Archive of Our Own

“I’m not an idiot,” Victoria says. “I know they recruited you to kidnap me because you’re the one I trust the most. Which is frankly exploitative.”

McKay smiles. “Exploitative?”

“Yes,” Victoria says. “And manipulative. I thought you were above this.”

“Oh, I’m not,” McKay says. “But I also wouldn’t be a co-conspirator if I didn’t think you were going to have fun tonight.”

Victoria crosses her arms and stares through the windshield into the black of the road ahead. McKay laughs.

They park on a street Victoria’s never walked down at night. As she steps out, muggy summer air clinging to her skin, she notices the beams of colored light spilling from various doors onto the pavement.

“You’re not taking me to a club, are you?” she asks.

“You’re supposed to think I’m taking you out for dinner,” McKay says.

Victoria snorts. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“At least try to play along.” McKay comes to a stop in front of a nondescript door, no flashing lights or pounding music seeping out from under it. She fixes her bangs. “A lot of people put a lot of effort into this.”

“Oh.” Victoria’s face feels warm. “Um. They didn’t have to.”

“Well, yeah,” McKay says. “They wanted to.”

The bouncer squints at Victoria’s ID under a flashlight for long enough that she thinks she might be turned away. The way she squirms under his shrewd expression probably doesn’t win her any credibility.

“Happy birthday,” he says eventually, handing back her license.

“Thank you,” Victoria squeaks. She staunchly ignores the way McKay purses her lips in amusement as she puts her hand on Victoria’s upper back, guiding her into the bar.

The place is halfway to a dive, for sure. The lighting is dim and yellow, the floors sticky, but there’s also a cute vintage jukebox in the corner and everyone is yelling, “Surprise!”

A few people whistle. They’re all wearing conical party hats. Victoria laughs.

Trinity is the first to emerge from the throng. She’s wearing a sparkly blue hat and holding a purple one. She hits Victoria on the forehead with it.

“Do you wanna do the honors, birthday girl?” she asks.

Victoria’s eyes widen. “I’m not wearing that.”

When Trinity slides the hat onto her head, though, she only half-heartedly attempts to fight her off. The elastic strap digs into her neck, cutting off circulation to her face.

“Adorable,” Trinity says.

“Screw you,” Victoria replies.

“I’m gonna get a water, I think,” McKay says. “You want anything, kiddo?”

It feels like an important choice: her first legal alcoholic beverage. Victoria wracks her brain but the only cocktails she can think of are piña coladas and sex on the beaches, and she’d rather die before ordering either of those in front of Trinity.

“Not beer,” she says. “Something sweet?”

“You got it,” McKay says, walking in the direction of the bar.

Once she’s out of earshot, Trinity whistles. “You ever hit that?”

Victoria makes a noise of disgust. “Don’t be gross.”

“I’m just fucking with you, Crash,” Trinity says. “Come on. Let’s hang out with the big kids.”

It doesn’t take Victoria long to figure out that her birthday party has a theme.

The first hint is the hats. The second is the box of crappy party favors — plastic kazoos and mini bubble wands — that’s been crammed into a booth. The third is the pink, frilly button that Princess pins to the strap of her dress.

She tilts it up to look at it. Birthday Girl.

“Is this meant to be, like, a kid’s party?” she asks Dennis.

He blinks owlishly. “...No?”

“Oh my god,” Victoria says. “You guys are such assholes.”

“It was meant to be a joke, I think,” Dennis says.

“If anyone got me a pacifier as a gag gift, I’ll actually become homicidal,” Victoria says.

Dennis smiles a little, taking a sip of his margarita. “I think you’re safe on that front.”

Victoria nods in relief. Then, she mirrors Dennis and lifts her cosmo to her lips. She can’t really taste the vodka in it, which makes her nervous more than anything. She hasn’t figured out how to pace herself. At least with beer, she wants to drink slowly.

“I should say—uh, thanks for doing this,” she says. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful. This was really sweet of you all.”

“Oh, I barely did anything,” Dennis says, pink blooming on the apples of his cheeks. “It was mostly Princess. And Trinity. Really, I just bought the kazoos.”

“And where would we be without them?” Victoria jabs.

Dennis shakes his head. “Trust me, they weren’t my idea. You ask me, drunk people and noise machines don’t mix.”

“Maybe don’t give them out until people start going home,” Victoria says.

“I mean, sure, but what are grown adults going to do with a plastic kazoo?”

“Yeah, I’m starting to see the flaws in this plan,” Victoria says.

She’s halfway through her sentence when synth pop starts to blare over shitty speakers. She looks in the direction of the noise to see Samira and Mel standing over the jukebox, which is now flashing colored light.

“What even is this?” Victoria asks loudly, over the music.

Dennis frowns. “Uh, no idea. I looked at the tracks earlier, though, and it’s all, like, eighties stuff.”

“Come on,” Samira says, appearing at Victoria’s side. Her hand wraps around Victoria’s forearm and tugs her towards the center of the room. “The birthday girl has to dance at some point.”

“Hang on,” Victoria says. Samira lets go, and Victoria impulsively downs the rest of her cosmo, leaving the glass on a table so that both of her hands will be free. “Okay.”

Dancing with Samira is easy in a way it probably wouldn’t be with anyone else. Victoria knows she looks stupid right now; she’s uncoordinated at the best of times, and halfway-to-tipsy in a dimly-lit bar is far from the best of times. Samira is fluid, though, her expression free of judgement. She has a way of absorbing Victoria’s self-consciousness and leaving her feeling light. It must be her effect on everyone.

Dennis doesn’t join in. Victoria watches him meander along the outskirts of the room and slip onto the free barstool next to Trinity.

Trinity. In the interest of self-preservation, Victoria’s gaze should slide off Trinity as easily as it snagged on her.

Trinity, unlike Samira, puts Victoria on edge. She makes her feel hyper-aware of every one of her limbs and all ways they could betray her. Victoria has the burning urge to prove that she’s smarter than her, more capable, more well-liked. It defies all logic; each of these truths is self-evident. Victoria supposes this is why it’s so infuriating that Trinity won’t acknowledge them.

Dennis leans in to whisper something in Trinity’s ear under the music. Trinity’s lip quirks. Without warning, she catches Victoria’s eye through the crowd, her fingers lifting off her beer bottle in a little wave.

Victoria’s ears burn. She grabs Samira’s wrists.

“Do you wanna do shots?” she asks.

For a second, Samira gives her a puzzled look. Victoria wonders frantically if she somehow said something wrong. She’s never asked that question before.

“Sure,” Samira says eventually. “Tequila?”

Victoria nods, not knowing the difference. She leads Samira to the opposite end of the bar.

“It’s on me,” Samira insists, even through Victoria’s protests.

