Chapter Text
There are many truths to Nico Minoru, and Karolina likes to think she knows them all.
She knows Nico looked tough and rough around the edges but was actually one of the most caring people Karolina knew. She knows Nico's favourite drink is an awful mix of six espresso shots- no cream, no sugar- and that she drinks it in three sips always. She knows Nico had wanted to become a fashion designer since they were kids. She knows Nico is her favourite person, and that she's Nico's.
Karolina likes to think she knows herself pretty well, too.
For example, Karolina knows of her complete and utter dislike of waking up in the early morning.
She knows she has the whole sunny thing going on for her and that she screams a 'morning run before kombucha' type of vibe, but a morning person she was not. She liked waking up slowly and preferably late. And usually, her friends respected that.
Usually.
Today was not one of those days, she supposes, because Nico had jumped on her bed at the crack of dawn, shaking her awake without any reserve or thought towards Karolina strict policy about rude awakenings.
“Karolina, wake up!”
“Nope,” she says, turning on her front and away from her, burying her face into her pillow and adding to her list of regrets over ever agreeing to let Nico live with her in the first place.
(Not that she has one. And even if she did it's not ever growing like the one she had with her last college roommate, but still. If the jumping on beds while Karolina is asleep continue she may decide to actually compile one. With bullet points and everything.)
Nico turns her around on her back again, not at all deterred by Karolina grumpy, closed-eye glare when she does so. “Come on, it's important.”
“Nope,” she says again and lets the 'p' pop, shoving her hands away without opening her eyes still.
“I brought coffee and croissants.”
She opens one eye, looking at Nico or more specifically at the promised bag in her hand. She groans as dramatically as she can muster and gets up.
“Okay, but this will wait until after my shower,” she says around a yawn, walking into her bathroom.
“Karolina, it's important.”
“Later!” she calls as she slams the door behind her.
Twenty-five minutes later- she was quick about it, not wanting to torture Nico more than necessary- she enters their kitchen, towel still mussing her half dry- but mostly half wet- hair. She takes the coffee cup from the counter, almost moaning when the hot liquid hits her tongue, and waits for Nico to speak. Only she's just staring at her, pastry halfway to her open mouth, a funny look in her eyes. She snaps her fingers in front of her face twice.
“Nico?”
“Uh?”
“You woke me up at, like, dawn for this. It better be good.”
“Oh yeah, yeah,” Nico says, shaking into herself, “And it was only like forty past eight, get over it.”
Karolina huffs, sitting down in front of her. “So?”
“Want to piss off my parents?”
“Elaborate,” she says as she takes a sip of her coffee.
“I went to breakfast with my mother, because for some reason I still do that when we both know it always ends in either me or her storming off. And she kept making these jabs about my degree and at my love life- acting as if I should be married already or something.”
“Yikes.”
“I know right? She's supposed to support me studying!” Nico says, flaying her hand around so sharply pieces of her pastry fell in a 2-inch radius around her.
“Well, you told her so, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, and she got all 'I just worry about you Nico, Amy is pursuing a smart career choice and has been in a committed relationship for a long time, I don’t want to see you alone when I die'.”
“Like, verbatim?”
“That was the gist of it.”
Karolina sighs. Tina Minoru wasn’t an easy person to deal with and she honestly couldn’t imagine having her as a mother. Then she thinks of her own mother and really they should start a club- 'controlling parents disappointed in your life choices' they could rope in Chase. “So? What are you going to do?”
“You know you've always wanted to give my mom a coronary,” she pitches with a conspiring tone, hand cupping her mouth and a spark in her eyes Karolina likes a bit too much.
“I don’t know about that. Your mom kind of adores me.”
“I know!” Nico throws her hands in the air with such flair Karolina is half expecting her to break out in a song, “It'd be weird, if you weren’t so damn likeable. Whatever, give your mom a coronary, then.”
Karolina considers it with a hum, thinking back to her last conversation with her mom about her choice in college degrees. She remembers a particular choice of words her mother had used to describe her career path that involved both 'starving artist' and 'living under a bridge'. “That I can get behind.”
“Good. Date me.”
She chokes on her coffee, barely avoiding a full on spit take by sheer strength of will alone. “What?” she chokes out when she feels like her lungs have gone back to reside in her ribcage instead of wandering around her oesophagus.
Nico ignores Karolina's struggle for air with nonchalance and takes her hand in hers kneeling on the kitchen's crumb covered tiled floor. “Karolina Dean, will you date me to piss off our families?”
Her mouth falls open.
“I-- I don’t think that's how you can solve the whole unmarried situation, Nico,” she finally manages to utter, because the sight of Nico on her knees before her is somehow short-circuiting all of her synapses at once.
Nico looks at her funny like Karolina was the one being absurd and kneeling in front of her best friend. “I'm not proposing! I'd have at least bought, like, a ring pop for that.”
“Okay, so what are you doing?”
“You know how I broke up with Victor?” Nico says as if she hadn’t just laid a massive bomb on Karolina.
“Hard to forget. You moved in with me on the same day.”
“I may have been rash when I said yes to moving in with him. But whatever. The point is my mom has been trying for months to get me to make up with him. I think the whole dying alone act was for that too, now that I think about it. It's all because of his father.”
“His father?”
“Yeah, he owns this stupid tech company slash empire slash capitalistic hell,” she makes a broad gesture with her hand.
“Okay, and?”
“And I don’t know. It's like she has this dream of uniting the two companies through our marriage or something, and Victor isn’t even on speaking terms with his father so I don’t know how she thought that one up. And I don’t know where Victor stands exactly, but I don’t want to get back with him. And she's going to be even worse when we go down for spring break and--”
“And how does dating me make it better?”
“She stops intruding in my love life and we live happily ever after?”
Karolina shakes her head, wondering for a second if this is all just a very weird dream. “Can you stand up? I can't take you seriously from down there.”
“Yeah, my knees hurt.”
When Nico is on her feet again, Karolina breaks it to her as kindly as she can. “I'm going to be honest, Nico. This seems like a bad idea. Like a very, very bad idea.”
