What's with Jade not wanting to go to the docks?

Thirty One

It was twilight before Jade was walking across the concrete towards the pier building Tori had specified. The heat had lessened a little, and there was a nice breeze coming in off the water.

Jade sucked in a lungful of it, and paused to look at what she could see of the ship. "Hm." She rocked on her heels once or twice. "Now ain't that a bucket of coasters being held together by paint chips."

The flag clips on the bare, nearby poles clanked in agreement, as she continued on across the grass and up onto the building's steps. As she got to the glass doors, one was opened, and she was studied suspiciously by a uniformed guard.

"Hi." Jade produced her identification dutifully. "Can I come in?"

The man studied her badge, then looked at her carefully before he stepped back and opened the door, allowing her to enter. Jade walked past him and into the pier building, her nose wrinkling at the scent of incipient mildew overpowering the air conditioning.

The pier building had seen better days, she decided. The walls were covered in a layer of moderately fresh paint, but it was obvious this layer had been put down over many, many others, and the carpet underfoot did not have the luxury of any padding, the better to resist the persistent moisture.

It had a government feel to it. Jade rubbed her nose, stifling a sneeze. She quickly crossed the back room and stuck her head into the alcove where the office was, noting approvingly the locked door and even more approvingly the security guard sitting stolidly outside. "Hi, Don."

The guard looked up from his book, surprised. "Oh.. Ms. West." He greeted her with a smile. "I didn't think I'd see anyone else here tonight. They closed up the office about an hour ago."

Jade walked over and inspected the door. "Open it?"

The guard got up quickly and did as she asked, unlocking the door and pushing it open. "There you go."

Jade entered and flipped the lights on with a negligent motion of her hand. She prowled around the small space, examining the newly installed gear, then gave it her grunt of approval before she backed out and waved a hand at the guard. "Feel sorry for whoever has to work in there."

Don wrinkled his nose. "Smells like three week old bread." He agreed. "You just come here to check that out, ma'am? I coulda just told you over the phone." He lifted his cell.

"Wasn't why I came." Jade headed towards the escalator that led up to the ship's boarding gangway. The moving stairs were turned off this late, but she made light work of trotting up them, pushing her way out the back door and getting her first good look at the bulk of the ship. "Jesus."

She stopped in her tracks and leaned against the metal rail, the ragged, paint chipped surface rough under her fingertips. Growing up on a naval base meant she'd seen her share and far more of old rusting hulks, ranging from fishing boats to destroyers. But the last vessel she'd seen in this condition was heading out to be sunk for an artificial reef.

Jade turned and hurried down the long walkway. Tied up or not, shallow water or not, having Tori on board the damn thing gave her a hive and the faster she got her partner off the dangerous, and to her eyes listing vessel the happier she'd be.

As she reached the entrance to the ship, she spotted Tori inside, heading her way. "What?" She turned as a man blocked her path, glowering at him until she realized he was just looking to see her ID. She held it up, then brushed past him as Tori cleared the inner door and came out onto the deck to greet her. "Hey.

"Hey." Tori gave her a more than cordial grin. "I was just coming out to find you. You're early."

Jade took her arm and backed up, until they were both safely on the metal gangway. Then she stopped. "Anyone else of ours on that thing? Hope not."

Tori turned and looked, then swiveled back to face her partner. "Huh?"

"It's gonna sink."

"Oh, c'mon Jade. No it isn't." Tori chuckled. "It's not really that bad inside. C'mon, let me show you around." She hooked a finger through Jade's belt loop and tugged.

"I'm not boarding that damn thing." Jade resisted the pull. "Did you see those holes? Look!" She pointed at the side of the ship, which did indeed sport several healthy sized gaps in it's metal sheathing. "I've seen bathtubs more seaworthy."

Tori leaned back against the iron rail. "Hon, it made it across the ocean." She reminded her partner. "I'm sure it's okay sitting here in the Port of San Francisco besides, it's only forty feet deep here…even if it did sink, I could sit on the pool deck up there and get a suntan while it was going down."

