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It was a sticky Sunday night, both of them packed into the crowded bar, the first time Lupe met Jess’s eyes in a moment she shouldn’t have.
It could’ve been an accident.
Lupe had snuck off into the corner of VI’s bar, holding hands with the prettiest brunette she’d ever seen. Heather, her name was. Lupe had bought her a beer and pulled her into her lap, smiling conspiratorially at Jess as she flirted.
“I come to all your games,” Heather had said at the table, grinning at Lupe.
Lupe’s hand had found its way possessively around the girl’s thigh, and slightly tipsy, she had leaned close to Heather’s ear and said, “I wanna get my mouth on you.”
And before she knew it, she was pressing Heather’s back against the paneled wood of the bar’s back corner, kissing feverishly. Her drunken mind could only focus on one thing, and just then she was focusing on tracing her tongue across Heather’s bottom lip and drinking in her resulting whimper.
Lupe trailed her lips down Heather’s neck, lips sealing over her pulse point.
A few seconds later, Heather tapped her shoulder.
“Mm?” Lupe hummed in question, pulling back.
“Your friend,” Heather said, voice high and breathy and fucking intoxicating in Lupe’s opinion.
“Hm?” Lupe said, turning to look over her shoulder. Jess was leaning against the wall opposite them, not doing anything in particular, just staring. One of her legs was bent up at the knee, foot resting against the wall, and she was smoking slowly, a beer held in her other hand.
When she met Lupe’s eyes, she took a sip from her beer, not looking away.
“Don’t mind her,” Lupe said quietly, gripping Heather’s hips and spinning them around so she was facing Jess, her back now pressed to the wall.
Jess held her gaze as Heather kissed her again, Lupe somehow unable to make herself shut her eyes. She threaded her fingers through Heather’s hair, gently guiding her mouth down to Lupe’s neck, sighing at the feeling. Her head fell back against the wall with a light thunk, mouth open as Heather sucked a bruise into the side of her throat.
And all the while, Jess stared at her, face blank. It was unnerving. But at the same time, Lupe’s face was burning hot red, and she knew it wasn’t because of Heather.
It was all starting to feel like way too much.
She leaned closer to Heather’s ear. “Let’s get out of here.”
Heather pulled off of her neck, grinning at her. “My apartment’s free,” she said.
Lupe smiled back, winding an arm around Heather’s waist leading her out.
She caught Jess’s eye halfway to the door and watched as Jess gave a small smile, tipping her hat to Lupe.
And Lupe would be lying if she said she didn’t spend the rest of the night thinking of those electric blue eyes boring into her, Jess licking beer off her lips as Heather licked over bruises on Lupe’s neck.
And after the fact Jess didn’t say anything about that night. Didn’t acknowledge it. Lupe figured maybe Jess thought she’d been too drunk to remember, maybe Jess had been too drunk. But since that night, Lupe swore every brush of Jess’s fingers against hers sent her halfway to hysteria. She couldn’t stop thinking about Jess. It was like she’d been cursed or something. The thoughts were constant. Every time she tried to throw a pitch, her eyes wandered to Jess’s. Electric blue. Mesmerizing. And every time, Jess looked back at her, staring in that unbothered way she seemed to have perfected.
The second time was a few days later.
Back in the bar. Lupe had bought Jess a drink, an old habit. It wasn’t like they didn’t have enough money to buy their own but she always liked seeing the surprised smile on Jess’s face when Lupe set her current favorite drink down in front of her.
“How do you always know?” Jess asked, shaking her head and taking a sip of the craft beer Lupe had gotten her.
Lupe shrugged, sitting down across the table. “I can read your mind.”
Jess smiled, shaking her head. “What am I thinking about then?”
“A girl,” Lupe answered immediately. “You’re always thinking about a girl.”
Jess dropped her eyes. “Yep,” she said, and then looked back up, eyes fixing on Lupe. “Wanna guess which one?”
Lupe swallowed, trying to organize her thoughts while Jess stared at her. “I can’t keep up with all your conquests,” she said finally, breaking their eye contact.
Jess said nothing.