“Why? We're best friends, it's not that unbelievable we fell in love.”
“Yeah, but--”
“And it doesn’t have to be for long, just until after break, and then you're free to keep breaking every girl's heart with your earnest, girl next door act.”
She doesn’t do that. “I don’t do that.”
Nico gives her a lopsided smile, the kind reserved only for Karolina. “You kinda do.”
“I don’t! And I don’t know, Nico. This sounds like a bad rom-com with overused tropes.”
“The kind no one admits watching?”
“Yes.”
“C' mon what do we have to lose?”
Everything, some part of her wants to scream, but mostly my peace of mind. She shrugs, instead.
Now, it has to be said that Karolina knows objectively that this is a mistake- even she is not that oblivious or optimistic about a thing like fake dating your best friend to get back at her mom- but it has also to be said how much Karolina can't for the life of her say no to Nico, or like anyone, ever.
It has become a bit of a problem, really.
Maybe that is worse though, to know something terrible is going to happen because of your actions and doing nothing to stop it. The only thing you can do is watch as the world crashes and burns.
(She's so going to regret this.)
“Sure, I could do much worse than Nico Minoru as my fake-girlfriend.”
“Thank god, because I'd already told my mom we were dating.”
“You did what?”
Nico distracts her by launching herself into her arms, whispering a myriad of 'thank you' in her ear while doing so.
It's later when a thought comes to her unbound.
They're both lying on the couch watching some thriller thing Karolina would never watch by herself- or at all, ever, if she could help it- Nico laying almost on top of Karolina. “Why not say Alex, though? Wouldn’t it be more believable if you got back together with him?”
“I-- hadn’t really thought about him. It was a heat of the moment thing.”
“Really?”
Nico doesn’t answer her, she just shrugs her shoulders and stays quiet, turning her body fully towards the screen, her head laying to rest even more against Karolina's chest.
(Will they won't they, they had never played that game well.)
**
Maybe once upon a time, Karolina had let herself think about it.
Just for a moment.
When Nico had broken up with Alex and it had seemed like the true, permanent kind of thing- it hadn’t stuck, lasted barely more than two months, but Karolina had always been a hopeless dreamer- and she had realized she liked girls, only girls, after Shelby Jenkins had kissed her under the bleachers before running off to cheerleading practice- and that too hadn’t stuck, but she wasn’t much heartbroken about it- and maybe the thought of kissing Nico under the bleachers had popped up in her brain once or twice.
Maybe.
But she got over it. Totally over it.
But sometimes she gets lost in the possibility of what-ifs, even if just for a moment.
Because sometimes she catches Nico staring at her for a bit too long, or sees her slip Karolina's favourite candy in the shopping cart when she thinks she's not looking, or finds her curled on Karolina's bed on nights where she's working late. Sometimes Nico asks her to be her fake-girlfriend without even contemplating asking her ex and also best friend.
(She's obviously reading too much into that.)
But Nico's friendship means too much to her to fuck up over some weird remnant of misguided feelings. So she locks that line of thought out of sight deep into her brain and into a box labelled DO NOT OPEN, EVER and keeps watching the FBI woman run after the bad guy all over the states.
After all, it's only a stupid, persistent crush. Right?
**
She doesn’t think much of their agreement until almost a full month later.
Spring break is looming in the background, but still far away enough Karolina isn’t left panicking in her bathroom every night, white-knuckled hands gripping her sink, and a crazy look in her eyes- only that's a lie, because she has been doing that- until one night Nico brings it up while she's cooking them dinner.
(Mushrooms risotto and roasted potatoes, sometimes she likes to fancy it up from ramen and Chinese take out.)
“You know what's weird? My mom keeps sending these supporting texts since I told her I was with you.”
Karolina's hand stills. She turns, disbelieving. “Really? Tina Minoru, supporting?”
“Yeah, I know! Like, listen 'I was talking with Leslie and she told me Karolina loves tulips, you should buy her a bouquet'- as if I don’t know your favourite is a sunflower-” Nico says, and Karolina smiles, pleased, because she's right, “Or this one 'your father and I were wondering if Karolina would like to stay with us when you come down to visit, let me know what she says.' She's getting way too excited about us. If I knew dating you would get me her approval, I would have asked you out a long time ago.”
Karolina turns to hide the smirk that would give away her teasing. “I see how it is, I am just a means to an end.”
“Of course.”
“Wasn't the goal of all this pissing off Tina, though?”
“It was. But if it shakes her off my back, I don’t mind either way.”
Karolina hums, understanding Nico's line of thought, and thinking the conversation over she focuses back on cooking.
“We should get our records straight,” Nico continues, though.
“I don’t think there's anything straight between the two of us,” Karolina keeps stirring chuckling at her own terrible joke while Nico groans, she ignores her and puts another spoon of broth in the pot. “But like, on what exactly?”
“Like who made the first move, where we went on our first date, first kiss, that sort of stuff,” Nico says, walking to where Karolina's standing.
“Oh. Sure. And it's obvious it was you.” Karolina asks as she lifts the spoon to Nico's lips.
“Why? More salt.”
“You clearly have a thing for me, after all,” she teases gently, bumping her hip into Nico's.
Nico huffs a laugh. “I would have never had the guts to make a move, let's be honest.”
Karolina shrugs, putting more salt in the mushrooms. “Okay, so we both made a move.”
“Like, simultaneously?”
“Not that hard to believe, if it's us. But I meant, something like we realized we had feelings for each other at the same time and then we kissed or something, I don’t know. I doubt anyone's gonna quiz us on our relationship, Nico.”
“As if Gert could stop herself from being inquisitive for one night.”
“True, but we have nothing to prove. Like, we do. But she doesn’t know that.”
Nico sighs, but acquiesces. “Okay, for how long have we been dating?”
“I'd say like a month or something. And we kept quiet because we didn’t know where it would lead.”
Nico stays quiet at her suggestion, watching her cook in silence. “So, where did we go?”
“What?”
