica Barnes out.
But she won't make them come inside.
They can all do as they like, with the heat still present at night and no neighbors to complain about the noise and her indulgent parents staying away all weekend - they can all do as they please.
Even if all you walk away with is a nasty hangover, you won't walk away from a Jessica Barnes party unsatisfied.
\
They didn't exchange numbers. They do not attend the same high school.
And when you are buzzed and intrigued and not at all single, the best course of action is to hold that moment and then let it go again.
That's what Ashley did, after her strange admission a couple of months ago.
Aiden hollered out her name and she fell out of the hammock and heard a faint giggle.
She just sprinted away after that, sitting silent in Aiden's car and taking the keys from his useless hands.
But that's what Spencer did, too, after placing her lips to a lovely cheek a couple of months ago. She struggled to her feet and walked slowly to that large house and found Kate chatting with some girls.
Those wounded eyes took Spencer right back in and Spencer didn't deny the entrance.
She put one arm about Kate's shoulders and eased onto her girlfriend's lap and those girls looked annoyed, which Spencer found amusing.
They didn't forget, though.
They just didn't try hard to remember.
Still, Spencer moves around the rooms as Kate ends up talking to some vaguely pretentious art students who are 'slumming' it at an event such as this, the tenuous grasp of Kate's fingers through the loops of her pants sliding away with equal parts simplicity and need.
For Spencer it is easy.
For Kate it is fraught with anxiousness.
Still, Ashley walks further and further away, into the shadows. And she sits down and her back finds support against a tree. And she lights up again, inhaling deeply, and doesn't let any of it out. It warms her lungs. It creates this embrace around her head and she slips right into it with a smile on her face.
At some point, that's how Spencer finds Ashley.
That's how they find each other, this time around, as if they are being forced into each other's universe. But it is not force. It is willing.
They want to be found by one another, they just don't know that yet.
Ashley is in shorts and Spencer looks at her legs.
She likes them. A lot.
And they grin and they stare. And Ashley motions for Spencer to join her.
And so Spencer does.
\
"It's too hot."
"Mmmhmm."
"And, you know, they say that beer doesn't cool you off. You just think it does."
"Who says that?"
"They do."
"The government?"
"...Maybe..."
It's not really quiet. The bass from the music is insane, practically causing mini-earthquakes in the ground.
But to them it is might as well be silent, unless they talk.
Or breathe - Ashley can really hear her own breathing right now, can hear it rush in and then flood back out.
It's cool and weird at the same time.
"Can you hear that?"
"What?"
"My breathing."
Spencer forces her arms to work, shoving her body upwards, and then she kind of topples to the side - but with purpose. The side of her head lands upon Ashley's chest and the brunette girl chuckles and Spencer listens closely.
She hears Ashley's heart beating. And maybe it is the three or four... or six or seven... pulls she has taken off that pretty hand-blown piece, but Spencer has never heard anything so beautiful as the ba-bump of Ashley's heart.
"Aren't you hot?"
But Ashley's hands are shifting and sliding and one is pressed onto the grass and the other is toying with the tender hairs on the back of Spencer's neck.
It's not cooling her off at all. In fact, it seems to be having the opposite effect and some part of Ashley is liking it.
However, the rest of her is feeling too warm and breathing suddenly seems harder.
She taps Spencer's head and the girl mutters something in response.
"Hey."
"Yes?"
"Let's go swimming."
"I hate swimming."
"But I'm hot."
Spencer laughs then, even though it is not terribly funny, except in her head.
"Yes you are."
And Ashley is, that much Spencer will admit - sober or not so sober. Ashley, some girl at these parties, is attractive. Ashley has a nice voice. A good heart beat. Great eyes. Sexy fucking legs.
Spencer feels a slow heat crawl past her abdomen and bank down at her center and it wouldn't take much for her to throw a leg over Ashley's hips and-
"I need to get cold or I'll combust."
"But... I'm comfy here."
And Ashley grins, a wide grin at that, and her face feels on fire and there is this great tingling in her gut - it sort of spirals out into her chest, causing certain sections of her body to react.
Ashley's not afraid, not right now, but something in her head keeps saying to 'move move move now now now'.
Up she goes and Spencer hits the ground with a thud and a growl and Ashley giggles and holds out her hand.
"No pool. But I bet there's a hose around here."
\
They end up doing what they set out to do.
Ashley skirts around the house, hands trailing over rock, and Spencer follows. They talk some. They 'shhh' each other some. They push and shove and it is just joking.
And an excuse to touch more.
It's most definitely that, too.
They end up doing more than they set out to do as well.
Ashley sticks her head under the cold water and shivers and yells out joyfully. And Spencer smiles so much that her damn cheeks hurt.
But then Ashley turns on her and sprays her down and they are fighting for control over the hose and falling down and getting messed up.
Ashley's shirt gets torn. Spencer ends up taking off her jeans.
Part of the yard is slick and Ashley busts her ass and the hose has too much pressure so it is flopping around and water is going everywhere.
Like it is raining. Like they have created their own storm system.
And Spencer grabs the hose, drinks from it, then places it over Ashley's face.
And Ashley laughs and coughs and covers her face.
"Oh no, no you don't... you wanted to be cold, right? C'mon... open up, open wide..."
Everything they say seems wrong and right at the same time.
And Spencer drops down without any grace and she straddles Ashley's waist, a colorless deluge soaking Ashley's entire head.
"Okay... okay! I'm totally cooled off now, stop it!"
And Spencer stops and does some kind of victory dance where only one part of her moves, something that they both take note of in a delicately hazy manner.
And Ashley beams up at Spencer and her legs instinctively part a little bit and those hands do what they like once again, finding purchase on Spencer's bare hips.
There are a lot of rules they are breaking.
But there is only one that counts. They both know this, too.
Only one rule can get shattered and not put back together again.
They end up throwing this rule against the wall, though.
Spencer lowers herself and Ashley strains upward, twin movements, and their lips meet.
Their lips meet and once they kiss, they don't stop kissing.
They take kissing and turn it into a lost art, an ancient thing. They get caught up in a new flavor that seems magical and mystical and rare and amazing.
It's not safe. It's not picture perfect.
It's not tense. It's not make-believe.
And it would have taken off, it would grown feet and legs and ran wild, it would have churned and spun until nothing would have stopped them. In the daze of drugs and drink, they wanted it to continue.
Even without all that, they wanted it to continue.
But there is a crash and shouting and the noise finally penetrates the cocoon around the two of them, lips swollen and bodies flush and air ghosting over flesh and eyes watching with a mixture of lust and minor trepidation.
A fight spills out into the front of Jessica's yard and some over-dramatic girl is screaming. Glasses hit the floor and now more people are leaving the confines of the rooms, taking up space outside.
Spencer gets up on shaky legs and Ashley does the same.
They look. They look away. They test. They fail. They try it again.
Kate is the one tonight, calling out Spencer's name. It carries all too well.
But it is strange and funny, because Spencer feels guilty.
Not in walking towards Kate and her steadfast expression, knowing that there wasn't much keeping Spencer from being a cheater just second ago.
It's guilt because she has finally found someone she doesn't want to walk away from - and, yet, that is exactly what Spencer does.
\ \ \
tbc