A while later, a girl wandered over to her and Jess became absorbed in conversation with her, talking about baseball and Canadian winters, and Lupe got herself another drink. Her stomach felt uneasy, like a storm was coming. She didn’t know why.
“You’re the pitcher, right?” a voice from behind her said.
She took a deep breath, and a sip of her drink, and spun around on her barstool facing the girl who’d asked her, trying to keep a smile on her face.
“Yes, I am.”
Fifteen minutes later, Lupe found herself clapping her free hand over the girl’s mouth, fingers stilling between her legs.
“You’ve gotta be quiet, baby,” she said, “anybody could walk in.”
They were crowded into a bathroom stall. Nobody else had walked in yet, but Lupe had done this enough times to know they could. She was pretty sure Vi and Edie knew that people hooked up in their bathrooms every night, but Lupe figured there was nothing wrong with a little paranoid caution.
“Sorry,” the girl, Emma, squeaked out around Lupe’s hand.
“Don’t worry,” Lupe said, the hand on her mouth lowering, fingers resuming their work.
A couple of minutes later Lupe heard the bathroom door swinging open, a drunken giggle coming from the other side. Lupe’s hand stilled again and Emma gasps in frustration.
“I think this spot is taken,” a girl’s voice said, high and sweet.
Lupe shushed Emma gently. “Just wait,” she whispered.
There’s was an unspoken agreement in every gay bar she’d ever been to that if people were fucking in the bathroom you didn’t go in until they were done. Their people didn’t exactly have a multitude of options; a bathroom without homophobes was practically an oasis.
But then Lupe heard another voice.
“We’ll be quick.”
Jess fucking Mccready.
Lupe’s eyebrows shot up. Jess knew she was in here; was she seriously going to fuck a girl two feet away from Lupe?
Emma’s face was panic stricken.
“It’s okay,” Lupe murmured. “We can be quick too.”
“But there’s other people,” she whispered nervously.
“Ignore them,” Lupe said, a little bit louder, sinking her fingers back into the girl pressed against her and smiling at her badly suppressed moan as she curled them forward. If Jess wanted to play dirty, for whatever reason, fine. Lupe would play fucking filthy.
She was actually trying to work fast, but the sound of kissing from the next stall distracted her. Was Jess actually that much of a romantic?
“Can they hear us?” Emma asked nervously, breath catching as Lupe crooked her fingers.
“No, no,” Lupe says, but she knows it’s bullshit. “Don’t worry about them, just look at me.”
But, shit.
Through the gap in the bathroom stall, Lupe swore she could see a flash of that familiar electric blue.
Her hand stalled. Emma whined.
“Sorry,” Lupe said, shaking her head once. “Just look at me,” she repeated, a bit louder, but her eyes were fixed on the gap between the stalls. Jess was staring at her, again. Kept staring at her, as Emma came on her fingers, forgetting to be quiet. Lupe didn’t have it in her to shut the girl up, she was so pretty. And she didn’t have it in herself to break eye contact with Jess, even through the two-inch crack in the wall.
As Emma fell silent, catching her breath, Lupe could hear the faint panting of Jess’s date in the stall over from them, badly-suppressed moans catching in her throat.
“We should go,” Lupe said, finally tearing her eyes away from Jess’s.
“You don’t want me to do you?” Emma asked her, eyes wide..
Lupe gave a tight smile. “Not tonight, sweetheart.”
And after that, Lupe wasn’t sure how she was just supposed to meet Jess’s eye during the daytime; she was half convinced Jess was actually evil. Everytime their eyes locked across the breakfast table, it felt indecent. It made Lupe’s face uncomfortably hot. And Jess’s innocent smile was driving her fucking crazy.
The third time was all risk.
There was an ally behind Vi’s, dimly lit and sparsely populated, and though Lupe knew she should know better, especially with her position on the league and everything that she had at stake, on a drizzly Friday she let herself be dragged out into the chill of the night air, a redhead holding both her hands in one of hers.
“Have you done this before?” Lupe asked, a bit breathless. “Out here?”
The girl nodded. “Plenty of times. Nobody comes down here at night.”