"Mmph."

"C'mon." Tori gave her another tug. "It's really not that bad, Jade. Once you get used to all the chaos inside… I got a really nice tour of the ship, and honestly, it's better than I thought it would be."

"Uh huh." Jade allowed herself to be drawn towards the deck again. "And you have how many ships to judge this against?" She queried, with a wry grin. "How about letting me judge how scary this crate really is?"

"Okay, sailor girl." Tori tolerantly lead the way across the deck to the inner door. "How's the office?"

"Annoying as usual." Jade paused inside to look around. The air of tattered, tired elegance reminded her of some of the old beach hotels she'd occasionally wander into in her youth, with much of the same scent of age and disappointment.

They were in the center of the ship, a large, somewhat open area that extended up several decks now obscured in scaffolding and torn old wallpaper. There were water stains on the walls under them, and the exposed girders were thick with rust. "Point one." Jade said. "Rain inside – bad thing." She indicated the girders.

Tori peered at them. "Can't that be from the humidity or the sea air?"

"No." Her partner patted her on the back. "But that's all right, cause it means they need to rip all that drywall and plaster out, and that means we can get wiring in at a lower cost than if we have to pull it all."

"Hm.. yeah, I talked to the construction chief about that. He said they'd be ready in about a week to strip everything." Tori agreed as they walked past worktables and through a propped open glass door at the back of the open area.

Inside that, Jade found another half destructed space. It had a few old desks, and the walls were covered in the typical grunge you often found in office buildings. "Backoffice?"

"Uh huh. Want to see where they suggested we put the computer systems?" Tori took her hand and led her forward, shoving open a half stuck panel just wide enough to admit Tori's slim form and then stepping back. "Here."

Jade gave her a suspicious look, then slowly poked her head in. After a moment, she drew it back out. "And the joke is…?" Her voice rose. "Tori, you couldn't fit our dog in here, much less what we're going to have to run this thing on, and there's no air conditioning."

"Right. It's a linen closet." Tori agreed. She peered inside at the room, a scant three feet by six feet not including the hot water pipes running along one wall. "I told them we could use this to store spare parts, but only if they stuck a wall mount AC unit with a drip drain on that long part."

"Good answer." Jade shook her head as she watched Tori shove the door shut again. "They have no clue, do they?"

"Nope." Tori leaned against the door. "I told them we're going to need this room instead." She pointed at the larger space. "They freaked."

Tori walked across the floor, looking up as someone called her name from the outside entrance. "Oh, hi Tally." She turned. "This is my boss, Jade West. Jade, this is Tally. He's been showing me around." She gave her new buddy a grin. "And watching me shock the pooters out of the construction guys."

"Hi." Tally gave Jade a brief smile. "Um, Tori.. listen, you really, really, really got the stripes mad. About this room here." He indicated the space. "It's the pursers office."

Tori perched on the corner of one sad old desk. "And?" She said.

"Ah." Jade scratched her jaw. "Pursers kind of run everything, Tor."

Tally turned on Jade with a grateful look. "You've been on ships?"

"Not this kind." Jade managed a half grin. "But yeah… enough to know the politics." She got up and put her hands on her hips. "But the problem is, Tori's right. We'll need about this much space for the system your owner wants."

Tally looked just aghast. "But the old system just fit under Drucilla's desk there." He pointed. "Honest!"

"Okay, let me give you some idea here." Tori stood up. "First, we're going to put in two big switches about like this.." She spread her arms out to either side, then raised one and lowered the other. "And like this."

Obviously lost, Tally merely nodded.

"And then, two racks of computer equipment about twice the width of a refrigerator and about that tall." Tori added. "And that doesn't even include all the space for cables."

