Chapter Twenty-One
Kit
The silence on the car ride back is the deafening kind.
Julia's eyes are lasers on the road away from Bachelor Town. Her teeth grit into a clench that looks like it could crack her jaw right at the joint. She smoothed her ponytail back into pristine order, patted herself dry with the towel the Saloon manager offered us both after the guys embarked on the bus, but it doesn't erase what almost happened.
I almost kissed her. I tugged and she leaned in. It was happening, and I know if we hadn't been interrupted, it would have. For real, not just in my head.
She smacks the knob on her radio and static shoots out of the speakers before she turns the station. After a few angry swipes past rock and country, over current pop beats, through commercial breaks, she lets it stop on an early-2010s pop hits station playing the beginning of Miley's "Wrecking Ball."
Her lips twitch. Miley purrs the iconic opening lyrics.
Julia knows exactly what she's doing, stopping on this song. I remember us in the hammock hanging on the trunks of two tall eucalyptus trees beside my parents' pool house. Our legs curled together as we shared a pair of headphones, Bangerz playing from top to bottom.
"You wre-e-eck me," she belted, and I knew already she meant it like a compliment. We were devastating each other's ideals of the perfect life, making each other the one and only, heart-eyes emoji forever, and in the bubble of that summer haze, it was easy to imagine nothing could ever tear us apart.
We weren't supposed to wreck each other. We didn't believe the cards when they said that Twin Flames tear each other apart as they make each other whole. Right then, how could that ever be so?
I blink back the stinging in my eyes.
I was the wrecking ball against the future I wanted, but was too afraid to have. I was crashing into the friendship that should have meant more to me than anything else, destroying it in a single blow.
The last bar of the song plays as we pull up to the entrance of Celestial Sands. She slams the car into park, not looking at me before she yanks the door open. I see the glint of moisture on her cheek, and I know it's not a remnant of our water hose battle. I know I can't just walk away this time. I can't let her close her eyes and swing. We have to talk about this. We have to give this another chance.
No matter how terrifying that is to me.
I chase her down through the lobby, out into the courtyard. She's fast even with her shorter legs, but when I catch her, right at the break in the path that leads away from the building to the Homebase bungalow, my fingers close around her wrist to hold her in place.
"Talk to me," I say, when she tries to tug free of my grip. She spins around to face me, pulling me forward when I don't let her go. I'm afraid she'll bolt if I do.
"There's nothing to talk about," she says, venomous.
"There's definitely stuff to talk about," I retort. "We almost kissed back there."
" You almost kissed me ." She pauses. "Again."
I chew on my lip, stumped for a second with how I should rebuff her insinuation that this almost-kiss was the same bait and switch as the last time. I don't want that to be the case.
I didn't want that then, either.
"You're straight," she says, when my floundering for words doesn't end. "Last I checked, that hasn't changed."
"There's a difference between being straight and being out ." I drop her wrist as my temper flares. "I'm not straight—clearly." I feel my cheeks warm.
"No shit," she says, her voice still hard, but her gaze has softened. "But I'm not interested in being with a woman who can't even hold my hand in public." Her jaw does that scary hard clench thing again. "Been there, done that, never want to do it again."
She whirls around, but we can't run away this time. Neither of us. I follow, my brain spinning out with all the things I want to say. All these wild feelings, all these words I never got to speak, everything she's assuming about me that isn't true, plus all the things she's getting right.
She's twisting the key to Homebase in the lock when I say, "I pulled the cards again, on the way up here."
She stops. "What do you mean?"
"The Two of Cups and the Wheel of Fortune. Tell me you remember those cards." She swallows, not making eye contact as I speak. I push forward. "Madame Moira, that weird neighborhood psychic from the Haunt O' Ween in Old Pas—the dare—"
"Of course I remember," she whispers. "She said we were Twin Flames." The words, her voice, my heart, skips. "Like, what a weird thing to say to two preteen girls."
The air between us is heavy, thick with heat that can't be attributed to the desert.
"She said we'd always find our way back to each other, and we did," I say.
Her eyes trip up to mine, shiny and bright with unshed tears. "Kit, you broke my heart."
"I know." Her eyes search my face, hopeful and hurt. "I'm so sorry, Julia. I should have tried to explain what I was feeling. I should have sat down with you, face-to-face. I should've done literally anything more than I did."
"Yeah, no shit," she replies. "Do you know how long it took me to try again with a girl?"
"Not as long as me," I say. She leans against the doorframe, understanding etching its way through her features.
"I didn't want to have to find my way back to you. I wanted you to stay with me." Tears prick from the corners of her eyes, trailing down her cheek. I want to kiss them away. To taste the salt on her skin, the bitterness, and turn it sweet.
"I wanted that, too."
"But you bailed. You didn't want your parents to know. You didn't want to talk about what happened, you acted weird and dismissive, so how was I supposed to feel?" Her voice cracks with emotion.
"I was fucking terrified, okay? I didn't think there was a way to be rom-com dream girl if I ended up with another girl . All I knew of girls falling in love with girls was like the OG L Word and some male-gazey porn." She can't hold in a laugh, but does try to cover it up with a grunt. "I didn't know what I was supposed to be if I wasn't some guy's whole world, like my mom was my dad's. The perfect manic pixie dream girl with the glorious happy ending."
