28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

" Rosalie? " Cassidy shrieked. "Oh my god! Is Savannah here too?"

Rosalie swallowed. She struggled to drag her eyes off Kinsey, who seemed to have frozen on the stairs. She wore that damn leather jacket she looked so good in, her silky hair spilling over her shoulders, her face perfectly still and her eyes completely unreadable.

"Hey," Rosalie said, fighting to keep the nerves from showing in her voice. "Uh, no, it's just me."

Cassidy hesitated. She'd looked ready to jump down and hug her but Rosalie's response seemed to give her pause as she clearly picked up on the tension crackling in the air.

"You came all the way up to Connecticut to hear us play?" she asked, frowning slightly.

Rosalie took a breath.

"Actually," she said, "I've come to see Kinsey."

Lane looked at her, then at Kinsey, then back at her again. She saw understanding dawn in their eyes, their jaw going a little tight. Rosalie had just steeled herself against the weirdness of it when they met her eyes directly and gave one short nod, like okay sure, makes sense. A small flicker of warmth hit her chest.

Cassidy, though, seemed lost. Then her mouth fell open.

"You're her." She gaped at Rosalie. "Oh my god, it's you! You're the one who kept sleeping with her and refusing to commit." She whirled and stared open-mouthed at Kinsey. "This whole time, it's been Rosalie? "

Kinsey gave her a little rueful shrug of acknowledgement. Cassidy looked like she was about to come out of her own skin with agitation.

"That's… a pretty fair summary," Rosalie said, trying not to wince. "I've not been great," she acknowledged. "And I'm kind of hoping that I'll get to talk to Kinsey in private, to go through all the ways I fucked up. But I'm here," her eyes met Kinsey's again, her heart in her throat, "to tell her how sorry I am. And that if it's not too late I want nothing more than the chance to just really try," her voice cracked, "because every single time I see her, I just fall and fall and fall a little deeper."

Kinsey physically jolted at that. Her lips parted. She didn't move though, or say a single word and Rosalie's heart began to fracture.

"I would love to talk further," she tried again softly, "if you'll hear me out."

There was a long beat of silence.

"I've heard all I need to hear," Kinsey said, shortly.

Rosalie swallowed against the lump in her throat. She felt cold.

Then Kinsey finally moved and all of a sudden she was right there, desperately beautiful, close enough to touch. Then she was kissing her, fingers in her hair and Rosalie was holding her in by her hips, tasting her warm mouth on a cold night, the firm press of her body anchoring her like home.

She found herself smiling against her lips, overwhelmed with the sensation of Kinsey, actually there, her arms around her - incredibly - giving her another chance. The terrible ache of the last few years of her life began to recede like a wave, the low thrum of happiness creeping up inside her in its place. When Kinsey slowly pulled back, Rosalie looked up and started laughing. Kinsey followed her gaze to see Cassidy and Lane had each covered the other's eyes with a firm hand.

"Oh please," Kinsey said in amused exasperation, "you're not that traumatized."

They both dropped their hands.

"Traumatized?" Cassidy widened her eyes. "No. That was just way too fucking hot. There was no way I was letting Lane watch that, considering they've had a crush on Rosalie for literally their whole damn life."

"Oh my god ." Lane gave her an aggrieved look, their face going pink in the streetlight. "I thought we were just being polite and giving the two of them some privacy!"

Rosalie laughed and Kinsey slipped an arm around her waist, a soft, casual claim that made her heart race in a good way. She found she did not want to be let go of.

"No wonder you wouldn't tell me about her," Cassidy looked at Kinsey, her expression gently furious.

"That's my fault," Rosalie admitted, tucking her hair back behind her ear. "I've been kind of weird about the age gap."

"Ugh," said Cassidy, "you're like ten minutes older, calm down. That's such a non-excuse for putting her through all of that."

"Cass," Kinsey stopped her. Her fingers curled around Rosalie's hip almost protectively, "I love that you're pissed for me, but maybe let me do the reckoning?"

