Her name (the DJ) is Reagan and she's nineteen, a DJ by night and a cater-waiter by day (and sometimes also at night), she loves cats, hates reggae, has no food allergies and a brother and a divorced dad living at home.
It takes Amy about ten minutes to get all that, plopping herself down on the tiny stool behind the DJ (and not because of the view) (not. at. all.) and asking question after question after question after… you get the idea… and waiting for the other girl (wait… woman… she's nineteen after all) to get sick of her and send her packing.
But Reagan doesn't. No matter how many questions Amy asks (and there's a… well… an Amy amount of them), Reagan just answers and smiles and answers and laughs and answers and does other… things… that Amy doesn't really notice cause, well, there's the sound of Reagan's voice (and dear God she didn't know that level of husky existed in nature) and there's the sight of her smile (that parts those lips just enough) and the way she arches those brows after certain questions (and Amy is fuck all at reading signs but she swears every little wiggle, every little arch, every little up and down is a fucking invitation.)
(she's not wrong)
So Amy sits there, content and calm (mostly) (not really) (but sweaty palms and racing heart because of hotness is so different than sweaty palms and racing heart because of fear, so…) for the first time all night and peppers Reagan with questions. And, along the way, she also manages to find time to share all her own important deets.
"I'm Amy."
Yeah. So there's that.
She thinks about sharing more, about telling Reagan that she's single (which is technically not a lie) and gay (which is also, technically, not a lie) (though probably closer to one than the single thing) though she suspects that Reagan suspects and that, Amy figures, is probably that gaydar thing and that's gotta be a sign, right?
If you're popping up on DJ Hottie's gaydar, you gotta be at least a little gay, right?
(And yes, she knows there's no such thing as a little gay but she's distracted by the brows and the lips and the… other stuff… so just cut her a little slack, OK?)
For her part, Reagan doesn't seem to mind that Amy doesn't share much or that she asks everything. If Amy's reading the signs right (and for once, she really is), Reagan actually finds 20 Questions (multiplied by like ten) to be kinda cute and endearing and while Amy might prefer hot and sultry and sexy, she'll take what she can get cause whatever it is, it's real.
There's moments (a few) when the blonde seems to have exhausted her list of questions and the two of them lapse into a comfortable silence (something Amy didn't know could exist outside of Karma) as Reagan flicks dials and switches (and Amy blushes as she watches the way Reagan's fingers twirl the knobs and she's not sure why, at first, and then she realizes and blushes even more) (but doesn't look away) (not even for a second.) With Reagan's every movement, the music responds and for Amy, it's like watching a snake charmer at work, calling the serpent and then taming it, making it shift and coil and roll through the place, slipping between the people and the walls and the floor and surrounding them all, squeezing them tight.
Watching Reagan work is, in a word? Hot.
Fucking hot.
(Yes. Two words. Very appropriate words.)
It's in one of those comfortable silences, one filled only by the hypnotic dance track Reagan turns loose on the crowd, one that lulls Amy herself into something of a trance (which has nothing to do with the way Reagan's hips sway back and forth as she stands at her deck) that the DJ settles down onto the stool next to Amy (not the stool next to her, like there's another one, cause there's not, there's just the one and they're on it together and that means they're close and there are touching hips and brushing arms and she can smell the DJ's perfume and see the sweat beading on her skin cause Reagan is soclose and fuck the trance, Amy is wide awake) and then she asks.
"So… best friend?"
Amy's distracted (just a little) by the way the words roll off the other girl's tongue (and that she's close enough to actually see said tongue) so she almost misses the question.
Almost.
"I don't… um… what do you… I…" Amy stammers before sighing and hanging her head (only partly to stop looking). "How did you know?"she asks. "Do I have some kind of lesbian scarlet letter?"
Reagan laughs and fuck all, if the voice was hot… "Trust me," she says. "If you did, we all would. It's a rite of passage, you know?" She bobs her head in time with the beat, fingers drumming on one knee. "There's like three of them Fall for the best friend, and in those rare circumstances when best friend turns out to not be straight, then later on, after best friend thing fails spectacularly, fall for a different straight girl, spend an inordinate amount of money on flannel, and rent at least one U-Haul."