"You could have told me—we could have talked about it. At the very fucking least I could have helped you find better comp titles." She almost smiles, but she still looks sad. "I was your best friend."
It feels like a punch to my gut to hear her say that, to know how right she is. I was the idiot, the tool in the rom-com, who ran away from their true love in the third act.
I just hope it's not too late for me to win her back.
"I was afraid it wouldn't matter," I say, my own voice wobbly, tears threatening. "If you had to wait, for who knows how long, I was afraid I'd lose you anyway and it would hurt a lot more the longer it took, the further in love we fell." The word love causes a little explosion of emotion in her features.
"So you ghosted me instead?" Her nostrils flare.
"I wanted you, us, but I also wanted the Ideal Rom-Com Life Path I'd always imagined. I didn't think I could have both. So I picked the one I had a framework for." My voice shakes. Saying it out loud is a weight off my heart, but somehow it hurts more, not less.
"You know that's outdated as hell, right?" She almost smirks.
I exhale a laugh but it's hollow. "Is it? Look around you, heteronormative ideals are alive and thriving."
"Even in this economy." The tremor of a smile. My walls, and hers, crumbling. I feel tears on my cheeks, hot and fresh, and I don't even bother wiping them away. "You really picked poorly." She grins through watery eyes.
"I'd like to try again," I say, locking eyes with her. I take a tentative step closer and she doesn't retreat. "Julia."
"Kit." She nearly growls my name. I want her to scream it.
"Do I need to say it?"
I triple-dog dare you to kiss me on the mouth.
I'm close enough now that I can taste her breath on the air. I can smell the sunlight on her skin. I can touch her waist with the tips of my fingers. I can, and I want to, and as terrifying as it still is to feel those feelings and not push them away, I also know that feelings won't kill me.
But not touching her might.
She lets out a sharp exhale when I do. The tip of her tongue slips out to wet her lips. I look deep into her eyes as I run my hand over her curves, cupping the nape of her neck.
I tip her chin up with my other hand.
"Do I ?" she breathes.
I fit my lips over hers, soft, so slow at first. Like the first few licks of an ice cream cone.
I don't want to rush—afraid of freezing up. I want to make it count.
Every last taste.
I brace for how this feeling overloads my senses.
Firm, plump, and small—her mouth fits like a puzzle piece with mine. She reaches up, gripping the belt loops on my jean shorts and tugging me into her. Our hips bump before her hand trails around my back and her fingers graze skin where my crop top meets my shorts. All my measured moves, the careful contemplation of her lips and mine, now feel way too slow.
Not enough. Never enough.
I press my tongue to her lips, edging them open. The flesh tangles, breath slides back and forth, and all those years of confusion melt away with the heat of our kiss. I press her back against the doorframe, smoothing my hands over the mounds of her shoulders, the dip in her waist, to mold them around the curve of her ass.
She twists us inside, and her hands rove up my back, fingering the wild waves of my hair, before she breaks the kiss, peppering more down the line of my neck. It feels so good—different from before. Better. I don't care who might walk by the window and see us. I don't have to know what this means, where it's going. I lose myself in the moment and I've never felt more certain that this is what I want.
Her.
Tangled in her body, wrapped up in her arms.
My fingers are feverish to touch her skin, wanting to get under her fitted shirt, but I don't want to unbutton it without her permission.
And I'm still too nervous to ask.
I settle for roaming over her waist, around to her back, gripping, feeling, desperately yearning. She presses my thighs open with hers so I can straddle her, and I let out an exhale of relief. Warmth aches between my legs, ready to ignite, but I want to slow down, to savor.
I break the kiss and make eye contact. Hers are darkly dilated with desire—it's thrilling to see that reflected and know it's because of me.
She wants me just like I want her.
"You're still a really good kisser," I say, breathless.
"Takes one to know one." She presses her smile to mine, light and playful.
I'm ready to go in for another round when her ass begins buzzing. She reaches back to yank her phone out of her pocket.
"It's Zoe," she says. "Shit. I have to take this." We separate, and it's the first time it dawns on me that we were making out in her bungalow, of which the main living area doubles as the Homebase for wedding operations. Anyone on her staff with a key could have walked in on us.
The thought is more of a thrill than I expect.
"Hey, Zoe—just made it back to the venue—" She's cut off by whatever Zoe is saying. From this proximity it sounds alarmed . Julia's listening face is pinched and puckered, her brows cinched into squiggles. "Oh Jesus, I'm coming."
She hangs up, her eyes trailing apologetically to me.
"Wedding emergency?" I ask.
"Potential vegan catastrophe. We're supposed to have vegan empanadas for the rehearsal dinner cocktail hour"—she smiles—"during which I'm told you will be offering readings."
" Oui, oui ," I quip.
"And all of them are beef and potato."
"Sounds perfect."
"Sounds like my head on a platter."
"I don't see how that would remedy the lack of a vegan dish."
Her laugh is a burst of joy that brightens her features. She grabs me by the waistband and tugs me into her. Her eyes fill with worry. "You're not gonna bolt, are you?"
I let my forehead rest against hers.
"You can't get rid of me that easily," I say, smirking. "Not this time."
She kisses me once more before we break apart. "I'll come find you when this is sorted."
"Can't wait," I reply.
And I really, really can't.