"Oh please," Cassidy scoffed. "It's so obvious you're just going to go have a ton of sex and forget all about the reckoning part."

"If I'm lucky," Rosalie agreed and Kinsey rolled her eyes. Cassidy gave a short surprised laugh but pulled out her phone and ordered them all a ride.

Rosalie found herself in the back seat, sandwiched between Lane and Kinsey, something she would have always thought would be desperately awkward, except that Lane appeared entirely relaxed and Kinsey was holding her hand.

"Oh my god, all that time in Vermont!" Cassidy suddenly squeaked from the front seat.

"Mm-hm," Kinsey acknowledged, with a small smile.

"It was before that though," Lane added their two cents. "Kinsey was all in knots over someone, months before we went to Vermont." They paused. "Shit, I hope that was Rosalie or I just made things weird."

Rosalie huffed out a laugh. Kinsey shrugged.

"Just some other girl," she lied, her dark eyes sparkling and her fingers warm against Rosalie's.

They went their separate ways in the little hotel lobby, pausing for one awkward minute to say goodnight.

"Guess we'll see you in the morning, Rosalie," Cassidy said pointedly, somewhere between teasing and aggravated. Lane only shrugged at Kinsey, gesturing their head towards Rosalie and offering Kinsey a sneaky congratulatory high-five, which she smirked at and accepted. Cassidy squeaked in fake outrage and Rosalie went red but also warm. This was weird . But it was also okay.

When they got back to Kinsey's hotel room, Kinsey closed the door and bit her lip. Rosalie's heart began pounding in anticipation. Any second now someone would be pushed up against the door, their clothes shed to the floor.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" Kinsey asked.

Rosalie wasn't sure she'd heard correctly but Kinsey proceeded to literally make her peppermint tea. She led her straight past the big soft white bed and the invitingly cushy sofa and all the way to the small circular dining table in the corner by the window. There they sat, at a slight angle to each other and sipped from their tea cups.

"Is this my reckoning?" Rosalie asked her. "Death by lesbian processing?"

Kinsey smiled. She looked devastatingly lovely in the low light of the room, her skin glowing and her lips bitten pink.

"You wanted to talk further," Kinsey said, hands curling around the steaming cup, "and I want to hear you."

Rosalie took a second and fought down her usual panic. If Kinsey had offered to poke her in the eye with a rusty fork instead of having her talk about her feelings she would have gratefully accepted that option. She breathed in, looked at the woman across from her, and thought about what kind of person Kinsey deserved to be with. She thought about what kind of relationship she too had always, secretly, deep down wanted. And then, she made herself talk.

She told Kinsey about therapy. How she'd resisted it forever and how uncomfortable it was. She told her about her therapist, Jean, older, unflappable, empathetic but unfazed, like Rosalie wasn't fucked up beyond repair, but just a regular person who'd developed perfectly understandable coping mechanisms that no longer served her. She told her some of the basic things Jean had observed.

"Turns out," she said, "that it's not normal to have parents who wouldn't even notice that you hid a literal entire teenage human in your bedroom for four months," she said wryly. "That actually, you can be fed and housed and still kind of neglected. And that being a child who has to manage your parents' emotional responses for them isn't ideal either."

She told her about the impact of Rachel's loss, preceded by Travis's and followed by Savannah's. Of being cut off adrift and alone, just as she was discovering who she was and how to be in the world. She explained all the things her therapist told her, about avoidant attachment, of fearing abandonment and engulfment all at once - concepts Rosalie understood in a professional capacity but had never allowed herself the space to apply to her own life. And then she talked about how she was changing it.

"I'm not ever going to be perfect at this stuff," Rosalie said as her story trailed off. "But I can at least see it now, the things that trigger me, the ways to work through it. It's going to be a lot of practice," she said, her heart rate speeding up again, "and I'm not always going to get it right, but I wouldn't be here, I swear, Kinsey, if I didn't think I could do it."

