(The first thing Debbie does after she gets out of jail is head to the mall. She needs to stock up on perfume, and it doesn't hurt her ego to remember how easily she can con her way into a four-star hotel room. It makes her feel like herself again.
The second thing she does is head to Lou's.
They spend roughly two full days—Days 2-3 of Freedom, thinks Debbie, who has become accustomed to mentally tallying time—completely naked in Lou's warehouse. All they're doing is sleeping, eating and fucking: clothes just get in the way.
During meals, or in between orgasms, or as they're falling asleep, they update each other. They agreed it was too dangerous for Lou to write or visit while she was in jail, since Lou's record is clean and she doesn't need the hassle of being associated with criminals. Lou tells her about the club, about the people who work there, the regulars, the watered-down vodka, and Debbie loves the pride in her words, in the shine of her eyes.
Debbie tells her about jail, a little. It's difficult to get the words out. She's never been one to talk about feelings, and she's spent almost six years not talking about anything to anyone, and—Lou's always been there. She never had to explain anything. Lou just knew.
But Lou doesn't know about jail, and she doesn't know about Debbie's experiences there; and Debbie may be stubborn, but she is also ruthlessly practical. Lack of communication creates distance. And she will be damned before she allows herself to become someone Lou doesn't know.
So she tells Lou bits and pieces. When it comes to mind. When she's able to. When Lou asks.
She tries.
It's enough.
At the end of the second day, Debbie sees stars as she cries out her fourth orgasm in a row and slumps back against the pillows. Sated, exhausted and a little dazed, she watches as Lou props herself up on her elbow, still lying between Debbie's thighs, and licks at her palm.
She's smirking, smug as always at her talent for making Debbie lose control, and Debbie loves it with a fiery burning passion. Her eyes trace over Lou's mussed hair to her perfect cheekbones to her sticky fingers, down to her wrist, and—
She knows that color. Whose color is that?
They've spent some time going over their new soulmarks. Lou's second in command at the club, a bright turquoise on her thumb. Debbie's cellmate two years in, a puce mark in the shape of knuckles on her lower back. Since meeting each other, they've both relaxed a little more into touch, but they can both still count the number of meaningful colors on one hand.
And one of Lou's new marks—a swipe of bright purple along her wrist, just below the hand that was only moments ago inside of Debbie—looks just like the purple on Debbie's collarbone.
Once she's caught her breath, she catches Lou's hand and kisses it.
"Did you need Amita for a job?" Debbie asks, remembering her first time at the jeweler's, when Amita had leaned in for a closer look at the necklace she was wearing. She'd raised her hand to touch one of the gems and grazed Debbie's chest, immediately began apologizing profusely, then stopped, startled by the brightness of the red mark on her hand.
"Well," Debbie had said, a smile spreading slowly across her face. "It looks like we're going to get along."
Lou's brow creases. "No. Why?"
"Then where'd you get that mark from?"
Lou looks down at her wrist, then lays it on Debbie's chest. Debbie's right: the shades are identical, and equally bright.
"Amita's mother will be so disappointed," Lou says, laughing quietly. "All those times she's told Amita to hurry up and get married, I don't think this is who she had in mind."
"Who is it?"
"A girl running three-card monte in the park. Name's Constance," Lou tells her, dropping a kiss on the mark on her collarbone, then burrowing her head into Debbie's neck. "I was going to tell you about her, anyway. Thought she'd be the right pickpocket for the heist."
Debbie stares. "Are you serious? I was planning on bringing Amita on for the jewels."
Lou smiles against her skin. "Fate is a funny thing."
"Do you think we should tell them?"
"Outright? What would be the fun in that?"
"Well, we can't just let them find out on their own. Sexual tension is so distracting. They need to fuck before the heist or they'll be useless once they see each other dressed up."
"You're right," Lou agrees, reaching for the strap-on and lube on the bedside table. "Best to get that out of the way."
Debbie grabs the harness from her hands. "Your turn, honey," she says, flipping them over and pinning Lou's hands above her head. "Be a good girl for me, and I just might let you suck me off."
