8.
Monday rolled in with dark, heavy gray clouds. It hadn't rained in many weeks, but Monday morning it poured fat raindrops that slickened the roads relentlessly. Andrea had awoken to the sound of it beating its mighty song on her window and had rolled over towards the middle of her empty bed and buried her head beneath pillows. She had wished for it to stop, hoped for sleep to come back to her. She had craved with a deep, burning desire for something warm and solid and Sharon-like to be in her sea of blankets. Her alarm clock, however, had a different plan for the morning and blared loudly until she banged her hand down on it to shut it up along with the thoughts in her head that reminded her, once again, as she clung to her pillows and sleep, that she was very much alone in her bed.
She had moved through her morning routine with the liveliness of a zombie, feet dragging her from one room to the other. Andrea had forgotten that she'd run out of coffee beans and was supposed to go grocery shopping Sunday, so she hadn't had any help waking herself up. It was with a desperate need for coffee that she navigated Los Angeles morning traffic, her road rage fueled by her lack of caffeine and the drivers who drove as though they suddenly forgot how to do so once it started raining. The line in the coffee shop had been long, and even though she repeated her order three times it was still wrong. And if that wasn't enough, her Monday was starting with a meeting with Chief Taylor.
Before heading to his office, she walked down to Major Crimes' section of the building. She had picked up a tea and a light breakfast for Sharon when she purchased her coffee and wanted to deliver it while the beverage was still hot.
Andrea was greeted by Provenza's low groan as she entered the room. Her eyebrows shot up as she looked his way. "Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Lieutenant?"
Amy Sykes chuckled under her breath, filling something out. "The couch. He's been grumpier than his usual self this morning."
Provenza ruffled his newspaper in front of him. "Didn't anyone ever tell you about spreading other people's personal business around, Sykes? Especially when you don't even know all the details."
The detective smiled as she sat back in her chair, placing her pen down gently. "Hey, I'm only going off of what you said yourself – several times, I might add – for everyone to hear. Besides, I know how a man gets when he gets kicked out of bed. My mother would send my father to the couch whenever he so much as looked at her the wrong way sometimes. I got good at picking up the signs."
"Beats waking up to an empty bed," Andrea mused, not remembering the very empty bed she woke up in. "If she chose to make you sleep on the couch, chances are she's just upset with you. Probably rightfully so. Patrice seems like a smart woman. If it was something serious, I doubt the only outcome would have been you sleeping on the couch for a night.
"Figure out what you did wrong and work on fixing it. And no," she said as she walked the rest of the way to Sharon's office door, "fixing it doesn't mean apologizing without knowing what you've done wrong and having true intention to prevent the situation from repeating itself."
Provenza grumbled something that she didn't quite catch under the sound of Sharon's door opening before she was allowed to knock.
"Andrea, what brings you here this morning? I didn't expect to be seeing you until later today," Sharon said as she closed the door behind her, her smile distracting Andrea from the words that were being said to her.
It took her several noticeable moments for her to catch on to what Sharon had said and hold up the tray with a large tea and white paper bag beside it. "Breakfast."
Sharon took the tray from her hand, her smile growing as she continued to look at Andrea. "Thank you. Are you on your way to meet with the chief? That's this morning, right?"
Andrea nodded and shifted on her feet. She brought her coffee up to her mouth and took a long sip from it before glancing down to her watch. "I should actually get going. I just wanted to drop that off and stop by and say good morning to you."
Sharon parted her lips to say something, but then stopped herself and looked at her own watch. She hummed thoughtfully and then reached behind her to open her door. "I'll walk with you if you don't mind."
Andrea smiled and nodded, biting her cheek to stop herself from grinning too hard. Her mood was instantly picked up, even if just for a few minutes. "Sure. That would be nice."
When they were alone in the hallway, Sharon's shoulder bumped into hers and she smiled. "You look really nice. I like these colors on you."
Andrea laughed, plucking the silk cream blouse she wore with her navy skirt suit. "I'm pretty sure you were the one who picked out everything I'm wearing."
Sharon hummed and nodded. "I was," she said with a breathy laugh, "and like I said, you look beautiful."
Andrea's heart fluttered in her chest as she ran her teeth over her lower lip. "Actually you said that I look really nice," she pointed out while glancing at Sharon. "Close, but not the same thing."
She rolled her eyes and bumped their shoulders again, this time letting the backs of their fingers graze each other. "You look very beautiful," Sharon whispered, the words a flirty breath in the air. "There we go, I've now said it twice."
"Once more and you win a prize," she teased, pushing open a door and letting Sharon walk through before following.