Nico rolls her eyes with something resembling fond exasperation a thin-lipped smile on her face like she did any time Chase said something incredibly dumb or, in this case, Karolina did. “Our first fake date, K. Come on, keep track.”
Karolina shrugs her shoulders again. “I don’t know. How about that Japanese place by the art building?”
“The one we go to with everyone? No. I'd do better if it was for you.”
Karolina's heart does a weird little flutter at her words. She ignores it. “Like what?”
“Like... like stargazing and take out by the Griffith observatory kind of better.”
She smiles at the thought. Nico, Karolina and a blanket on a clear night, take out bags scattered around them and their linked hands pointing out constellations- or making up new ones. Nico's lips inching closer and--
She blushes. “I like that one.”
Nico's eyes search hers for something and then look away, shyly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Nico claps her hands together, breaking whatever kind of spell had been cast over the two of them. “Okay, so first date and first kiss done. Should we practice?”
“Practice?” she asks, her attention still mostly focused on not burning the risotto.
“Yeah, like kissing and stuff.”
Karolina stops in her tracks, pepper's shaker hovering over the pot. “Kissing?”
“Yeah? It'd be weird if we didn’t hold hands and stuff while we're around others.”
Karolina watches Nico in her peripheral edging closer and closer to her, and for the first time she truly becomes aware of how many inches there were separating them, and how, if they were to kiss, Karolina would have to bend down and Nico would have to tilt her head up and probably stand on her tiptoes, too.
(She wonders if Nico's dark lipstick would stain her lips- her soul- indelibly.)
She shakes her head, trying to clear her mind. “Yes. Of course. Yes. Kissing, I can do that.”
Nico's eyes are on the pot, but Karolina can feel the amusement radiating from her. “So?”
“You want to do it now?”
“Yeah? If it's fine with you,” she rushes to add.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” she repeats again dumbly, as Nico gets closer, pepper shaker still in her hands. Nico takes it from her and sets it on the counter and kisses her all in one big stride. It starts easy, just a press of her lips against Nico's. A peck. She can do those.
Then it gets way out of hand.
Nico, apparently, kisses with her whole body, digging her thigh into Karolina's and pushing her against the stove-top, pressing close until she's the only thing Karolina is touching, or can think of touching. Her mouth is hot on hers and it feels so good, Karolina almost lets out a low-pitched moan from the back of her throat.
The smell of something burning makes her come to.
She shouldn’t like this. She shouldn’t like this. She pushes Nico away gently until they break the kiss, leaving both of them panting breathlessly in their kitchen. She moves quickly to pull the risotto off the stove, praying her hard work wasn’t ruined.
She mostly tries to hide her quickening breathing and blown pupils from Nico.
(Karolina did have to bend down, and Nico did have to tilt her head back and stand on her toes. And Karolina almost hadn’t cared about any of the reasons why it was a terrible, horrible idea to keep kissing her until the world burned around them and left them in ashes.)
“Is it salvageable?” Nico sounds as shaken as Karolina feels, and they should call this off while there's still time. They don’t.
“Yeah,” Karolina croaks out, “I don’t think we need to worry much about selling this.”
Nico just hums in response.
**
The reality of it still doesn’t settle in her gut until Karolina's packing to go back home, pushing into one bag clothes, makeup, and her favourite sketchbook- the one with the thick pages and brown leather cover Nico had given to her last Christmas.
She had told her parents the news a week after Nico had told her mother.
It would have been terribly suspicious if she hadn’t, after all, but that phone talk had left such a bitter after-taste in her mouth, Karolina had to soothe it with almost all of their stash of fancy Swiss chocolate they keep in the cupboard over the sink.
Because her parents were excited about it- mostly her father, but Karolina knows which battles are lost without ever being fought, and her mother being happy for her had always been one of those- but also unsurprised by the news, like it was the only conceivable development of her friendship with Nico.
Her dad had even said he had known since they were kids they'd end up together. Kids. And Nico's dad had been happy too, when they had told him over a Skype session, Tina's pixelated, smiling face looming in the back of the screen.
She doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that every parental figure in her life thinks she and Nico would have ended up together for good at some point in their lives.
(She ignores the hidden part of her soul that speeds up her heartbeat at the thought.)
And, okay. Maybe, maybe, she's feeling a bit nervous about this... situation they're in. But anybody would be in her position! Karolina just has to relax, go with the flow, and not think about the kiss she's shared with Nico- or any future ones she might.
“Hey, Karrie, remember to bring your swimsuit! The guys will probably want to go to the pool,” Nico calls out from somewhere in the apartment.
Her mind flashes to when Nico had brought her swimsuit shopping to have an 'honest and accurate opinion', and how she had tripped over herself to be a respectful friend and not to stare at all the skin on display.
(Nico wearing clothes is unbelievably hot. Nico wearing a bikini is a heart-attack inducing hazard.)
She's not going to survive this.
Some half an hour later, their bags are in the trunk of her car and they're an hour away from their show time, and Nico looks skittish. She's avoiding looking straight at Karolina, and the car ride isn't filled with their usual chatter but is drowning instead in her angsty, Goth kid music. Karolina brings the volume down a notch.
“You know, you're the first person I've ever brought home,” she muses out loud trying to coerce a smile out of her.
It works. “Really? What about Xavin?”
“Is it really bringing someone home when your parents basically set you up?”
Nico laughs, but it's a queasy, small thing and Karolina's heart aches. “So I'm the first serious 'girlfriend' after Xavin...” she says, air-quoting the word girlfriend, and Karolina smiles even when that gesture makes her want to grimace. She tries not to think of why.
“More or less,” she says instead, “Why?”
“Nothing. Just...” she stops, shaking her head.
“C' mon. What?”
Nico shrugs, her eyes flying to everywhere but her face, fingers drumming against her thigh in a nervous fashion. “I don’t know. I guess... I've just always wondered.”
Karolina tilts her head in question, eyes straying away from the road for an instant.
“Who could let a girl like you get away, Karolina Dean?”
(She tries her best not to read into that, too.)
When they arrive at the Minoru's, Nico has stopped looking as pale and actually holds Karolina's hand when they knock on the door. It opens not a second later, a pulled together as always Tina Minoru standing in front of the doorway.