The liquor burns down Victoria’s throat. The lime is nice, though. She feels like all the liquid she slams back is gathering between her scalp and her skull.

Victoria doesn’t know what time it is when she stumbles into the bathroom. She doesn’t need to pee—she doesn’t think she does, anyway—but she’s desperate for a few moments of silence, for a reprieve from the sweltering heat of the barroom.

She sags back against the sticker-plastered door, trying not to notice how it sticks to her skin.

“Hey, Crash.”

Victoria opens her eyes, only realizing then that they’d been shut. Trinity is sitting on the meager counter-space by the sink, leaning back against the mirror. Her hair is a sweaty mess.

“Ugh,” Victoria says, pushing off the door. “What’re you doing here?”

Trinity smiles like she’s amused. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” Victoria says. She catches sight of the vape in Trinity’s hand. “Pretty sure you can’t do that in here.”

Trinity rolls her eyes. “I’m blowing the smoke out the window.”

“It still stinks of pineapple,” Victoria says. She reaches out and plucks the vape from Trinity’s hand, reading the label through her blurry vision. “Malibu Elf Bar?”

“Shut up,” Trinity says, snatching it from Victoria’s hand and pocketing it.

Victoria grins. “And you call me a little kid.”

“Because you are one,” Trinity says.

“Yeah, well.” Victoria shrugs. “Not anymore.”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot that twenty-one was the height of maturity.”

“At least I can rent a car now.”

“I didn’t know you drove, Crash,” Trinity says. “I don’t know if you should. Your nickname seems like a bad omen.”

“No one calls me that but you,” Victoria says.

“I still have faith it’ll catch on,” Trinity replies.

Almost absent-mindedly, she digs her vape back out of her pocket and puts it to her lips. Victoria doesn’t know why she watches. Trinity sucks lightly, cheeks hollowing out a little, then holds the smoke in her lungs, tapping the pod against the sink. Eventually she leans closer to the open window at her side and blows out into the night air.

Wordlessly, she holds her vape out to Victoria. It catches her off guard.

“No, thanks,” she says, once she finds her voice again. She hesitates, then adds, “It’s a disgusting habit.”

Trinity laughs.

“Glad I amuse you,” Victoria mutters, heat prickling the back of her neck.

“Always,” Trinity says.

Victoria breaks eye contact, suddenly uncomfortable. She’s unwilling to rejoin the party just yet, though, so instead, she wanders over to the wall adjacent to the sink and leans against the paper towel dispenser. It feels good to take some of the weight off her legs.

She has no idea what she was thinking, wearing heels. Her feet hurt and she’ll have worse blisters tomorrow than she gets after a twelve hour shift. McKay had told her to dress up, though, and these shoes she saw in the window of a thrift store match her sunset-orange party dress almost exactly. She’s never had an opportunity to wear them out before tonight.

Still, looking at Trinity, Victoria can’t help but wonder if she made the wrong decision. Trinity seems comfortable. She’s in dark-wash jeans that cling to her hips but fan out at the knee, and a white tank top through which Victoria can see the outline of her bra.

“Quit ogling me.”

Victoria’s gaze snaps up. Trinity’s looking down at her with half-lidded eyes, mirth sparkling behind them.

“I wasn’t—!” Victoria cuts herself off. “I was just thinking, you could’ve made an effort.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You could’ve dressed up a little. Everyone else did.”

Trinity’s lip quirks. “For your information, this look is a hit at the lesbian bar.”

Victoria can feel her face heat. “Yeah, well. That’s not where we are. So.”

“True,” Trinity says. She pushes her tongue into her cheek, still smirking, and Victoria snaps.

“You know, you always look at me like I’m some little dog doing tricks for you,” she says.

That seems to give Trinity pause. “What?”

Victoria puts her weight back on her feet, standing in front of her. “Like pissing me off is a game.”

“It kind of is,” Trinity says.

“What?” Victoria takes a step forward.

Trinity just shrugs. “It’s fun. Plus, you’re pretty cute when you’re pissed.”

Victoria’s heart kicks in her chest. “You’re a jerk.”

“I’ve made my peace with that.”

Trinity looks at Victoria for a long moment. In her annoyance, Victoria managed not to realize how close their faces were getting. If she wants, she could count each speck of silver glitter on Trinity’s eyelids.

“You’re really not drunk?” Trinity asks.

Victoria swallows. “No.” She really hopes it sounds convincing.

Slowly, Trinity’s hand comes up. Victoria’s so afraid of doing something stupid like gasping that she doesn’t breathe at all. Trinity’s skin radiates body heat, licking at the side of Victoria’s face almost as potently as direct touch. Victoria wonders if it’d be presumptuous to close her eyes.

Then, Trinity grabs the tip of her party hat and pulls it off her head. She flattens it carefully, tucking it under her thigh. Victoria’s eyes shoot open, and she’s so overcome with embarrassment that she doesn’t know how she’ll ever recover. She hopes it wasn’t obvious what she’d been anticipating.

“I can’t believe you were still wearing that,” Trinity says. “I’m touched.”

“Fuck off,” Victoria says, but her voice stumbles. In all honesty, she’d forgotten she’d been wearing it too. Her neck feels itchy now. She seriously contemplates trying to fit through the open window.

Trinity’s nose wrinkles with amusement. Then, her hand comes up; it molds to the curve of Victoria’s jaw, fingertips slipping into the hair at her nape. Victoria’s heart barely gets a beat in. Trinity kisses her.

Victoria makes a tiny, startled noise, which might be unfairly misconstrued as a squeak, and her hands fly forward to clutch the granite countertop on either side of Trinity’s thighs. Trinity huffs a small laugh against her lips. Victoria feels a flash of indignation, and presses in harder.

Trinity’s blunt nails scratch gently at her scalp, trailing sparks along her skin. Even that simple contact makes Victoria sag at the knee. She feels clumsy, off-kilter, out of step with her body. She tries her best to keep up with Trinity’s rhythm, but the movement of her mouth is so frustratingly practised.

She sucks Victoria’s bottom lip, and just when Victoria feels like she’s got a handle on closed-mouth kissing, she licks past her teeth. Victoria bites back a noise, and dutifully lets her lips part when Trinity presses at the corners of them with her thumbs, allowing her free rein.

Victoria wonders if she should move her hands. It’s becoming increasingly hard to think, though, as Trinity runs her tongue along the roof of her mouth in time with the rhythm of her thumb on her jaw.

Points in favor of groping: Trinity is warm, and her tank top is actually kind of hot, and Victoria wants to figure out if her bra has a lace trim. Points against: if this ends up being some kind of joke, it’s probably best that she reveal as little of her desperation as possible.

