It was the next day in the morning and the bright morning sun was barely creeping in through the window's blinds. In a few minutes the sun would be blazing in through each of the tiny spaces between each blind. Patterson didn't feel like getting up, and she had so many reasons to not want to, what occurred with Tasha being the biggest. Instead, she grasped her phone from the floor and skimmed through the latest news. None of the headlines grasped her attention, after all, it was Saturday morning, probably the lamest day for the media.

So she sat there and played endless amounts of games, from the popular free ones to the ones that she had to pay a ten dollar subscription fee every month. She kept playing and checking the time, wondering if Tasha, or better yet Zapata, was to be heard. Soon enough it was eight in the morning and the morning hot sun was bothering her. Enough that Patterson got up from the couch, covered her bare torso with her arms and then put on her shirt. She swallowed a laugh, the thought of Tasha entering the living room and seeing her without a shirt made its way into her mind.

Waiting a little longer for Tasha to walk in she decided to get off the couch and check in on her, it was very unusual that Tasha would still be asleep, she was an early bird. Hence the early breakfasts on the weekends in Sam's Diner or La Rosita Bella Bakery. Anxious to know what was keeping her from making an appearance Patterson walked herself down the hall. She glanced to the side and saw the bathroom in which Tasha was puking in last night, but it was dark and missing Tasha's presence.

As she got closer to the room she felt her anxiety continue to increase more and more. There were so many things running through her mind, and for the first time, in a really long time, she was scared. Not sure if to knock or simply open the door, she paused. Patterson felt the little droplets of sweat forming on her forehead and she was so unsure of what to do. Patterson bit her bottom lip and lightly knocked. Part of her was petrified to see a furious Tasha. She knocked once more, and then waited for the door to open, but nothing.

Tired of waiting, Patterson swung the door wide open. "Tasha?" She questioned as she looked into a vacant room and empty bed with sheets that had been slept in. Patterson took a step closer, and put her hand on top of the sheets, thinking that maybe there would be some warmth to them, but there was none. It was then that she came to the conclusion that Tasha gone, and that only made things worse. Tasha's absence didn't give her tachycardia, but rather the thought of not ever being able to find her.

Patterson knew that it was stupid to look for her around the city, so she ran back to the living room in search of her cell phone from where she sent Tasha various text messages.

Patterson: So, I'm at your house, but where are you?

Patterson: Tasha… Please answer me.

Patterson: Are you okay?

Various minutes later.

Patterson: An answer would be nice.

Patterson's eyes didn't leave the screen. She had glared at many screens before, with millions of pixels and information, but never had she looked into a screen with such intensity like she did with her cell phone while waiting for a certain someone to reply. Patterson knew why she was acting the way she was, and she didn't like it one bit. Every second that went by was another moment of not knowing if Tasha was safe. And not knowing if Tasha was safe resulted in her fabricating theories of what were Tasha's whereabouts. The theories Patterson was coming up with were not healthy ones, and she hated herself for it. "Tasha..." Her name slipped out of her mouth when she heard that obnoxious ding, that at the moment sounded like glory.

Tasha: I'm at Sam's. Be there in a bit.

Patterson scoffed in disgrace, Tasha left without telling her. She crossed her arms and sat on the couch, now she was the one who was mad, all that worry for nothing. She knew Tasha could have sent her a text or simply could have told where she was heading before leaving to go get food. Patterson could have gone out to breakfast with her too, but no. Patterson grabbed her phone, analyzed Tasha's message a bit longer and then decided to play a game, instead of tormenting herself with something that she could not change. With her thumbs, she took out all the anger filling her body.

She was playing her favorite game when she heard the door open swing open. She paused for a second, and instead of looking up to greet her friend (almost kissing buddy) she continued to nonchalantly play her game. It was hard to ignore such presence, but she knew that if she addressed it, it would result in some awkward conversation. After a few agonizing seconds, Patterson glanced up to see if Tasha was still there, but she wasn't. Somehow it stirred a sort of relief and regret, but she knew that she would get over.

Tasha was keeping herself busy with setting up breakfast. She kept looking around the kitchen for some plates, the ones she never used, the ones spent nearly one hundred dollars, and finally would be giving some use. Tasha was glad that no words nor glances had been exchanged by her nor Patterson. She knew things got awkward last night and like a few other things, she was not ready to pull it out of the closet just yet. Some things, most things, to her, were better kept quiet. Finally, finding the plates she was looking for, she almost dropped them in hope to only take two. Once setting them on the counter she peacefully decorating each plate with its corresponding food. From the corner of her eye, she noticed how her companion from the night before directed herself to the breakfast bar. "Shit," Tasha spoke out loud to herself. "I forgot to ask for syrup." She added, trying to cover her slip up.