“Finally! You visit too little for living only an hour away, Nico. At least your sister has a good excuse for not coming this year, she's going to college at MIT, after all, and being busy studying something serious,” Tina scowl falls away when she notices their joint hands, “Karolina! So glad you could join us. Come in!”
“Thank you for inviting me, Tina.”
“Nonsense. You're always welcomed in our house, Karolina. Now more than ever.”
“Mom. Can we do this inside?”
“Of course. Come in, I've had your bedroom readied. I assumed you two would want to share a room.”
“That-- that won't be necessary!” Nico stammers, a blush creeping from her neck on her face.
“Please, Nico. Let's not fool ourselves. You two have been living together. I was young once too, you know?”
Nico keeps stammering, looking more and more helpless- it's not a common sight, Nico Minoru scrambling words, and it would bring a smile to her lips were it not caused by the assumptions of her and... Karolina wills the blush away and squeezes Nico's hand briefly before taking their suitcases inside.
“Thank you, Tina.”
“Of course. Robert will join us later for dinner, he was called to the office.”
Nico finally seems to recover, taking Karolina's hand again and leading Karolina to the stairs. “Cool, mom. We'll go to my room.”
“Dinner is at six!”
It's kind of weird to be back in Nico's old house. She hadn’t been here in ages. Never had spent much time in this house to begin with, Nico always preferring to hang out either at Karolina's house or outside. Not that Karolina blamed her much for that.
The house is still familiar, though.
She can recognize the fissure in the wall near the hanging pictures from when Chase had tripped and almost cracked his skull against it- he walked around for weeks after with the most hilarious bump on his head- or the stain on the parquet from when they had sneaked a bottle from the wine cellar and Karolina had spilled some trying to open it.
She lets the suitcases fall down in Nico's room with a soft thump.
She takes it all in, the gymnastics and martial arts trophies on the shelves, the huge windows covered by the grey leaves patterned curtains, the red walls and the millions of papers stuck on them- a mix of emo lyrics and poems and some of Karolina's early drawings done on torn out pages of school notebooks and diaries, and pictures of them she can now barely recognize- the years old mess scattered all around every surface, the empty candlesticks and the big canopy bed.
(Every part of Nico laid bare in front of her.)
Nico throws herself on said bed, groaning. “God, I'm so sorry.”
“Why? She was being supportive, or like, trying to be,” she says, but Karolina knows that's not the problem.
Nico sighs. “Yeah, sure. When she wasn’t busy comparing me to Amy.”
And there it is.
She knows Nico doesn’t like being measured up to her sister- and every time someone does it, all she wants to do is hold Nico in her arms and shelter her from her mother's words, from anyone who can't see how special her best friend is on her own.
“I'm sorry,” she whispers and offers the only comfort she can give her, “Wanna nap and cuddle until six?”
Nico nods and Karolina joins her on the bed, opening her arms and waiting for Nico to crawl in. “Okay, come on.”
They're woken up by a knock on the door and the promise of Italian take out.
Dinner is a fairly strange ordeal.
Nico's parents are apparently even more gassed about their relationship that they have let on by texting Nico constantly requesting for updates. They keep expressing their support in the most peculiar ways, and Karolina is torn between feeling amused and creeped out by their enthusiasm.
(She could picture it from Robert, but a smiling and joking Tina is something she could have never imagined in her wildest dreams)
“I have to show you baby pictures!”
“We grew up together, mom. Is that really necessary? Karolina doesn’t need to see me in overalls and pigtails.”
“Nope, I do,” she says at the same time Robert says, “Yes, she does.”
“Karolina!” Nico sounds so betrayed Karolina almost backtracks, but the perspective of cute baby pictures is too palatable to pass on.
“What? You were a cute kid!”
Nico crosses her arms over her chest. “Just wait until we go see your parents. You won't think it funny, then.”
She smirks. “Please, I peaked as a child. I want you to see them.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
“I'm really happy you girls have found each other,” Robert interrupts, standing up and leaving the room, probably going in search of the promised pictures.
“Thanks, dad.”
Tina takes a sip of her red wine, hiding a smile behind it. “We were worried you'd never figure it out. I'm glad you did, I would like to have grandchildren before the time I reach sixty.”
Karolina chokes on her water. She changes topics quickly, incredibly uncomfortable about where the conversation was heading. “How's work?”
“Robert and I have taken these two weeks off, actually. To spend more time with you.”
“Really?”
“Of course, Nico. We do miss you, you know?”
Nico doesn’t say anything in response, but her hand grasps Karolina's under the table tightly and that tells her anything she needs to know. She feels the weird, sudden urge to bring Nico's hand to her lips. She could do it, in theory, after all, they're trying to sell this relationship to Nico's parents. It wouldn’t be weird to do so, not now.
So she does it.
Nico looks surprised, but she's quickly distracted by Robert coming back with a giant red leather covered photo book.
(She totally had to see Nico in overalls and pigtails.)
**
The next day, Karolina wakes up alone in their bed.
She's not surprised. When they sleep together she usually does, Nico not liking staying in bed for more than necessary but zooming off as soon as she's awake. Karolina doesn’t know whether to consider it a blessing or not.
She stirs and goes downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast. Only when she steps around the stairs she hears what sounds like Nico's voice distorted by her angry whispering. She's sitting at the table, face pulled with annoyance and stabbing the eggs in her plate.
Karolina stops and waits for the other person to say something back, but Nico spots her in the doorway and she quiets down.
“She's here now, happy?” Nico says to the other person still out of Karolina's sight.
Then a body barrels into hers. She stumbles back but thankfully stays upright.
“Don't kill her, Molly. Not after how long it took her to grace us with her presence,” a voice snarks in the background, and when Molly finally lets go, she sees Gert standing in the kitchen. A very different looking Gert from the coffee date Gert of two weeks ago.
“Gert! You dyed your hair brown!”
Molly jumps in excited before Gert can reply. “It's beautiful, right? Chase was so surprised! You should have seen him, he looked like a catfish.”
