Chapter Text
Salt and sunscreen.
It still permeates her nostrils hours later when she climbs into bed. The smell lingers like smoke from a candle that’s just been extinguished, and not for the first time since her time at the beach, Kelley considers showering. There had been a cursory rinse earlier but she’d been running late to dinner and had to prioritize: miss her own birthday celebration, or smell like the hotel issued shower gel.
She’d unsurprisingly opted to stick to letting the beach remain on her skin.
The other bed in the hotel room is empty. Alex has unsurprisingly headed back to her house with Serv and there’d been an open invitation there, one that she’d taken them up on earlier in the week, settling into the guest room with a sort of ease that she’s perfected over the years. Tonight though, she doesn’t feel like leaving the team hotel despite the fact that most of them have headed their separate ways. She might technically be alone, but at least there are still a few of them scattered in rooms on the floor.
It feels better than being on a plane on her birthday, anyway. She’s done that plenty of times before, enough so that she does her best to avoid it when she can.
But then the time on her phone pushes forward and it’s a new day, and Kelley’s birthday is over.
She doesn’t mind. The day was great and she feels fulfilled, and she’d been texting with her girlfriend earlier, up until time zones had forced her into bed while Kelley was still dressed up with champagne in hand. There had been a phone call shortly after Kelley had woken up, and a brief Facetime while Kelley had been wrapped in a towel and sorting through the contents of her suitcase, desperate for something to fit the occasion. She’d almost been too distracted to give the situation the amount of attention it deserved, but that’s just how it is.
There aren’t many things that can hold Kelley O’Hara’s full attention.
Her girlfriend knows that. She’s been around long enough to know that. They’re used to conversations cut short, unanswered texts, quick visits during which neither one of them are totally present. It’s just how it is, Kelley knows, when she travels so much and can’t manage to land herself in the same city as her girlfriend more than once every few months. Sometimes she wonders how Alex and Allie and everyone else manages - the only people whose relationships she understands are those who have decided to simplify things by dating their teammates.
She’d be lying if she said that sometimes she wasn’t jealous of Ashlyn and Ali, or Tobin and Christen. Just being able to sit next to each other on planes and buses is something that she sometimes finds herself watching, wondering how they got so lucky to find their soulmates in the way that they have.
Her phone buzzes, loud on the nightstand where she stashed it after deciding that if she didn’t get to sleep as soon as possible, she’d be a zombie in the airport in the morning. It’s a choice she has to make - check to see what it is and not be able to fall asleep for at least another fifteen minutes, or inevitably stay awake unable to keep from wondering who the notification is from and what it contains.
It’s an easy decision, no matter how much she wishes she was already asleep.
Her stomach lurches when she sees the message; more specifically, who the message is from.
Emily Sonnett: what a shame you never let me be in charge of your birthday celebrations before! sleep tight miss kelley, and don’t let the birthday bed bugs bite :)
It’s typical Emily to stubbornly refuse to capitalize her texts - she insists that she knows enough proper English and that won’t change. Kelley takes half a second to roll her eyes at it before her fingers are flying across the screen, typing out a response.
Kelley O’Hara: That was the most formal text you’ve sent me in years
Kelley O’Hara: Today wasn’t too awful so thank you I guess
She’d already taken care to thank her before they parted earlier, retiring to their separate hotel rooms at a surprisingly respectable hour. It had been a wonderful day, no doubt about that, and Kelley almost feels like she doesn’t deserve for Emily to have planned out the day as well as she had. She isn’t even a planner necessarily, Kelley knows that about her, but just the fact that there had been dinner reservations made told her all she needed to know about the effort that had been put forth.
A text buzzes through just as Kelley locks her phone screen, lighting up the room with that ghastly blue light.
Emily Sonnett: lol sorry i thought you would be asleep
Kelley O'Hara: Right back at you
Emily Sonnett: mal is on the phone with her boo, trying and failing to be quiet
Emily’s flight is earlier than Kelley’s, and Mal and Rose’s even earlier, so she’s a little surprised that she’s not the only one still awake. She thinks of Emily in her hotel room, trying to occupy herself while Mal whispers sweet things that are only said within the space of one’s first serious relationship, and types and sends a message before thinking about it too hard.
Kelley O'Hara: Alex’s bed is empty and clean, come sleep here
Emily Sonnett: don't wanna wake you up too early….
It’s not a no, Kelley thinks.
Kelley O'Hara: Come on, you know I fall back asleep easy. Besides, you’ll make sure I don’t oversleep.