She runs out of time to make up her mind. Trinity’s kisses begin to slow, her tongue drawing back, her hands slipping from Victoria’s hair to the base of her neck. She dips in once, twice. Victoria thinks deliriously that she should’ve rested her hands on Trinity’s thighs instead.

When Trinity pulls back, Victoria’s eyes flutter open. She tries to discern the expression on Trinity’s guarded face. She takes in the dilation of her blue eyes and wonders if she’s drunk, too.

“Huh,” Trinity says.

Victoria’s brow furrows. “Huh” what? she wants to say. What was that? she wants to ask.

She flinches when Trinity’s hand comes up again, this time to pat her condescendingly on the cheek. For some reason, Victoria lets her.

She’s forced back as Trinity hops off the counter. For a moment, they’re chest to chest. Then Trinity turns around, fussing with her hair in the mirror, and Victoria wants to say, You’re not the one whose hair got screwed up, but she still can’t make herself speak.

“Happy birthday, Crash,” Trinity says, without looking at her.

The door swings shut behind her. Victoria’s left standing in the filthy bathroom, purple party hat crumpled next to the sink, clenching and unclenching her hands.

“You seem distracted,” her mom says.

“Yeah,” Victoria says, looking up from her phone. “Uh, sorry. I guess I stayed up kind of late.”

Her notifications are empty. They have been since everyone posted their photo dumps this morning, lighting up her mentions.

“We waived your curfew for your birthday because we trusted you to be responsible,” her mom says.

“Right. I know,” Victoria replies, shifting guiltily in her seat. “I’m sorry.”

She taps the screen of her phone again, just in case she missed a vibration. Nothing.

“If you’re going to take advantage of that trust to behave recklessly,” her mom says, “we’ll have to reconsider how much freedom we give you. Your social life is not worth compromising your education for.”

Victoria opens her mouth, then closes it, deciding she’d rather not argue. She nods.

Then, she checks her phone again, just in case.

[11:38] You: hey did you get home ok? i didn’t see you after we (Draft)

[4:15] You: are you as hungover as i am lmao (Draft)

[9:07] You: i like the fourth photo on your dump lol. maybe i judged the fit too quickly (Draft)

[12:32] You: you’re so fucking annoying you know. you’re so rude and crass and you think you can get away with fucking everything because you’re funny and “cool” but you know what, you’re nowhere near as smart as you think. if you knew how smart i really am you’d never mess with me you’d be worshipping the ground i walk on (Draft)

[2:11] You: are you ever gonna kiss me like that again (Draft)

“Ogilvie has been, like, unironically trying to bitch to me about not being invited to your party,” Joy says.

Victoria raises her eyebrows. “Really?”

Joy nods. “I told him you just didn’t want the newbies there.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly in charge of the guest list,” Victoria mutters. She winces, then adds, “I’m glad you came, though. You’re cool.”

“Thanks,” Joy says dryly. “You only like me because I’m not applying to be a resident here, though. I’m not competition.”

“What?” Victoria laughs awkwardly, the sound too loud, even to her own ears. “That’s not true.”

Joy gives her a flat look, like Victoria’s ruthlessness is something obvious and well-known. Victoria’s not sure how she feels about having slipped sideways into that reputation. She forces a smile.

“I don’t care that other people are applying for my spot,” Victoria says. “I mean, it’s a meritocracy. Theoretically.”

“Uh-huh,” Joy says, like she knows something Victoria doesn’t. “You just called it your spot, though.”

“Well—I didn’t mean it like that,” Victoria says.

“It’s cool,” Joy says, shrugging. “I’m not judging.”

A man’s voice calls, “Joy!”

Dennis is passing by, Mel in tow. He signals for Joy to follow. She huffs, tugging both ends of her stethoscope, and goes.

Frustration still lingering, mind reeling with dead-end arguments in defense of herself, Victoria bites down hard on the inside of her cheek.

People have always considered her non-threatening, and that’s always been annoying. She’s had to emphasise that she skipped no qualifications to get to where she is, and even then, it takes time to earn people’s respect. Maybe she’s overcorrected. She’s never wanted to seem competitive, let alone entitled. They’re not attractive qualities.

Far from the first time that morning, Victoria’s gaze wanders over to Trinity. She’s bent over her workstation, brow furrowed, biting her nail. Victoria wonders what she would’ve done if Trinity had been a med student when they met. If they’d had to fight tooth and nail for the same meager opportunities. Victoria’s not sure she would’ve come out of it alive.

Trinity leans back, shaking the tension from her shoulders. She digs her fingers into her ponytail, underneath the elastic, as if to take some of the weight off her scalp. Then she sighs, shuts off her computer, and makes for the door.

It’s humid out. Victoria rolls up her sleeves, already missing the air conditioning.

Trinity is leaning against the wall beside the ambulance bay. There are bags under her eyes, a vape in her hand, and — Victoria notices for the first time — a dark stain on the front of her scrub top.

“Smoke break?” Victoria asks.

Trinity looks up. Her expression remains impassive, and she takes pull from her vape.

“Obviously,” she says, drawing out the word. “What’re you doing here? I thought this was a ‘disgusting habit.’”

She waves her vape, adopting an exaggerated puritanical tone. Still, something in Victoria’s ribcage twists at the acknowledgement of what happened in the bathroom. She fights off a smile, pushing some loose hair behind her ear.

“It is,” she says. She takes a step forward. “We, uh. We haven’t really gotten to talk.”

Trinity huffs. “Yeah, well. It’s not like you’ve been chasing me down.”

“Well—you didn’t text,” Victoria says.

Trinity shrugs, like that’s not her problem. Victoria wants to to point out that Trinity kissed her, not the other way around, but she’s not sure she could get through it without stammering.

“Did you have fun?” Trinity asks, voice halting.

Victoria’s mouth falls open. “Uh…”

“I meant at the party, Crash, don’t hurt yourself,” Trinity says. “I spent like four bucks on all the hats, so. Just wanna make sure that investment was worth it.”

“You bought the hats?” Victoria asks, surprised.

Trinity nods. “I figured you’re a holographic laminate kind of girl.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Victoria says. She hesitates, then adds, “I, uh. I figured you’d have outsourced that stuff to Whitaker, or something.”

“You calling me lazy?” Trinity says. “The whole thing was my idea, remember.”

“Well, yeah. But I figured that was just…” Victoria trails off, suddenly embarrassed.

Trinity stares expectantly. “Just what?”

“Just—messing with me. Like always,” Victoria says. “I feel like everything you do is just to get in my head. So.”

“Wow,” Trinity says. Her face is so solemn for a moment that Victoria thinks she might actually say something real. “Your ego is the size of a house, you know.”

“Shut up,” Victoria says. “You’re one to talk.”

“Oh, I know. Game recognize game.”

“I don’t even know why I came out here,” Victoria snaps.