“I can see why,” Karolina says, going inside the kitchen and giving Gert a hug, “You look beautiful.”
Gert playfully swats her away. “I told you already Dean, you're hot and all, but it's never gonna happen. I have a boyfriend.”
She puts a hand on her heart, faking a wounded pride. “You said you were going to leave him!”
“I'm sorry, darling. I love him too much.”
“Can you two stop being ridiculous for ten minutes?” Nico grumbles, and Karolina kisses her cheek in apology before taking a slice of toast from her plate.
She bites the toast, ignoring Nico's affronted look. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy, but I thought you were going to New York this year.”
“We were, but then Chase had to do a thing for his thesis and then we heard the news of the century and decided to postpone.”
Karolina's eyes fly to Nico, confused. “She means me and you getting together,” Nico answers her with an eye roll, before snatching her toast back. She pouts. Nico draws out a long sigh and gives it back to her. She smiles. She finds Gert staring at the exchange with a shit-eating grin, and she rolls her eyes again.
“Don't give me that, Dean. I've been waiting for you two to pull your heads out of your asses long enough for me to be allowed to treat it as a big deal.”
“Sure you have. Well, I’m glad you’re here, despite the early hour.”
Gert rolls her eyes. “Get over yourself, it's eleven o'clock.”
“And they're here to kidnap us.”
“Gently coerce you, actually,” Gert rectifies.
Nico crosses her arms in challenge. “Which is fancy wording for kidnapping.”
“What are you a lawyer? We'll have fun!” Gert waves her off.
“Yeah! Chase and Alex are still at the Hostel, but we came to collect you in the meantime. We're going to the pier!” Molly says, smiling wide and excited and god, Karolina had really missed her.
“We'll let you shower and have breakfast, though, because we're good kidnappers. Take your time. Only don’t actually, because we're already late.”
Karolina rolls her eyes and takes another bite out of Nico's toast.
It's only later after they found the boys waiting for them at the pier, that Gert finally leads the line of interrogation Karolina knew to expect from her since she agreed to this fake relationship with Nico.
She's watching Alex and Chase try to win a teddy bear for Molly at the hammer game, and failing miserably each time, when Gert joins her with a snarky 'boys, right?'.
“I wouldn’t know, actually,” Karolina laughs at Gert's eye roll, “So how have you been?”
“Same old, same old. Living the good life. You, on the other hand,” she says accusingly poking her shoulder with a purple painted fingernail- she's clearly not letting that colour go despite the new hair, “Have been keeping secrets from me on our weekly coffee dates.”
“Uh?” she says, distracted by Molly taking the hammer from the boys and smashing it so hard on the platform the bell rings and almost falls down in the process. She can almost hear the guys' ego crumble to pieces.
Gert slaps her shoulder, bringing her back to reality. “Nico! Why didn’t you tell me? I had to find out from Chase that found out from Alex that found out from Amy! I only got to tell Molly! I'm supposed to be your best friend, Dean.”
“Nico's my best friend,” she points out.
“And your girlfriend. She can't be both, hence I've gone up in ranking,” Gert says matter of factly.
Karolina's lips curl into a half smile. “I'm pretty sure that's not how it goes.”
“Is too.”
“In that case, I pick Molly,” she keeps on teasing.
“Don't be a bitch and spill.”
“We've been together a month, we didn’t tell you because you'd make a big deal out of it like you're doing now. Happy?” Karolina lists off all the points on the bullet list she and Nico had agreed on, and braving Gert's inquisitive eyes, she has never been gladder her best friend had made her come up with them.
Gert looks disappointed at her words. “Those are not the details I want to know, Dean.”
“These are the ones you'll get, Yorkes,” she rebuts easily, “I won't objectify my girlfriend for your own amusement.”
“Damn, you got me through my feminist beliefs,” Gert says, looking quite proud of the fact even through her act, “You're good, Dean, I'll give you that.”
But there's a smirk on her lips when she says it, and Karolina knows she's only managed to avoid the storm for a little while longer.
They spend their day at the pier soaking up the sun, and Karolina can feel laughter and happiness seep into her skin, taking home in between her heart and soul. She tends to forget how much she has missed spending time with all of her friends until they're all together again. Time flies quickly and some hours later they're in Brentwood again, standing in front of a relic from their past.
She's kinda surprised to see Timely Coffee still standing where they left it what feels like an eternity ago. She hadn’t been here since their last year of high school. She had kinda forgotten about it, to be honest. They never had the greatest coffee, but the place was cosy and near Atlas, and that's all they needed at the time when they would curl up over homework together here.
She's the last to place her order, the others already standing with their drinks and looking for a place to sit, and Karolina looks at the secluded corner near the back that used to be their spot with part fondness part longing.
She'd like to sit there again, but it's occupied by a group of fifteen years old curved over their computers. She turns with a sigh, taking her tea from the counter without paying attention to the fidgeting barista who had taken her order and made it, pretending not to notice the reason why he was nervous in the first place.
When she turns again, the teenagers are scrambling away from their spot quickly- looking quite a bit terrified too- and Nico is sitting down on the loveseat with a satisfied smirk.
“Please tell me you didn’t just scare off those poor guys just to sit here,” she tells her as she settles beside her.
Nico smirks and meets her eyes without an ounce of regret. “Okay. I didn’t.”
“Nico...” she says exasperated and fond in equal parts. She sits with a sigh, placing an arm on the backrest- and over Nico, too.
“You looked so disappointed,” Nico defends herself, “What was I supposed to do? Let them stay here?”
“Yeah, Karolina, she was just being a good girlfriend. Cut her some slack,” Molly says jokingly as she plops down on one of the bean bags, cup of coffee slushing dangerously in her hands. Nico winks at Karolina, before accepting Molly's high five.
“It's still crazy how the two of you are together now,” Alex pipes up from the other one.
Karolina tries her best not to feel offended by that remark. “Why?”
Alex shrugs. “I don’t know, I just didn’t really think of it, you know? Which is weird because now that I see it, it's so fucking obvious.”