Tally sighed, and sat on the desk. "I don't know what we're going to do. They won't give up this space. I'll tell you that right now. They've been talking about how it's going to be redone for a month." He looked around in a worried sort of way. "It's the biggest office on the ship."

Tori paused in mid-step and peered around her. Then she looked at Jade.

"Okay." Jade said. "Then we'll give you the space this stuff's going to need, and your people can tell us where they want us to put it. We can't shrink any of it. It's just the size it is." She walked to the wall, glancing back to see another figure in the doorway. She took a marker from her pocket and drew an X. "The racks are from here.. " She made another mark. "To here. That's for the servers. Then the network core is.. here." She drew a large box on the wall. "To here."

"Why do we need all that?" The newcomer asked.

"Oh, hi Drucilla." Tally said.

"Your boss wants it." Jade told her. "Add this for consoles and monitoring stations.. and you get this much space." With a flourish, she drew on the rest of the back wall, then took six big steps into the center of the room. "Out to here."

"That's ridiculous." Drucilla came into the room. "We don't need all that! We work just fine with what we have, that NCR register system, and my machine." She pointed at the drawing. "We don't have room for all that! What's it for, anyway?"

"Point of sale. Email. Computers for everyone. Interactive television. IP phones, and internet." Tori ticked off things on her fingers.

"On here?" The woman asked, in an incredulous tone. "You surely are joking."

"Nope." Jade went over to Tori and leaned her arm on the smaller woman's shoulder. "I'm not. We've been asked by your company to put that." She indicated the wall. "In here. Now.. if you don't want to give up this space, you need to get together and decide where you want it put."

"Oh, my god." The woman put her hand on her head. "This is insanity. I have to go." She turned and left, with quick, agitated steps.

Tori and Jade exchanged glances, then they both looked at Tally.

"Internet?" Tally's eyebrows quirked up. "Really?"

"Now, here's a guy with the right priorities." Tori chuckled wanly. "C'mon, Jade. Let me show you the rest of it."

Jade stepped carefully over a piece of rotted, rolled up carpet as she followed them out, suspecting the rest of it was only going to roll rapidly down hill.

"So that's it." Tori stood on the very back deck of the boat, alone with Jade after their tour. It was dark now, and the less than soothing cantelope colored lights of the pier lit everything around them and washed the stars almost clean out of the sky. "What do you think?"

Jade cautiously tested the railing before she leaned against it. "I think it's going to be a Mongolian cluster fuck." She replied, crossing her arms. "No matter how we do it. There isn't enough space.." She ticked off a finger. "Enough cableways…" She ticked another finger. "Or enough patience in my body to deal with all these frustrated sea dogs who make my father look liberal."

"Hm." Tori joined her at the rail, and looked over. The salt water lapped gently at the rusting metal, making little swirling sucking noises as it curled around a jagged edge. "So. What are you saying, that we don't do it?"

Jade exhaled heavily.

"Jade, nothing says everything we do has to be easy." Tori poked her gently. "It's a challenge. Isn't that what you told me sometime forever ago?"

"Yeah, I know." Jade grimaced wryly. "C'mon. Let's go home."

Tori followed her as Jade led the way around the back of the ship towards the gangway. It was dark on the exterior – only a few of the windows lit from within here on the upper decks.

A boat moved past in the channel, and the ship rocked slightly in it's wake. The creaks and groans from the old structure were not in any way comforting, and Tori wondered in her heart if Jade wasn't really right after all.

Was there a point to all this? Could Quest really be meaning to take these old hulks and put them back in service, with modern customers used to every sophistication to be found in ships like the one behind them in the first docking?

Tori turned her head and regarded the behemoth. It was all glass and shiny metal, as far from their poor, rusting hull as could be. Four or five decks taller, and half again the width of the ship she was on, the differences were so striking she had to wonder in truth what the hell they were thinking.

She shook her head a little as they walked off the ship, giving the guard a nod as they traded the gentle motion of the ship for the stillness of the concrete walkway. "I don't know." Tori pointed at the cracks she'd noticed on the way in. "I think that ship's in better shape than this pier."