She feels irrationally upset. Trinity is just joking like she always does, jabbing and prodding until she happens across a tender spot, but for some reason, Victoria had convinced herself that today would be somehow different. She can’t describe exactly what she’d expected Trinity to say—or even what she would’ve wanted Trinity to say—but this definitely isn’t it.

“Hey, chill. I’m just kidding,” Trinity says. “You’re actually annoyingly humble. If I was a kid genius I’d be shoving it in everyone’s face.”

“I know,” Victoria says, flatly. “I think I’m gonna go back in. Lots of … charting.”

She turns towards the door. Behind her, Trinity sighs heavily, like dealing with Victoria’s emotions is some Sisyphean task.

“For what it’s worth…” she says. Victoria stills. “I didn’t kiss you to mess with you.”

Victoria should probably be embarrassed of how fast she turns around. “Really?”

Trinity shrugs. She puts her vape to her lips.

“Why’d you do it, then?”

A smile tugs at Trinity’s mouth. “Because you look good in orange.”

Victoria’s impulse is to say, Screw you. Her hackles raise, her blood runs hot, and every instinct she has is telling her that Trinity’s intention in saying that was to exploit a chink in Victoria’s armor. Victoria blames it on Trinity’s unique ability to deliver a compliment like an insult.

“Oh,” she says instead. She figures that even if Trinity’s lying, it’s more pragmatic to act on the assumption that she’s not. She straightens her shoulders. “Thanks.”

“God, you’re so weird,” Trinity says. “I should’ve known you’d get all stiff the second I say something nice.”

Victoria frowns, making a conscious attempt to relax her posture.

“You think that was nice?” she says, knowing she’s being petty but not wanting to stop. “Complimenting people’s outfits is just … polite.”

“True,” Trinity says. “Your turn, then.”

Victoria blinks. “You’re wearing scrubs. With a huge stain on them, by the way.”

Trinity looks down and grimaces, as if she’d forgotten.

Victoria hesitates, then asks, “Did you spit up?”

Trinity raises her eyebrows. Laughs.

“No,” she says. “Some asshole squirted a juicebox at me.”

Victoria tries not to grin. “Squirted a—”

“Yeah, like, broke the seal, aimed, and squeezed,” Trinity says. She grimaces a little. “I wasn’t fawning over him enough, apparently.”

“Well,” Victoria says. “Your bedside manner could be improved.”

“I wasn’t treating him any differently than Langdon would’ve,” Trinity says. Victoria wonders if she’s imagining the hint of bitterness in her tone. “Anyway, I just came out here to decompress. Thanks for interrupting, by the way.”

“Oh. Uh, sorry.”

Trinity shakes her head. “I should probably go back in. Maybe get a new set of scrubs.”

“Okay,” Victoria says. She moves aside as Trinity passes, even though she doesn’t really need to.

Trinity’s head is ducked, her shoulders an exhausted downward curve. She tucks her vape away and pushes her tongue hard against the inside of her cheek.

“Santos,” Victoria says.

Trinity looks up, over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Um.” Victoria swallows. She can feel her breathing getting heavy, preemptive panic setting in. “You looked good on Friday also. Like, if I look good in orange, you look good in white. Not that I was paying that much attention to what you were wearing. I mean. I saw it on your Instagram, after. So that’s why it’s … fresh in my mind.”

Trinity stares at her for what feels like ages. Then, “So, you thought I looked hot.”

Victoria makes a strangled noise. Then, “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Trinity says. Her expression is smug again, and it’s still annoying, but Victoria can’t help but feel proud she had a hand in returning Trinity to her usual self. “See you around, Crash.”

“See you,” Victoria says, as Trinity disappears through the sliding glass doors.

[9:08] Santos: have u seen eastenders

The chime from Victoria’s phone interrupts the peaceful silence she’s been cultivating for the past few hours. She’s oiled her hair, washed her bedsheets, taken a bath, and now she’s ready to cozy up in her nicest pajamas and read several chapters of the fantasy romance she picked up at Barnes & Noble.

She taps the screen of her phone, though, just in case it’s something important. When she reads the text, her eyes widen. She pushes her thumb against her lip.

[9:10] You: nope
[9:10] You: is that like a movie

She switches her phone off and drops it on her bed like it’s burned her, tucking her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She watches the black screen carefully, all thought of the book on her nightstand abandoned.

A few minutes later, it lights up.

[9:14] Santos: no lol it’s like this insane british soap where they all talk super cockney
[9:15] Santos: i think like 31 characters have come back from the dead

Victoria picks up her phone.

[9:15] You really?? that sounds bad

[9:16] Santos: yeah deliciously bad

[9:16] You i don’t get it

[9:18] Santos: it’s just fun lol, huckleberry and i watch it together
[9:19] Santos: what, u don’t like anything stupid?

Victoria glances at the bookmarked novel to her left.

[9:20] You: no

[9:23] Santos: HA. i can always tell when ur lying crash

Victoria stares at the screen for long enough that it goes to sleep. She turns it back on, and types out a reply.

[9:26] You: don’t call me that

She waits for a long time. She picks up her book eventually, but every other paragraph, she leans over and checks her notifications, just in case she missed a vibration.

She didn’t. She doesn’t get a response.

[10:47] Santos: [IMG_5901]

Victoria’s brow furrows as she tries to make sense of what she’s seeing.

[10:50] You: is that whitaker??

[10:56] Santos: yea lol

[10:56] You: is he ok????

[10:58] Santos: yeah hes fine he just forgot his keys

[10:58] You: ???????????????
[10:58] You: LET HIM IN THEN??

[11:01] Santos: hes safe and sound now
[11:01] Santos: i wiped his tears and tucked him into bed and read him a story
[11:02] Santos: [IMG_5902]

The second photo Trinity sends is of Dennis curled up on a couch, facing away from her with his arms crossed. His hair is drenched with summer rain. Victoria bites back a smile.

[11:03] You: aw. he looks like a wet cat

[11:05] Santos: lmaoo
[11:06] Santos: he says ur an asshole but i say ur perfect just the way u are

Victoria’s face burns.

[11:06] You: shut up

She shoves her phone between the cushions of the couch and refocuses on the TV.

[2:33] Santos: wyd

[2:37] You: [IMG_5989]

[3:11] Santos: aw don’t u have a better way to spend ur sunday

[3:12] You: you told me to watch it

[3:15] Santos: yes i did.
[3:15] Santos: are u having fun

[3:17] You: no it makes no sense

[3:18] Santos: what do u watch in ur free time then?
[3:18] Santos: bridgerton?

[3:20] You: shut up
[3:20] You: like
[3:21] You: yeah, but only with my mom

[3:22] Santos: oh my god i was kidding
[3:23] Santos: fuck should i watch it too

[3:23] You: stop
[3:23] You: i watch other stuff more

[3:25] Santos: yeah?