Lou moans, raw and quiet, and then her mouth is on Debbie's again, and they leave the issue of Constance and Amita's purple marks for a while in favor of creating their own).
Generally, Constance doesn't like partnering up on jobs. It's less about trust—although she doesn't tend to trust other criminals, why would she, they're criminals—and more about numbers: the more people that are involved, the more people she has to protect, and rely on to protect her. No, when it comes to danger, she'd rather only have to worry about herself. If she gets hurt, it's her own damn fault, and that's all there is to it.
But when Lou approaches her about potentially working a bigger heist—she won't say exactly what it is, just that it would take seven people and she'd make bank—she reconsiders this policy, for a few reasons.
First off, she's worked with Lou before, and those jobs have always gone perfectly smoothly. Lou's the definition of an honorable thief: she'll con anyone and everyone, except for the people she's currently allied with. And if Lou trusts the other people on the team, Constance supposes she can trust them, too.
Second, the risk to reward ratio of working the park has become less inviting. Three-card is reliable, but it doesn't pay much, and the collection of switchblades she's stolen from marks just in case they get any funny ideas is growing faster than her bank account. Lou's heist might be dangerous, but she's pretty sure she won't have to worry about getting stabbed.
Finally, she just likes Lou. Not like in a gay way—Lou might be fine as hell but she's also got a soulmark on her forearm that'd be visible from the sun, and when Constance asked about her partner, she got this distant look in her eyes and said, "She'll be back soon, I hope," and Constance doesn't really know what the fuck that means but Lou's clearly not interested in a side gig.
Still, they're friendly, maybe even friends, and the marks they left on each other when Constance stole her watch for the very first time—a purple graze along Lou's wrist, a red blur on Constance's pinky—are bright. They're meant to be in each other's lives. And while Constance knows perfectly well that that's not always a good thing, and even soulmates sometimes kill each other, she thinks Lou is one of the good ones.
So she says yes. It'll be fun, she figures. And networking is always good. Meeting like-minded professionals and shit. Making connections.
Lou says she has to drop everything else for the next month to focus on this, so she gets her affairs in order. Which mostly just means letting her mom know that she won't be able to help out in the restaurant or make deliveries or anything, and making sure her skateboard's in peak condition, because she's not gonna risk one of her wheels cracking and sending her flying into traffic when she's riding in from Queens. The day before they start, she goes to the gym, does laundry, and falls asleep early. Like a real adult person. She's so impressed with herself.
Then she walks into the loft, and sees this girl, and curses herself for not going out the night before and getting laid, because wow, it has been too long for her to be spending the next few weeks cooped up with someone that attractive who she's not allowed to fuck. Or at least she assumes she's not allowed to fuck her. Distractions and all.
The girl introduces herself as Amita. Her voice is high and cute but her eyes are steely, and her hair is gorgeous, and Constance is so not paying attention to Debbie's little lecture, she's gonna need to steal someone's notes later.
Lou catches her staring at Amita, and winks, and Constance glares at her. Damn Lou and her bright red soulmark and her absurdly hot soulmate. Fuckin' happy bitches.
The day just keeps getting worse.
Not the heist part. The heist part is fine. It's totally sick, actually—Debbie is clearly some sort of criminal mastermind, and they're all gonna make a buttload of money, and half of Constance's brain is sorting through what exactly she's gonna do with it. Get a better apartment, obviously. Give a bunch to her mom so she can get recyclable all-natural containers and a social media consultant, and attract all the hipsters, and be famous. Maybe she'll go back to school, even. Being a criminal is more fun and a lot less responsibility than being a surgeon, but she had been kinda excited to, you know, help people. Save lives. That kinda thing.
The other half of her brain is obsessively watching Amita, who, as it turns out, is funny and smart and nice in addition to being super gorgeous, and honestly? That's just not right.
Constance is pretty sure she's straight, too. Debbie asks about Amita's family, who she's apparently super tight with, and Amita rolls her eyes and launches into a tirade about her mom, who watches over her shoulder in the shop and talks constantly about her three sisters who are all married and why aren't you married, Amita?
Debbie laughs.
"Yeah, how is the love life going, babe? Any secret boyfriends?"