Sharon looked over her shoulder while lifting her brow, amused. "What kind of prize?"
Andrea looked around them and then gestured to their surroundings. "One I can't tell you about here, but one I can guarantee you will find very satisfying." When she saw Sharon lick her lips, she laughed softly.
"It's too early for this. Go to your meeting, DDA Hobbs," Sharon said with a shake of her head, pushing Andrea forward.
Andrea laughed louder and reached out to give Sharon's hand a squeeze. "Thank you for walking me. I'll text you later to see if we can meet for lunch if we've got the time."
Sharon smiled and watched her continue walking away. "Enjoy your day."
. . .
Sharon parked her car in an empty spot two away from Andy's Tuesday evening. The batting cages weren't too busy this late on weeknights, so the parking lot only held eight or nine other cars. It was Andy's favorite time to come here, and she had not been surprised when she found out this was where he wanted to meet her. It was obvious that the conversation they would be having wouldn't be the easiest for either of them, and the batting cages was neutral territory.
Sharon turned the key in the ignition and pulled it free, but she did not leave her car. She took several long breaths, mentally following the air as it traveled from her mouth down to the twisted, tight mess in her belly, then back up and away from where her nervous energy was stored and out of her body again. For a small moment she considered calling Andrea to give her a pep-talk, but she quickly dismissed the thought. It would be nice to hear Andrea's voice, but she didn't want to involve her friend in this.
Andrea had told her the other day that she felt like she was getting in the way of Sharon's relationship with Andy and didn't want that to happen, and Sharon knew there was a possibility Andrea might think her needing to talk to Andy about their friendship was another way in which she was getting in the way. It wasn't. Sharon needed to do this because of herself, because of what she wanted and what was important to her. Yes, essentially that was Andrea, but this was more about how she and Andy could work through this together and how he handled her feelings on the matter. There was a bigger picture to be looked at that didn't concern Andrea – how Andy reacted tonight would give Sharon a better look at what to expect of him in the future as a life partner.
Sharon sat in the car for a few more deep breaths and then got out, feeling a little less nervous and more confident. She locked her car and then pushed her keys into the pocket of her leather jacket, leaving her hand in there with them as she strode over to the entrance. Nights in Los Angeles were cool and the air smelt like sea water at the batting cages. Andy had brought her out here a few times before they started dating, so the smell of the air and the crunch of the gravel shifting beneath her ankle boots felt familiar to her. The same two young boys manned the booth and remembered her, and she found Andy in the same cage he always used towards the back.
She didn't announce herself when she arrived. There were benches a few yards away from each cage entrance, and Sharon sat down on the one outside of Andy's with her hard helmet beside her. Sharon watched him, listening to the clicking sound of balls and bats colliding. He was wearing a heavy gray sweatshirt with black jogging pants, and Sharon could tell he'd been there for a while because there were already two empty water bottles on the ground inside with him in the corner with the rest of his belongings.
Andy lifted the bat and swung as a ball rushed his way, over-calculating its speed and going for it too soon. Sharon's lip quirked in the corner as he shook in frustration and got back into the proper stance. He twisted his hands around the bat and swung again, smacking the ball high into the netting this time.
"Woo! There you go," she called out loudly with a wide smile.
He turned to face her quickly, his surprise to see her melting away almost immediately as he slowly grinned her way. Thankfully, he'd moved to the side when he spun around and the next mechanical pitch shot past him instead of into his unexpecting body. Sharon pulled one of her hands from its pocket and waved her fingers at him.
Andy signaled for Sharon to give him a minute and then took the last two swings that he'd paid for. Sharon got up from the bench and met him halfway when he opened the cage door. She could feel his body heat burning through the thick cotton of his shirt when she placed her hands on his upper arms and leaned into him, pressing her lips to his in greeting. He ran his hands over the lapels of her leather jacket and gave them a slight tug when they pulled apart, giving her a once-over.
"You look great," he declared, licking his lips and then pulling at his sweatshirt self-consciously.
Sharon stopped him from messing with his own clothes and wrapped her hand around his. She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from saying that she was only wearing jeans with V-neck tee shirt, nothing special; she hummed in response instead.
"And you," she said while touching the back of her free hand to his damp skin, "look overheated. How about you come sit down for a little bit, hmm?"
"Uh. Yeah." He threw a pointed thumb over his shoulder. "Let me just grab a water."
Sharon shook her head and pushed him towards the wood bench. "I'll get the water for you, you sit," she insisted.
