"LaF! Hit me up with double espresso and a grilled cheese." Carmilla dumped her backpack down on her usual couch at the front of the Grind, calling out her order to LaFontaine; who was slouched over the counter, reading a magazine. They marked the page they were on before standing up and having a stretch. Even during the lunchtime 'rush', the Grind was empty.

"Heart attack with a double cardiac. Got it!" LaFontaine's cafe lingo might have been one of the reasons the coffee shop was so empty. At best, their customer service was a little lax. It annoyed Perry to no end when they described the drinks and beverages as various medical ailments; Though they'd yet to put Carmilla off ordering her usual lunch.

With only forty minutes until her next class, Carmilla needed something quick and easy to scoff while she was reading up on her notes. LaF helpfully obliged, making themselves a grilled cheese sandwich and taking an impromptu break while they were at it.

They joined Carmilla over on the couch, inspecting both grilled cheeses carefully before placing one of them down in front of Carmilla; the one that was mostly burnt around the edges.

"Nice." Carmilla scoffed at her friend with a roll of her eyes. LaFontaine shrugged, their mouth full as they replied with, 'You get what you pay for'. They had Carmilla there, seeing as she didn't technically pay for her lunches at the Grind. Between the lack of customers and Carmilla's freebies, it was a miracle the place was even still afloat.

"You coming to the poetry slam tonight?" LaF asked, reminding Carmilla of just exactly how the Grind managed to keep from going bankrupt. As quiet as they were during the day, the place came alive during the evening, when live bands, open mic nights, and poetry slams drew in large crowds.

Carmilla often dropped in to listen to the poetry. For amateurs, some of the poets were actually pretty good. Perry was even able to talk Carmilla in to reading out some of her own work, when the mood took her.

"Sure. I'll probably get here late though. I'm having dinner with Laura and her dad tonight."
"Dinner with the folks already, huh?" LaF teased, expecting Carmilla to bite back with one of her usual snarky remarks. "Carmilla?" LaFontaine prodded their friend in the arm when she failed to answer, her expression distant.

The last thing LaFontaine expected was what came tumbling out of Carmilla's mouth. "I almost kissed her last night. Laura. My neighbour… We almost kissed." It had been playing on Carmilla's mind all night and she needed someone to talk to about it. Someone preferably non-judgmental, like LaF.

"So, from the panicked tone of your voice, I'm guessing I shouldn't give you a high-five right now?" LaFontaine wore a puzzled expression, unsure of how to take Carmilla's admission. The girl's brooding glare answered them in the affirmative. "Okay. Spill. I want details."

"There's nothing really to tell." Carmilla shrugged, her leather jacket bunching at the shoulders. "We were messing around and I forgot myself. I went to kiss her. Luckily her dad interrupted us before I could dig my own grave." Carmilla let out a bone weary sigh, like confessing the almost kiss had taken a load off of her shoulders.

There was still more she was keeping to herself, and LaFontaine knew her well enough to know this. They sat there, silently staring at Carmilla until she caved. "When we almost… When I went to kiss her. I forgot who she was for a second. I got so caught up in the moment… I almost convinced myself she was Elle."

LaFontaine didn't say a word. Wrapping an arm around Carmilla's shoulders, they held her close, just letting her process everything. Theirs was the rare kind of friendship where no words were needed to comfort one another. The silence spoke volumes.

"After it happened, after the accident, people kept telling me it would get better. Easier. I thought it was bullshit. I wanted it to be. I never wanted losing her to get any easier, but being around Laura…" Carmilla sighed and shook her head, not quite able to put what she was feeling in to words. Laura made it all so much easier. Somehow, seemingly without even trying.

"Carm, Elle wouldn't want you to grieve for her for the rest of your life. You know that. Nothing made her happier than seeing you happy." LaF rubbed their hand in a soothing circular motion against Carmilla's back. It was the same thing Perry did for them whenever they were bordering on an anxiety attack.

"If Laura makes you happy, then roll with it. Have dinner with her. Kiss her if you want to. Just… don't put your life on hold because of what happened to Elle. You can't just keep screwing around with girls like Elsie, because you're afraid to get close to someone again-"

"Thank you, Dr Freud." Carmilla pulled away with a huff, but her tone held no malice. She knew LaFontaine was right. She couldn't keep messing around with one night stands and meaningless hookups - especially with Elsie - but that didn't mean she was ready for something more serious.

"Think about it, at least." LaF urged her. "Laura's a sweet kid."
"Yeah… She's a kid." Carmilla agreed with a sigh; and therein lay the problem. Laura was seventeen years old.