Amita gives her a nasty look. "No, unfortunately, and thank you so much for bringing that up. I hate men."
"There are other options," Lou says, draping an arm around Debbie's shoulders as she sits down on the couch.
Amita rolls her eyes. "Stop trying to convert me with your gay agenda, Miller."
Constance can think of a few other things with which to convert Amita, mainly her fingers and tongue. But no. Apparently she's not interested.
It's disappointing, but Constance has seen a lot of beautiful girls in her time, and she vows to deal with it maturely. By which she means, she gets herself off thinking about Amita five times that night, and then resolves to be courteous, professional and distant.
Unfortunately, Amita doesn't seem to get the memo. Two days later, when she finds out that Constance also works in her mom's store, has several older sisters and is first gen, she insists on trading horror stories. Since Debbie has for some unknown reason sent them on a ridiculous lengthy errand to fucking Brooklyn of all places, just the two of them, no other distractions, Constance has to comply.
And it's—good. It's so good. Amita gets everything she's saying almost before it's out of her mouth, and she has this perfect laugh that makes Constance's spine tingle. They commiserate about their families: Constance tells her about the dabs of color on her cheek, deep gold and clementine orange from her sisters, who deliberately decided to mark her as visibly as possible when she was born, and Amita shows her the silver mark under her chin, tells her about her father, who died two years ago.
"Just out of nowhere," she says, "in his sleep," and Constance buries her fists in her pockets against the urge to take her hand.
They end up talking for hours, because one train line is down and another is running really slowly, and normally Constance would be pissed about that, but there's this girl sitting next to her, and she doesn't want the day to end.
She walks slower than usual on the way home, to keep Amita talking just a bit longer. When they're about five minutes away, Amita checks her phone and groans.
"I totally forgot, I'm on dinner duty tonight," she says. They've been taking turns cooking, at Tammy's insistence. The night before was Constance's turn, and she took care to bitch about it all day, then made dumplings ("not fake Americanized Chinese dumplings, you hear me, the real shit") from scratch. She brushed off compliments, but was secretly very pleased that they liked her mom's recipe, and texted her to let her know.
Constance hip-checks her. "What, didn't your mom teach you how to cook?"
Amita elbows her back. "Yeah, and I'm good at it too, you little elf."
"You're literally like two inches taller than me."
"Three, I think."
"Close enough."
"I am an excellent cook," Amita continues, undeterred. "Just don't like it. Too many memories of my mother, I think."
And Constance knows she should say "Sucks to suck" and move on, but—
"Wanna know a secret?" slips out of her mouth. Stupid mouth.
Amita looks amused. "You're actually four ten, you've just been wearing heels?"
"No. Fuck you." Constance sticks her nose in the air. "I—enjoy—cooking."
"That's the stupidest secret I've ever heard," Amita says, unimpressed. "Why'd you try to get out of it yesterday, then?"
"It ruins my image. Duh."
Amita laughs. "Oh, right, cause you're so tough."
Constance pops her collar and winks at her. "Damn right."
Amita looks away, and coughs, and the reminder twinges through Constance—straight. Right. No flirting.
Constance clears her throat. "So, anyway. If you want me to cook instead. I'm down. Whatever."
"Really?" Amita sounds delighted, and it kind of makes Constance's heart rise and sink at the same time, which is impossible and dumb. "That would be so great."
"Whatever," Constance repeats, ignoring her dumb heart. "I'm gonna tell them you begged me."
"Oh, yeah. Those dumplings were good, dude. Can you make real fortune cookies, too?"
"Man, those aren't even Chinese," Constance says, all ready to launch into her speech about Americanized Chinese food history. "Those were invented by immigrants in California in—"
But Amita is laughing, and turning to look over her shoulder as she unlocks the door to Lou's warehouse, and saying, "I know, babe," and frankly—
Constance just came here to have a good time, stealing jewels and shit, and she's honestly feeling so attacked right now. Straight girls are the worst.
(Once Constance and Amita have both been recruited and are living in the warehouse with the rest of the team, Debbie figures it'll be easy. She and Lou keep their marks covered up: with the right shirts and jackets, it's not hard, and they want them to figure it out in the moment. After all, they know from personal experience what an adrenaline rush it is, to touch someone and realize that you belong to them and they to you. That you'll be together forever.