[3:26] You: killing eve. gilmore girls. idk, severance

[3:26] Santos: that’s crazy work
[3:26] Santos: pick a vibe and stick to it next time

[3:26] You: sorry for being multifaceted

[3:27] Santos: dork

[3:27] You: jerk
[3:27] You: i’m turning off the tv

[3:29] Santos: follow ur heart crash

She doesn’t switch the TV off. She shuts down her brain instead, letting a few thoughtless minutes slip by. She can imagine Trinity and Dennis spending nights like this, the lights dimmed in their shared apartment which Victoria has only seen in photos.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Victoria’s head jerks up. McKay is frowning at her with obvious concern, her hands on her hips, an expression Victoria’s privately dubbed her mom-look.

“Yeah,” Victoria says, putting on a smile. “Yeah, I’m totally fine.”

“Okay,” McKay says. She drags out the word in such a way that it’s clear she’s not convinced. “Hey, would you wanna cover triage with me this morning? Get a break from all the…”

There was a multi-car pileup in their zone early this morning. It’s winding down now—no longer the all-hands-on-deck scramble it had been an hour ago—but the ED is still overcrowded with patients waiting for an OR, the air tense with the beating memory of those who already died in their beds.

“Sure,” Victoria says. “That’d be good.”

She follows McKay through the halls, the bright overhead lights seeming harsher than usual.

“It’s fine if you’re upset, you know.”

“Oh,” Victoria says. “Uh, yeah, I know.”

“It doesn’t mean you’re not capable,” McKay says. “I don’t want you to think I’m hand-holding you because you’re a med student. I know you’re tough.”

“Uh. Thanks,” Victoria says, touched, but unsure how to respond. “It’s not that, though. I mean … today sucks, yeah, but no worse than any other day.”

McKay looks at her for a moment. “Something else on your mind?”

“Kind of.” Victoria hesitates. “It’s stupid. I really shouldn’t talk about it. I can’t talk about it.”

“Ah,” McKay says, like she and Victoria are in on something. “Gotcha.”

Victoria’s face grows warm. She pauses a few feet from the doors to the emergency room. McKay follows suit, turning around with a furrowed brow.

“Yeah?” she says.

“I just…” Victoria says. “Do you ever feel guilty for thinking about that stuff while you’re on the clock? Like—how can I even have room for it in my head?”

“Aw. You’re not a bad person for having a life, kiddo,” McKay says, squeezing her shoulder. “Trust me. It’s normal. If all we thought about was death, we’d drive ourselves crazy. You don’t have to beat yourself up for daydreaming about a cute boy.”

“Oh my god,” Victoria says. “No, that is not what’s happening.”

“If you say so,” McKay says, eye sparkling, as Victoria pushes past her and through the doors.

The problem is, Victoria can’t figure out if anything’s changed. The texting is new, sure, having become frequent where it was previously sporadic at best, but she and Trinity don’t interact any differently at work, and Trinity hasn’t made efforts to see her outside of it. Part of Victoria wants to ask, but if she’s reading into things, she’d rather not find out by Trinity laughing in her face.

Instead, she walks tensely around the ED and zones out staring at walls and gets distracted whenever Trinity laughs, even if she’s on the other side of the room. Clearly, this method of compartmentalizing her emotions is not sustainable if it’s already causing her pseudo-mentor to wonder if she’s having a nervous breakdown.

Working triage helps, though. A lot of the people Victoria works with think of it as a chore, menial labor only allocated as punishment, but she doesn’t mind doing it occasionally. There’s something satisfying about solving small, routine problems—conducting tests, taking histories, removing Legos from kids’ noses. Feeling like she’s categorically improved her patients’ lives at the end of every hour.

Once the transition from the night shift has smoothed over, the needs of the waiting room not quite so pressing, Victoria returns. McKay leaves her with another squeeze of the shoulder and a warm look, a silent confirmation that Victoria could still go to her if she needed.

As Victoria’s about to look at the board for a case she can jump on, her eye catches on a privacy curtain that hasn’t been drawn all the way.

Trinity’s there, spine stiff, hovering by a man’s bedside. Victoria recognizes him as a passenger in one of the vehicles caught in the pileup this morning, and there are teartracks cutting through his cheeks.

“He, um…” the man is saying. “He would’ve been wearing a necklace. Just a chain. Silver.” He presses his lips together. “My grandmother’s.”

“Yeah. We would’ve, uh, cut it off when he arrived,” Trinity says.

“Right.” The man sighs. “Do you have it?”

Trinity pauses, then nods tightly. “We should, yeah. Do you want me to…” She swallows. “I’ll go get it for you.”

The man relaxes a little, leaning back into the starchy pillows. His brow is deeply furrowed, his jaw clenched. Victoria watches Trinity hesitate. Her hand twitches at her side, then lifts, then moves all at once, reaching out to cover the man’s and give it a quick squeeze.

“I’ll get it for you,” she repeats, pulling her hand away. She turns around, frowning at the half-open privacy curtain and fixing it as she leaves. Once outside, she pauses. She wipes her nose, shakes her head, and hardens her expression.

“You okay?” Victoria asks as Trinity brushes carelessly past.

“Find something to do, Crash,” Trinity replies, not looking at her. “Check on your patients. Don’t make your boredom my problem.”

It should sting. It doesn’t. Victoria stares at Trinity’s retreating back, her eyebrows drawn together.

There are certain things it’s acceptable for sixteen-year-olds to plan their life around that twenty-one-year-olds should have moved past. For instance, Victoria can’t help but think she’s too old to be excited when her parents go to bed early so she can use her vibrator without worrying about them hearing it.

It doesn’t stop her.

It’s eleven at night. It’s silent in her house. She’s showered, put on half of a camisole pajama set (not bothering with the shorts), and the air conditioner is at the perfect temperature. She sets her LED lamp to a low pink glow and slides under the covers.

Her phone vibrates. She really should’ve put it on silent. She’d do it now, if she weren’t suddenly, inexplicably, distracted.

[11:13] Santos: what are u wearing

Victoria’s heart thuds thickly in her chest. The silence of the house is drowned out by the blood suddenly rushing in her ears. She fumbles through her password and opens up her chat with Trinity.

[11:13] You: sorry what?

It only occurs to Victoria after she hits send that it’s probably incredibly lame of her to have replied as fast as she did. She groans, sagging back on her many pillows, throwing a forearm over her eyes.

It takes a while to get a response.

[11:17] Santos: LOL sorry girl wrong person

Victoria stares disbelievingly at the screen. She sits up, blankets pooling around her waist, suddenly furious.