Even with less than four years separating them, Carmilla felt like she had lived a lifetime between graduating high school and reaching her final year of college. The distance between the two girls, which could be measured in a lot more than just years, was simply too great.

"Jump up, Little Hottie!" Kirsch grinned as she unlocked his truck so Laura could climb in the back; climb being the operative word. Kirsch's Chevy had been jacked up on 22 inch rims, making it a herculean task for Laura to get up in to the back seat.

"Kirsch, have these tires gotten bigger again?" Laura grumbled as she scaled her way in to her usual seat, sitting behind Danny.
"Nah, I just pumped them up, is all." Kirsch answered. When he'd first opted for the custom rims he'd failed to tell Laura about them. For a while, Laura had actually been convinced she'd shrunk some.

"Hey, D!" Kirsch's whole face lit up as Danny yanked the front passenger door open. Had anyone else treated his precious truck so badly, Kirsch would have reprimanded them, but he let it slide with Danny. He let a lot of things slide when it came to Danny.

"Hey." Danny greeted her sort-of-boyfriend with a timid peck to the cheek; though Kirsch's wide eyed grin would suggest that she'd just announced her undying love for him. In the backseat, Laura shifted uncomfortably, looking out of the window to give them some privacy.

Danny caught sight of her in the wing mirror, offering her ex a weak smile. "Hey Laura." Things were still far from normal between the three of them, but they were slowly getting there; one awkward day at a time.

Danny had swim practice last period on a Thursday. Her long hair was tied back and still damp, making it look a dark russet colour. She looked tired as she sat up front, her head leaning back against the rest, her eyes occasionally closing over for a few seconds at a time.

As well as being captain of the varsity swimming team, president of the Summer Society - the girls track and athletics team - and head of the yearbook committee, Danny was taking many of the same AP classes as Laura. The other girl never seemed to stop to take a breath.

Kirsch drove with the radio on low, knowing better than to blast Bon Jovi out of the speakers whilst Danny was dozing off. He pulled the truck in to his usual parking spot, in the lot behind the Lustig building.

"Laura, you wanna come up and play COD for a bit?" Kirsch asked, hoping to get in some 'bro' time with his childhood friend while Danny did her homework.
"Sorry, Kirsch. I've got plans tonight. Maybe tomorrow?"
"Sure! No problem!" Kirsch accepted the brush off without question.

"What plans?" Danny wasn't as easy to shake off as Kirsch was. She questioned Laura as the three of them walked around the front of the building.

"My new neighbor, Carmilla, she's coming over for dinner with Dad and me tonight." Laura answered as nonchalantly as she could, trying not to make it sound like a big deal; even if it was all she'd been able to think about all day.

"Oh." Danny fell quiet after that. She was jealous. Laura could read it all over face. Even Kirsch could. His smile stretched even wider across his face, to a point that probably should have been painful, as he tried to act like everything was fine between the three of them.

"Have fun Little Hottie, and I'm holding you to COD tomorrow!" Kirsch scooped the tiny girl up in to a crushing bear hug, before putting her back down on the ground outside of Danny's door. For all he lived on the third floor, Kirsch wouldn't walk up the next flight of stairs with Laura.

He'd hang around outside Danny's, waiting until Laura was out of sight to say goodbye to his girlfriend properly. Laura didn't hang around making things anymore awkward for the couple. She took the stairs two at a time, eager to get home and make a start on dinner. Carmilla would be there in just a few hours, and Laura had a lot to do.

Carmilla glared at her own reflection in the full length mirror that was fixed to the back of her bedroom door. The room behind her was a mess. It looked like her closet had exploded. It was almost seven, and Carmilla was only dressed from the waist down. She'd settled on a short denim skirt and some black, knee-high, stockings, but she couldn't decide what to wear with them.

"Stupid…" Carmilla gave a shake of her head, making her freshly curled hair fall in to her face. She brushed it away with a groan. Why was she getting so worked up over dinner with Laura and her dad?

Rummaging back through her reject pile - which was basically the entire contents of her wardrobe dumped on the floor - Carmilla eventually settled on a sleeveless shirt. It was a washed out grey colour, with the different phases of the moon on the front of it.

Carmilla scowled at her reflection again as she fluffed at her hair. What she saw wasn't perfect, but it would jut have to do. After a quick touch-up of her eyeliner, she grabbed an expensive looking bottle of wine from in the kitchen and headed across the hall to Laura's apartment.