Debbie looks for ways to push them together. She thinks of errands to send them on: getting food, scouting out the Met, looking for tools for Lou's bike. They seem to be becoming better friends—Amita has adopted Constance's meme-talk, and sometimes Debbie literally cannot understand what the fuck they're saying—but there are no new marks in sight.
She figures they're skittish, just as she and Lou were. Constance runs street heists, wears flannels that hide as much skin as possible, and can barely keep still. Amita is clearly itching to get on with life outside of the family business, and Debbie's pretty sure that that involves an elaborate daydream about running away to France. Neither of them are really looking to make best friends here.
Plus, Debbie thinks Amita might not know she's queer yet, which makes things slightly more complicated. But if anyone can turn a girl gay, it's Constance).
Constance is going to kill Debbie. First she sends them on ridiculous errands, claiming that everyone else is busy and they need to get out of the house, which, first of all, if anyone needs to get out of the house, it's Rose, because homegirl lives in a dreamworld, swear to god. And now this.
Amita saunters into the kitchen, wearing a loose tank top knotted at the waist that shows off her shoulders.
"You ready?"
She bends down to pick up the cleaning supplies Debbie left on the floor, and Constance can see down her shirt, just a little. Enough to make her blush, and think about things she shouldn't think about, and blush deeper. Which is ridiculous, because Constance is a baller. She doesn't blush.
She swallows down her thoughts, snaps on a pair of rubber gloves, and says, "I was born ready."
They divide up tasks, which makes it easier to not look at Amita. She scrubs dishes and countertops, sweeps and mops, all while singing along to Amita's playlist of bops, which turns out to be mostly 80's disco music. Sometimes Amita stops with her work to dance in the middle of the kitchen. They squirt bubbles at each other, which turns into a water fight, which turns out to be a very bad idea on Constance's part. She curses her competitive nature silently, and tries not to stare at Amita's boobs through her damp t-shirt.
It takes them almost two hours. With seven women of varying ages and levels of maturity living there, the kitchen had deteriorated at an alarming rate. When she comes in to thank them, Debbie promises that she and Tammy are going to make a chore wheel to ensure that everyone chips in regularly so that this doesn't happen again. Amita sighs in relief, and goes back to reshelving the cans she took out of the pantry to clean it properly. When her back is turned, Debbie winks at Constance, and turns on her heel before Constance can protest.
Like there's anything she can say. Clearly, Debbie and Lou have decided to torture her, and she's just going to have to deal with it. Maybe it's a weird initiation rite or something? Is she going to get knighted at the end of this?
She should see if she can lift some armor from the Met, too, while she's at it.
Despite all the time she inadvertently spends with Amita, it takes Constance more than a week to place her scent. It's soothing and invigorating at once, spicy and warm and homey, and Constance absolutely loves it. Not like in a gay way, just in a nice-smell way.
And maybe a little bit in a gay way.
She's sprawled on a couch, staring into space and shuffling her cards and not thinking about anything, just listening to Nine tap on her computer, Tammy and Debbie reviewing plans upstairs, and vaguely aware of Amita somewhere behind her. Amita, who's gorgeous and perfect, who smells like—
"Chai," she breathes, too quiet for anyone else to hear.
"Hmm?"
For a second, she wonders if she should hold back this particular observation, just a little too specific, too intimate, to be normal. But then again, Amita has already seen her crash her skateboard at least seven times, listened to a rap that she wrote when she was like thirteen—she still hasn't figured out how to get Nine back for that, but rest assured, she will—and watched her eat an entire jar of pickles in one sitting. She knows Constance is weird.
"You smell like chai," Constance says proudly, twisting around to face Amita. "I finally figured it out."
Amita rolls her eyes, fondly. "You'd have figured that out a long time ago if you ever woke up before noon."
"Nothing good ever happens before noon," Constance retorts instinctively. Then she processes Amita's words. "Wait, what happens before noon?"
Amita smiles. "I make chai."
"From scratch?"
"Duh."