Jade inspected the cracks, then walked to the railing and jumped up and down several times experimentally.

"Jade!" Tori squawked.

Her partner chuckled, and moved on. "Relax." She said. "There's rebar all in there. It's not going an.." Jade paused, and went to the rail again, leaning against it as she watched the pier below. "Ah."

Tori went to her side and peered past her shoulder. "Oh ho." She recognized Shari's form pacing on the concrete outside their ship. "Should we say something?"

"Nu uh." Jade drew back into the shadows of the walkway and pulled Tori with her. They stood in silence as their nemesis strolled along the side of the ship, examining it.

"Jade?" Tori whispered.

"Mm?" Jade put an arm around her, resting her cheek against Tori's head.

"Does the fact I want to shove her in front of Majesty of the Seas over there mean I'm going to hell?" Tori wondered. "What's she up to, just checking the boat out?"

"Ship." Her partner said. "Yeah, not much else she can do from down there. Hatch's closed." She pointed at the hull, which earlier had been breached by a loading hatch open and receiving goods. "Maybe she's seeing what we got versus what they did?"

As if to confirm it, Shari reached the end of the pier, then she turned and wandered back, apparently losing interest in the vessel. Jade and Tori turned and walked along even with her, unseen in the shadows until Shari passed the end of the ship and they were at the end of the walkway.

Shari stopped and looked back, putting her hands on her hips before shaking her head and continuing on down the pier towards the ship Telegenics had been assigned. By freak chance, it was in the slip right behind theirs, and Jade wondered suddenly if they hadn't been spotted on the aft deck while they were talking.

But why would Shari bother to come out on the docks for that? Jade dismissed the idea, and steered Tori back through the doors towards the escalator. It still wasn't working, so they plodded down it in amiable silence, their footsteps alerting the guard stationed at the office below.

"Hello?" The guard came out into the area at the end of the escalator, one hand on his hip.

"Just us." Jade waved a hand at him. "West and Vega, causing trouble as usual."

The man's hand dropped and he smiled, returning the wave. "Oh, hi ma'am's." He said, obviously relieved. "Sorry, forgot you were up there." He waited for them to get down to his level. "I've had some of the crew out there try to get in.. trying to get free phone calls, I guess."

Tori patted the guard on the shoulder as she walked past. "Hang in there." She said. "We'll get something set up a little better for you guys soon. This is pretty Antarctic."

The man went back to his metal folding chair and sat down, picking up his book and opening it. "No problem, ma'am. We'll survive."

Jade and Tori walked through the outer room towards the front doors, the silence of the big building broken only by their footsteps and the air conditioning units cycling on. "This is a pretty grungy place to have people go on a luxurious cruise ship, huh?" Tori commented.

"Eh. No worse than most of the airport." Jade shrugged, pushing open the outer door and holding it for Tori to pass through.

It was very dark outside, and they both paused as several shadowy figures near the edge of the building stirred and looked their way as they came out. There were trees next to the pier doors, and the area apparently appealed to the homeless who were camped beneath them.

Tori's heartbeat picked up slightly, but the men merely turned back around and continued their conversation, not interested in them at all. She felt a little irritated at herself for the assumption of bad intent and acknowledged she had a way to go to erase her upbringing.

It was odd, those little unconscious biases that poked up from time to time. She liked to think of herself as a fair minded person, but she'd found that sometimes she just hadn't had the right experiences to be able to take away things picked up from so many years of living in the family environment she had.

It bothered her. She'd realized when she'd worked with the girls at the church that their lives were to a large extent alien to hers and she wondered just how much in touch with them she'd really been.

"Tor?"

Jade's voice startled her. Tori looked quickly up, to find the scattered moonlight reflecting off Jade's pale eyes. "Yeees?"

"You got quiet."

"Just thinking." Tori sighed. "Long day."