She could feel the nervous fluttering in her belly starting once again and could use a few moments to calm it. When Andy fell down to the seat, Sharon smiled lightly at him and released his hand. He pulled off his red helmet and ran his fingers through his silver hair, darkened and laid flat some places from sweat. She wondered not for the first time how long he had been there before she arrived, but she didn't question it as she left him to get his water.
Inside the cage there was a small cooler that held four bottles and melting ice. When she plunged her hand into the icy water, she took in a sharp breath. "Help yourself to a water or some of the trail mix if you want," Andy called out to her. Sharon took out just the one water, but she found the trail mix on top of his jacket and took it with her back to the spot Andy was watching her from.
"Drink up," she said, handing him the dripping bottle. She wiped her wet hand on the denim of her pants and then sat down beside him, the old wood creaking softly beneath her weight.
He quickly turned the cap and drank half of the water down, the plastic crinkling in his hand. "Thanks," he breathed out when he looked at her. He turned on the bench so he had a foot on either side of it and his body was facing hers, his hands leaning on the hard helmet. "You wanna?" he asked while he motioned over to the bat on the ground with his head.
Sharon reached down for the black bat but shook her head in the negative. "Maybe in a little while," she answered, wrapping her hand around it and spinning it in front of her. "I'd rather we – you know." Sharon tilted her head sideways without looking at him, gesturing with the bat, waving it in the air.
She could see him nod his head out of the corner of her eye. "Get on with it." His arm raised, and she turned just enough to watch him scratch the back of his neck. "Yeah, probably a good idea."
She smiled faintly.
"Sooo," he dragged out.
Right, she was the one who needed to start this. She cleared her throat and held the opposite end of the bat against her foot as she twisted it. It kept her hands busy without occupying her mind. "Andy-" she started after several quiet seconds, but he spoke at the same time she did.
"We don't need to continue this conversation if you don't want to. I know we said we would, but, well - -" he shrugged, "- - I don't think that's necessary. Unless you want to. It's been a week. I think we've moved past it."
Sharon arched her eyebrow, looking at him. He looked calm but tired, perhaps a little unsure of something. Sharon usually felt confident in her ability to read people, especially those who she was closest to, but she couldn't tell how Andy was feeling. His brow was slightly furrowed, but there were no other visible signs to go off of. What she did know, however, was that they had not "moved past it" like Andy said.
"No, I do want to. I think there are a few things we need to get to the bottom of that we haven't really discussed properly." Sharon made sure he was listening to her before continuing. "For one, I want to be able to understand what about my friendship with Andrea bothers you so much. Even the smallest mention of her gets a negative reaction these days, and I want to know why. I also think it would be beneficial for our relationship, yours and mine, if I were to clear up whatever possible misunderstandings there might be about my relationship with Andrea."
For a long moment there was silence between them that was filled by a mechanical clicking and the sound of batters hitting balls. A heavy weight had settled in Sharon's belly, but she chose to focus on Andy instead of herself. His mouth opened and shut a few times as though readying to say something and then deciding against it. He clenched his jaws tight and the lines in his brow became more pronounced. He grunted in his throat.
"I don't know what to say," he admitted with an apologetic expression on his face, and Sharon gave him a tiny smile in return.
She didn't know what to say either, she realized as she searched for words to get their conversation rolling. She knew this was something they needed to talk about, but she hadn't prepared properly for this conversation like she should have.
Sharon tightened her hand around the bat and let out a long breath. "You're jealous of her." It wasn't a question, but Sharon also didn't sound certain that her statement was correct. Her head tilted a little to the left, her eyes focused on Andy.
"Well." His shoulders moved up towards his neck, tense. "I wouldn't say that, no."
"You wouldn't?"
Andy let his shoulders relax. "Should I be jealous of her?" he asked.
"Absolutely not," Sharon answered immediately. Despite the fact that Sharon responded quickly, firm tone unwavering, Andy didn't look as if he believed her. "What is it? What are you thinking?" Andy began to shake his head, but when Sharon put her hand on his arm and sighed, he stopped. "Please just tell me, Andy. I would rather we go ahead and talk about everything now instead of continuing to let it constantly be an issue between us."
"Okay," he agreed, slowly nodding his head. She could see something in him shifting. She had thought he was blocking her out moments ago, which was why she couldn't read him. Now, she could see a large variety of emotions flit across his face. "I'm not good at this, Sharon. Feelings, discussing them. I understand anger; I know how to let it out. I have no problem expressing rage. The emotions you make me feel, those are easy, too. But this – it's not simply jealousy. It's more than that, and I don't know how to talk about it."
Sharon nodded slowly.
"But I will try."