It’s just convenient, she tells herself. It’s a better arrangement for Emily, which is the least she can do to show her appreciation for the day she’d been given. It’s got nothing to do with how she’s feeling at the moment - a little sad, wanting company after such an amazing day, and frustrated with herself for not knowing the next time she’ll see her girlfriend.
There are perhaps too many emotions to battle in the time it takes to get a response, but thankfully Emily doesn’t allow her much time to dwell on it.
Emily Sonnett: don’t make me knock
Kelley jumps out of bed as soon as her brain processes the meaning behind the text, opening the door with the sort of carefulness that can only be achieved when aware of the fact that everyone around is asleep. The hotel hallway is eerily quiet, dimly lit and turning a corner right outside Kelley’s room, and she nearly considers using the deadbolt to hold the door open so she can dive back under the covers. She looks at her phone, grasped in her right hand, and considers telling Emily to hurry up before -
“Hey.”
Kelley doesn’t even jump. Once upon a time she would have, Emily loving to sneak up on her, especially from behind, but she’s used to it now. Emily pokes out from behind the corner, phone in hand with a suitcase in the other, a bag slung over her shoulder. Her nearly bare shoulder, Kelley notes. She’s wearing a sports bra, gray and faded and a little too big for her, the hem stretching down towards the high waist of her team-issued joggers. It’s nothing Kelley hasn’t seen before - hell, they were in swimsuits together earlier - but in the low light of the hallway, there’s something so relaxed and bare about it that has her thinking carefully before she speaks.
“Hey,” Kelley says, motioning Emily in. “Were you already packed?”
“I can be responsible,” Emily says, shoulder brushing Kelley’s as she pushes into the room. “When you’ve got a five o’clock wake up call, you kind of want to be ready to go.”
“Fair,” Kelley says with a faint grin. Once the door is closed the hotel room is nearly dark, the only light coming from the streetlamps outside the window. It’s just barely enough to see by, and Kelley slips back under the covers and plugs her phone back in while waiting for Emily to get settled.
It doesn’t take longer than it takes Kelley to double check that her alarm is set properly. By the time she’s locked the screen, Emily is pulling back the covers of the other bed, her stuff piled in the corner.
“Thanks for letting me stay here,” Emily says, plugging in her own phone. Kelley can make out her silhouette in the blue-tinted darkness, the paleness of her hair glinting just enough to draw Kelley’s eyes. “Mal doesn’t seem to care very much about sleeping tonight.”
“I didn’t think you’d care either,” Kelley says, setting her phone down for the night and trying to get comfortable. She usually sleeps on her side, and she finds herself nestling into her pillow to face Emily despite the fact that they can’t see each other properly. “I seem to remember the two of you challenging every bedtime I tried to set for us back in France.”
“Oh, come on,” Emily says. Kelley can hear her rustle around until she’s laying down, a mirror image of Kelley’s positioning. “It was the world cup! Not everyone has been to one before. Besides, we can’t help that we wanted to soak up every second we could with the famous Kelley O’Hara.”
Flattery and flirting is nothing new between the two of them - it’s been a part of their dynamic ever since Kelley can remember. Lately it’s been less of the latter, since Kelley decided to get serious and wholly commit to her girlfriend, and the two of them haven’t exactly addressed it but it’s been a distinct change. Kelley pretends like she doesn’t miss it, like there isn’t something lacking in their banter nowadays, like she doesn’t wish she could have the best of both worlds - a committed girlfriend on the other side of the country as well as Emily’s undivided attention.
“We all know that was all you, not Mal,” Kelley jokes, tucking a hand under her pillow. “Everyone knows you’re obsessed with me, Em.”
*
Kelley can’t remember when it started, when she first started calling her Em. She doesn’t remember it rolling off the tongue, doesn’t remember it being a conscious choice. The only thing she remembers is the way Emily had looked at her funny one day in the locker room, when most everyone else had cleared out. It had been at some random camp - Kelley couldn’t recall which one if it was a matter of life or death, couldn’t even recall if it was the first time she’d said it.
“Almost no one gets to call me Em,” she had said, looking at Kelley funny. “What makes you think you’re special?”
Kelley can’t even remember what her response had been. All she remembers is what Emily has said, and the way she’d never protested further. She’s been letting Kelley call her Em whenever she wants for the last few years, and whenever Kelley registers that she’s doing it (which isn’t exactly often, because she’s sure she does it without noticing plenty of the time), she always thinks to herself: what makes her think she’s so special?
There are lots of things that make Kelley think she’s special, special to Emily Ann Sonnett, and in the back of her mind she’s got a loose list.