“I know what you mean! When Gert told me, everything just clicked in place, you know?” Molly says with a grin.
Chase scoffs. “Please, Karolina has been looking at Nico with puppy dog eyes since we were like fifteen.”
“I did not!”
Nico smirks at the news- asshole. “Don't be embarrassed, babe. It's cute.”
She blushes head to toe at the pet name, making all her friends laugh at her expense- assholes. Chase and Gert are the worse out of the five- Chase keeps mouthing the word babe to her over and over, while Gert looks as if she had just discovered the meaning of life and it was the most hilarious one she could have come up with.
“Oh my god, everything is so clear now. Do you remember that time you broke up with that girl you met in your class?”
“Which one?”
“The one from Art History.”
Karolina almost drops her tea on the couch, her whole body snapping up straight when she understands which girl Gert means.
“I don’t know who you're talking about,” she lies through her teeth, shooting Gert with her best attempt of a vanishing glare. Gert just grins back, because she's a maniac with no respect for privacy.
“Yeah, you do,” Chase interjects, “That girl who got so jealous of you and Nico's friendship that she asked you to chose between the two of them.”
Gert laughs, slapping his arm excitedly. “Yeah, that one! God, that was epic.”
“Why?” asks Molly, who thankfully wasn’t in college with them yet when that had happened. Gert looks all too excited to tell that story, and Karolina wishes she could shrink into herself and disappear.
“Okay, so she asks the question right? And by the way, you've never confirmed whether or not you were naked in bed together at the time or not, Karo, and that is a fundamental part of the story,” when Karolina doubles her glare in response, she shrugs and continues narrating one of Karolina's most embarrassing break-ups.
“I'll get the truth out of you one of these days. Whatever. So Karo just looked at her, shrugged and said 'Nico' and when the girl asked her how she could answer so quickly she said, and I'm quoting, 'you should have given me a harder question'.”
Alex whistles. “Damn Karolina, that's savage.”
“It was true, though,” she mumbles into her crossed arms.
“You never told me that's why you broke it off,” Nico gloats, ego obviously pleased by the story.
“Like anyone could tell me to stop hanging out with you.”
Nico turns genuine in an instant smiling up at her, their heads curved to each other. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Nico's smile is the one she only lets out in private.
And it's odd because she's surrounded by people she loves, but only Karolina can bring that smile out of her and the knowledge of that makes her heart skip a beat- and she is too surrounded by people she loves, but only Nico can bring that sort of reaction out of her.
(It's odd, but at the same time, it isn’t. She knows why. She just doesn’t want to acknowledge it. Denial hasn’t failed her yet.)
Gert sighs, breaking their reverie. “God, you two are nauseating together. I regret ever pushing you two together.”
Nico sticks her tongue out. “As if you had any say in us getting together.”
“I think they're sweet.”
“Thank you, Molly.”
“They're saccharine, more like. I’m getting diabetes just from looking at you,” Alex shudders. Nico sticks her tongue out at him too, and Karolina ignores them all and places a kiss on her cheek.
What's really weird is that apart from the occasional peck on the lips, she and Nico are acting exactly the same as they always did. The only thing that has changed is the label with which their friends address them now- and the rush she feels every time someone calls Nico her girlfriend.
But it feels nice, how everyone pairs them off. There's no hesitation, no afterthought. Just the understanding that she and Nico's name are joined together, more so than before. It's Karolina-and-Nico now, or Nico-and-Karolina. She had missed being part of a couple like this if Karolina were to be honest- and for some reason, the fact that it's Nico she's being matched to, feels like a benefit more than a detriment.
**
As she had expected, there's a gala planned for about four days after they arrived.
(It seems their parents can't go a month without flaunting their wealth under the guise of charity.)
Karolina pulls the dress she had brought just in case out and smooths any wrinkle out.
She's really not in a mood to socialize, but at least she has someone to suffer with. She pulls the dress on, only managing to zip the light pink-grey dress- should she have checked with Nico about the colour, so that they matched? Too late now to do anything about it anyway, she guessed- halfway before giving up and goes in search of Nico.
She opens the door of their room without knocking, struggling to hold her dress in place- she really doesn’t want to end up flashing Robert, or worse Tina. But maybe the not knocking thing might have been a mistake because it's Nico who ends up almost flashing her.
She can just manage to hear Nico squeak and see her panicked look- and smooth, pearly white skin, tight muscles pulling under it, and... she stops the rest of that train of thought in their tracks- before she's ducking out of view and Karolina slams the door shut.
“Sorry!” she shouts through the door, cheeks aflame.
“It's fine,” Nico shouts back, “You can come in now.”
She pushes the door open again, albeit this time much more reluctantly. “Sorry again. I needed help zipping myself up.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Nico coughs nonchalantly, though her cheeks are a bit red.
She's wearing a black lacy dress. It's sheer- almost see-through, really- over her cleavage, short and tight around her hips. It leaves so little to imagination, Karolina's mouth dries at the sight and her brain straight up stops working for a few seconds. It's so Nico, too, with the fingerless lace gloves and the silver necklace dangling over her collar. She looks beautiful, stunning. She looks... she looks hot.
And Karolina is in big trouble.
Nico doesn’t look up as she enters, preoccupied with lacing her very, very high heels, and Karolina already knows she will ditch them about halfway through the night and stand barefoot in the middle of the gala- not because the heels will hurt but because she knows how much it will annoy her mother- because she has done that every single year they've attended one since they turned sixteen.
“Just a sec.”
Karolina turns anyway, exposing her back. A bit later, she hears Nico's footsteps come closer and closer, feels her hot breath against her neck. The slow rising of the zip feels like an eternity, but when it's over Karolina misses the contact instantly.
(She thinks she feels a ghost of a kiss pressed against the nape of her neck, but it's gone the moment she realises it's there.)
“Should have we colour coordinated?” she blurts out, trying to stop her impulsive brain from taking over and doing something terribly stupid.
“What?”
“We're going as a couple. Shouldn’t have we planned to match or something?”
“I'm wearing black? That matches grey.”
“It's not grey.”
