4.
Sophia readies for the date like it's their first, like the entire Florrick scandal didn't pass with Sophia's head in the curve of Kalinda's hipbone, both of them making convenient mockery of the term "bimbo eruption." She sweeps blush over her cheekbones, declines to wear a bra, runs a finger along the line of her V-neck and casts a quick eye over herself in the mirror as she leaves the house. It's not the greatest timing, tonight, but Griffin isn't due in from Philly until eleven and goddamnit, Sophia deserves a little fun.
"Fancy meeting you here," she murmurs to Kalinda, grazing a few fingertips over her shoulder as she slides onto the barstool beside her.
Kalinda smiles for a second or two. "Fancy." She's wearing dark purple and her skin glows in the golden light. Sophia sighs. She's already imagining Kalinda's lips latched to her throat, imagining licking the fine line of Kalinda's cheekbone. She sucks her breath in and wishes Griffin were in town more often. The sex deprivation really does a number on Sophia's head.
At Kalinda's silent gesture, the bartender delivers two glasses of something light and not visually identifiable. Kalinda lifts her glass and meets Sophia's eyes for a second. She looks a little run down. They toast and Sophia sips: tequila. She shudders a bit. Kalinda doesn't seem to notice.
"So nice digs at Lockhart/Gardner," says Sophia. "I can see why you didn't want to leave them."
Kalinda shrugs. "Yeah."
"You like Will Gardner? Word on the street is he's kinda shady."
Kalinda shrugs again, flashes that tiny smile again. "I like shady."
"Do you?"
"Yeah. Makes things easier, you know?"
Kalinda's looking into the mirror behind the bottles. "Long day?" Sophia asks."
"Many."
Kalinda finishes her tequila. Sophia chokes down another sip of her own and watches her. There's something a little scary here, like Kalinda could whip around and cut her throat at any minute as easily as kiss her. But it's been a long time, and maybe Kalinda was always like that. It adds another current to the air.
The bartender delivers another round, not noticing or not caring that Sophia's glass is practically untouched. Kalinda goes at hers like it's a shot. "Hey," Sophia says.
"Liquid courage," Kalinda says. Sophia doesn't really believe it; Kalinda's never needed that. But the edge in her voice precludes Sophia commenting any further, and they sit for a moment or two in a strange silence until Sophia thinks of another opening.
"And am I crazy?" Sophia asks. "Or was that Florrick's wife whose office we were in?"
"Yeah."
"What's she doing? I didn't even know she was a lawyer."
Then Kalinda's hand is halfway up her thigh, Kalinda's wrist wrinkling the hem of her skirt. Sophia's not even sure how it got there, but Kalinda is not fooling around. She lets her hand creep up the inside of Sophia's thigh, runs a short, perfectly manicured fingernail along the edge of Sophia's panties, right there at the bar. Sophia swallows, trying not to gasp. There's a rush of moisture fierce enough that Kalinda looks up at her and licks lips formed into a tiny smile.
"How about we get out of here?" Kalinda whispers.
There's no way Sophia will just let Kalinda get away with this. She nods, slides a couple of twenties from her wallet with a trembling hand.
As soon as they're alone in the elevator, Sophia grabs Kalinda's shoulders, presses her back against the wall, and catches her lips in a kiss that heats the air around them. Kalinda responds with equal force, her tongue swirling with Sophia's, and it takes them a second to stop when the elevator door dings open. Kalinda slips out ahead of Sophia, but Sophia catches up to her by slipping her own hand up Kalinda's skirt. She knows she's playing with fire—who knows, Kalinda's employers could be on this floor, any of her own clients could appear at any moment—but when Kalinda casts a glance over her shoulder, the same light and sexy smile playing at her lips, Sophia's sure it's worth it.
She slides the key into the door, and barely has it open before Kalinda tumbles them both into the vestibule, kicks the door shut behind her, pushes Sophia to the wallpaper and presses the length of her body along Sophia's back, gripping her ass with one hand. "If that's how you want to play," Kalinda murmurs, nipping Sophia's neck, "that's how we'll play."
/
She can't even taste the fifth shot, and the bartender, just a little too much of a scruffy hipster for the classy veneer of this place, puts one wiry hand on top of hers and says, "I'm cutting you off."
Kalinda looks at him, or possibly a little to the left of him, and doesn't say anything. Everybody's cutting her off these days.
"Can I get you some water?"
Kalinda nods. Everything shakes. More than anything she'd like to march out while the bartender's back is turned, but her legs are not going to hold her up right now. He's not bad from the back, she thinks, although the lines of what is probably a firm ass in skinny jeans seem to be blurring.
Try as she might—and she has been trying since she escaped the hotel room—Kalinda cannot call this husband to mind. Griffin, at the North Korean border. She doesn't remember seeing any picture. She doesn't even remember how she met Sophia, not really. As far as Kalinda's concerned she was just always there, in Kalinda's phone, in her brain, in her bed, and she expected to keep her there, to have more of her. She expected Sophia as a refuge. She tries to fill in the blank of the husband's face, a face that would fall in devastation if it knew where Sophia's face had been a mere few hours ago. He'd be a dark-haired, strong, quiet type. He'd try to take it stoically when he found out, try to understand that this was just how Sophia dealt with his absence, try to mask the pain and isolation that came with his work and the months he spent missing his wife, thinking of her, giving all he had to loving her.
"Here." The bartender places a glass of water in front of Kalinda.
"Thanks." It's hard to get the word out, harder to take a sip.
"That's a lot of shots for someone as little as you," he says.
Kalinda raises an eyebrow. It's not quite as effective as it usually is—it's possible both of her eyebrows are going up at once, she's not really sure—but he still backs off.
Kalinda wonders how Peter Florrick would come home to Alicia after Amber Madison, wonders if Alicia could tell but was too afraid to speak, to put it together. The Alicia Kalinda knows now, Kalinda is pretty sure, is not afraid of anything, but she's not sure she could say the same of the woman on screen during the scandal, the pretty, dowdy wife in the ugly suit whose face was a mask of quiet control.
She chugs from her glass of water as if it were a shot, wishing it were a shot. Peter Florrick didn't stay the night with her. Afterwards, he went home to Alicia, to the housewife who was waiting. It was funny, then—everything about Peter Florrick was pretty funny. It was laughably easy to seduce him, to slink into his confidence, to track down his bimbo eruptions. It was easy, too easy, to distract him from his wife back when Alicia wasn't in the story.
And for weeks at a time, over the space of years, it's been easy with Sophia.
And fuck it, that was all Kalinda'd wanted.
"Hey," she says, drumming her fingers on the bar until the hipster finally turns. "Need to close out my tab." Talking is still difficult.
"It's about time," he answers. He casts through the last few cars that remain by the cash register, holding her Visa up for her approval. "Kalinda?" He runs his tongue over the consonants. She nods. "Pretty name."
"Yeah."
"Pretty lady."
"Shut up."
The last thing Kalinda wants to do is cry in front of this idiot, but the naked, stark pain on Alicia's face is in every corner of her head and Kalinda did that. She did that and she's lost her. And she's lost Sophia, lost her to the aura of damage that encases Kalinda's every move. She signs the receipt with a quick trembling hand and takes tiny rapid steps out of the bar, out of the hotel, along the curb where she will not kneel down, not bend over, no matter how sick she feels. The least she can do is make it home.