One would be the way Emily looks at her when she thinks no one else is looking, when she thinks everyone around them is busy and the world seems to narrow down to just the two of them, when everyone else has moved on past the joke or anecdote or the analysis. It’s always soft and fond, an indulgent edge to Emily’s smile and a little crinkle around the eyes that seems as though it’s reserved just for Kelley.
Two would be the way Emily speaks into the phone when they’re apart. Kelley’s heard her speak on the phone plenty of times, heard the tone she takes when talking to her parents or her sister or any number of friends. Rationally she knows there’s a difference in the way a voice sounds through a speaker, but on the occasions they’ve called each other on the phone, Emily’s voice goes relaxed and almost gentle - not her usual sharp wit and effortful attempts to draw a good laugh out of whomever she’s talking to.
Three would be the way Emily touches her when they tackle each other in practice. It’s the one that Kelley questions the most, telling herself that just because Emily’s hand finds her stomach, doesn’t mean that it’s done on purpose. Sure, Kelley lets Emily help her up from the ground almost every time, her hand warm and firm against Kelley’s, waiting half because she liked to be helped up and half because it takes her a moment to recover from the searing heat that’s left on her skin from wherever she’s been touched - high up on her thigh, the side of her waist, the small of her back. But that doesn’t mean she’s special; Emily tackles lots of teammates, and she’s not always careful where her hands go, and she often helps lots of teammates to their feet. She even often helps lots of opponents to their feet during matches, especially when she plays with the Thorns.
So what makes Kelley think she’s so special?
*
Emily always takes the teasing in stride.
“You’ve got me,” she deadpans. “I’ve actually lied about Mal being on the phone so I can sleep in the same room as you again.”
“I knew it,” Kelley says, and she’s sleepy but still manages a grin that she’s almost entirely certain can’t be seen. “Is it everything you remember it being?”
“Hm,” Emily hums. “You might need to boss me around a bit for me to get the full effect.”
“Go to sleep,” Kelley says, eyes drifting shut. “We’ve both got early flights. That bossy enough for you?”
“Perfect,” Emily says, and it isn’t long before Kelley dozes off.
It also isn’t long before she’s being shaken awake.
It takes her a moment to come to, to realize that a hand is shaking her through the covers, resting on the outside of her arm. She blinks sleepily, and it takes a few more moments for her to remember who is in front of her.
“Em,” she says thickly. “What’s wrong?”
“I swear a felt a bed bug,” Emily whispers urgently, removing her hand now that Kelley’s awake.
Kelley has to force herself to sit up a bit, eyes squinting in the dark. It’s a waste to try and make out any more than the vague outline of Emily’s head, her hair tossed up in a mess of a bun, but the effort wakes her up a little more.
“They changed all the linens today,” Kelley says, trying to muddle through and make sense of the situation. “How can there be bed bugs?”
“I don’t know but I swear I felt something,” Emily says, her voice still low and urgent. “I can’t get bitten by bed bugs, you know how sensitive my skin is! I’ll be itching all week. ”
Kelley’s mind isn’t working at full capacity. She’s beyond tired from a long day, has been abruptly torn from the depths of some lovely sleepy brain waves, and is very aware of the fact that Emily smells like salty water and coconut sunscreen - just the same as Kelley had smelled for the majority of the day.
“Just get in here,” she mumbles. “Alex didn’t say anything, so I’m not sure if I should believe you, but I want to sleep so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.”
Emily doesn’t move or say anything, and Kelley thinks that maybe she’s fucked up. She panics in the silence, thinking that maybe that would be crossing a line, that Emily thinks it’s weird to spend the night in the same bed even though they’ve inhabited plenty of beds together while awake - but then Emily moves closer and all the air whooshes out of Kelley’s lungs in a relieved exhale.
“You sure that’s okay?”
Kelley tries not to overthink it.
“I don’t want the bed bugs to attack you,” she says as reasonably as she can.
It’s with a certain degree of trepidation that Emily pads over to the other side of the bed before getting in. The weight of the mattress shifts and for just a moment Kelley thinks, maybe this isn’t the best idea, but then Emily seems to find a comfortable position and it’s possible to relax. Kelley just wants to go back to sleep but she can hear Emily’s barely audible breathing, can smell the beach lingering in her hair and on her skin, can nearly taste the tension that she prays she isn’t imagining.
Kelley doesn’t want to be going crazy.
“Are you sure that this is okay?”