"Carm! Hey! Right on time." Laura was beaming as she opened the door and ushered her neighbour inside. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, held in place by a pencil, and she was wearing an apron with 'Kiss the Cook!' scrawled on the front of it. Carmilla was sorely tempted to oblige.

"Hey, Cupcake. I brought some wine. I wasn't sure what we were having, so I just went with the white." Carmilla handed over the bottle before she shrugged her leather jacket off. She wasn't sure why she had worn it just to cross the hallway, but it wasn't like she was thinking straight in general.

"Wow, thanks Carm. I'll give it to Dad. Oh, and we're having salmon. Wait. Do you like fish? Shoot, I should have thought to ask you first. I can make-"
"Whoa there, Cutie! Relax." Carmilla let out a throaty chuckle as she placed her hands on Laura's shoulders, in a bid to avoid her going in to full blown anxiety.

"Take a deep breath. Salmon is my favourite. I'm sure it will be delicious… Is that something burning?" Carmilla sniffed at the air, detecting the slightest hint of something being burnt, along with the delicious aroma of the rest of dinner being cooked.

"Oh crap!" Shoving the wine back in to Carmilla's hand, the younger girl took off racing in to the kitchen. Carmilla followed after her at a slower pace, rolling her eyes at the teenager's seemingly endless reserves of energy.

The apartment was open plan, just like Carmilla's, but John had built an island to separate the kitchen from the living area. Pots and pans were bubbling away on the hob, and Laura was busy wrestling with some rather crispy looking roast potatoes, which seemed to be stuck to the tray and blackened on the edges.

John Hollis was sat in his recliner, the radio beside him on low. He was dressed in a button down and a pair of jeans - instead of the oil stained overalls Carmilla usually saw him in - and it looked like he'd even trimmed his beard. It looked shorter and neater, and some of the grey flecks that had previously been in it were gone.

"Hey, Mr H." Carmilla greeted the middle-aged man with a nod; which he returned as she perched on the end of one of the sofa cushions. There was an awkward kind of silence between them as John openly sized Carmilla up; as if trying to ascertain whether she was going to break his little girl's heart.

Carmilla tried to hold his gaze, but she broke first and looked down at her hands. Reminded of the wine, she thrust it out towards him. "I brought this. I hope you like white."

"Thank you, Carmilla." John reached over to take the wine. He inspected it with an approving nod and a low whistle. Carmilla guessed it was good, it was part of a hamper that her mother had sent as a moving gift. "Nice… You're twenty-one, right?"

John's welcoming smile never wavered, but Carmilla could practically hear the change in the air as he pressed her on her age. "Yes, sir." She hastily nodded, wondering when the last time was, if ever, that she'd called someone 'sir'.

John nodded, rubbing at his beard almost absently. He had been a marine - before Laura's mom had fallen pregnant with her - and years of physical labor as a building manager had kept him in peak shape. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing deeply tanned flesh stretched out over bulging muscles.

Carmilla's first impression of the man as a burly bear hadn't changed much, but she was hoping he was the friendly, picnic-basket-stealing, kind of bear; and not the murderous kind.

"And you're a student at the university? Laura said you were a philosophy major." John pressed on.
"Yes… sir." Carmilla couldn't remember ever being so nervous around a girl's father. Hell, she couldn't remember ever meeting a girl's father. Meeting Elle's for the first time had hardly counted. Not when it was at her funeral.

"Carmilla?" John had obviously asked her something else, but she'd been too distracted to hear it. Pulling herself back out of the past, she blinked at Laura's dad and asked him to repeat himself. "I said do you want a glass?" He held up the bottle Carmilla had just handed over, an easier smile playing across his face. He'd obviously had his fun playing the big, bad, overprotective, father, and was finally cutting her a little slack.
"God, yes please..."

"Dinner's almost ready!" Laura called out cheerfully, from over in the kitchen. The teenager was oblivious to the inquisition that her father had just been conducting. "You guys can go ahead and sit down at the table."

"So, Carmilla, how are you liking the building?" John's line of questioning eased up as they sat at the table. Carmilla caught sight of Laura tugging off her apron, and letting down her hair, as she was answering.
"It has it's attractions…"

Conversation got easier as Carmilla sipped at her wine. Laura had a glass too, though it was watered down with lemonade. The girls were sat facing each other, with John at the head of the table. He asked more of the usual, mundane questions, like: Where had Carmilla grown up? How many siblings did she have etc; though Carmilla's answers were far from boring to Laura.