"That's all I'm asking for," she told him. Trying meant he wasn't shutting her out. Trying meant he didn't dismiss the problem automatically when she brought it up. Trying, Sharon could do something with. "For what it's worth, I find expressing some of my feelings difficult as well and it took me some time to be ready for this conversation. But the fact that you're willing to try - - I appreciate that."
"Yeah, well." He gave her a small smile before clearing his throat and looking past her shoulder. "I get that I have no reason to be jealous of Hobbs."
"Do you really?" Sharon asked softly, letting the bat fall down to the ground beside her feet.
A cool breeze rustled the leaves and blew by them. Sharon zipped up her jacket, her hands going to her pockets as she continued looking at him. Now that he was unguarded like he normally was, it was easier to tell he was working through what he wanted to say. Sharon could wait; she wanted his honest answer and understood that it might not come right away. She had spent a long time thinking about these things, so she would give him time to do the same.
When he lowered his eyes to meet Sharon's, he looked as though he had aged years in the matter of minutes. There was something about his expression, a tiredness that emphasized the age lines on his face. "You said I don't, so I don't."
Sharon turned on the bench and brought up one of her legs so it was folded over the wood. "Forget I said that. I don't think I can say for sure what would make you jealous, Andy. I shouldn't have. I can, however, tell you that I don't think you should be jealous of Andrea."
"She's important to you," Andy stated slowly, like he was still working through the many thoughts in his head. "The two of you have history together that I don't understand."
Sharon nodded as she listened. "And that's what bothers you?" she asked carefully.
Andy twisted the half-empty bottle of water around with his fingers as he said, "Well, no. It doesn't bother me that you have history with her. What gets to me is that I let it bother me that I don't know what that history entails."
"Ah." Sharon pursed her lips together as she considered her next words. She had known this would be something they discussed, but that didn't stop it from feeling like there was something wild and energetic moving around in her stomach. She fisted her hand and breathed out through her nose slowly, pushing her balled hand to her stomach in an attempt to relax her nerves. "The unknown bothers you," she said, taking care to pronounce each syllable slowly and precisely. "That's not abnormal, Andy."
"That doesn't change that it shouldn't bother me as much as it does. I just - - I see how the two of you interact, and there's something there that..."
"Makes you–"
"Jealous," he continued with a dry, humorless chuckle. "I guess jealousy is a big part of what I feel."
Sharon softened her expression as she looked into his eyes. "Andy, you're human. We all get jealous from time to time."
"Yeah, I know. It's causing problems between us, though, and I don't want that. Do you have any idea how much I've wanted this?" he asked, gesturing between the two of him. He smiled, and her heart throbbed in her chest with something bright and happy for the first time that night. "I don't want to ruin everything because I couldn't get a little jealousy under control."
"That's why we're going to get to the root of all of this," Sharon said with her own smile, hoping to reassure him – hoping to reassure herself.
Andy licked his lips, cleared his throat, and then skated his fingers through his hair. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Yes, of course you can. Go ahead."
"You two, you..." Andy shifted, looking a little uncomfortable – which only made Sharon instantly feel uncomfortable. "Something happen between you two before us?"
Sharon swallowed slowly, raising her brow. "Something?" she repeated. He looked away from her, not saying anything, but the expression on his face, the uncertainty that Sharon recognized from when it seemed like he wasn't sure he really wanted to know the answer to the question he asked, was close enough to an answer for her. "Are you asking if our relationship has ever been more than it is now?"
He nodded.
Sharon opened her mouth to say that it hadn't, but then stopped herself. She knew that, ultimately, what Andy was questioning was if she and Andrea had been romantically or sexually involved before. That wasn't a questioning she could answer with a simple answer, not when most people viewed these topics with such a limited view of the way things should be. It would be a lie to simply say there hadn't been anything between them – because there had been, on some level – but Sharon also knew that to say their relationship was not purely platonic would not fully answer the question Andy was trying to ask.
"You know what, forget I asked," Andy said after Sharon had stayed silent for a long period of time.
Sharon dampened her drying lips and straightened her back. "Do you no longer want to know? I'm willing to talk to you about this, Andy, as long as it's something you actually want to discuss and you remain open-minded."
He laughed another one of his mirthless, uncomfortable laughs while rubbing the back of his neck. "I want to know, that's not the problem. I just don't think I'm ready to hear something I'm not going to like."
Sharon hummed in her throat. "What are you worried I'm going to say?"
"Seriously?" Andy lifted his brow, and Sharon tilted her head in response. "Isn't it obvious? Every single time we talk about this, I learn something new about your relationship with that woman that makes the way I feel about her seem more justified."