Emily’s voice is just a little too loud in the large room, and Kelley suddenly feels overheated under the blankets, in her oversized t-shirt and pajama shorts. She wants to kick off the covers and crank up the air conditioning until she’s got goosebumps covering every square inch of her skin. Instead, she remains as still as she can and tries not to think about the small strip of midriff exposed by Emily’s sleeping clothes.
She could reach out and touch her, Kelley thinks. It would be simultaneously both the hardest and easiest thing in the world.
“Of course,” Kelley answers after a moment. She’s relieved to hear her voice come out evenly and steady. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
She can answer that question all by herself when Emily rolls over, the mattress dipping and bringing them closer together. Her heart speeds up and it makes no sense, not when they’ve been in beds together before, not when they’ve touched while wearing far less clothing, not when Kelley’s got a girlfriend she loves dearly and no intention of changing that anytime soon, if ever. Emily doesn’t stop until Kelley can practically feel the heat radiating off her sun-soaked skin, on her side with her breath puffing up on the back of Kelley’s neck. She might be imagining it, but Kelley thinks it smells fresh and minty, like the toothpaste in the red tube she’d brought to France.
“I apologize ahead of time for any movement made while I’m asleep,” she says, and they’re not touching, but Kelley feels like that’s a good thing. She doesn’t know what she’d do or how she’d feel if they were.
Emily falls asleep quickly, her breathing turning slow and heavy. Kelley takes a little longer, trying to even out her own breathing the way she’s been taught during all her meditation and yoga classes over the years. She’s pretty sure it’s by the grace of God and the long day she’s had that she eventually falls asleep.
She dreams of scrimmages and playful tackles, of brief touches and crinkled eyes.
She doesn’t want to dream at all.
*
It’s dark out when the crash wakes her.
It’s not like before when she was abruptly shaken awake, not like when Emily was touching her and she felt torn from sleep and almost too groggy to function. It’s dark because Kelley can’t quite open her eyes yet, even though her mind feels well rested and alert, and she takes a long moment to take stock of where all her body parts are.
She’s flat on her stomach, as she usually is when she wakes. It’s never how she falls asleep - she never could, she must always be on her left side when she falls asleep - but it’s how she wakes up most mornings, with her legs spread and her arms bent up by her head. It’s instinctual, the way Kelley pushes her face into the inside of her upper arm, nuzzling like a cat would, she imagines.
But then her eyes slowly blink open and she doesn’t have to think hard to remember what happened last night. It comes back to her with ease, a coherent sequence of events that’s far simpler to sort through than the dreams she had. Her dreams flash in her head, desperate to be seen and understood but they’re only fleeting, filtering out faster than water in a sieve. It’s so characteristic of dreaming and Kelley doesn’t mind, mostly because the primary emotion she’s registering is that she doesn’t want to remember them at all.
There’s something there, in the fading images in her brain, that seems like it doesn’t belong. Something that seems wrong.
She’s glad to have it fade as she rolls onto her back, eyes searching for the source of the loud noise. She’d nearly forgotten about it, caught up in the process of waking up, but she can plainly see what it was when she sits up to find Emily crouched over her suitcase.
“Leaving without saying goodbye?”
Kelley means it jokingly, but it comes out rough and sleep-laden.
Emily doesn’t seem to mind, looking up from where she’s trying to fit sneakers back into her carry-on.
“Sorry for waking you,” she says, pausing from the task at hand so she can re-tie her hair into its sloppy ponytail. “I didn’t mean to, but my dumb ass forgot to zip this shut.”
“You’re so dumb,” Kelley says, and instead of the normal amount of friendly ridicule in her voice, she finds the words coming out with a worryingly high level of affection.
“I know,” Emily says, and the light from the bathroom allows Kelley to see the soft smile on her face. It’s one she’s seen a million times before, but she can’t figure out why it seems to hit her different. Normally it’s just a simple physical expression, one to remind them of how they’re more than just athletes, more than just colleagues, but this time Kelley feels something tug inside of her and all of a sudden it’s not just a joke.
“What time is it?” Kelley asks, fumbling for her phone. “My alarm didn’t go off - “
“Five thirty,” Emily answers as Kelley sees the time five twenty-seven flash on her phone screen. She’s got a good morning text from her girlfriend already, a sweet kiss emoji attached, and she decides to deal with responding to that later when she’s fully awake and out of bed and ready to start her day. “You’ve got a while, if you want to go back to sleep.”
“I’ve only got fifteen minutes before I should be up,” Kelley says. “And you’ve got that long until you have to leave.”
“I try to be early when I can,” Emily says, finishing with her suitcase, zipping it before standing it upright. “Don’t wanna piss off Horan.”