[11:18] You: fucking read the contact name next time

[11:19] Santos: jesus chill
[11:19] Santos: honest mistake

[11:19] You: what, you’re dating a girl named victoria now

[11:20] Santos: no, a man named craig
[11:20] Santos: they just look so similar when u squint

“Asshole,” Victoria mutters, shaking her head. All thought of getting herself off is now forgotten. She has no idea how she could possibly get in the right mindset again. She has the urge to complain about this to Trinity, but she would never hear the end of it.

[11:22] You: i was about to go to sleep you know
[11:22] You: you woke me up

[11:24] Santos: you sleep at 11pm?
[11:24] Santos: girl ur 21 u should be at the club

[11:24] You: take it up with my mom

[11:24] Santos: with pleasure

[11:24] You: well
[11:25] You: don’t actually

[11:29] Santos: getting a lot of mixed signals here

[11:30] You: jesus christ
[11:30] You: don’t try to fuck my mom

[11:32] Santos: ????
[11:32] Santos: ur so wild i was NOT implying that

[11:32] You: whatever.

[11:34] Santos: crazy
[11:34] Santos: i mean u obviously have great genetics but even they have limits yk

Biting her lip, Victoria leans against the wall adjacent to her bed. Her room is pleasantly cool, softly lit, but so painfully empty.

She decides to test a hypothesis. She scrolls back in their conversation, to the first offending text. It’s nondescript, applicable to anyone, and cliche enough a line to be played off as a joke. She reads her reply. A knee-jerk response, immediately on the defense, betraying absolutely nothing. She checks the timestamps on their texts. Despite supposedly planning to have phone sex with someone else, Trinity’s been replying to her consistently for twenty minutes.

Victoria breathes in sharply, then slowly types out her reply.

[11:38] You: better genetics than craig?

[11:40] Santos: lol what

[11:40] You: because you’ll sext craig but not me

[11:40] Santos: well. craig is not real
[11:40] Santos: also SEXT lmao pls never say that again

Victoria steels herself.

[11:41] You: you know what i mean

[11:43] Santos: i really really don’t

[11:43] You: you were negging me before. right?
[11:43] You: there isn’t another girl

In a flash, Victoria hits send, switches off her phone, and collapses back onto her bed. She covers her face with both hands and squeezes her eyes shut, letting them swim with colors. She wishes she could stay in this moment forever, never having to move onto the next. Still, the knowledge that the next is coming is enough to make every passing second feel like agony.

Her phone vibrates.

[11:47] Santos: ding ding ding
[11:47] Santos: gold star

Victoria’s heart throbs dangerously in her throat.

[11:47] You: really?

[11:48] Santos: yea lol
[11:48] Santos: u didn’t seem into it tho so i didn’t wanna push the issue

[11:48] You: so you employed an incel tactic.

[11:49] Santos: i prefer “pickup artist”
[11:49] Santos: anyway if u could just leave me to my shame and forget all about this that’d be super awesome thanks

[11:49] You: what
[11:49] You: i don’t want to forget

[11:49] Santos: look i know ur just dying to have one over on me but trust me this isn’t the way to power
[11:50] Santos: learn tagalog instead i’ll be screwed

[11:50] You: no i just
[11:50] You: god
[11:51] You: what are YOU wearing?

The typing bubbles appear, disappear. Appear, disappear. Victoria’s never seen Trinity agonize over a text for this long.

[11:54] Santos: i wish i was wearing something good but just like boxers and a tshirt

Victoria breathes out shakily.

[11:55] You: boxers???

[11:55] Santos: that do it for u?
[11:56] Santos: i can go either way but boxers are comfy for sleeping

[11:56] You: wow so hot

[11:56] Santos: are u being a shit

[11:56] You: a little
[11:57] You: i do like boxers
[11:57] You: on girls
[11:57] You: and guys
[11:57] You: but obviously only half of that is relevant
[11:57] You: fuck just disregard the last 3 messages

[11:57] Santos: lol no way
[11:58] Santos: ur lameness is part of ur sex appeal obvi
[11:58] Santos: how else am i gonna get my rocks off

[11:59] You: you think i have sex appeal?

[12:00] Santos: god ur need for approval is a bottomless pit
[12:01] Santos: did mommy not give u enough praise as a child

[12:01] You: screw you

[12:01] Santos: well yeah
[12:01] Santos: so what are u wearing

[12:02] You: cami

[12:02] Santos: ???
[12:02] Santos: nothing else?

[12:02] You: ““““panties”””” i guess
[12:03] You: that word is so gross

[12:03] Santos: ?? nothng else???

[12:03] You: toenail polish?

[12:03] Santos: ok yea um
[12:04] Santos: wow
[12:04] Santos: would u feel comfortable sending a pic?

Victoria pauses. She lets her phone rest on her drawn-up knee for a moment and looks up at the mirror opposite her bed.

She looks kind of good, she guesses. The reason she wears impractical sets like these to bed some nights is because she feels hot in them, even if no one’s strictly looking. It’s more about the feel of the fabric, though, the sensation of exposed skin. She doesn’t actually think it suits her particularly well. She just looks like a normal girl, hunched over awkwardly in her bed, her twin French braids messy and a little damp.

[12:06] You: idk

[12:07] Santos: oh that’s cool
[12:07] Santos: do u want a pic of me?

[12:07] You: that doesn’t seem fair

[12:07] Santos: it’s not transactional, crash
[12:08] Santos: but that’s fine if ur not into it ur not into it

[12:08] You: sorry

[12:08] Santos: don’t apologize
[12:08] Santos: don’t feel bad for not wanting sex ok

[12:08] You: is this sex?

[12:09] Santos: god idk
[12:09] Santos: i think if u get off with someone else and u both wanted it it’s sex

[12:09] You: fair enough
[12:09] You: did i ruin the mood?

[12:09] Santos: 100% yes but that’s who u are

[12:10] You: sorry

[12:10] Santos: god shut up
[12:10] Santos: loser
[12:10] Santos: call me a bitch or something it’ll make me feel better

[12:10] You: what? no
[12:11] You: you’re such a freak

[12:11] Santos: there she is
[12:11] Santos: do u want me to describe what i’d do to u instead

Victoria tugs her blankets the rest of the way off her legs, the temperature of the room suddenly scorching.

