A/N - Hey, Readers! This is a rush job - sorry! - but it's been too long since I updated. Thanks for bearing with me and sticking with this story. I really hate not being able to give it the attention that you deserve. Your reviews mean the world to me! 3
Happy New Year!
"Paige," Emily said shakily. This was it: Time to put it on the line. "I don't want to be alone. I … I want you to move in with me."
Paige stuttered out some syllables that bore no resemblance to words, making Emily cringe with the realization that she had overstepped. "I mean," she said, trying to think of a way backtrack, "I just… I don't –"
"We should talk about it," Paige blurted out, finally forming actual words. "But not over the phone."
Emily nodded, even though Paige couldn't see. "I'm sorry, Paige," she said softly. "I shouldn't have sprung this on you like that."
"That's not what I meant, Em." Paige brushed the hair away from her face. "I'll head over there."
"Paige," Emily whined. She had already been embarrassed enough. She didn't need Paige coming over because she felt sorry for her. "It's late. Let's just forget it for tonight."
"I'll head over," Paige repeated determinedly. "I'll see you soon."
"Okay," Emily said weakly. Her heart was pounding. She was glad that Paige knew what she wanted, but she was terrified of actually talking it over with Paige. It was stupid for her to think that Paige would just magically agree to move in with her, the way high school Paige would have.
Emily wasn't sure what to expect out of the conversation, but she couldn't help fearing that she had gone too far too fast, and Paige was going to break up with her.
Paige sat like a zombie, staring at her phone where it lay on the table next to her coffee cup. This was the way it had always been between the two of them. They were always too quick to move things to the next level, and it never really worked out. And, yet, she couldn't deny that she wanted to be together with Emily; to live together, to make their little household. Some plants, maybe a dog. Maybe it wasn't too soon – not if they counted all of the years they'd been together since high school. In that sense, it was the longest relationship either of them had ever had.
The server came by the table and left Paige's bill, with a smile. Paige smiled back before she got hit with a shot of panic, realizing how long she'd been sitting there, and that Emily must've been freaking out.
Emily was, in fact, going crazy trying not to worry about why Paige was taking so long. She was only able to come up with a few options, and each worse than the one before. Paige was having second thoughts. She was trying to come up with the words – one of those patented, Paige McCullers speeches – to break up with her gently. She was in a car wreck. Emily took a quick look at the traffic app on her phone. No traffic and no major accidents. So where the fuck was Paige?
She briefly thought of calling Paige, just for some assurance that she was okay and was still on her way. Or, really, just to hear her voice. She quickly thought better of that, though. In her mind, she could see Paige, distracted by the phone, plow right into a streetlamp or a semi.
This wasn't just Emily being paranoid. These were the kinds of things that always happened to her and Paige. Just when, it seemed, they turned a corner, there would be an accident or an attack – something to drive come between them and happiness.
Emily wished that she smoked, just so that she'd have something to do with her fingers, rather than drumming them restlessly against the table. She had some chocolates in the kitchen, and she was about to get up and get them, but she changed her mind. It had been way too long since she'd been in the gym, and she could feel her body getting soft in all the wrong places. Not that Paige seemed to notice. Paige still looked at her as if she were the Emily from high school, who had nothing to be ashamed about, when it came to her body; who could take off all her clothes and jump in the pool for a midnight swim, with nothing to hide. That was ultimately why she told Paige that she wanted to move in together. The kind of love that could see past all of her flaws was the kind of love worth risking it all for – the kind of love that she was, finally, prepared to give back.
Emily gasped, startled, when the doorbell finally rang. She walked quickly, without even taking the time to check herself in the mirror first. She did take a quick glance down at the heather gray, PINK sweats that she was wearing under a long sleeved t-shirt and winced at the fact that she hadn't thought to change, all the time she was waiting for Paige.
Paige, still wearing the jeans and jacket from their date, apologized for showing up so late. Emily looked down at the gym bag in Paige's left hand and then back up at Paige, tilting her head with a wry smile. "Em," Paige said urgently, "I don't want you to get the wrong idea…"
Emily sucked her teeth. "I know!" she protested. "I was just kidding!"
She hadn't been kidding, but she felt stupid enough for having thought what she thought without having to have Paige tell her that she was wrong.
"It's just," Paige continued, "I know that we have a lot to talk about, and I thought we should get a fresh start in the morning."
Emily cupped Paige's cheek and gave her a soft kiss and a genuine smile. "Well, I'm glad you're here."