“You leaving me then?” Kelley asks, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. A hint of it must remain though, against her better judgment, because Emily pushes her phone into the pocket of an Adidas hoodie she’s left unzipped to show off a simple white shirt before coming closer. She’s got to step over Kelley’s things to get to her, but Kelley instinctively moves over just enough to allow Emily to sit down on the edge of the bed next to her.
She’s so close and it’s too bright, dim in the room but with enough light from the bathroom so Kelley can see Emily’s freckles, the puffy bags under her eyes, the slightly chapped lips.
“You’ve got to be so tired,” Kelley says unthinkingly.
“I’ll sleep on the plane,” Emily says, almost as if she’s reassuring her. “I’ll make Lindsey let me lay on her.”
“”Text me,” Kelley says. “I want to make sure you make your flight.”
“As you wish,” Emily says, and there it is again, that soft smile. “I’ve got to go.”
Kelley tries not to feel a twinge of sadness at Emily leaving - she hadn’t expected this extra time together and now that it’s ending, she doesn’t want it to. Part of her wishes she could travel with her to the airport in the same car, but their travel arrangements hadn’t worked out that way and instead Kelley’s meeting up with Christen at the airport - she’s getting there earlier, accompanying Tobin who’s on the same flight as the girl currently sitting beside her. It almost seems unfair, the way things seem to always work out for the two of them, but Kelley knows that it doesn’t come without a lot of hard work on both their parts.
“I’ll see you when I see you,” Kelley offers.They’ve got less than a month before their next victory tour games, and then Portland plays in Utah, and Kelley shouldn’t be focusing on that but she also can’t stop herself from mentally taking note of exactly every time they’ll get to see each other in the next few months.
“Philadelphia,” Emily says, and part of Kelley is comforted in knowing that she’s not the only one keeping track.
There’s a split second there, where Kelley isn’t sure how to say goodbye. She wants to fast-forward to the end of the month, to meeting up at a camp that will inevitably end up being mostly goofing around and finding ways to stay cool in the summer heat, but for the moment she’s got to let the girl in front of her go on and get on a plane.
It’s less than a month, Kelley tells herself. She’s gone longer than that without seeing her girlfriend, and it was perfectly fine.
“Have a safe flight,” Kelley says.
“You too,” Emily says.
She doesn’t want her to just leave, but Emily is smile and getting up and Kelley feels the loss instantly. The bed feels cold and Emily is distracted in a way that Kelley hates, reaching for her phone again and swinging her bag over her shoulder. She makes it to the door, not even turning around before calling out in a hushed voice -
“Don’t fall back asleep!”
Kelley throws off the covers and gets up, rushing to catch the door as Emily heads out, suitcase catching in the gap before she yanks it forward.
“Wait,” Kelley says, not possibly out of breath from dashing across the hotel room. No, that’s not why air seems hard to come by, not why her lungs feel like they’re burning the same way they do when she’s been forced to play the full length of a game that goes into extra time. “You didn’t say goodbye.”
Emily turns around, head tilted to the right in a questioning manner, and Kelley doesn’t waste a second before darting to the side of the suitcase to give her a hug as best as she can. She smells like salt still, her clothes fresh and her deodorant subtle but still there, and it’s nothing new but Kelley doesn’t want to let go. Emily returns the gesture as well as she can with a phone in her hand and a bag over one shoulder, enveloping Kelley in a way that doesn’t add up with Emily’s not particularly impressive stature. She closes her eyes and leans her cheek against the cotton of Emily’s t-shirt, inhaling hard in a desperate attempt to get enough air to stop feeling like this, like she’s out of breath and lightheaded.
“Sorry, Miss Kelley,” Sonnett says, and she’s teasing just a little, free arm wrapped around Kelley’s shoulders while the hand with her phone presses against the middle of her back, fingertips burning wherever they make contact with her body. It’s almost awkward and Kelley’s right leg is sticking out to keep the door from closing on her, everything haphazard but so entirely worth it - so entirely worth the nearly hidden note of tenderness in Emily’s tone that Kelley isn’t entirely sure she’s not imagining. “Bye, okay?”
“Bye,” Kelley says, well aware that she should be letting go right about now, but unable to move for some reason. “Bye, Em.”
Emily’s free hand rubs down the length of Kelley’s back, just once, a soft and cursory sweep from her shoulder to the dip of her spine before it turns into her ass, and there’s nothing more to it before they separate, but it feels like something she’d like to experience over and over again. She wonders how she can get it to happen again - how she can get Emily to spend hours rubbing her back, her warm hands traveling back and forth, lulling Kelley into a sensory experience that she imagines would be akin to being wrapped up in a cloud.