[12:13] You: yeah, if you want

[12:14] Santos: wellllll ok
[12:14] Santos: honestly i’m really into making out
[12:14] Santos: best part of any hookup
[12:14] Santos: plus, easy way to shut u up. at first anyway. hopefully i’d get more creative later
[12:15] Santos: anyway, i’d slip a knee between ur thighs. let u grind against me as much as u want until u can’t focus on kissing anymore and ur wet all the way through ur ‘““““panties”””” i guess’
[12:17] Santos: i’d take them off, then, but i’d leave ur top on. suck on ur tits through the fabric. make you squirm on my fingers.
[12:18] Santos: i’d press my palm to ur clit, make u get urself off there while i finger u. i bet u get impatient. u always are. u can curse me out all u want, it won’t make me want to stop toying with u
[12:18] Santos: anddddd feel free to jump in here anytime crash

[12:18] You: shit sorry

[12:18] Santos: it’s cool
[12:18] Santos: thought the “panties” comment would’ve got u

[12:18] You: shut up
[12:18] You: i didn’t know i was supposed to talk too

[12:20] Santos: if u want

[12:21] You: i just

Pulled forcibly out of the scene Trinity was constructing, Victoria realizes that the quickening of her breath hadn’t been entirely due to arousal. She’s panicking, in that same nauseating way she always used to before an exam, watching her final preparatory minutes tick down.

She tries to think of something to say. Her brain is swimming with images, but they all seem too crude or too assumptive or too impossible to describe without cringing. She thinks about sending them and pictures Trinity’s haughty blue eyes reading and dissecting her pathetic attempts to be sexy. Or worse, skipping past the execution and simply knowing all those embarrassing things Victoria lets herself want in the dead of night.

[12:23] You: sorry
[12:23] You: i just can’t

[12:23] Santos: all g
[12:24] Santos: i prob won’t keep going tho lol i feel weird talking into the ether

Victoria feels a pang of disappointment. She grinds her teeth in frustration, wondering how she let this slip through her fingers.

[12:24] Santos: maybe i should just come over there

Victoria inhales. She reads the words twice, three times, as if they might disappear. For a moment, she entertains them. Maybe she could get Trinity to climb through her window—there is a tree within jumping distance.

[12:26] You: you can’t

[12:26] Santos: “can’t?”

[12:27] You: yeah
[12:27] You: i live with other people

[12:27] Santos: ur roommate’s gonna judge u for getting laid?

[12:27] You: my mom

[12:28] Santos: what

[12:28] You: i live with my parents

[12:28] Santos: ……

[12:28] You: stop

[12:29] Santos: not saying anything

[12:29] You: well don’t
[12:29] You: i don’t want to hear it

[12:29] Santos: :)

[12:30] You: i don’t even have a fucking income yet

[12:30] Santos: do u have a trustfund?

[12:32] You: goodnight santos

[12:32] Santos: HAHA knew it

[12:32] You: goodnight santos

[12:33] Santos: aw i’m just teasing
[12:33] Santos: gn crash

[12:33] You: goodnight santos.

Victoria, though, doesn’t go to sleep. She doesn’t switch off her phone. Instead, feeling like the biggest loser in the world, she scrolls up through her messages with Trinity and lands on that gray wall of text.

It’s not much, really, but that’s not the point. The thing that has Victoria’s head swimming is the undeniable fact that Trinity imagined this scene, composed these messages, and then sent them with Victoria in mind. Regardless of how honest they were, whether or not Trinity had thought of them before, she wanted Victoria to believe she meant them.

Victoria can’t describe exactly what she feels towards Trinity. It’s a complex, ever-evolving thing, and just when Victoria thinks she has a handle on it, Trinity will do something so frustrating that she’s forced to recalibrate her entire worldview.

Slowly, biting her lip, Victoria reaches under her bed and retrieves her vibrator.

Trinity is scooping her hair into a ponytail at the lockers, elastic between her teeth. Victoria sees her as she approaches, and it puts an awkward stumble in her step. She steels herself, adjusting her the strap of her backpack on her shoulder, and closes the distance.

“Hey,” she says, as casually as she can manage. She doesn’t look at Trinity, instead focusing on plugging in her code.

Trinity makes a noise in response that might’ve been a hey as well, had her mouth not been otherwise occupied.

Victoria can’t help herself. She glances over. Trinity is meticulously smoothing out the bumps in her hair with her capable fingers.

“How … how are you?” Victoria asks. She clears her throat, wincing.

“Fucking excellent,” Trinity says. She’s got the elastic in her hand now, pulling her hair through it. “The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. I feel like a goddamn Disney princess.”

“It’s raining,” Victoria points out.

“Yeah, I got that,” Trinity replies. She lets her arms fall to her sides. “See you around, girl genius.”

Victoria watches her retreat. The weight of her backpack drags her shoulders down until it slips to the floor with a heavy thunk.

It’s always a little grotesque to watch Dennis eat. Everyone eats fast if they find a spare minute to eat lunch—it’s a hazard of the job—but he positively wolfs his food down, barely stopping to breathe.

“You’re gonna choke one day,” Victoria says.

“Hm?” Dennis swallows. He looks down at his mangled sandwich. “Well. At least I’m in a hospital.”

“Right.” Victoria sits down opposite him, unwrapping a protein bar. Between this and a handful of multivitamins, she’s able to get half-decent nutrition. “Ever thought of just slowing down?”

“Pretty sure I couldn’t if I tried,” Dennis says. “Four brothers, you know.”

“Ah. So you’re like a hyena fighting over a carcass,” Victoria says. “Got it.”

Dennis considers her. “You’re an only child, right?”

Victoria grimaces. “Please tell me it’s not obvious.”

“Uh,” Dennis says. “No, no, it’s … definitely not.”

“Great,” Victoria mutters.

“I think I can just tell because my family was so intense,” Dennis says. “People who don’t have that are usually pretty different. Santos is an only child too.”

“Cool,” Victoria says. She nibbles the edge of her protein bar, but can’t muster up much of an appetite. Probably the food poisoning she just treated.

“It’s the competitive thing, I think,” Dennis adds. “I think if you’re a kid and your parents are always telling you how special you are, you want the same thing later from your teacher or boss, or whatever. Transference, right?”

“Okay, never quote Freud again,” Victoria says. “Also, my parents did not spoil me.”

Dennis shrugs, looking unconvinced. “Okay.”

“Seriously. Basically nothing I’ve ever done is good enough,” Victoria says. “At least you get to be the golden boy. Your brothers are probably jealous of you.”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Dennis says. He shifts in his seat, picking at the crust of his sandwich. “It’s not really that clear-cut. I mean, I also left the nest. That’s not really what you’re meant to do.”

“No.” Victoria pushes her hair behind her ear, eyes downcast. “No, it isn’t.”

“Yeah.” Dennis clears his throat. “Anyway, it’s not like people with siblings are saints and only children are evil. I think we both have good and bad qualities.”

Victoria snorts. “Like what? People with siblings are selfless and independent and only children are, I don’t know, difficult to bore?”

Dennis smiles meekly. “Not exactly. I think only children didn’t have to compromise as much, so they’re good at going after what they want. Santos has probably taught me to be more like that.”

“Right.”

“Like, she never does anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“It must be hard to live with someone like that,” Victoria mutters.