"The way you feel about– You mean your jealousy?"
"It's not just a matter of being jealous when the woman you're close to is in love with you."
Sharon slowly stood from the bench, her arm wrapped around her middle as she studied Andy with a blank face. So that was what was wrong? He thought Andrea was in love with her? Sharon shook her head and then looked up towards the dark sky, breathing out a slow breath. It wasn't cold enough to see her breath, but she could feel it leave her body, her shoulders dropping as she deflated a little.
"Andrea isn't in love with me," she said surely, slowly, making sure he heard each word.
"Sharon, I see the way she looks at you, the way she acts around you. The other month when we all went out and celebrated with Rusty, Hobbs spent the entire night either finding a reason to be near you or with her eyes on you from across the room. It was like she couldn't separate herself from you – she didn't want to, and I know how that is. I spent long enough being the person who was crazy about you not to recognize the signs in someone else."
"It's not the same," she insisted. "I think I would know if my best friend was in love with me, Andy." Sharon shook her head again, taking small steps as she began walking around the little area that surrounded the bench. "There is an undeniably high level of intimacy in our friendship, yes, but that's not only because it's what Andrea wants. It's been that way for years because we both made decisions that led to us being that comfortable with each other. We're - -" Sharon pursed her lips and stopped moving. "Andrea isn't in love with me," she said again with finality after a long pause. "We share a very strong connection, and there's no doubt in my mind that Andrea loves me–"
"Have you asked her? Have the two of you spoken about this?" Andy sounded as though he was getting tired, and Sharon sighed. Perhaps there was no working through this, she thought. Maybe he wouldn't be satisfied with the answers she had for him. "Sharon, the woman is attracted to you, and that's only the beginning of it. How can you know for sure that she isn't in love with you?"
Sharon's eyes narrowed as she turned to face him. "I just know," she said, breathing out a heavy breath. "I'm aware of all of the things you've pointed out to me tonight and in previous conversations. Andrea is attracted to me, yes. But I've known this for as long as I've known Andrea. She's never hidden that from me."
Andy stared up at Sharon, dumbfounded. "And, what, you're okay with that?" Andy roughly pushed his hand over his head. "That didn't come out right. What I meant was..." Andy grunted. "Sharon, it's been ten years. If she's been attracted to you for that long, how can you seriously believe that's all it is?"
Sharon sat back down on the bench, feeling a little dizzy as her blood rushed and her head spun from the thoughts that were running through her mind. She held on to the bench with both hands wrapped around the edge, her eyes focused on the concrete ground beneath her booted feet.
"Andrea would have told me if she, if she..." Sharon swallowed the words that she couldn't get herself to say again. Her heart was starting to beat at a rapid pace, and her stomach was twisting into uncomfortable knots like it always did when she thought about this, about Andrea's feelings for her.
She felt Andy's hand cover her shoulder and she lifted her head, his eyes full of the same confusion that was swirling inside of her. "Look, Sharon, I don't know the whole story – and I'm starting to think it's best that I don't – but you wanted to know why your friendship with Hobbs bothers me, and that's why. It's not easy to admit I feel intimidated by what the two of you have, but I do."
Sharon reached for his hand and took it into her own, holding it, giving him a small smile. They sat like that for a long while, so long that by the time Sharon went to speak again, the batting cages were nearly empty and only one other customer could be seen.
"A long time ago, sometime in the beginning of our friendship, Andrea and I spent hours talking about our feelings for each other," Sharon said with a smile, remembering the night. She didn't look at Andy as she spoke, but she knew he was listening to her. "Like I said, I'd known from the start that she was attracted to me. We'd met shortly after Ricky left for college, and things in my life were changing faster than I expected. For years my top priority was caring for my children, but with them both out of the house, there was a lot less that I needed to worry about on a day-to-day basis where they were concerned.
"I had already been committing a great amount of my time to work, but there was a definite increase in the amount of hours I was dedicating to my career in some way, shape, or form. I don't have to tell you how many of the people I worked with didn't understand me, most of whom did not hide their automatic dislike for me because of my position in IA."
"Sharon, I–"
She shook her head, putting her hand on his arm to stop what she could tell he was about to say. "Don't apologize. We've discussed the way our relationship was in the past already, and I didn't bring it up to make you feel as though you needed to say anything on the matter."
"But I do," Andy insisted. "I–"
But Sharon cut him off again. "I don't want you to. And if you're truly apologetic, Andy, you won't continue to apologize for something when I don't want you to. If the apology is honestly meant for me and not yourself, then you'll accept that I don't want to hear it anymore."