But then Emily is a foot away from her and Kelley knows that she needs to let her go, needs to let her catch her flight, needs to let her avoid the wrath of The Great Horan who is most definitely the opposite of a morning person. It’s harder than it should be, to back away and wave as Emily makes her way down the hall to the elevators, to retreat back into her hotel room and sit on the bed with a heavy sigh.
She has to force herself to text her girlfriend before getting dressed for the day ahead of her.
*
It’s not hard to keep busy throughout August. There are weekday games, weekend games, and Kelley knows the chances of the Royals making the playoffs aren’t exactly high, but that isn’t a deterring factor for anyone. She still gives her all to every game, every practice, listens carefully in every meeting. Her days are filled with practice gear and showering off a thick layer of sweat that is only made worse by the thick summer heat.
For some reason, Portland and Utah seems to play all their games at nearly the same time, but Kelley only knows this because Christen complains about it - she’s never one to complain very much, but it’s the only word that accurately describes how she whines about not being able to catch any of Tobin’s games.
“We like to watch each other,” she pouts during halftime when they play the Reign. Kelley thinks it’s ridiculous because she knows for a fact that Christen’s stopping in Portland on their way back to Utah, and it hasn’t even been a week since they last saw each other, but she says nothing. A week after that, she allows Christen to use her phone to watch the Thorns as they play in Providence Park.
“Mine died,” Christen explains as Kelley pulls up the game and turns her phone sideways. They’re only just leaving Orlando’s stadium, and they manage to finish watching the first half by the time they get back to the hotel. Kelley most definitely doesn’t spend the majority of the time trying to get a glimpse of the Thorn’s defense, because the Spirit don’t have the best offense no matter how hard Rose and Mal bust their asses, and most of the half is spent with the camera zoomed in on Tobin sending in some truly stellar crosses.
When it’s their turn to play the Spirit, Kelley lets Mal and Rose and Andi take her out for coffee the morning after the game. She spends most of the time texting, apologizing to her girlfriend for not being able to meet up while in the vicinity. There’s a text from Emily buried in there, some comment about being glad that the game had ended in a draw so she doesn’t have to pick favorites, but she ignores it with a pile of guilt in the pit of her stomach.
“Sonny says hi,” Rose says absently, texting furiously.
“Did you send her a picture of me?” Mal asks suspiciously, eyes narrowed as she reaches for Rose’s phone. Rose is too quick though, twisting away and hiding behind Andi who watches the interaction with silent amusement.
“You, Kelley, doesn’t matter,” Rose says, voice muffled into Andi’s shirt.
Kelley’s stomach lurches, but another paragraph is coming through on her phone and it makes her sigh heavily.
“What?” Mal says, attention diverted.
“She’s pissed I’m with you and not her,” Kelley mumbles under her breath. She’s got nothing to hide, not at ten in the morning in a coffee shop that’s full of suburban moms who definitely don’t care about the drama in the lives of a bunch of professional athletes.
“She’s a long drive from here, isn’t she?” Mal asks with a frown.
Kelley heaves another sigh.
“She wanted me to extend my trip.”
Mal is quiet, seemingly waiting for an excuse as Rose and Andi look at something at the former’s phone, but Kelley doesn’t have an excuse. She’s got a week before the next victory tour game, nothing for Utah in the interim, and no reason to fly back with her team when she could have surely convinced Laura to let her stay on the east coast. It makes no sense, why she’s not staying in the area and spending close to a solid week loved up in her girlfriend’s apartment, but Kelley can’t explain it.
This is her life, she justifies to herself. She can’t make things hard on her managers, throwing away everyone’s plane ticket reservations, wasting money and fucking schedules up. Her job is her life and it requires her to travel for a living and that’s just how it is. If her girlfriend can’t understand that, then Kelley doesn’t know what to do.
“You could fly out early,” Mal suggests. “Before the Philadelphia game. Make it up to her.”
Kelley sighs - again. She can’t admit to herself that she’s been so focused on the victory tour, and playing the Thorns after that, that she hasn’t had the space in her mind to seriously entertain the thought that maybe it would be best for her relationship if she made an effort to see her girlfriend in this lucky interim - that she should want to do that regardless of how crammed her brain feels lately.
“Yeah,” Kelley says. “Yeah, I could do that.”
“You’ve got time to change your flight from Salt Lake,” Mal says. “I know you don’t want to change your plans for right now. But would you want to?”
