A/N: This fic contains potentially triggering subject matter including but not limited to: suicidal references, gun violence, sexual trauma, homelessness, drug abuse, depression, homophobia, and cancer. It may contain inaccuracies. No copyright infringement intended. Thanks for reading!

BOOK ONE - PART TWO - CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"And remember the twinfection thing? When I pranked you with Melanie?" Sam was laughing. She took another drink from her beer can. She and Cat were seated on towels on the floor of the garage. They had pulled Sam's motorcycle inside and covered it with the plastic sheet, and had heated up two large, warm pots of gravy. Now they were just drinking and talking.

"Oh, my God. Yes," Cat remembered, and then smacked Sam on the arm for it, cringing. "That was so uncalled for."

Sam grinned. "Remember the dirty sock water—"

"Don't!" Cat cut her off.

"Fish to face?"

"Sam!"

"Blow the ram's horn?"

"Shut up!" Cat whined, shaking her head and pretending to be upset. "The things I let you get away with…" Then something occurred to her, and she said, "Hey, Sam?"

"Mmmm?" Sam finished off her third beer, feeling pleasantly buzzed.

"Why did you make Melanie kiss me?" Cat asked. She had wondered about that since it happened.

"Huh?" Sam put on her pretending-to-be-confused face, which Cat still recognized even after all this time.

"I mean, you could've just had her bite my arm or something," Cat pointed out. "Why'd it have to be a kiss? Was that your idea or hers?"

Sam sighed. "It was my idea. She didn't want to, but I wanted to live vicariously through her," she tried to explain, "So I bribed her into it so she could tell me what it was like."

Cat furrowed her eyebrows. "You could've just… y'know… asked to kiss me. I wanted to kiss you, too. That's what really upset me about the whole thing—Melanie was my first kiss with a woman. I wanted that to be you."

"Oh." Sam had never really thought about it that way. "Well, I'm not sorry about the twinfection thing, because you deserved that. But I am sorry about the kiss." She bit her lip. "You're right; I should've just had the balls to do it myself."

"Why didn't you?" Cat asked, "Why didn't you just tell me you had feelings for me that way?"

Sam hesitated. "It's… complicated. Why didn't you tell me you had feelings for me?"

Cat's eyes flicked away. "Same reason, I guess." She paused, took a deep breath, and then forced out, "Sometime soon, we need to talk about this. About what happened between us—what happened that night. Not now, but soon. Deal?"

"Deal," Sam agreed with a small smile. "I promise not to freak out and run away this time."

"Good. For now… let's just try to have a good time," Cat told her, meeting her eyes again. She set her nearly finished drink down. "I want you to kiss me."

Sam put down her beer can, lifted herself up off the floor, and cupped the side of Cat's face. Then she moved in and closed her lips over hers. The kisses started off slowly at first, gradually growing more and more intense. They continued that way for some unknown amount of time until Cat pulled back abruptly. Both of them were flushed; breathing heavily, their pupils blown. "What? What's wrong?" Sam asked, forcing herself to hold back.

"Um, actually, would you mind giving me a few minutes to straighten up before we get started?"

Sam stared at her blankly. "You're about to get covered in gravy. You don't need to be perfectly clean."

"I know, but just… I have to pee," Cat told her. She didn't, really, but she didn't give Sam any other option as she pushed herself to her feet and headed for the door. Once she made it there, she turned around and smiled at her seductively. "Don't get started without me."

Sam was on her knees, and her left hand was already down the front of her pants. "Um… no promises," she responded sheepishly. "Just try not to take too long."

Doing just that, Cat shut the door and rushed through the house to the staircase. Then she quickly climbed the stairs until she made it to her bedroom. She opened a dresser drawer and pulled out the lingerie set that she'd bought the day before, then hurried into the bathroom to get dressed. A few minutes later, she stepped out wearing a full-body robe and literally ran into Robbie.

"Whoa!" Robbie steadied Cat before she could fall. "Sorry," he said as he stepped back and took in her appearance. "Um, why are you wearing my robe?"

Cat's jaw worked wordlessly. Finally, she stammered, "Better… coverage?"

Robbie looked at her with a suspicious smile. "You're about to go surprise Sam, aren't you? What are you wearing under that?"

Cat bit her lip. Then she opened the front of the robe to flash herself at him very briefly. "Is it too much?"

"No. You look totally hot, Cat," Robbie assured her supportively, though he himself definitely wasn't interested that way. "She's gonna love it."

"Thanks," Cat shyly replied. "Hey, don't come in the garage for the next couple of hours, okay?"

Robbie was confused. "You're doing it in the garage? Are you using one of the cars or something?"

"Um, no." Cat hesitated—she had never been good at keeping things to herself. "You can't tell her I told you, okay? But, um… Sam had this fantasy she wanted to try out."

"And it requires you to be in the garage?" Robbie wondered curiously.

"Yes. Let's just say it involves sex, gravy and her motorcycle," Cat responded.

"Gravy?"

Cat didn't answer that. "I gotta go. Wish me luck." She headed out of the room and back down the stairs, then returned to the garage where Sam was waiting.