She side eyes Amy and can't help laughing (again), and it's a boisterous rip roaring kind of thing that shakes her whole body (and that just makes them closer and that means Amy doesn't mind being laughed at) (much), losing it at the way the blonde looks like she's taking mental notes and cataloging every single thing Reagan says in case there's a quiz later.
Pop Quiz Hot Shot: You're a baby lez looking for a kiss. What do you do? What do you do?
(the answer is simple: never listen to Shane fucking Harvey)
"So," Reagan says, gently hip checking Amy on the stool. "Want to talk about it?"
Amy shakes her head. And then nods. And then shakes her head again and then starts to nod but her neck cramps up and she jerks her head to the side like she's seizing and she nearly knocks Reagan off the stool.
"That bad?" The DJ asks, scooting back to regain her balance, one arm snaking around Amy's waist to hang on (and Amy's breath catches in a way that tells her she might not need to be kissed to know if it's just a Karma thing.) "Now you have to tell me."
"Not much to tell," Amy says (lies) (but it's not like she can tell this girl, this woman, this lesbian that she was once - for an afternoon - a total faker , that she played gay, a faubian as Lauren so accurately put it.) "We've been best friends since we were tiny and then one day we kissed and…"
"And everything changed," Reagan says and Amy glances up, but the older girl isn't looking at her, she's staring off into space and there's this look on her face and yeah, maybe she was joking about the flannel and the U Haul (maybe) but Amy thinks at least part of the whole 'rite of passage' bit might have been spoken from experience. "Is she gay too," Reagan asks. "The best friend?"
Amy almost does the head shake into the nod maneuver again but thinks better of it cause that would be wishful thinking of the highest order. "I don't know," she says, which is technically the truth because maybe Karma is, stranger things have certainly happened. (See: right fucking now.) "She's… I mean, the kiss was… and she loves me, I know that, but…" But, but, but, always a but, and this one, Amy knows, has a name, though she refuses to says it. "There's a guy…"
She tries, really hard, to pretend she doesn't see the way Reagan winces, just for a second, before a neutral expression (a mask and Amy knows it) falls back into place.
And that tells her pretty much all she needs to know.
"I'm fucked, aren't I?"
Reagan shrugs and scoots off the stool, and Amy tries (again) to not assume that no answer is the bad answer and that really, Reagan doesn't know cause every situation is different and every best friend is different and just because her's ended up one way, doesn't mean….
Amy would have to be on the same shit Lauren is to buy that. And maybe not even then.
Reagan moves back to her deck and the song changes again, going harder, the bass ricocheting off the walls like bullets and there's a tension in the air that even Amy can pick up on and she thinks maybe (probably) she's overstayed her welcome and maybe (probably) she's brought up some bad memories and maybe (definitely) she should go, so she stands and moves toward the ladder.
"It's always different," Reagan says and Amy freezes, three steps from the ladder. "Sometimes, they're as confused as you. They don't know what to make of it all and that scares the shit out of them, you know?"
Amy's got an idea, yeah. And Karma is easily scared. Stage fright and heights and hot boys and the only thing that's never scared her is Amy. For whatever that's worth.
"Sometimes," Reagan says, "they do what you're doing, they try to figure it out. Go to a club or a coffee shop or Sizzer and try to find someone… a test." She glances over her shoulder at Amy. "That is what you're here for, right? Try it out? Give it a spin and see if it's her or if it's you?"
Amy nods, slowly, and somehow when Reagan says it… it seems a little more wrong. A little dirtier. A little more shameful than 'you need to kiss some lesbians'. Like, suddenly, she's the fake (again) and she's the Karma and she's got no right to be here and she's leading everyone on, except she still remembers how it felt when Reagan touched her and how it felt when Reagan looked at her and she thinks (more definitely than ever before) that this isn't a test.
But then for a second, the tiniest of tiny moments, Amy imagines herself, three or four or five years from now, dancing in a place like this or sitting at a square formica table in a coffee shop or swiping through profiles on some craptastic dating app, waiting for the new girl, the one she thinks might change her life.
The one who thinks of her as a test.
She has a sudden urge to apologize but then that's swamped under by Reagan, by her body and her hands and her… everything… so close, right next to her and Amy doesn't even remember her moving but she's there and her hands are on Amy's arms, gently rubbing (and Amy's so glad Shane picked out the sleeveless number.)