"I'm glad I am, too," Paige admitted. "I… I didn't want to be alone, either."
Emily maintained her smile as she let those words sink in for a second or two. "You look exhausted," she said with a sympathetic frown, and she reached for Paige's bag. She knew that Paige would silently refuse the help, and, surely enough, Paige, without a word, tightened her grip on the bag and shifted her shoulders to move it out of Emily's reach. Emily rolled her eyes at her before spinning around, leading the way inside. "I always wondered whether you insisted on never letting me help you out of pride or out of chivalry." Paige smiled to herself, glad that Emily, who was walking in front of her, couldn't see her reaction. " 'Cause, I'm not helpless, you know," Emily said, turning her head back, so that Paige could see her smirk.
"I know you're not helpless," Paige grunted. "I used to spot you in the weight room, remember?"
"I remember." Emily laughed slightly. "And I remember that you were always so worried that you were going to let me hurt myself."
"Well, you were never would admit it to me when you actually did get hurt."
Emily stopped in her tracks and turned towards Paige with a saddened look. "I guess we're not just talking about the weight room anymore."
Paige, a little guilty, dipped her head. "I guess not."
Emily gestured towards the couch and changed the subject. "Well," she sighed, "Do you want me to pull out the sofa bed for you?"
Paige took a step closer and held Emily in her arms. It was intense, and Emily didn't know what to do with her eyes. They flitted back and forth between Paige's eyes and her arms. Emily moved her arms onto Paige's chest. "I think we're old enough to sleep in the same bed without having to worry that our hormones will take over." Emily nodded, unable to speak for a moment.
Paige almost added something along the lines of, if anything did happen, it would be because they were mature enough to make the decision, not because of the hormones. In the end, though, she let it go.
Paige set her bag on a chair at the foot of Emily's bed. She hung her jacket on the back of the chair and put her hair in a loose ponytail before, turning her back to Emily, who was turning down the covers on the bed, she pulled her shirt over her head and started undoing her bra. Emily was a little surprised that Paige hadn't gone into the bathroom to change her clothes. She had been planning to slip into a nightie when Paige left the room, but, since Paige hadn't bothered to go, she decided just to sleep in her sweatpants and top. She wondered whether Paige was trying to make some kind of point by being naked around her, as if to prove her point that they weren't controlled by hormones anymore.
When Paige pulled off her jeans, a smile of familiarity shot across Emily's face. She walked up behind Paige and traced one of the scars on her thigh. "They're still here," she said out loud, before she realized what she was saying.
"Where do think they would have gone?" Paige said pleasantly, turning to face Emily as she did.
"I don't know," Emily said, a little shyly because she felt foolish. "I know how much you West Coast gals like to have work done!"
"Ha ha," Paige mocked. Shrugging her shoulders, she added, "I guess, maybe, if they were visible under my clothes, I might have had something done about them. But I've found that the people whom I let close enough to see them aren't bothered by them." Paige gave Emily a wink, which Emily recognized as her acknowledgment that Emily had never been bothered by them.
"I always liked them," Emily said with a smile. "I mean," she added quickly, afraid of sounding as if she was making light of Paige's emotional scars.
"I get it," Paige interjected, showing that she hadn't been hurt by the comment. "You like them because they represent the struggle, and the strength it took to overcome it." Paige had heard that line about a thousand times.
Emily bit her lip. "I was going to say that I liked them because they were a part of you that I got to see and nobody else did," she admitted, shaking her hand as if to wave away that comment. "Sorry, I should have gone strength thing," she added softly
Paige took Emily in her arms and gave her a kiss that was every bit as intimate as what Emily had just admitted. She liked Paige's scars because they were their scars; something no one else could share. Emily's lips parted and the kiss deepened. The room was suddenly very warm. "Paige," she said, interrupting the kiss. Paige backed away. "This… this isn't the hormones, is it?" Paige shook her head, her eyes staring deep into Emily's. Emily's sweatpants dropped to the floor. Paige turned off the lights.
Emily felt Paige's warm breath on the back of her neck but kept her eyes closed. She was glad that Paige was a heavy sleeper. She didn't want to move from that spot, in her bed, in her lover's arms. And she didn't want to have the talk about the huge step that they had taken the night before.
A few minutes later, the silence in the room was interrupted by the shrill beeping of Emily's alarm clock. Damn it! She usually turned off her alarm when she got into bed on Friday night, but, that night, she had been a little distracted.