She pushed Lupe back against the wall, smiling conspiratorially. Jesus, the long hair and makeup had fooled Lupe for a little while, but the hands coming to the button of her pants made the girl’s intentions crystal clear. Lupe let her head fall back against the brick wall. She wasn’t exactly complaining; in the past few days, she’d felt like a teenager, face burning with blood rush everytime Jess approached her. Maybe she’d be able to blow off some steam.
“Fuck,” she hissed, as the girl deftly slid her hand beneath the waist of Lupe’s pants, chuckling as her fingers met wetness.
“Somebody’s excited.”
Lupe just sighed. How do you explain to a girl that you can’t stop thinking about your best friend and it’s making you fucking crazy while her hand is down your pants?
“It’s been awhile,” Lupe said, biting her lip as the girl (was her name Piper? Yeah, Lupe was pretty sure…) moved her fingertips in teasing circles.
“There must be so much pressure on you guys,” Piper (probably) said. Lupe tried to let her mind go blank. Tried not to think of electric blue eyes undressing her over breakfast. “To win all those games? You must be so stressed out.”
“Uh huh,” Lupe said, nodding in agreement.
“Poor thing,” she said, pouting, sinking down onto one knee, and then the other. “I’ll make you forget, though. For a little while.”
Lupe raised an eyebrow. The girl was nothing if not confident. But Lupe was pretty sure there were nothing in the world that could make her forget Jess Mccready.
Still, as Piper tugged her pants down and grabbed her by the hips, wasting no time in getting her tongue where she wanted it, Lupe bit her lip so hard it nearly bled, holding back sounds.
She was so frustrated and confused she felt like she could explode.
“That’s good,” she managed to get out, so Piper wouldn’t stop, but a second later, her blood ran cold.
The back door out of Vi’s opened, and before Lupe could freak out, she saw exactly who was slipping out.
Fucking Jess.
Lupe was going to kill her. But if she killed her, then she couldn’t fuck her so… maybe she’d have to figure out her priorities first.
But it couldn’t be an accident this time. Couldn’t be called a mistake or a coincidence. Jess leaned unbothered against the brick wall, putting a cigarette between her lips and staring impassively. Piper flicked her tongue and Lupe gasped, biting her lip again to quiet herself. Jess smiled at that, bringing a finger to her lips. Quiet, she seemed to command. So Lupe stayed quiet, bringing a hand to cover her mouth as Piper practically undid her.
It was wrong, way too erotic to be allowed, but Lupe couldn’t look away from Jess. Couldn’t stop the stirring in her stomach as Jess smirked at her, lips occasionally closing around her cigarette.
“I’m- shit,” Lupe said, to Piper , but of course Jess heard, and shrugged, raising an eyebrow, in challenge maybe. Or was it in permission? Lupe should not have liked that idea as much as she did. “Fuck,” Lupe murmured, her eyes squeazing shut as she came on Piper’s tongue, the fire that had been burning in her since that first night she locked eyes with Jess overtaking her.
When she opened her eyes, Jess was gone.
“Fuck,” Lupe breathed, staring at the now-closed door. Did that actually just happen?
If anything, that night made Lupe’s pent up frustration worse.
The next morning, Jess made her coffee and raised an eyebrow at her across the crowded breakfast table. “Late night?” she asked, all faux concern.
Lupe stared at her for a second. Was she really asking that? In front of everyone?
“Did you have a late night?” Lupe asked, trying to stare Jess down. Trying to ignore the blush that rushed to her face whenever she looked Jess in the face like a Goddamn pavlovian reaction.
“Nothing too exciting,” Jess said, voice low, sipping her coffee. And then she winked right at Lupe over the top of her mug, and Lupe tried to remember how to breathe.
“Really?”
Lupe asked. She knew she was pushing, but it wasn’t like Jess hadn’t pushed her enough in the past couple of weeks. “Nothing at all?”
Jess shook her head ruefully, setting her mug down. “I guess you’re just going to have to work a little harder to impress me, García.”
Lupe rolled her eyes. Jess was actually going to kill her, apparently.
But two could play at that game.
Lupe would be lying if she said the fourth time wasn’t an attempt to fluster the ever-icy Jess.