Nico rolls her eyes, but there's no bite to it. “Close enough. Besides, it's a gala, Karolina, not a prom.”
“Okay. But if Gert makes a comment, you'll take the blame.”
Nico breathes out a laugh and Karolina's breath gets caught up in her chest. “Sure. Want me to do your make-up?”
“Yeah. Do you want me to braid your hair?”
“Please.”
**
When they step out of the limo, Karolina takes Nico's hand and all but rushes them into the venue, avoiding looking at the paparazzi surrounding the red carpet and screaming horrible rumours to them.
Nico looks ready to go back and fight them so Karolina tugs on her hand. Nico's eyes meet hers, and clear of anger. She sighs. “God, I hate these things.”
“The worst is over, at least.”
Nico looks over her shoulder, her face pulling into a grimace. “Is it?”
“What? Who did you--”
“Good evening, Karolina.”
“See...” she finishes trying her best to school her mouth into a smile and turning to her mother's voice, “Hello, mom.”
“Leslie,” Nico says, positioning herself right by Karolina's side like a soldier ready for the trenches.
“Hello, Nico. When Karolina told me about your new-found relationship I could hardly believe it.”
Nico scold deepens as she crosses her arms. “Really? How come?”
Just as Karolina's mother opens her mouth to answer, her father joins them.
“Hi, dad.”
Frank Dean smiles charmingly, before pulling both girls into a hug. “Hello, girls. How have you been?”
“Very good, Mr. Dean.”
“Please, you haven’t called me that in twenty years, don’t start now.”
“Okay, Frank,” Nico redeems, and her father smiles even wider.
“As I was saying,” her mother starts again, and Nico's glare comes back full force.
Her father intervenes before her mother could finish the sentence. “You know Nico, I think I saw your mother searching for you. Why don’t you two go try and find her?”
Karolina encircles Nico's waist with an arm, tugging her away. “We'll go do that. Bye.”
After they're out of earshot and sight, Karolina lets her arm fall. “That was pleasant, wasn’t it?”
“I know she never liked me much, but that was weirdly cold even for her.”
“It's Leslie Dean, she's always weirdly cold and plastic. At least, when she's not around the press.”
“If you say so. I spotted mom, wish me luck.”
Karolina leans into Nico, leaving a kiss on her cheek- both enjoying the fact she doesn’t need to bend down much due to Nico's vertiginous heels, and at the same time missing their usual height difference. “Good luck.”
Nico ducks her head down, making a valiant attempt at hiding her pink cheeks and disguising her embarrassment, walking quickly over to her family.
“Karolina, hey! Your mother told me you'd be here!” An annoyingly familiar voice calls her before she can follow Nico. She rolls her eyes and lets out a deep sigh, but she turns with her best red carpet smile.
“Vaughn, hi. How have you been?”
“Good! Very good. We've missed you at the studio. Here. I got you a glass of bourbon because you said you liked it once.”
She takes it from him. “Literally once.”
“How are things at Pomona?”
“Good. How are things at the-- set?” she finishes awkwardly.
As Vaughn rambles on about the new movie her parents are churning out, an overwhelming urge to shotgun the glass in her hands makes itself known to Karolina. She has never thought herself a religious person- she wasn’t even that much spiritual, not like Nico anyway- but god if she's not praying for this exchange to be over as soon as possible.
It'd be rude to leave him standing here, wouldn’t it?
Her knight in shining armour comes in the shape of one amused looking Gert. She has never been more happy to see her purple glasses.
“Gert! Gosh, I haven’t seen you in forever,” she says, tackling the girl in a hug, half the content of the glass of disgusting alcohol slushing out and onto the pavement. Oops.
“What are you talking about? We saw each other the oth-- oh,” she stops as she sees Vaughn standing behind them, a cross between a puppy and a doormat, and she smirks. “Karolina! It's been too long, old friend. We have to catch up. You don’t mind if I steal her, right?” she directs the last bit to the still present Vaughn, and a part of Karolina feels bad- but it's probably the compulsory heteronormative part still left in her, so she shuts it down.
They live a deject looking Vaughn behind in a blur of excuses and dramatic hugging.
As soon as they're out of his earshot, Karolina sighs. “I owe you a big one.”
Gert waves her off. “What is it with you and guys with lost puppy dog eyes, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should upgrade my lesbian aesthetics somehow. Wear a snap-back everywhere I go.”
Gert takes her hand with blatantly fake sorrow. “I don’t think that's black tie approved, babe.”
“Or I could take up the mantel of the purple haired one, now that you've aged out of it.”
“Are you calling me old?”
“Yes,” she smirks.
Gert shoves her hard or at least tries to, and Karolina laughs when the other girl can't move her an inch. Gert huffs. “Must be terrible, being so good looking and thin and pretty...”
She rolls her eyes, smacking Gert playfully. “Don't patronize me, Gert. I am a victim of patriarchal standards of beauty.”
Gert's hand flies to her chest, a dramatic sigh falling out of her lips. “I've taught you so well.”
Karolina rolls her eyes, dragging Gert to where she had spotted Molly, Alex, and Chase talking. As soon as Chase spots her, though, his face gets a funny look.
“Oh, and I hope you know the only reason we held back on the interrogation yesterday was that Nico was there. So, good luck!”
The next thirty minutes pass with her dodging inappropriate questions and wishing Nico was here by her side- but she's still trapped in-between her mother, and father and for once she's smiling with her family and Karolina is not that selfish to call her to her side and ruin that, so she suffers through their friends line of questioning alone.
When she can't stand it anymore, she pours the glass of truly terrible alcohol still in her hand in a flower pot without drawing too much attention to herself, whispering an apology to the plant while doing so, and she uses her lack of drink as an excuse to escape.
She steps around the dancefloor until she's standing in front of the bar. She spots a bottle of vodka in a cart left unattended by the staff, and she's instantly brought back to when she and Nico used to nick a bottle off and escape to the roof to drink it together when the galas got too boring. She smiles at the memories of their past wrongdoings and takes a flute of champagne from the table.