Kelley is texting back, ignoring the paragraph. She figures that if she can smooth everything over, maybe she won’t have to deal with the blowout she’s currently trying (and failing) to navigate.
Kelley O'Hara: Do you have a minute to look at flights for me to come this weekend? Maybe even Friday?
She knows it’s a bit of a cop out, not looking at flights herself, but she can’t bring herself to do it at the moment. Instead she switches to another message thread, and sends off a text without thinking about it too hard.
Kelley O'Hara: I hope Rose isn’t sending any unflattering photos of me
She gets a text back nearly instantly.
Emily Sonnett: nah you look great as always, a+++
Next come three fire emojis and Kelley tells herself not to read into it; it doesn’t mean anything. It shouldn’t mean anything, not when an incoming text flashes at the top of the screen.
Baby: You can land at 11:37 on Friday.
Kelley O'Hara: Buy it with my card info, it should still be saved in your phone
“Better?” Mal asks, drawing Kelley’s attention away from her phone.
“Yeah,” Kelley says slowly, locking her phone and placing it on the table in front of her, face down, as it buzzes far too soon for it to be her girlfriend. She knows she’s done nothing wrong - in fact, she’s probably doing something very right - but the pit of guilt feels even bigger than before. Instead of trying to figure out why, she just reaches for her coffee.
“So Rose,” she says loudly. “Let me see these paparazzi shots you've been taking of us.”
*
Kelley just barely manages to dig herself out of the doghouse by the time she takes Christen to the airport Thursday afternoon. She’s flying to Portland to get in a few extra days with Tobin before they set out for Philadelphia, and in return, Christen has arranged for Rachel to take Kelley to the airport in the morning. It’s a shame their flights don’t line up, something Christen voices as she sits in the front seat of Kelley’s car, legs crossed under her with Tobin on speaker.
“Yeah, too bad,” Tobin says, her voice slightly tinny coming from the phone. “Kell, when are you getting to camp?”
It’s a sore subject for Kelley, so she sighs and lets Christen answer for her.
“It’s a two and a half hour drive from DC,” Christen says, “so her girlfriend is probably going to drive her up.”
“I told her not to,” Kelley says without thinking, without thinking about the fact that she’s just about airing her dirty laundry in front of both of them. “It’s a five hour round trip, at least, and she works all week. Whether it’s Monday night or Tuesday morning…”
Tobin doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Kelley almost thinks the call has dropped.
“That’s tough,” is all she offers, and Kelley wants to slam her head into the steering wheel. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Kelley says, trying to hide the exasperation in her voice. “I’ll figure it out. See when everyone else is getting there and try to sync it up. It just doesn’t make sense to fly, otherwise it would be easy.”
“Well, I just got to the locker room,” Tobin says.
“Oh no!” Christen exclaims. “Do you have to go?”
“Yeah,” Tobin says, clearly distracted. “I’ll see you when I pick you up, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll text you when I land,” Christen says.
“I love you,” Tobin says distantly, and then there’s another voice in the background, loud and slightly familiar.
“Is that Lindsey?” Christen asks, flipping down the visor and opening the mirror to check her eyebrows. “Tell her I say hi.”
“No, it’s Sonnett,” Tobin says. “No Sonnett, it’s just Christen. Chris, she says hi.”
“Tell her Kelley and I say hi,” Christen says, and Kelley hates the way she waits with bated breath for a response of any kind that isn’t guaranteed to come. After all, she’s just a spectator to this conversation, and so is Emily.
“No, Sonnett,” Tobin says again, clearly not addressing the two people on the other end of her phone call. “If you want to pass a message to Kell, call her yourself.”
Kelley’s heart stutters and she’s distracted, enough so that she takes a long second to remember that she needs to get into the rightmost lane to exit the highway. She takes care to put on her blinker and check her mirrors before changing lanes, all the while straining to overhear anything else that might be said.
There isn’t anything noteworthy, though. Tobin must have done something to push Emily away, and her and Christen exchange goodbyes and I love yous before the call ends. It leaves Kelley feeling slightly bereft, but of what, she isn’t exactly sure.
She drops Christen off at the airport without any fuss - Christen is good like that, easily lifting her suitcase out of the trunk and letting Kelley come out of the car to hug her goodbye.