They were the last two in the locker room; Lupe had been stalling intentionally, and just as she’d predicted, Jess had waited patiently for her.
“Almost ready?” Jess asked her, leaning against a back wall.
“Almost,” Lupe said, taking a step closer to Jess, fingers coming to the top button. “Just need to change.”
Jess raised an eyebrow at her, eyes traveling down Lupe’s torso as she undid button after button. Her mouth opened slightly in surprise, though she didn’t move.
“What?” Lupe asked, shrugging off the top half of her uniform, left in a thin white tank top, eying Jess in challenge. “Thought you liked to watch me. Were we ever going to talk about that?”
“It doesn’t seem like you mind too much,” Jess said lowly as Lupe undid her belt, slowly pulling it from the loops.
Lupe shrugged, feigning neutrality. Jess stepped forward but Lupe held a hand up. “Don’t touch,” she said, turning around and stepping out of the uniform skirt, keeping her back to Jess as she pulled her tank top off, hesitating for a moment before she put back on the button down and pants she wore to the game. When she turned back, shirt still undone, working on the buttons of her pants, a blush was evident on Jess’s pale skin. Lupe smiled.
“You’re a fucking tease,” Jess said.
“I’m a fucking tease?” Lupe said, laughing once. “You’re a fucking hypocrite.” But she was smiling as she said it, grinning at the frustration on Jess’s face. She knew that feeling well enough. She stepped close to Jess on her way out, their faces close enough to touch. But Lupe didn’t touch her. Just whispered, “If you want me so bad, you should fucking do something about it.”
Jess leaned her face forward but Lupe just laughed, stepping backwards and skipping out of the locker room, buttoning her shirt as she went. “I didn’t mean now,” she said, looking over her shoulder at a very flustered looking Jess. “Have some self-control, we’re late.”
They’re back on the bus when Jess shook her head and murmured, “I’m gonna get you back for that one.”
Lupe smirked. “You started it.”
Jess shook her head exasperatedly.
The fifth time, Lupe let Jess win.
Everyone else was out at a movie. Lupe had stayed behind, claiming a headache, but truthfully, she was just hoping Jess would take the hint and take advantage of the empty house with her so they could stop torturing each other. When she saw Jess leaving with the rest of the group she rolled her eyes so hard it gave her a headache.
So she took advantage of the next best thing, and buried her face in Jess’s pillow as she somewhat angrily got herself off, smelling Jess and thinking of electric blue eyes.
She didn’t hear anyone coming in until the bedroom door opened.
“Lu?”
Lupe’s hand froze as she looked up, the worry in her chest dissipating as she realized it was Jess.
“Are you the only one home?” Lupe asked.
Jess nodded slowly. “Wanted to see you.”
“See me?”
A small smile spread across Jess’s face, and her eyes traveled deliberately down Lupe’s body. “Well, I had some other plans, but if you’re busy I’m happy to watch.”
Lupe was off the bed in an instant.
“You drive me fucking insane,” she said, bringing their faces close together. Jess bent down and kissed her hard, a hand coming to the small of her back to pull her closer. Lupe was dressed in a long button down and nothing else; she let Jess pull her in, wishing they could get closer than they already were. “You’re ruining my life,” Lupe said as they pulled apart to breathe, “I think about you all the time.”
“Is that a good thing?” Jess asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lupe fisted her hand in the front of Jess’s shirt, pulling her to the bed and pushing her down. “Depends,” she said.
“On what?” Jess asked, smiling curiously as she leaned back on her own bed.
“If you’re as good as I imagined,” Lupe said, climbing onto the bed and swinging one leg over Jess’s waist.
Jess laughed once. “Don’t worry about that,” she said, pulling Lupe down to kiss her again, slower this time; messier, her tongue running sweetly over Lupe’s bottom lip. Lupe opened her mouth, letting Jess have her. “Slow down, baby,” Jess said, so close to Lupe’s mouth she could’ve swallowed the words.
Lupe groaned. “I’ve been waiting for you to get your shit together for weeks.”
“That desperate for me, huh?”