"All right," he said solemnly, his apologetic eyes staring deeply into her own.
Before the intensity of his gaze could unnerve her, Sharon looked away from him and focused on the lone batter a few cages away from them. "There's a common, and incorrect, belief that the people in IA are the bad guys, when in reality the work that Internal Affairs does is to better the force as a whole. The first thing IA taught me was to have thicker skin, the next was the importance of barriers and protective walls. Granted, Jack played a hand in that as well. I learned to be good at keeping people at a safe distance, and I was convinced it was merely because I knew how callous and mean-spirited some of the officers I would encounter could be. But that was honestly only part of it.
"That need to protect myself traveled over to my personal life as well. And I admit, for a long period there were very few people with whom I felt comfortable letting into my life."
"Andrea was one of them."
She snorted as she shook her head. "She was more than that. Andrea was the one whose friendship reminded me that I didn't need to keep so many walls up all of the time." Sharon hummed thoughtfully, her eyes falling shut for a brief second. "I could go through every day reminding myself the reasons why I did my job – and the small, but important, differences I was making. I could tell myself as much as I wanted that I didn't take the hateful comments or nasty looks from fellow officers personally. But when Andrea entered my life, I realized something that I had spent too long convincing myself wasn't true. I missed having someone genuinely wanting to be around me. Someone who wasn't family, or only using me for their own personal gain in some way.
"Andrea made me happier than I had been in a long time, and I will never forget that. Yes, she was attracted to me and that was what connected us in the beginning. But that was never the focus of our relationship, it was never what motivated her actions. Andrea had – has always had – this - -" Sharon smiled to herself as she spoke, "- - strong desire to find ways to make me happy. She would drop by for lunch, or take me out after a difficult case. I'd mention a show I wanted to see, or an art exhibition..."
Sharon laughed softly, glancing at a silent Andy before continuing. He only listened, as if he wasn't sure what to say but didn't want her to stop either. The more Sharon spoke about Andrea, the calmer she felt, the lighter her voice became.
"She paid attention to even the things I didn't expect her to. It was surprising. When you're used to the majority of the people you interact with automatically having a negative attitude toward you, it's refreshing meeting a person who wants nothing more than to brighten up your day. In return, I found myself wanting to do the same for her.
"We had a natural connection, a type of bond that I can't recall ever having with anyone else before her. I was able to open up to her about topics I hadn't discussed with anyone in years, or at all, and she did the same." Sharon heard Andy shift and paused, eyebrow raising. When he said nothing, she dampened her lips and went on. "It wasn't just on a personal level. We worked well together whenever our paths crossed, and I respected her opinions when she offered them to me on professional matters because I knew I could count on her to consider different views and be unbiased. I admired her from very early on in our friendship," she admitted with a small smile.
"And now?" Andy asked slowly, not giving away any clear signs of how he was feeling.
Sharon looked down at her lap, at her fingers twisting together. She let out a slow breath and folded her hands between her thighs. "Now what?"
"It just sounds like..." Andy made a sound in his throat, but he let his unfinished statement hang in the air.
Sharon turned to face him and took a measured breath, looking into his deep brown eyes. Honesty. She wanted to get all of this out so he could be aware of it and they could decide what happened next for their relationship.
"After a while," Sharon started, feeling the quick beating of her heart accelerate, "our relationship did undergo some changes that I hadn't anticipated when Andrea and I first started spending time together. As I said before, we spoke about the mutual attraction between us–"
"Mutual," he said, tone lacking emotion.
Sharon hummed and nodded carefully. "Yes, mutual."
He nodded, too, processing the word. Despite Andy already knowing she was bisexual, she had never shared her feelings for Andrea with him. For the most part, she had not shared those with anyone other than Andrea herself. They were private and meant for the woman who she felt so strongly for, private just as their relationship was. There were others who were privy to the information, but the number of people who knew intimate details of their friendship was a rather small one and would remain as such until she or Andrea decided to change that.
"It hadn't started that way, but–"
Cutting her off, Andy offered a small smile that looked genuine, even if it failed to travel up to his eyes. "You saw something in her that you liked."
Sharon smiled back at Andy, reaching out to wrap her hand around his for a brief moment. He understood, and she knew why he did. It hadn't been exactly the same for the two of them, but it was similar. Her feelings for him hadn't come as easily as his did for her, and it hadn't been until after they'd gotten closer as friends that Sharon considered the possibility of something romantic between them. It hadn't been as intense as it was with Andrea, but there was, as Andy said, something in him, too, that she liked.