Kinsey sat for a while, unmoving, her fingers fiddling with the delicate handle of her teacup. Her gaze never left Rosalie's face and Rosalie tried hard to meet it. A trace of anxiety made her fight off a shiver. Would this be enough, for Kinsey? To know that Rosalie wanted to try?

"Listen," Kinsey said. "You've just said like… a whole lot of stuff that I really care about understanding. But can we just focus on the most important point for a second? You lost your virginity with Savannah Grace? "

Rosalie burst out laughing.

"That's your take-home message?"

"I mean, yeah," Kinsey breathed. "You and Savannah had sex . I'm going to need to take a whole big minute about that." Her face looked dreamy.

"Are you done?" Rosalie asked, her eyebrows raised, after giving her said minute.

Kinsey slowly shook her head in wonder. "I might never be. That's a whole one degree of separation I'm going to reflect on forever."

"We were literally seventeen," Rosalie said. "Before you get carried away."

"Sure," said Kinsey, "and now you're both grown adult women who are spectacularly hot and I may never be the same again."

"Well," said Rosalie drily, "I'm glad to hear you're so desperately concerned about the potential impact of my lifelong attachment trauma on our relationship."

Kinsey laughed.

"Rosalie," she said seriously. "I appreciate you telling me everything. I know how uncomfortable that must feel for you. But you coming here in the first place, saying words like our relationship and kissing me in front of my friends…that's pretty much everything I ever daydreamed about." Under the table, her ankles hooked around Rosalie's, making her feel desperately warm. "What I'm hoping," she continued slowly, "is that I can keep getting to know you and understand you more. That's all I ever wanted. Not to trap you. Not to set you up to fall. Not to push you somewhere you don't want to be. I just want to know you."

Rosalie blinked back unexpected tears. She fought back the voice in her head yelling at her to run, telling her she didn't want to be truly known, that if Kinsey really did truly know her she might not want her. Rosalie took a second to thank the voice - it was just young Rosalie trying to keep her safe after all - and reminded her that times had changed now. Maybe, it was finally time for a different approach.

"Letting you in is scary," she admitted. "But I want it more than anything."

They gazed at each other in the soft light.

"God," said Kinsey, "it's really lucky I'm so perfect."

Rosalie snorted.

"I actually suspect you're a little avoidant yourself," she said. "It's probably partly why we're so attracted to each other."

"Is that a bad thing?" Kinsey frowned. "I mean, I know I've definitely fucked up here too, by the way," she added, tucking her hair back as she looked across at her. "I made things about a thousand times worse than they needed to be."

"We've probably both got shit to work on," Rosalie agreed. "But I also think it might be part of why we could be so great together. We'll definitely respect each other's independence and space, which is something a lot of couples struggle with."

" Couples." Kinsey's eyes went wide. " Relationship. Are you going to pass out?"

"Are you?" Rosalie raised her eyebrows.

Kinsey bit her lip. "Honestly? I'm incredibly turned on right now."

Rosalie's mouth went dry. "Oh?"

"Mmhmm," Kinsey watched her. Rosalie tried not to fidget.

"Do you think I've been adequately reckoned with?" she asked.

Kinsey considered her.

"Not remotely," she said. "But I'm going to need you to come to bed with me for that."

Rosalie wet her lip with her tongue out of sheer nervous hunger. Kinsey kicked back her chair so fast Rosalie had barely made it to her feet before Kinsey pressed her up against the cold window frame to kiss her. A whimper escaped her at how good it felt, Kinsey's mouth on hers, her firm body against her own, the way Rosalie's back just couldn't seem to not arch in response to her touch.

They made out hungrily, Kinsey's fingers encircling her wrist as she led Rosalie back across the room. Rosalie pushed herself back to recline against the pillows, biting her lip, so ready for more. Kinsey took a moment, just gazing at her, tension crackling in the air between them.