The other girl had been born in Austria. Her German mother and American father had met at the same international university in Salzburg. They'd wed and lived in Europe for a few years after graduation, while Carmilla's father worked on building up his business. She had one older sister, and one younger brother respectively. Both were adopted. Carmilla had been her - supposedly barren - mother's little miracle.

Her parents had never expected to have a child of their own. They'd adopted Matska from an orphanage in Paris. Three years later Carmilla's mother had fallen naturally with her. They'd adopted Will four years after, when Daniel Karnstein's brother, and sister-in-law, had been involved in a fatal crash that had left their six month old son an orphan.

Theirs was an unusual family, but Carmilla loved both of her siblings as if they were her own blood. Even after Mattie and Carmilla had moved out, mostly to get out from under their mother's influence, they made the time to keep in touch with their baby brother.

"This is delicious." Carmilla complimented the food, much to Laura's delight. She'd managed to salvage most of the potatoes and the green beans and creamed corn complimented the salmon quite well.

"Thanks." Laura beamed at the praise. She liked to cook, but enthusiasm wasn't much of a substitute for actual skill, and her dishes didn't always turn out that well. She was glad things had gone relatively smoothly for Carmilla coming over. "Make sure you save room for dessert. It's pecan pie!"

"You know, Monkey, you roll anything other than a four and you're going to have a whopper of a hotel bill!" John rubbed his hands with glee, taking far too much enjoyment in his daughter's predicament. Across the table from him, Carmilla looked just as entertained by Laura's misery.

"It's not fair! You two bought up, like, everything!" Laura huffed, while scooping the dice up in her hand. What had started out as a friendly game of Monopoly had evolved in to something ugly, with friend pitted against friend, and father against daughter.

"You shouldn't have been so preoccupied with buying all the stations then, should you Cutie?" Carmilla teased, taking John's side in ganging up on the teenager. Laura took the mature approach, and stuck her tongue out at the other girl. Biting the bullet, she finally rolled.

"Boom!" Laura jumped up as she somehow managed to roll a four, passing safely past the corner of the board that her dad and Carmilla had loaded up with hotels.

"Take a chance, Hollis." Carmilla's lips curled up in to a crooked smile as she picked up one of the chance cards and handed it over. Laura had to suppress a shiver as their hands grazed. She was still grinning as she started reading the card, though her giddiness quickly gave way to frustration. "Go straight to jail! Seriously?"

The game wore on for another hour, long after Laura had been bankrupted and forced to sit on the sidelines and watch. "Good game, Mr H." Carmilla shook his hand as she handed over her last dollar.
"You too Carmilla. Nice effort ladies, but it looks like J-Dog is the winner!"

"Dad, you have got to stop talking to Kirsch." Laura groaned loudly at his attempts to be cool. She face-planted her palm as Carmilla laughed along with him.
"Word, Mr H." They bumped fists, which outside of the nineties was just cringe-worthy.

"Please don't encourage him." Laura implored as she saw the other girl to the door. It was later than any of them had realised, and they all had early starts in the morning; with Carmilla insisting that any lecture before lunch counted as an early start.

"You're dad's pretty cool, Hollis." Carmilla objected, bumping shoulders with her on her way out the door. Growing up, she'd never been particularly close to the families of those few people who'd she'd tolerated enough to consider as friends.

"Well, you definitely made a new fan." Laura teased. "I still can't believe you guys teamed up to kick my ass at Monopoly!"
"Sorry Cutie. Sometimes you've just got to learn when to play nice with others."
"Yeah, but you could have teamed up with me!" Laura huffed, only half joking.

The pout she wore was adorable. Carmilla was overwhelmed by the urge to kiss it right off her face. "Sorry Creampuff… I figured letting your dad win was a sure-fire way to get him to like me." Carmilla tried to make a joke of it, but she really had wanted Mr Hollis to like her.

"I think you were doing okay before you helped him trash me at Monopoly." Laura laughed, her cheeks glowing as she nervously ducked her head. Without word or warning, Laura darted forward, pressing a chaste kiss to Carmilla's cheek. "Thanks for coming over tonight. It was fun."

"Any time, Cutie." Carmilla winked at her, enjoying the way Laura's cheeks were growing bright red. She was even cuter when she was flustered. "I should get going. A girl needs her beauty sleep… Goodnight, Creampuff."

Laura stopped herself before she could say anything stupid, like that Carmilla was beautiful enough as it was. Instead she settled on something safer. "Goodnight, Carm. See you tomorrow?"
"Count on it, Creampuff."