"There was a lot about Andrea that drew me in deeper," she responded honestly.
Andy rubbed the back of his neck, no longer meeting Sharon's eyes. "How deep?" he questioned quietly.
Sharon's abdominal muscles clenched, and her throat felt dry. She wasn't sure how to answer that question. Not because she didn't want to be truthful with him, but because she honestly didn't know. Her feelings for Andrea weren't simple enough to be put into a few words. What she felt for Andrea felt strong and deep enough to fill books with hundreds of thousands of words that still wouldn't fully express her intense and unconditional love for Andrea.
"You've said before that your friendship with - -" his jaw tightened, like it sometimes did when he was upset or angry, but he breathed out and relaxed a second later, clearing his throat before continuing. "You're closer to her than you've been with any of your other friends, even me before we were dating. Maybe closer than we are now that we are."
Sharon felt a small wave of guilt wash through her system, but she swallowed and ignored it. "I am. We've been friends for a very, very long time, Andy. I–"
He shook his head. "No, I just wanted to know how."
"How?" she inquired, brow lifting.
"Well." He waved his hand in the air and then brought that same hand to his hair, brushing the top of his head. "How close? What does that even mean?"
"Oh," she breathed out slowly, giving him a single nod of her head.
"I don't mean to pry, I just..." He breathed out loudly as he trailed off.
"No. I understand."
Sharon found it easier to move around as she spoke about some things, made her focus less on the way her stomach wouldn't settle and her fingers twitched. She stood from the bench and shoved her hands into her pockets, looking straight ahead of her as she slowly walked back and forth.
"There's no easy answer to that question. How close? Well, that depends on if you mean emotionally or physically. Emotionally, I'm closer to her than I've been to any other person that's entered my life. There's very little Andrea doesn't know about me, and that's only because what she doesn't know has never come up in conversation before. I'd like to believe the same could be said for what I know about Andrea. I feel most comfortable when I am with her, the most...at peace. I trust her with... Honestly, I trust her with everything – details from my past, my secrets, my life–"
"Your heart," Andy said knowingly. Sharon paused, noting that he looked at her as if he was realizing something he hadn't known before. To her surprise, he was also looking at her as if everything was starting to make sense and what he was discovering wasn't necessary something that bothered him.
"My heart," she repeated softly as she continued moving. "Physically." Sharon cleared her throat. "The stronger our bond grew to be, the more I felt for Andrea. The more I felt for her, the more open I became to new outlooks on life. She offered me a different view on a lot of things in life, in relationships, and after a while the way I viewed our friendship changed.
"Growing up, I'd been taught the proper ways to behave with friends, around boys I went to school and church with, around men. Andrea - -" Sharon smiled and laughed under her breath, shaking her head as a memory came to mind. "Andrea made me question why I needed to let someone else's view of what a friendship should and shouldn't be control the way ours was. She liked holding my hand when we would walk places, when we were out with our other friends, when we were alone. She hugged me longer than was necessary and knew that I enjoyed having my back rubbed when I was in a bad mood, and she would always offer to make me feel better. We..." Sharon stopped and leaned against a fence, looking at Andy's feet instead of into his eyes. "We sleep together," she said slowly.
"You, uh... You sleep together, as in..."
"Sleeping in the same bed," she answered, and then, after a pause, added, "mostly."
"Oh." Sharon looked up and saw Andy standing, hands deep in the pockets of his jogging pants as he furrowed his brow. "Oh," he repeated, this time sounding confused.
Sharon licked her lips and took a slow breath. "We've never, well - - Connection and love is what's at the core of our relationship. That's what has always been most important. Sexual desire is nowhere near as important to us as that. There have been times during the last ten years that we've...explored those desires to a certain extent, but never has it gone past light touching."
When Andy stopped looking at her and frowned, Sharon sighed and closed her eyes. She was feeling nervous about his reaction, worried about what was going on through his head that he wasn't saying to her. She was careful about who she let in, who she shared private parts of her life with, and she was hoping she hadn't made a mistake believing Andy was someone she could share more of herself with.
"I don't understand."
Sharon slowly opened her eyes, preparing herself for the worst as her arm wrapped around her middle. "What is it that you don't understand?"
"Us." He sighed heavily, his entire body seeming to droop as if something weighty and large was pressing down on him.
Not expecting that, Sharon's body relaxed into the fence and her eyes softened as she asked, "What do you mean?"
"I always knew there was something between you and Hobbs, but... The way you talk about her..."
Sharon swallowed slowly, not looking away from him as she said what she could tell he was thinking. "I love her."