And then Reagan's leaning in and Amy has only a moment - the absolute tiniest of the tiny - a split second of seeing Shane down on the floor, looking up at her with the biggest grin on his face and his hands clasped in front of him with almost fatherly pride and then he's gone because her eyes are shut and Reagan's lips are on hers and oh oh oh fuck
Kissing Karma was… indescribable. It was world shaking and life changing and even if Amy lives to be one hundred and kisses a girl a year, every year, she will never forget that kiss.
And this one?
This is one is very describable. It's not world shaking or life changing, not like Karma, not like her first, but it is… incredible seems inadequate. She can feel every inch, every single bit of Reagan's lips as they slide across hers, she can feel it everywhere (yes, even there, but that's so the least of what she's experiencing) and her legs shake and her palms sweat even as she works on autopilot and brings them up, finding Reagan's hips and pulling the older girl closer, instinctively deepening the kiss and then there's a tongue (Reagan's) and then another (hers) and Reagan's arms around her, hands on the small of her back and she tastes so different, so not Karma and that's so a good thing, a wonderful thing, a perfect thing.
And then it's done.
Amy doesn't move, doesn't breathe, she's not sure she can and she's afraid if she tries to walk she'll stumble and topple down the ladder and that would kill the moment now wouldn't it? But Reagan's still there (her lips aren't and Amy's a bit sadder about that than she would have expected) but her hands back on Amy's arms and she's not moving away, not running screaming for the door, telling everyone of the worst kiss she's ever had.
Amy's totes gonna count that as a win.
"So," Reagan says. "Is it her? Or is it -"
She's cut off by Amy's lips and Amy's hands back on her hips and by the way Amy (quiet and polite and sure to be a bottom except fuck that Amy) pushes her back against the railing and she knows (they both do) that this is a bad idea and this is so not going anywhere (cause Karma) (and cause Charolette who Amy doesn't know by name but does know by far off look in Reagan's eye) but it's a moment and a good one (really good) and one they both kinda need so the DJ rolls with it and brings her own hands up to cup Amy's cheeks and kisses her back, like it's their first and last and every kiss in between.
"Me," Amy says when they finally break, her forehead tipped against Reagan's, the word tumbling out before she can think, before she can second guess and wonder and over analyze it into the fucking ground. "Definitely me."
Her eyes open and Reagan's still there, not moving away, but her hands are at her sides, gripping the railing and, for a moment, Amy wishes they were on her again, pressed against the small of her back, fingers brushing her skin. There's a look on Reagan's face that Amy can't quite read and she thinks maybe she'd like to, maybe she'd like to learn what all this girl's looks mean, what it signals when Reagan chews on her bottom lip like that or when prys her hands from the railing and stuffs them into her pockets and stares at the ground or the wall or anywhere but at Amy.
She'd like to. But Amy's pretty sure that's not gonna happen.
"She's an idiot," Amy says and Reagan's head snaps up, their eyes meeting and she offers the girl a smile. "Whoever she is? She's an idiot. And you can tell her I said so."
Reagan smiles back but it's not like the one Amy saw when she first climbed the ladder, it's sadder and it speaks volumes (yeah, it says, but she was my idiot) (and Amy gets that.) The song ends and Reagan moves to her deck, their hands brushing as she goes and it lingers, that touch, for just a moment, two fingers laced together and feels so real and so familiar and comfortable, it's almost like, in another life, it happened all the time.
And then she's gone. Back to her deck and her lips and her hands and her fingers are busy at work and there's another silence (not quite as comfortable) (the kind that screams if you don't go now you never will) and Amy slips away and down the ladder, back into the throng. In a minute, she'll find Shane and she'll make him help her get Lauren out of here and they'll all head home and at least one of her questions will have been answered.
In a minute.
Cause first, she leans against the ladder and she thinks of that smile, the sad one, the 'my idiot' one, and Amy figures that chances are good she's gonna have one of those, an 'it failed spectacularly' one, and maybe in a year or two or three, she'll be flashing it at some other silly girl on a dance floor or across a coffee shop table or at the end of a date that's a first and a last.
As she heads off to find Shane and Lauren (and doesn't once look back no matter how much she wants to), Amy can only hope that that girl? Whoever she is? She hopes that girl thinks of her as fondly as she knows she'll always think of Reagan.