"You also forgot to tell me you were leaving." Patterson immediately covered her mouth and cursed for that slipping out of her mouth. She sincerely only intended that to stay in her head, but it was too late. Not knowing what to do, she glanced back down at the game she was playing and continued to frantically move her thumbs. She couldn't see it, but she knew Tasha was giving her that look, the one in which burned her alive. The one that said: Are you fucking shitting me, Patterson? Patterson hated that look.

"Really?" Tasha blurted out a little too sarcastically. "Sorry, I didn't want to wake sleeping beauty up." She continued to place food on the plates, her moves seeming a little more choppy and abrupt. Patterson noticed that the woman before her, the one in sweatpants and a black sweatshirt, breathed in and out quite loudly. She was mad.

"Still." Patterson defended herself. "I thought I was making breakfast."

"Hmm… Yeah, I don't remember you saying that last night." Patterson turned off her phone when she realized that Tasha had remembered last night. "That's actually kind of funny, you making food, but I already bought this, so we're good." There was so much sass and disdain. She gave Patterson her plate and set hers next to Patterson's. "And if making breakfast was your intention, you weren't really clear about it last night." She turned around, giving Patterson her back, not sure if she could be face to face when she spoke the following: "You weren't clear about a lot of things last night." Patterson felt as her heart dropped. Tasha shook her head and opened the fridge, "Milk, OJ or Coffee… Nevermind." She threw out the carton of milk. "OJ or Coffee?"

Patterson couldn't help herself, but to run her gaze down Tasha's body and have it linger a while over her ass. "I don't trust store bought coffee, orange juice...Please." She composed without really thinking about it, her attention being somewhere else. Though Tasha was turned around, Patterson could clearly see her rolling her eyes to her response, and it was then clear that she knew Tasha more than she thought she did. Tasha finally turned around, brought their glasses over, and sat next to Patterson. Patterson did her best to eat her food, after all, it had been from one of her favorite breakfast places. Yet, the constant stabbing of food, coming from Tasha's direction made it very difficult to eat in peace. Frankly, all she wanted to do was eat her eggs in peace. "Okay. What's wrong now?"

Tasha looked over at her, she took a breath, and then another before she could say anything. Knowing herself, if she didn't take the time to take a breather her response wouldn't have been as civil. "Nothing. I'm just hungover. That's probably it. Yeah." She sounded so disappointed.

Patterson dropped her fork and looked over at her. "You sure?" Patterson asked in hope of getting something else out of her.

"Yeah." She nodded, not being able to handle glancing at Patterson for more than a second. Tasha could feel Patterson's stare piercing through her body, so there wasn't a difference is she looked up or not.

Patterson couldn't continue to eat, not with all the bad vibes Tasha kept giving off. They were already half done with their meal and Tasha didn't look at her once, her eyes glued to her plate and her voice sounding nothing like it usually was. Patterson didn't want to mess things up between them, but given her situation, at the moment, they couldn't get much worse. She cleared her throat and moved the few strands of hair to the side. "Is it what happened last night?" Tasha froze. She stopped chewing and her body got so stiff. Patterson bit her lip watching as Tasha reacted to her words. "I- I'm sorry if I made things weird." Her vocals sounded so strained, but there was no hiding of her raw emotions as well as intentions.

"Noo… It's fine." She managed to say and then forced a half smile, not being capable of the whole thing.

Patterson wanted her to say something else, she wanted her to bring up the kiss. She somehow secretly urged for that confrontation. "You sure?"

"Yeah..." She then turned her chair to look at Patterson. Her soft brown eyes, her warm cheeks, her pink tender lips, finally being visible to Patterson from another angle. "Do you have something else to say?"

Patterson nodded. "Yeah, I do." Tasha could sense that Patterson was nervous. There something in the way that her cheeks glowed and the minuscule droplets of sweat that formed on her forehead, or at least what was visible of it. What really seemed to give off that Patterson was nervous was the way she promptly continued to move in the chair; side to side in a nauseous rhythm. "I thought you were going to kiss me, you know, last night."

"Funny, I also thought that I was going to kiss you." Patterson shut her eyes closed realizing that she might have made a mistake trying to prevent what she thought would have been a mistake. Realizing that Patterson had nothing to say, Tasha continued, she cleared her throat, her voice sounding a little less than raspy before. "Why did you stop me? Why didn't you want to kiss me?"

"I-" Patterson paused, she didn't want to say the first thing that came to mind, she actually wanted to think it through. There was brief silence, but finally, she had an answer. "I didn't want to take advantage of you, Tash. You had just been vomiting your guts out. How was I supposed to know you wouldn't regret it in the morning. I just didn't want to hurt you. You mean too much to me, Tash."

Patterson offered her a long warm smile. But Tasha wasn't smiling, she was trying her best to hold in her tears, the ones that in any second would start streaming down her face. Unlike the beliefs she held about people, Patterson cared about her. The dorky woman who loved puzzles, Patterson, cared about her. Someone finally cared about her. Tasha was about to lose it. Patterson got off of her seat, making the gap of space between them even smaller. "Tasha." her thumbs quickly wiped her tears away from her zygomatic arch as if they windshield wipers. "No, please don't cry."

