Chapter Text
At 3 pm, the door to the bookstore opens the bell jingling.
Adora looks up from Slaughterhouse-Five.
That girl is back again. She usually seems to come in about this time, always with her tote bag of Thomas Jefferson, her pink jacket, and pink hair.
Is that her real hair or is it dyed?
She’s really pretty, with curves that go on for days and amber skin that glows in the light. Her eyes are a pretty lilac color.
Adora finds herself watching her, a little dreamy smile on her face.
That is until a hand lands on her shoulder. “Gah!” she jumps and whirls around to the offending person. “Catra!”
The brown-haired girl grins at her. “So dream girl is back again, huh?”
“Well, uh, yeah.”
Catra rolls her eyes. “For crying out loud, you’ve been doing this ever since the summer started! Why don’t you grow another pair and go talk to the girl?”
“I, I just—that’s not funny!”
Scorpia chooses that moment to come over. “Aha. Having a crisis, are we?”
“Scorpia, tell Adora that she needs to go talk to that girl if she likes her so much.”
The muscular blonde nods. “Yeah, I agree. You’re not going to accomplish anything if you don’t talk to her.”
Adora pouts. “Gee, glad to see you two care so much about my love life.”
“Look, go talk to her. At least you’ll find out if she’s been coming in because of you or not.”
Adora takes a deep breath, goes around the counter and walks over to her.
‘Okay, you can do this. Just tell her name and ask how you can help, like any other regular customer…except she’s hot as fuck and you possibly want to date her, SHUT UP BRAIN!’
“Hi! Welcome to Book-Webs,” she says, putting on her best smile. "May I help you?”
‘Okay, good, you didn’t sound like a total idiot.’
The girl turns towards her, and Adora realizes how short she is; she comes up to about her shoulder.
“Oh. Hi. I’m, uh, I’m a little lost,” she admits.
“I see. What are you looking for?”
The girl turns fully toward her and now Adora can see she’s wearing a t-shirt that says “Yes I’m a Lesbian and No You Can’t Watch” in blue letters, purple leggings and tennis shoes with pink laces.
‘Wow. She even dresses cute.’
“I’m looking for a book for my aunt’s birthday. All the Yelp reviews recommended that I could find any book new or used. Plus, my best friend’s girlfriend comes here a lot.”
Adora stops staring for a moment and says “Well, you’ve come to the right place. What’s your aunt’s favorite genre?”
“See, that’s the thing. I want to surprise her with something she’s never read before.”
The blonde rubs her chin in thought, the wheels working. “Does she like to be surprised?”
The girl smirks. “To a point.”
“Ah, then I think I know just the thing. Follow me!”
A few minutes later, they’re in the magical realism section. Adora reaches up to a shelf and pulls down a paperback done up in green with images of birds and animals.
“Here, take a look at this. I think your aunt might like it.”
The girl takes the book and reads the title out loud. “One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. I think I’ve heard of him.”
“Yeah, he’s one of my favorites. And if she likes this one,” Adora takes the book next to it and hands it to her, “she’ll like Love in the Time of Cholera; he based it off of his parent’s courtship before they got married.”
“Really? Wow! My aunt loves that kind of stuff…and I do, too.”
Adora grins. “I’m a sucker for that, too.”
With a smile, the girl holds out her hand. “Glimmer.”
“Hey, Glimmer.” The blonde takes hers and shakes it. “I’m Adora.”
“Nice to meet you.” Glimmer then says “I’ve actually been wanting to talk to you for a while now.”
“You, you have?”
Glimmer smiles. “Yeah. Because I have to say that you’re really cute.”
Adora laughs. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
Glimmer giggles, and then pulls out a pen. “May I see your arm?”
“Uh, sure.” Adora holds it out and watches as she scrawls a series of digits on her forearm.
“There! That’s my number. Give me a call, any time.”
“I…really? Any time?”
“Sure. And hey, thanks for the book recommendations.” With a little wink, Glimmer walks up to the register where Scorpia rings up her purchases.
Then she seems to flounce out of the store. Adora watches her go until she turns the corner down the street and out of sight. Then she looks down at the numbers on her forearm.
‘Oh, wow…I’m freaking lucky.’
However, her feelings of joy fade away later as she sits in her apartment, laptop open and turned to Facebook.
She’s done a little of FB digging and from what she’s found…
‘Why would she want to date me?’
Glimmer’s accomplishments are quite numerous: captain of the dance team and the debate team in high school, AP honors and a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology. She’s a teacher at a local dance academy as well.
Compare that to Adora’s fencing scholarship and bachelor’s degree in literature and minor in philosophy, and she feels a little…
Unworthy.
She sits back against the couch, Xenomides her cat leaping up next to her. He purrs lowly; she reaches over and scratches him under the chin.
“I dunno, Xeno,” she says, “what would she say if she found out who I really am?”
He meows and she chuckles. “Hmm, you have a point there. Let me call Adam. It won’t hurt to see what he has to say.”
She grabs her phone and hits speed dial 3. Xeno jumps off the couch and waddles over to his food bowl. She’s musing to herself that he needs to lose a little weight when the line clicks open.
“Joe’s Pool Hall, it’s your quarter!”
“Hey, Adam.”
“Hey, sis!”
“Is this a bad time? I can call back later.”
“Nah, it’s all good. Orko and DT are here watching a movie with me.” There’s the distinct sound of Gene Wilder screaming to give his creation life in the background.
“Young Frankenstein again?” she says with a laugh.
“Hey, Double hasn’t seen it so I put it on for them---that is if they and their boyfriend can stop making out long enough to pay attention!”
“Hi, Adora!” Two voices chorus in the background.
Adam groans. “Ugh, I swear. Okay, what’s up?”
She tells him what happened that day from meeting Glimmer to doing Facebook stalking. After she’s done, there’s a silence on the other end.
Then he speaks “So are you going to call her?”
“I don’t know if I should. I mean, she’s pretty much one of the most accomplished people I’ve met and I’m just a…loser.”
He groans again. “Oh, for gods-sake it’s not high school anymore, Adora! She isn’t a queen bee or anything like that, she’s just a really cute girl that you met at work and wanted to give you her number because she was interested in you.”
Double Trouble’s voice comes in the background. “Tell Adora to grow a pair and woman up!”
“DT, go sit back down, will ya? I’m talking to my sister.”
Adora takes a sip of her water. “But what happens if she finds out about…you know?”
“Look, you’re a grown-up. I think you should call her and get to know her. She sounds like a really cool girl. And if she has a problem with who you used to be, then that’s her problem, not yours.”
“Thanks, Adam. I do feel a little better.”
“That’s what I’m here for. I got to go, they got to Gene Hackman’s scene and I love that part.”
“You love the whole movie, dummy.”
“So says the person who has the whole of every Disney movie almost memorized,” he shoots back.
“Touche. Okay, love you, Adam.”
“Love you, too, sis. Good luck!”
After hanging up, the blonde looks down at the numbers again.
Her thumb hovers over the keypad…