She spots Nico laughing with her family, and then looks at her friends joking around where she left them, and sighs.
“Whoever makes a girl like you sigh, is not worth it.”
“I'm sorry?”
She turns and sees a stunningly beautiful girl, glittering in her red dress, holding an identical flute in her hand and a charming smile on her face- her very, very familiar face for some reason she can't pinpoint.
“I just mean, whoever leaves a girl like you alone at a party, well they don’t know what they're missing.”
Karolina's cheeks flush at the girl's word, heartbeat speeding up painfully at the assumption. “That's-- it's not like that.”
“Oh? I thought I saw you come in with someone.”
“No, yes. I did. We're-- it's complicated.”
The girl makes a show of looking around them and then turning to her with a conspirational expression. “Do tell.”
She smiles, amused. “It's a long story...” she trails off, taking another sip of her champagne, “I'm sorry, I don’t think I've caught your name.”
“Julie Power.”
“Karolina Dean,” she says offering her hand. Julie brings it to her lips kissing it, keeping eye contact the whole time. Her cheeks heat up slightly at the gesture.
“I know. We've met at one of your parents' premières.”
Karolina's eyes widen slightly at the realization, and her smile turns to the Leslie approved one she wears around the Hollywood socialites. “Of course. You helped direct that movie didn’t you? The one about the runaway girl.”
Julie smiles back, though more genuine. “Yes.”
“It was a beautiful movie, really. Did you do anything more since then?”
“Only some indie films, nothing much.”
“Oh, that's nice. Anything I might have seen?”
“Oh! Maybe--” Julie starts grinning with excitement, only to be interrupted by Nico sneaking an arm around Karolina's waist. Her eyes flash at Julie, then touch Karolina.
“Want to dance?” she asks, ignoring completely Julie's presence- which, rude, but not unlike Nico so she brushes it off. Nico gets even closer and starts stroking her hand in distracting circles against the small of her back.
Karolina smiles quizzically at her best friend, and then apologetically at Julie. “I'm sorry I have to go. This literally never happens, I have to make the most of it.”
To Julie's credit, she doesn’t look much annoyed by the interruption, only smiling at Karolina with a wink. “I'm sure I'll catch you again before the night is over. It was nice meeting you again.”
“You too!”
Nico drags her towards the dancefloor decisive, arm still firmly in place on Karolina's waist.
“Who was that?” she asks something off in her voice that makes Karolina pause.
“Julie Power. She worked on one of my parents' movies.”
“She didn’t look much like an actress. She has the name for it, though.”
Karolina laughs despite herself at the small jab. “She isn’t. She's a director. Or assistant director, I guess.”
Nico stays quiet after that. Karolina takes her hand in hers, angling them to mimic the pose of the other dancing couples. They start to sway to the sound of rich people's music.
“What's the matter?”
“Nothing,” Nico shrugs one shoulder, shaking hers too in the process, “Just... don’t you think anyone who would flirt with someone who's obviously taken is kinda... I don’t know trashy?”
“It wasn’t flirting.”
Nico's face is carefully blank, but Karolina can hear the scoff in her voice.“Sure.”
“It wasn’t!” she defends, “And anyway it wasn’t like I would entertain her, even if it was.”
“Why not?”
“I'm here with you, why would I?”
Nico rolls her eyes, but her cheeks stain a pretty pink and her lips are badly trying to suppress a smile, so Karolina counts that as a win.
She's almost a hundred percent sure Nico had come and fetched her only to get her away from Julie. She doesn’t understand why she would do so- her traitorous heart whispers of jealousy, and she stomps it down until it quiets- but Nico has always been too stubborn for her own good and they do end up dancing for real.
“Want to give them a show?” Nico whispers in her ear, stepping even closer to Karolina.
“What?”
“They've been staring at us for like the past twenty minutes.”
Then Nico turns them with a fancy twirl, and she sees her friends watching them attentively- Chase winks and Molly mimics wolf whistling when they catch her looking.
“Sure. What did you have in mind?” Karolina asks, already knowing the answer by the tightening of Nico's arms around her.
“You trust me, right?”
“Always.”
And with that, Nico brings Karolina's lips down on hers.
(Just like the last time, the kiss was like... well, Karolina isn’t really sure what it was like. She thinks she had passed out the moment Nico's lips touched hers, and come to the moment she had pulled away.)
They pull apart when Molly actually wolf whistles, and Nico can't hold the laughter in anymore.
“Good thinking,” Karolina croaks out, her mind still lost in the kiss- Nico is an exceptionally good kisser, who would have known?
The night flies after the first kiss, and it's like a dam has broken because suddenly Nico is everywhere, all at once- she holds her hand, and kisses her cheeks, and hugs her tightly- and Karolina is slowly realizing she might be in over her head.
Moreover, Karolina has found out that being at the centre of Nico's attention is deeply, deeply addicting.
And Karolina is not above admitting that she'd been chasing after her attention since they met- pigtails and overalls and toothy grins- and five years old Nico hadn’t really spared a glance for five years old Karolina, and she had wanted nothing but to impress the other girl. But this, this is completely different.
Her body reacts under Nico's eyes. She's pliant, under Nico's touch. It's as addictive as it is scary.
But it's fine, she's fine. They had always been tactile in their friendship, and Nico is probably only playing it all up for the sake of their cover. The only reason her heart skips every time Nico puts a hand on the small of her back is that she hasn’t been with anyone for a long time and she's a bit touch-starved and that's it.
Kiss after kiss, it gets harder and harder to keep being dishonest with herself.
Nico's fingers brush against the inside of her wrist, and she feels any justification she had come up with fall down like a castle of cards in the wind.
(Nico slips off her heels about three-quarter of the event in, and Karolina smiles when she struggles to plant a kiss on her cheek.)
When they finally manage to escape from the gala, they're exhausted.
So much so Karolina had to practically force Nico into taking her make-up off, and Nico had to help Karolina out of her dress before they finally crashed into bed together, sleep fogging their eyes and blurring every detail.
Her last coherent thought before slipping into unconsciousness is spent to marvel at how well she and Nico fit together.