"God," she murmured, "my life would have been so much easier these last few months if you weren't so fucking beautiful."

Then she was there, pressed right up against her and Rosalie let herself get lost in the scent of her hair, the warmth of her skin, the heat of her kiss, the desperate intimacy of her smile against her neck. Rosalie's shirt disappeared, then her jeans, Kinsey's mouth hot against the lace of her bra, until finally they were both naked. Rosalie reveled in the sensation: all that silky bare skin on skin, Kinsey's arms around her, firm thigh between her thighs, her hands on Kinsey's ass, sliding down over the shape of her, both of their hips moving, firm fingers making her gasp, slippery wet heat as she pressed back, both of them crying out as they reclaimed each other.

" Kinsey, " she whispered, feeling almost frantic. "God, baby, I want to feel you come so bad."

Kinsey shuddered, hard.

"I'm so close," she gasped as they moved against each other. " Look at me," she ordered and Rosalie met her eyes, her own gaze hazy with desperate pleasure, right on the edge. Kinsey's fingers twisted just slightly and she started to lose it. Sparks fired along every nerve ending, waves building. Rosalie forced herself not to close her eyes, even as she began to convulse with heat. Kinsey gasped again, raggedly as they watched each other, her free hand clutching Rosalie's face, her expression almost shocked with the intensity, both of them coming together, legs wrapped around each other, gasping into each other's mouths.

Rosalie pulled her in tightly, panting, her body still shuddering like she couldn't quite stop coming.

"I've never done that before," she gasped in wonder. Kinsey held her close.

"Too intimate?" she asked, her face buried in her neck.

"Yeah." Rosalie couldn't seem to let go of her; she felt like she might never want to.

"Well," Kinsey admitted, "me either. But I think mostly because I've never felt so in tune with someone I find this fucking hot."

Rosalie smiled against her shoulder. She liked the idea they'd somehow still had a first left to share with each other.

"You like it when I call you baby," she observed, as her breathing steadied.

"Mm," Kinsey murmured against her skin. "It's so… tender. Makes me feel like I'm yours."

"That's exactly why I like saying it." Rosalie pulled Kinsey's face up for a kiss. She loved the soft, vulnerable look in her eyes, the almost embarrassed pleasure on her face. "God," she whispered, "you're so pretty after you've come."

Kinsey pulled her down on top of her, half to hide her face, half starting to work them up all over again, her hands already exploring, her kiss heated. Then she paused and pulled back, suddenly going still.

"I slept with someone else," she said. "I thought I wasn't going to see you again."

Rosalie swallowed. She fought down the voice that said this was over before it started, that maybe she was never going to get what she wanted, that maybe in fact, she was crazy to be here at all, with a twenty-six year old musician on tour.

"Was it Cassidy?" she asked, pulling aside to lie next to her, but not letting go.

"No. We've never had sex. I thought about that too, though." Kinsey wound the sheets tight between her fingers. "But our friendship is more important than that."

"Okay," Rosalie said, taking a deep breath despite the tightness lingering in her chest. "Well, we weren't together," she pointed out. "You were free to do what you wanted."

"It was just a one off," Kinsey said, "a random girl in Florida. And," she bit her lip, "it made me so fucking sad. I just wanted so badly for it to be you."

Her eyes were big. Suddenly Rosalie felt nothing but a rush of tenderness. Kinsey wasn't putting up a barrier; she was letting her in. She reached across the bed, stroking back her hair and cupping her face.

"Baby," she murmured deliberately, the first time she'd said it not in the heat of the moment. She watched it land, Kinsey's lips parting. "It's okay. As long as you're here with me now and you can tell me that you want to be mine."

"Oh," whispered Kinsey, her voice adamant, "I'm yours."

"I'm going to make sure of it," Rosalie said softly, then kissed her way down her body. Kinsey gasped, her back arching, as Rosalie's mouth claimed her and claimed her and claimed her some more.