Jade stuck her hands in her pockets. "Well, I offered not to come down here." She said. "Only made it longer, and I doubt I helped your plan any."

All thoughts of equality and WASP sensibilities flew out of Tori's head. She took hold of her partner's arm and stopped, pulling Jade to a halt as well. "Why do you keep saying stuff like that? Don't you want to be a part of this?"

They were only a few feet from their cars, Jade having parked right next to her in the now empty lot. It didn't seem to be a good place for a discussion, but going anywhere meant they'd have to separate, and Tori really wanted to hear the answer to her question before they parted. "Jade?"

The tall figure twitched, a half shrug that ended in Jade lifting her free hand and letting it fall. "Honestly? No."

Tori exhaled, caught a bit by surprise. She thought a moment on the answer, and then decided maybe she wasn't surprised after all. "Because of how tough the job on the ship is going to be?'

"No." Jade turned and went over to Tori's car, leaning against it and crossing her legs at the ankles. "I just don't want any part of Telegenics." She studied the tarmac, most of it cracked and weed ridden.

Tori joined her, leaning on the car right next to her partner, their shoulders brushing. "Oh." She murmured. "I thought you were kinda past that."

Jade shrugged.

Tori really couldn't think of much to say after that. She kicked herself a little, for not spotting Jade's reluctance before and realized maybe she'd been deliberately blinkering herself from those not so subtle hints.

Finally, she sighed again. "Guess we'd better go home." She pulled her keys out and chirped the door to her car open. "Anyway, thanks for coming out and giving me your insights. They really did help."

Jade remained leaning against Tori's car, watching her ease past from under half lowered eyelids.

Since the cars were parked next to each other, that meant Tori had to pick her way carefully, placing her feet down between Jade's extended ones, brushing her lightly and putting a hand on her stomach for balance as she scooted by.

Jade reached out and captured the hand, holding it. She waited for Tori to turn and face her, then blinked in surprise when the brunette simply leaned against her, patting her side in silence. "I'm becoming a chickenshit." She murmured. "Sorry, Tor."

"It's all right." Tori said, listening to the stuttering heartbeat under her ear. "Let's go home, and we can talk about it. I'm tired of the sauna, and my piggies hurt." She gave Jade a quick hug, and pushed back, glad to see a faint grin in all the shadows crossing her partner's face. "Race you?"

"You're on." Jade unlocked her car, and they parted to head out towards home.

There were distinct advantages to working from home. Tori leaned back in her chair and put her feet on her desk, propping her keyboard on her lap at a comfortable angle. Wasn't something she could do at work, at least not during business hours and she appreciated the difference as she peered at her screen and continued typing.

"How's the line working?" Jade entered, with her laptop. She took a seat on the small couch across from Tori's desk and opened it. "I messed with it this morning." Chino ambled in after her and curled up on the carpet near Tori's desk.

Tori looked up. "Great. It's a heck of a lot faster since you put DSL in. I thought you had squirmies over the security with it, though."

"Eh." Jade had focused on her own machine. "I tested the IPSEC tunnel. It's all right, as much as any remote connection is." She replied. "And the surfing's a hell of a lot faster."

"That's for sure." Tori watched her partner work for a moment, then spared another to wonder why she'd given up her comfortable sprawl on the couch downstairs for the smaller confines of Tori's office. She really didn't think the need to ask about the circuit prompted it, since Jade seemed content now to sit quietly pecking at her keyboard.

Just wanted to be close? Tori found herself smiling at the thought, since she'd been regretting the fact that her own laptop hadn't contained her needed files so she could move down into the living room.

They'd had a light dinner, then gone to the gym together but the subject of Jade's working on her project hadn't come up even once since they'd gotten home. There was something left to be said about it, though – and Tori suspected that those words were behind this instinctive drive they both seemed to have to be in the same place at the same time so when the words came out, they'd be there to hear them.