"The good shit," Nine says.
Constance gapes at her for a moment.
"How come Nine got chai and I didn't?"
"Because she was up before noon, when I was making it," Amita says. "Keep up."
"So all I gotta do is get up before noon—and I get chai."
"Hope your hands are faster than your brain," Nine says. "Otherwise we're never gonna pull this thing off."
Constance flips her off. "I just wanna be sure, okay, this is a big fuckin' deal."
"Yes, Constance," Amita says, smiling at her. "If you get up by noon, you get chai."
"Done," Constance says, and immediately curls up for a cat nap. She needs her ten hours one way or another, and god knows she won't be going to bed any earlier.
It takes her three tries. On the first day, she sleeps through the four alarms she set, then wakes up at one and tears downstairs to find the house empty. On the second day, she snoozes the alarms, and gets to the kitchen at 12:15 to find Amita putting her supplies away. Constance bats her lashes at her, prepared to beg, but Amita holds up a hand.
"Stop. Hard no. And turn down your alarms, for fuck's sake, we can hear them from down here."
Constance pouts all the way back up the stairs to her room, where she promptly collapses into bed and falls back asleep.
But on the third day, she has the brilliant idea of setting the first alarm for ten, which means she has a solid hour and a half to wake up slowly. She charges downstairs at 11:50, yelling, "Ayyyyy, look who's here!"
Tammy, Lou and Debbie are drinking coffee on the couch. Nine is curled in a corner as usual, but with a mug instead of a blunt. And Amita is in the kitchen, slowly pouring tea into Constance's favorite mug.
Constance sprints, almost skidding right into her, but veering to the right at the last minute. "Yo, is that mine?"
Amita nods, pushing the mug towards her and picking up her own. "Proud of you, babe."
Constance ignores the steam billowing from the tea, and gulps some down immediately. It burns her tongue and throat, but it's so worth it.
"Fuck, this is so good," she gasps, taking another sip, despite her watering eyes. "Mmm. Oh yeah. So good."
"Get a room," Nine calls.
Constance moans exaggeratedly, cupping the mug in her hands. "Ohh yeah. Just like that. Get inside me already." She gulps more tea down, then sets her mug on the counter and looks up to see Amita—blushing?
"Thanks for the tea, man," Constance says, watching her carefully. "It's fuckin' delicious."
"No problem," Amita says. She won't look at Constance, focusing very carefully on putting away the ingredients.
"Like, so good." It's probably nothing, but what if—
"Sooo goooood." She lets her voice drop, ever so slightly, and yep, Amita is definitely, absolutely blushing.
A rush of adrenaline goes through Constance's entire body, and she has to resist jumping up and down.
Straight girls are, in fact, the worst.
Bi girls who have only ever dated men and aren't totally out, even to themselves, but who blush when they hear a cute girl in a flannel and beanie moan?
Perfect. Ideal. Constance's specialty, in fact.
Every day after that, she sets her alarm for ten, gets up for chai, and makes a point of moaning when she takes her first sip of tea. She can't do much more than that—for one thing, she doesn't want to make Amita uncomfortable if she's wrong and Amita isn't into her—but Amita blushes every time, and it's worth every minute of missed sleep.
(It's been almost two weeks, and Debbie has just about given up on getting Amita and Constance together before the heist. She's sent them on errands, she's paired them up for chores—deliberately messy chores, where they'll get grimy and sweaty and damp. No luck.
Maybe it's for the better, Debbie thinks. They'll definitely hook up after the heist, and there will be plenty of time to fall in love then. And it won't be long before they begin leaving marks on other people, even if she and Lou manage to keep theirs hidden.
She needs to stop thinking about it, even though the anticipation is killing her. The only things she should be putting her energy towards are the heist and Lou. Everything else is just a distraction.
Despite what she tells Lou, though, her investment in Amita and Constance's relationship has very little to do with sexual tension not ruining the job. Debbie Ocean doesn't get mushy over a lot of things, but she will never forget the way Lou looked, eyes wide and soft and so, so young, the moment before Debbie kissed her for the first time; and Amita is like a sister to her, Constance too, and she just—wants that for them, okay? Wants them to be as happy as she is. As happy as Lou makes her.