Tasha sniffled and wiped her eyes a bit, and then proceeded into burying her head into Patterson's chest. Patterson, not knowing what to do, took her into her embrace. Her fingers moved in tiny circles on Tasha's back, and as she tried to focus on her sollozos she got distracted by how small Tasha's frame really was. The thinness of her sweater allowed for Patterson to feel every vertebra under her fingers. Patterson couldn't help but think that Tasha needed to eat a little more. It was when Tasha was trying to suffocate her cries and not try to bring much attention to herself, that jump started Patterson back into reality and detached her from her thoughts. Patterson gently pressed her head into her chest a bit more. "It's okay, let it all out." She could cry, she could yell, and just like the previous night at the bar, she would still be there. Her fingers gently massaged Tasha's scalp, in hope that it would sooth her.

It was shortly after, that Tasha sniffled before she lifted her head, then their eyes were interlocked for a while. Patterson's royal sky blue eyes, and Tasha's glossed dark marble eyes. Tasha felt she was making a scene, so she took a step back, away from Patterson and her touch. She took the tar black sleeve of her sweater and wiped her face a bit more, but all it did was make her sensitive skin more irritated. Everything felt so wrong, usually when she cried she hid, prohibiting anyone from looking at her in such a vulnerable state or from looking at the tears she rained. She learned to hide because all anyone did was scream at her, say hurtful things, ignore her and on occasion give her something to actually cry about. "Tasha, you okay?

"I'm sorry," Tasha begged as she tried to put her hair into a ponytail, but after skimming her wrist a few times, she noticed that the hair tie was gone. It was hopeless she would just have to live with her messy wavy hair. She continued to rub her eyes with her sleeve, "I probably look like a mess."

"No, don't say that." Patterson grabbed her sleeve, her fingertips touching Tasha's the sensation rather wild, though it wasn't something new. "You're making it worse," Patterson said referring to the rubbing of her eyes. "No, don't apologize." She grabbed her wrist, "I wanted to kiss you, too." Patterson tried to sedate the smile on her face, but there was just no way of doing so. "I really wanted to kiss you."

Tasha Zapata lifted her lips a little, but she was not smiling , or at least that's what she told herself. "Why didn't you?" Tasha asked.

Patterson laughed, "Because you were drunk, have you not been listening to what I've been saying?" The shy white girl scratched her head a little and then glanced at Tasha with gleaming eyes, "I really wanted to kiss you..." She took a breath. "It took so much of me last night not to." Patterson bit her lip and lingered her eyes on Tasha a little while longer. She felt as Tasha pulled her in closer until Patterson's hands then claimed her hips and her possessive stare ran through her body. Both of their hearts were pacing fast and seemed to never cease a single beat. Patterson moved Tasha's hair to the side and without much warning the other woman lunged over to kiss her. Patterson let her claim her lips rather easily, quickly falling in love with the way that their lips felt against one another. In love with the passion that Tasha displayed whilst biting into her inferior lip. Tasha was lost in the moment; in the kiss. So lost in the movement of their lips

When their lips finally parted, Tasha glanced at Patterson wide-eyed, she had just kissed Patterson. Patterson who had not had enough with the first kiss leaned in for another, but received only rejection. Tasha didn't even look at her but advanced to move a few steps away. "This is a mistake."

"No, it's not. I waited until you weren't drunk. This is real." Patterson was confused.

Tasha shook her head. "Patterson, we work together." She scoffed, "You really think anything beyond this will be easy?"

"Ta-," Patterson couldn't believe Tasha was doing this. She wasn't going to cry, she didn't cry. Instead, she put on one of those emotional armor suits. "Well, then why do it? Why kiss me?"

Tasha was hated herself for what she was going to say next, but she felt like it was what she needed to do. "I got caught up in the moment." She seemed too tranquil for what was happening, and something told her that maybe Tasha was also trying to put her feelings to the side. Patterson knew she would fight for her, no mistake tasted so splendid.

Patterson nodded, "Drunk or not. You still think this is a mistake. I get it. I guess I was just reading a little too much into the glances at work, reading a little too much into the conversations, reading a little too much into the way you'd brush your shoulder against mine." Patterson grabbed her phone, the one next to her half eaten plate of breakfast. "Goodbye, Zapata." It was Patterson's turn to slam the door.

AN:

Okay, I'm really excited about this FF and where it's going, I'm l 2/3 done with the chapter outlines. BTW Chapters 1-3 are all supposed to be one chapter. I don't know if I should edit the FF so that it is one whole chapter or to just leave it as is. What do you guys think? Hopefully chapter 2 or the first part of chapter 2 will be posted by this time next week. I have a lot of assignments for a class. :( Thank you so much for those of you who have commented, it is really greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think :)