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it’s only been a few days so it would be silly to say that the room feels empty without her
they’re not even friends, don’t even know each other
it’s weird that she’s going to go look for jess
shit
she’s going to
and of course she’s the first place lupe looks
outside, smoking
in the dark cobblestoned alley
like nothing in world could scare her
like she’s thinking
and it’s a little muggy,
but there’s a breeze picking up
“Hey.”
lu starts with
jess’s face cracks into a grin
she tips up her chin, in greeting
lu wishes jess would say something, anything, so she doesn't have to come up with what to say next
jess doesnt
but she holds her cigarette out to lupe
a question
she takes it
an answer
a drag
and she’s gonna have to say something else, it’s too quiet.
“What, you, uh… you didn’t like it in there?”
she flicks her neck at the bar where the rest of the the peaches are still partying, drinking, spinning with boys
jess looks down the alley
is already fishing out another cigarette to light
“Not really my scene. You?”
an inhale
an exhale
a ring of smoke
the smell of newports
“Me? Me what?”
jess huffs a laugh
there’s something her eyes are doing
then after a second
“You’re kinda hard to talk to, huh?”
she lights up in a smirk
lupe can’t believe she’s serious.
“Me? I’m hard to talk to?! Are you kidding?”
“Yeah! I am.”
jess says,
deadpan
eyebrows all serious
for a second too long
before she cracks into an even bigger grin
and lupe lets out a breath,
or maybe it’s a laugh
and thinks for a second about all the people who use weird as an insult, a curseword
and how she has indisputable evidence that they’re wrong
the warm light of her cigarette makes jess’s smile flicker
makes her hair less white more golden
makes everything else in the world gray
and there’s something in her eyes
jess is something.
lu cannot get a read on her,
and she wants to so badly it’s making her crazy
she leans against the brick wall, beside jess, careful to leave space between their shoulders
two teammates
ducked heads
stifled smiles
the opposite of who they are to everyone else
a lowercase L and and uppercase i
who
by very different routes
ended up
here
sort of
the same
“So.”
lu clears her throat
“You a shortstop?”
and jess’s head whips, eyes twinkle
and that’s it
what they’re doing
fucking twinkling
or maybe it’s just the moon
or maybe, probably,
they just
catch the starlight
catch something deep within her and pull it up to the surface
and maybe that’s why jess doesn’t need to talk much
those eyes that speak like sinners on sundays (confessing)
spilling and pouring and screaming
“Good one.”
jess’s mouth says
smile says
tongue between her teeth says
eyes say
lupe rolls her eyes
“You should get back in there and dance with some nice gentleman who can take you home for a nice evening!”
“Mm! Yeah! If there’s one thing I love, it’s men!”
the way the word pops on her lips punches a laugh out of lupe
and then jess says
“Jesus christ, we should find a good bar here. A real one.”
“What do you mean? A real one?”
“You know.”
and jess looks at her like she’s talking about an elephant lu can’t see,
“A bar with women. A queer bar. Have you never-?”
“Jesus christ, Jess!”
and lupe whips her hands up,
almost covers jess’s mouth
before thinking better of it
eyes darting both ways
“What are- Jess, you can’t just say shit like that!”
and jess is understandably taken aback,
but she also seems kind of
… amused?
her eyes now glimmering with a teasing kind of confusion
“You a cop, Lupe? You about to take me away?”
“No- what? Jess.”
this is absurd
she can’t just be saying shit - sure they’re in an alley, but they’re in an alley in public
they’re outside!
“Jess, we don’t know where the fuck we are! This is a city! There are- people!”
“There are?”
“Did you bring me out here just to mess with me?!”
“I didn’t bring you out here.”
smug son of a bitch
jess has no right to look this pleased with herself
like she’s delighted by how squirmy lupe’s gone
eyes all-
then lupe remembers.
how did she forget?
a denial she should have insisted
a phrase that should have been her first line of defense
but
“I’m not…um, I’m…not…”
somehow it dies in her throat
dies under jess’s gaze
and instead
“How did you know?”
lu asks
“Can we skip this part?”
“Yeah, ok.”
a beat
and truly lu could not have written this person before her if she had tried
actually, she had never met anyone even close-to kinda-like jess in her whole life
she wonders if being next to her will make her better
if some of the free and the knowing will rub off on lupe just by being close to her
only one way to find out
“So. Have you ever been to a real bar before?”
jess asks
and this was new.
someone knowing lupe’s business
one of the tiny, fragile things in her heart she’s built walls and moats and armored guards around
and not using it to stab her or stick her or cut her
she thinks jess may be asking because she wants to know
not to make her feel bad about the answer
not to make her admit a fault
just to listen
learn
and her instinct to babble must come from the uniqueness of the situation, the newness of being asked without expectation
and not the flutter
of a moat being jumped, guard smashed, wall crashed down
“Um. Yeah, a couple times. It was weird in Texas. Too many people who knew each other. I kept seeing the priest’s daughter there and then having to look him in the eyes at mass afterwards. It was like. Double sin.”
“You’re a churchmouse? Now that one I did not peg”
jess is grinning again, all teeth and cigarette
burning embers now
“What kind of Canada bullshit is ‘churchmouse’?”
lupe tries to laugh off the embarrassment
(and lu thinks
for a second
maybe she can have this.
maybe
the fact of jess’s twinkling eyes
can be a new tiny, fragile thing.
and she’ll bury it deep
and guard it hard
but she’ll have it.)
“It’s a shame, you’d be a knockout at the ones here.”
“Yeah?”
lupe feels hot in her cheeks
like maybe the liquor just hit
“Um. Why do you think-?”
then jess’s statement clicks
“Wait-You’ve been going to gay bars here!? Like since we got here?!”
“Yeah! Where do you think I’ve been sneaking off to at night!”
“You’re sneaking off alone at night?! Jess!”
“Well not tonight, you’re coming with me.”
and she couldn’t swear on it in the dark, but for a second it looks like jess winks.
“Unless, you know… You’re not.”
eyes big
looking
finding
fucking twinkling
that pursed-lips, hiding-smile again
and lu thinks maybe she would follow jess anywhere
and she needs to drink away that thought immediately,
so she follows jess to the first queer bar she’s been to in years
to a gay bar in rockford, illinois
in the middle of the night
on a tuesday
and maybe
maybe
maybe
it’s the start of something