Until then, though, she was happy just to continue working, typing out an initial assessment of the ship project for the team meeting she'd scheduled the next day while Jade persisted in her programming project. They worked together in a comfortable silence, broken only by the rattle of keystrokes and Chino's dreaming whines.

"Know what I wish?" Tori asked idly, as she waited for the deck plans of the ship to insert into her document.

"Uh?" Jade grunted in question.

"Wish we were at the cabin. I feel like a midnight salt water swim."

Jade paused and looked up. "Hm." She shifted the laptop a little. "We could go in the pool." She offered. "Not as romantic, but there's no seaweed and sand, either."

Tori tapped the enter key and continued typing. "Eeeeehhh…. It's not really private enough for what I had in mind." She heard Jade's keystrokes stop, and she waited a second before she looked over at her partner, to find sharply raised eyebrows and a slight grin facing her. "Don't you give me that look. It's your fault. You turned me into a hedonist."

Jade pointed a thumb at her own chest, and widened her eyes.

Tori stuck her tongue out.

They both went back to working, but the faint grin remained on Jade's lips as she typed. After a few minutes, she paused again. "Know what I wish?"

"Does it involve hot fudge?" Tori murmured, erasing a sentence, and drumming her fingers on her keyboard as she pondered a replacement.

"Heheh." Jade snickered softly. "Save that thought for later. No – what I was wishing for was that we could go back about three weeks and start over again."

Ah. Tori wiggled her big toe. "Before Orlando?"

"Yeah."

Tori added a paragraph, then paused again. "What do you think you would have done different?" She asked. "I mean, about the show or dealing with them or.." She kept her voice casual and her eyes on the screen, not wanting to stifle any revelations.

Jade was a little funny that way. If she said something, and you came back with 'what did you mean by that?' – she often stopped her train of thought and switched to something completely different. It was almost like on a personal level, she didn't deal with being challenged while she was trying to communicate something. Sort of like being half duplex, for a while.

Jade shifted her position, wriggling her shoulders into a more comfortable spot on the couch. "Keep my mouth shut a lot more for starters." She scrolled her touchpad with one finger and put her other hand behind her neck, stretching the muscles out with a grimace. "Handled the two of them better, maybe."

"Ah." Tori ran the spell checker on her document. "I don't know, honey. I don't think most of that was us. They came into this whole thing gunning dirty."

"Mm. Well, I don't think it's going to get any better." Her partner replied. "One of the reasons I don't want to be involved."

Tori thought about it as she watched the check end. She scrolled up for another view of the report, scanning it lightly with her eyes. "Maybe you're right." She finally said. "Why don't we just table it for a while.. let me get the whole process started, then you can see what you think."

They both continued in silence for a little while. Jade reached down and scratched Chino's belly, then at last tipped her head back and raised her eyes from the screen. "What I think is… that sounds a hell of a lot like what I said to you when you didn't want to be the Vice President of Operations."

Tori looked over her shoulder and batted her eyelashes.

Jade smiled and shook her head.

"Jade, don't worry about it." The brunette said. "We'll just work it out."

Chino woke up and flipped over, sneezing. She got up and went to Tori's side, standing up on her hind legs and giving Tori a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you, sweetie." Tori took hold of her muzzle and kissed her on the head. "I love getting kissies from you almost as much as I love getting kissies from your mommy Jade."

A moment later, she found herself encircled by Jade's arms. Teeth closed gently on her earlobe, and she could feel the intensity of the emotion behind the squeeze that nearly stopped her breathing.

"Damn, I love you." Jade whispered.

Tori reached up and cupped her partner's face, pulling her forward a little and kissing her on the lips. She then pressed her cheek against Jade's and exhaled, a low sound of contentment sounding deep in her throat. "Damn, I love you." She said.

"Know what I think?" Jade reached over and pulled the wireless keyboard out of Tori's hands, setting it on the desk. "I think work's over. Want to join me and a glass of champagne in the hot tub?"