Paige, startled momentarily by the sound, reflexively tightened her grip around Emily's waist. Emily closed her eyes tighter, hoping against hope that Paige would fall back to sleep, but there was no chance of that. And they would have to face reality eventually, anyway. "Hey," she called over her shoulder.
"Hey," Paige croaked, in her extra raspy morning voice.
"Are you okay?" Emily asked tentatively.
"Never better," Paige mumbled.
Emily turned on her back. Paige stayed where she was, on her side, facing Emily. Emily stared at the ceiling, her finger idly tracing up and down Paige's arm. "I just mean… you know. It was a big step that we took last night. And, you know. I know you were trusting me to control myself. My hormones."
Paige laid her arm on Emily's waist, and Emily turned to face her. "Em, when I said that… well, what I didn't say was that, if anything happened, it wouldn't be because of hormones. It would be because we're old enough – and we know each other well enough – to know what we want." She crawled on top of Emily and sat astride her. Emily couldn't help smiling. "Besides, it wasn't what you did. It was our decision."
Emily nodded, her tongue protruding slightly through her lips. "Okay," she whispered.
There was something about hearing that whisper, first thing in the morning, skin-to-skin on top of Emily. Paige leaned down to kiss Emily's lips, and, soon, she was kissing her neck. Emily tossed her head to the side, to give Paige more room to work with. She ran her arms up and down Paige's back, pulling her in closer. It was a lazy Saturday morning. There was no reason not to spend it in bed.
The next time Paige woke up, her arm was around Emily's waist, and Emily's head was on her shoulder. She gingerly tried to pull her arm away, but Emily petulantly grabbed it and held on. "Em," Paige half-whined, "my arm's asleep!"
"Oh!" Emily relinquished her hold and started rubbing Paige's arm rapidly, to get the circulation going. "Sorry."
"Mmm." Paige smiled contentedly, with her eyes closed. Emily smiled back, parting her lips briefly, as if she were about to say something.
Paige's eyes opened at the hesitation. "What?"
"Nothing." Emily turned her head, not wanting Paige to see the embarrassment on her face.
"Em," Paige said, trying to force her face into Emily's field of vision.
Emily sighed. "I was just thinking, we could wake up like this every day." Paige drifted back and Emily, deflated, sat up in the bed with a resigned exhale. The sheet fell down to her waist as she hugged her knees. "I know we shouldn't talk about this in bed," she said softly, "when we're both so emotional."
Paige sat up alongside her, facing her, with her legs crossed. It didn't feel like being naked in Emily's bed; it just felt natural. She didn't feel vulnerable or exposed. She felt home. "I think we're ready," she said soberly.
"Paige…" Emily's head dropped into her hands against her knees. "Do we have to talk about it now? Can't we just – enjoy the moment?"
Paige stroked Emily's shoulder. "I don't mean we're ready to talk," she clarified. "I mean we're ready to move in together." Emily lifted her head and looked at Paige, puzzled. "I thought about it the entire time that I was driving over here. I mean, we're not some new couple, in that infatuation stage. We know each other, a lot better than anyone else knows us. We know who we are and what we want." Paige squeezed Emily's shoulder and leaned her face closer, whispering, "I think we're ready."
A slight smile came across Emily's lips just before she pressed them into Paige's. The kiss ended abruptly with Emily shoving Paige's shoulder, knocking her back against the mattress. "Then how come you kept me in suspense all night – 'We need to talk, but not tonight'" she said in a mocking voice. Her jaw dropped. "Oh my God – was this just some ploy to get me into bed with you?"
Paige smirked at that half-joking insinuation. "As if we wouldn't have ended up in bed together if I'd told you last night!" Paige laughed and put her hand on Emily's cheek, turning serious as she tried to explain. "You know how you know something, but you want to know it? Like, senior year, after you rehabbed your shoulder, and the doctor said that it was okay for you to start swimming again, but you really didn't know how you would do in competition until you got that first race under your belt? I guess I just wanted to know that you and I could actually be together, and the building wouldn't collapse or the ceiling fan wouldn't tumble on top of us, or – I don't know."
Emily snorted. "Yeah, given our history, I get that." She took Paige's hand. "Paige, I've known that I wanted to be with you for a long time. And these last couple of months, when we've been together, has just made me more and more certain. But then, last night, the way that we just picked up right where we left off… I don't know. It just… I can't see how we could ever not be together."
Paige smiled. "I don't see how we could never not..." She looked up pensively at the ceiling. "I don't see how we couldn't… what you said, either," she giggled.