Lupe didn’t have it in herself to fight back, she just kissed Jess again, snaking a hand down between them to undo Jess’s belt. Jess laughed against her lips, her own hand pushing Lupe’s away to undo her own pants with a bit more composure.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” Jess said.
“You’ve been doing it on purpose,” Lupe said. “Getting me to think about you. Playing dirty.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Jess said softly, and before Lupe could realize what was happening, Jess had her by the hips, flipping them over so Lupe was on her back, bending her knees up as Jess moved down her body. Lupe threaded her fingers through Jess’s meticulous braid, messing it up, then brushing the loose strands back from Jess’s face.
“Yeah, it worked,” Lupe admitted grudgingly as Jess settled between her legs, hands coming to rest on the outside of her thighs, staring up at her. Lupe let go of her hair. “Don’t stop looking at me,” she said, holding Jess’s gaze.
Jess nodded once, eyes not leaving Lupe’s. And the relief that coursed through Lupe at the feeling of Jess’s mouth on her… well it just might’ve been worth all the trouble.
“Were you jealous?” Lupe asked, as Jess’s fingers tightened around her legs. “Of the girls I was with?”
Jess pulled back for a second to say, “I could’ve killed them.”
Lupe smiled, slightly disbelieving as Jess pressed a kiss to the very top of her thigh, her hip bone, the bottom of her stomach. And still, their eyes stayed locked.
“You’re teasing,” Lupe said. “You’re still teasing.”
Jess smiled at her. “Force of habit.”
Lupe didn’t have time to think of a response as Jess efficiently stopped her teasing and Lupe’s mind went fuzzy. Lupe wanted to tell Jess to stop looking so damn proud of herself, but she didn’t have it in her. Honestly, at this point, she was pretty sure Jess had a right to be proud of herself.
She fixed her eyes on Jess’s hands, white against Lupe’s thighs, fingers impossibly gentle in contrast to the unrelenting attack of her mouth. Without thinking much about it, Lupe reached forward to take one of Jess’s hands off her leg, holding it in hers.
Jess paused. Lupe squeezed her hand.
“Don’t stop,” Lupe said, words half-involuntary.
“Don’t stop looking at me,” Jess said, and Lupe didn't, staring at her transfixed, pretty sure she could fall in love with the color blue if it meant she could think of Jess’s eyes every time she saw it. But then again, she thought, as her mind stopped focusing on anything but Jess, their hands squeezed tight in each other’s; nothing in the world was quite as blue as Jess’s eyes.
Their eye contact only broke as Lupe’s head fell back against the pillow, forgetting to be quiet in the empty house as she came with Jess’s hands keeping her steady as her back arched off the bed.
Lupe didn’t realize Jess was moving until she was laying next to her in bed, their fingers still entwined.
“You’re-” Jess started to say.
“Don’t make fun of me,” Lupe said, smiling slightly as she looked away from Jess.
“I was going to say you’re incredible.”
Their eyes met. Lupe leaned forward to kiss her again, letting go of Jess’s hand so she could bring one hand to her cheek, the other to the small of her back, pulling her forwards, pressing them together. And she thought, she could not lose this feeling.
“You’re ridiculous,” Lupe breathed against Jess’s lips. “You could’ve just asked me to do this and I would’ve said yes, you didn’t have to follow me around like a creepy ghost.”
“I wasn’t sure,” Jess said thoughtfully.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Lupe said. “Really. Like, all the time. I couldn’t get you off my mind.” Her hand traveled absently down Jess’s body, from her back to her hips, to the front of her stomach, inching down beneath the waistband of her pants. “Please let me touch you.”
Jess nodded, sighing into Lupe’s mouth at the first press of her fingers, slow but sure of themselves.
With each sweet sigh from Jess’s lips against hers, Lupe tried to say please stay with me , and somehow it never came out, even as a few silent minutes later, Jess’s teeth sank into Lupe’s bottom lip, coming on her fingers with her eyes squeezed shut.
And as they laid next to each other on the twin mattress, Lupe cleared her throat and said, “Stay for a little while?”
And Jess scoffed, smiled a little, and with her hand finding Lupe’s again, said, “Oh, you’re never getting rid of me now, Lu.”
And Lupe smiled back. There were worse fates than that.