Tori abandoned her machine without a second's thought. She swung her legs off the desk and stood up, hooking her fingers inside the waistband of Jade's shorts and following her as she walked out of the office and started down the steps. Chino bustled past them, reaching the bottom landing and whirling around in a circle as she waited for them to catch up.

As they reached the dog, however, the phone rang. Jade glanced at the clock on the entertainment center, and her brows lifted. "Who the hell's calling here now?"

"Only one way to find out." Tori went over to the side table and picked up the cordless phone, keying the answer button and putting it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Hey, sis." Tori's sister Katrina's voice replied. "Busy?"

Jade had cocked her head to listen. Now she gave Tori a pat on the butt and pointed towards her own bedroom, mimicking stripping out of her clothing as she walked past.

"A little. What's up?" Tori gave her partner a thumbs up, then dropped into the couch. "How are you? How's the munchkin?"

Trina cleared her throat. "Munchkin and I are fine." She said, then hesitated. "But we're kinda looking for a new place to live."

Tori blinked. "Huh?"

"Richard found out about Daniel." Trina said. "He filed for divorce."

"He's divorcing *you*?" Tori sat straight up, her voice rising. "No shit.. really?"

Jade kept one ear on the conversation in the living room as she changed out of her t-shirt and shorts. She was halfway glad Tori's family had conveniently provided a distraction, to chase the subject they'd both been dancing around out of the way for a while.

It would be easier, she thought, if she knew herself what the hell her problem really was now. As Tori had hinted, she'd thought she was past the bullshit. Tori thought she was past the bullshit. So why was she doing everything in her power to avoid having to deal with the ship project?

Jade glowered at her reflection in the mirror. Stormy blue eyes were reflected back at her, and she scowled, feeling a mixture of frustration and impatience with herself. Could she really just toss the project off on Tori's shoulders, knowing how important it was, and how much Alastair was counting on her?

Could she really justify not trusting Tori to handle it, on the other hand? Jade sighed. "Fuck." She addressed herself. "I think you need a head enema."

"Yeesh." Tori interrupted her self-chastisement. "Poor Trina!" She entered the bedroom and halted as Jade turned, her expression altering to one of sultry interest. "Hm. Maybe I should convince her to try something other than guys for a little while."

Jade put one hand on her hip. "Oh, I'm sure that'd be a popular suggestion. Especially for Daniel." She said. "What happened?"

Tori pulled her t-shirt off. "Trina thought she'd blown him off about Andy's blood tests, but I guess he got suspicious. He had DNA tests done without her knowing."

Jade snorted. "Nice!" She slipped behind Tori and undid her bra, giving her a scratch between her tanned shoulderblades. "So she's going back home?"

"No." Tori folded her bra and set it on the counter next to her already folded t-shirt. "Oh, my mother offered, sure, but Trina.. she wants to get out on her own."

"With Brian?"

Tori didn't answer for a moment, then she turned and faced Jade. "She's not sure."

Jade cocked her head in question.

A shrug. "She said she doesn't want it to be a case of.. he needs to take care of her now. She wants to do it on her own." Tori put her hands on Jade's waist, rubbing her thumbs on the soft skin there. "Maybe I started a family trend. In any case, she was asking what the housing prices were like out here."

"Ah."

Tori eased forward and brushed her lips over the curve of Jade's breast. She felt Jade's fingertips run up and down her back and it encouraged her to move closer, fitting her bare body to Jade's and reveling in the sensual jolt it gave her. "You know.. water sounded good…"

But that bed, though..." Jade suggested, kissing her neck.

"Just what I was thinking." Tori gladly gave up the idea of the hot tub, and started exploring Jade's skin instead. "Mm.. maybe I should tell Trina.."

"Shh." Jade bumped her towards the bed. "If we start telling the heteros, they'll all want to be gay." She tumbled with Tori into the center of the bed, as they both chuckled.