His face pinched a bit, but he didn't react badly to what she had said. In fact, he took it one step further and put words to emotions Sharon had been spending the last few months trying not to focus on. "It's not just that. You're in love with her," he said, "aren't you?"
"Andy, I–"
He smiled as he walked over to her, pulling his hands from his pockets and putting them on her arms. Perhaps with someone else it might have felt like they were trying to keep her there to confront her feelings, but she could see the understanding in his eyes that washed away all the other emotions that had been there throughout their conversation. He wasn't upset, or pushing, he was trying to show her that he understood. That more than the reactions she had anticipated made something inside of her ache, clench, and throb with raw emotions. She let out a shaky breath and slowly nodded her head while looking at him.
"I believe I am. No, I'm quite sure that I am," Sharon whispered, and suddenly it felt as though all the tension in her body was released. She felt lighter, and her heart no longer pounded against her ribcage. She could breathe.
"Then why..."
Sharon put her hands on top of Andy's arms and squeezed. "It's getting late," she said to him as she looked over his shoulder, "and cold. Let's return all of that and finish this conversation in my car." She didn't want to say that she needed a minute to herself, but she could tell he was reading between the lines and knew that's what she was asking for.
"Yeah, okay. I'll, uh, take care of everything and meet you there."
When Sharon was alone in her car, she let out a long breath and rested her head back on the headrest. That hadn't gone as she thought it would. Despite knowing she would have to open up and be honest with Andy, she hadn't expected that would be something she spoke about with him. She spent so much time trying to not to think about it herself that she didn't think it would come up, and if it did, she certainly hadn't thought she would receive the reaction Andy gave her.
Sure, now maybe Andy would better understand why her relationship with Andrea meant so much to her. Perhaps she provided enough information to answer questions he had had for months. However, she knew there would be a new rush of curiosities to sweep through their relationship.
He now knew more about her friendship with Andrea, but where did the two of them stand now that he was privy to that new knowledge?
Sharon breathed in slowly.
Did she truly want this relationship with Andy to progress any further than it already had?
She exhaled just as slowly as she had inhaled.
Maybe she and Andy really were better as friends, she thought, watching out of the window as he walked towards her.
She breathed in slowly again.
Maybe her feelings for Andrea didn't need to be ignored and she could try talking to her about them instead.
She exhaled once more.
Maybe - -
Sharon's phone buzzed and interrupted her thoughts, vibrating in her jacket pocket. She sighed as she reached for it, watching Andy put stuff in his car. She retrieved the device and then brought it up to her face.
"Of course," she whispered to herself, reading Andrea's name on the screen as she opened the new text message.
Call me when you're available. Got something I want to talk to you about.
Andy knocked on the window and made her jump, her eyes leaving her phone and meeting his through the glass. She blindly unlocked the doors to let him in and didn't say a word until he was seated in the passenger seat.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about any of this sooner."
Andy looked at her with a confused expression on his tired face for a long moment and then sighed. "So, you and me?"
"I've enjoyed this," she answered instantly. It was the truth, but it was also an automatic answer. She looked down to her phone and thought about Andrea, wondered what she wanted to talk to her about.
"But you love her." It wasn't a question, or an accusation, just a fact. He was acknowledging, possibly coming to an understanding.
"I do."
"Then why are you dating me?"
Sharon should have expected it. It sounded like the most important question of all the possible inquiries he could have. And yet, she was surprised when he asked her and she didn't easily form an answer. It took her several moments to work through jumbled thoughts and tangled emotions. But when she answered, she knew what she said was the truth.
"When you first asked me out, I hadn't been sure. I thought about it a lot, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that you were someone that I could see myself being in a relationship with. I saw the potential. Regardless of what you think, that potential wasn't something I believed existed between Andrea and myself. She and I have been comfortable with the way our relationship was for years and she hadn't given me any reason to believe she wanted things to change.
"I don't expect you to understand how I can feel the way I do for Andrea and still consider that there might be something between us. You'd have to believe that Andrea doesn't share my feelings to even begin to see why I've made the choices I have. But I do want you to know that my feelings for you are genuine and have nothing to do with her."
Andy stayed quiet so long that Sharon was sure he wouldn't respond at all, but then he nodded and said: "So what now?"
Sharon didn't know. Sharon felt more unsure of herself now than she had going into this.
"I think - -" Sharon breathed out slowly, "- - you should take a few days to think about everything I've shared with you. And I..." She furrowed her brow as she looked at her phone. "I think there's someone else I need to talk to before I can make any further commitments in our relationship. I think it's what's best for everyone involved."
Andy agreed.
to be continued…