When it finally happens, it's anti-climactic. Of course.
Constance pounds downstairs—at 11:40 this time; she's getting better—and Amita slides her mug over to her wordlessly.
"Thanks," Constance says cheerfully, and takes a sip. She moans around the tea, says, "God, you're good at that," and Amita blushes, right on cue.
Lou, who's sitting at the counter reading the newspaper, snorts. Debbie nudges her hard, and Lou nudges her back before curling an arm around her waist and pulling her in to lean against Lou's thighs.
"Ugh," Amita says, frowning down at her phone. Constance, too busy burning her tongue, just raises her eyebrows.
"What's up?" Debbie asks.
"Do you have any idea how to use Tinder?" Amita asks, not looking up.
Debbie clocks the pained look that crosses Constance's face for not even a second, and replies, "I met my smoking hot soulmate when I was eighteen, and I was in jail when Tinder happened. So no."
Amita grimaces. "I don't know why I even bother. This is ridiculous."
"Here," Constance says, evidently swallowing her pride together with the tea. "I'll show you." She turns and leans against the counter beside Amita, looking down at her phone. "See, what you do is—"
Debbie stills Lou's hand on the newspaper, encouraging her to look up, and they watch with the perfect focus of experienced criminals watching their plan unfold.
Constance's hand lifts and passes over Amita's wrist to touch her phone screen.
"So, this is the profile, right? And you can either swipe left or right."
As she talks, her wrist comes down to press against Amita's thumb.
"If you swipe left, it means you don't like them. And if you swipe right—"
Her hand lifts up, and Debbie can actually see the moment when they spot the marks. Two identical, bright purple marks. The exact same shade.
Constance looks up first, searching Amita's face. Amita's eyes come up, hesitant but sparkling. For a moment, they just look at each other. Amita blushes again, and Constance is smiling, with a look on her face that's somehow more open and tender than Debbie has ever seen her.
"So," Constance says, breaking the spell. "Guess you won't be needing Tinder."
"I guess not." Amita sounds—hopeful, Debbie realizes, with a sort of tentative excitement.
Then Constance grins wide, and says, "Hell, yeah!" before wrapping her arms around Amita's neck, raising on the balls of her feet and kissing her full on the mouth. Amita returns the kiss eagerly, and Debbie and Lou get out immediately, because the sexual tension is about to come cascading down on them and wow, they better make it to a bedroom before it does).
They do, but just barely. Constance has Amita pressed against the counter, then the fridge, then the wall, as they blindly inch their way towards the door. Just as they reach it, and Constance grabs Amita's hand to drag her upstairs, Amita says, "Wait."
Constance looks up at her, wrapping her arm around her waist to lean in so close that her eyelashes dust across Amita's cheek. Amita shivers, seeming to forget what she was going to say, and Constance closes her eyes and inhales. God, she can't wait to find out if she tastes as good as she smells.
"What's up?" Constance asks softly.
"I was just—" Amita swallows, shakily, as Constance decides she's spent enough time restraining her impulses, and presses a kiss to her jaw. "Do you think we should—talk about this first or—"
Leaning back, Constance nods. "Sure, yeah. We can do that." She dips her head to kiss the hollow of Amita's throat.
"Y-yeah?" Amita squeaks, already losing track of the conversation.
"Yeah." Constance dips lower, trailing her mouth to the edge of Amita's V-neck, kissing just above her breast. "You're just also like the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, and I've wanted you since the moment we met, and I have literally dreamed making you scream for me."
She places one final kiss, then grins and steps back, taking her hands off Amita completely. "But yeah. Let's talk."
Amita rolls her eyes. Then she grabs Constance's hand and drags her to her room. Constance's last coherent thought, before Amita's door slams shut and her brain short-circuits with the amount of soft warm skin quickly becoming available to her, is: I'm so lucky.
She says it out loud: "God, I'm lucky."
Amita looks down at her, carding her fingers through Constance's hair, already breathless at the sight of Constance kneeling before her. "What?"
"Lucky," Constance repeats, then leans forward, and puts her tongue to better use.