“Let me know when you land safely,” Kelley reminds her. They might not be as tight as they once were, but they both know that they are always there to look out for each other. It’s reassuring, the way Christen waves with a giant smile as she heads into the terminal. Kelley gets back in her still running car and is about to shift into drive when her phone buzzes in the her cupholder - it only takes a second to look at the screen and for the messages to register, the last one sent two minutes beforehand, from a certain person she almost wishes she didn’t have to deal with, just because it’s quickly becoming a lot more complicated than she bargained for.
Emily Sonnett: ugh tobin wouldn’t let me say hi to you! anyway can’t wait to see you next week
Emily Sonnett: when are you getting to philly? pdx crew gets in early tuesday and i need a partner to help me desecrate sammy’s room before she arrives
Emily Sonnett: i’m thinking fake bed bugs - our night together has me inspired
Kelley takes a deep breath and doesn’t respond, instead opting to drive home while composing all kinds of responses in her head. She doesn’t know why she’s thinking about it this hard - it’s just Em, and they’ve pulled plenty of pranks on their teammates over the last few years. It would be so easy to just agree to set it into motion as soon as she arrives at the team hotel, to offer to buy some plastic or rubber bugs, to shoot off a quick response and not let it weigh on her any more than it has to.
Instead of doing any of that, she finds herself taking the hard route.
She finds herself thinking of nothing but that night where they spent a few brief hours sleeping next to each other. They’d been tired, too asleep for it to possibly hold any meaning deeper than the surface level, but Kelley’s been trying not to dwell on it for the last few weeks. It hadn’t meant anything to Emily, at least not that Kelley had been able to detect, which when considering the way she reads into every little interaction they share definitely means something.
She’s not exactly sure what it means, but it means something.
It’s not until she’s back at the apartment that she texts back.
Kelley O’Hara: I’ll bring the bugs, you figure out how we’ll get in her room
Hours later, when Kelley’s done packing and should be asleep, she finally gets a response. She hates that she’s spent the better part of her evening compulsively checking her phone every few minutes, wondering why Emily hadn’t answered her. Sure, she’d had practice, but that had been long over and there was no excuse Kelley could think of that wasn’t simply, she didn’t want to answer her. They don’t hold each other to immediate responses, they never have, even during periods of time when they had happened to respond immediately with relative regularity, but for what feels like the first time, Kelley feels restless until her phone finally vibrates with Emily’s text.
Emily Sonnett: don’t you worry your pretty little head about that ;)
Kelley’s stomach dips: she wishes she could call Emily and listen to her smooth voice excitedly drone on and on about all possible ways to accomplish this prank, and she tries not to think about how she’s in bed on her side, the same position she was in when Emily was asleep and breathing against the back of her neck. She doesn’t want to be thinking about this, but it’s got her nerves spiking with anticipation as she considers responding.
She’s got to get up early though, if she wants Rachel to take her to the airport. She’ll be in her girlfriend’s arms in approximately twelve hours - she’s taken an afternoon off of work for this and hasn’t let Kelley forget it, hasn’t let Kelley forget that she’s going out of her way and that needs appreciating. Kelley needs to be excited to see her girlfriend, needs any excitement directed towards that particular future event. There’s no reason for her to be looking forward to Tuesday morning, but she’s already lamenting the fact that the Portland crew won’t be there Monday night - it will be a good chunk of her Monday night without some of her closest friends, she tells herself. That’s why she’s lamenting the circumstances, she tells herself.
It’s a mix of emotions running through her and Kelley doesn’t know what to do. It only takes a few moments for her to decide what to do, a few moments during which she returns to the home screen of all her messages, and sees her thread with her girlfriend from earlier, seeing the last message exchanged between them. It’s seals things for the night, finalizes Kelley’s decision, and reassures her of everything she already knows.
Baby: Goodnight Kell, I love you! Can’t wait to see you tomorrow!
Kelley knows that she shouldn’t be thinking of the next time she can get in bed with Emily. She knows that. But then she dreams of beds and bugs and unbalanced hugs, and she wakes up a little unsure of everything except the decision to refocus her attention. After all - she’s got a girlfriend who is probably more than willing to deliver in the back rub category.
Probably, Kelley thinks. She’s probably willing.
She is, Kelley discovers that afternoon, when she’s sprawled out naked across crisp white sheets, air conditioning raising goosebumps along her spine.
“I love you,” her girlfriend says, tracing circles over Kelley’s shoulder blades. “I’m so glad you came, you know.”
Kelley doesn’t want to have to answer - she just wants to feel focused, to feel committed, to feel like she’s finally got her feelings under control. It’s all she wants, she thinks, dragging herself out of her post-orgasm haze and kissing the soft skin of her girlfriend’s inner thighs.
All she wants is to get this mess under control.