Dennis shrugs. “It’s not that bad. It was worse when it meant bringing home a bunch of different girls.” As if what he said just registered, Dennis’ eyes bug out of his head. “Wait. Don’t tell her I said that.”

“I won’t,” Victoria says. She presses her lips together, then says, as lightly as possible, “So … she’s not doing that anymore?”

Dennis grimaces, as if considering whether or not he should say anything further. Victoria silently begs him to, just this once, be a little flexible with his moral compass.

“Not really,” he says. “She was sort of … seeing someone for a while.”

“Garcia,” Victoria says without thinking.

Dennis’ eyes flicker up. “Yeah. But that sort of fizzled out, so.”

Victoria’s ears perk up. “Oh? When?”

“I don’t know. Like, around your birthday?” Dennis squirms. “I really shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“Right. Sorry,” Victoria says, not feeling particularly sorry at all. She starts in on her protein bar, trying to ignore Dennis as he attacks his sandwich again with newfound voracity.

A day generally has the capacity to go from bad to worse when Victoria runs into her mom in the ED. With Garcia as the department’s pet surgeon, it’s not like she gets called down for many consults, but it’s also not exactly a rare occurrence.

At the very least, Victoria’s mom stopped actively seeking her out a few weeks into her first rotation. She might greet her with a formal hello, Dr. Javadi if she passes her in the hall, despite the fact that she’s still just a med student, but typically sticks to her case before returning to surgery.

This, though. This is new. Victoria rounds a corner and is assaulted with the image of her mom making small talk with Trinity Santos. Her eyebrows are raised and there’s the smallest hint of approval playing across her lips.

Victoria can’t hear what they’re saying, but it’s obvious that Trinity’s sucking up like nobody’s business. She’s puffing out her chest, gesturing, smiling smugly. Victoria’s ears burn when she realizes that Trinity schmoozes almost identically to how she flirts.

As Victoria approaches, she catches the tail end of the conversation. Her mom is nodding slightly, saying, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Dr. Shamsi,” Victoria says, sounding a little strangled. “Dr. Santos.”

Trinity’s eyes sparkle. She presses her lips together as if to hold back a bark of laughter.

“Victoria,” her mom says, nodding to acknowledge her, before turning to leave without a goodbye. Victoria watches her go, for a moment, then levels her gaze on Trinity.

“Student Doctor Javadi,” Trinity says seriously, sticking out her hand for Victoria to shake. Victoria bats it away.

“You’re shameless,” she says.

“True,” Trinity says. “I think your mom likes me.”

“She thinks you’re perfectly suited to the ER,” Victoria says. “Couldn’t ask for a better resident.”

“Huh. Something tells me that’s an insult.”

“To her, it is.” Victoria purses her lips. “You know it’s weird for me when you butter her up, right?”

“Good thing I don’t base my career choices based on what weirds you out, Crash,” Trinity says. “Otherwise I’d be unemployed.”

“I’ve never said I want you gone,” Victoria says, before she can think. Trinity raises her eyebrows. “At least I know how to handle you.”

“Handle me.” Trinity grins. “Wow, tell me how you really feel.”

Victoria kind of wants to say, Tell me how you really feel. She doesn’t. She stares up into Trinity’s expression of guarded amusement, teeth showing and eyes crinkling, but a definitive privacy being defended. All Victoria can think is how exhausted she is with being on the other side of that shield.

“I need you for a consult,” she says.

“Oh.” Trinity looks genuinely surprised. “Okay. What’s the issue?”

Victoria just shakes her head and starts down the hall. She hears Trinity’s indignant noise before a second set of footsteps join hers along the linoleum.

“Lead the way then, I guess,” Trinity says. “God, you’re cranky.”

Victoria doesn’t even bother disagreeing. Her heart is pounding, her skin alight with nerves. She feels like she’s teetering on the edge of a cliff and wonders if this is what thrill-seekers feel just before bungee jumping, or doing something else indisputably stupid.

This section of hallway is usually relatively empty. Aside from a few supply closets, it’s empty, meaning that Victoria and Trinity are the only people there save for a nurse passing through. Victoria waits for him to leave before opening one of the doors at random, then turning to look at Trinity.

Trinity glances into the closet. “You need help bedazzling a tongue depressor?”

“No.” Victoria feels her ribcage tightening, making her short of breath. “I lied about the consult. Obviously.”

“Didn’t know you were a bad girl,” Trinity says. “So? What’s up?”

Victoria hesitates, then reaches out and grabs Trinity by the wrist. Trinity’s eyes widen in surprise, but she goes without much complaint, letting Victoria shut the door behind them.

They’re plunged into darkness, but Victoria can’t be bothered fumbling for the light switch. She takes Trinity’s shoulders and pushes them back against the door, leans in, and kisses her.

It’s a short kiss. Maybe a little subpar. For all Victoria’s bravado going in, she’s still only done this once before, and never while sober. Her plan pretty much started and ended with getting her lips back on Trinity’s, and now that she’s done it, she has no idea what comes next.

She pulls away with an awkward smacking sound. Pauses. Leans in again. Trinity doesn’t stop her, but she doesn’t move.

When Victoria pulls away a second time, Trinity lets out a strangled laugh.

“What is this, General Hospital?” she says, half-breathless. “Jesus, Crash.”

“Sorry,” Victoria mutters, going to step back.

“Nuh-uh,” Trinity says, reaching out and gripping Victoria by the back of the neck. She pulls her back in, and Victoria stumbles, knees knocking against Trinity’s. “No way.”

This kiss is a little better. Victoria’s still nervous, kind of stiff, but at least Trinity’s kissing back now, and she’s able to guide them into something soft. Trinity pulls at Victoria’s upper lip, opening her mouth just barely. Victoria sighs shakily and copies the movement. Trinity’s hand slips from the back of her neck to her face, swiping her thumb over the jut of her cheekbone. Victoria fists her hands in Trinity’s scrubs.

She kind of wants it to be heated, dizzying, like it had been in that bar bathroom. It’s not that this is bad—it’s a different kind of nice, one which spells trouble, because if it’s a bad idea to like it when Trinity’s a little rough with her, it’s an unequivocally worse one to start to enjoy it when she’s soft.

It’s not long before Trinity pushes Victoria away. Victoria goes, mouth still hanging open a little. Trinity wipes at her own lips.

“As fun as this was, we should probably get back out there,” she says. “If we can’t take a fifteen minute break for lunch, we definitely can’t take one to make out.”

Victoria flushes a little. “Yeah. Probably.”

Trinity opens the door with a click. Harsh white light floods in again; Victoria squints as her eyes adjust. Trinity sticks her head out to look both ways down the corridor.

“Coast is clear,” she hisses, mock-seriously. Victoria rolls her eyes as she pushes past her and out into the hall.

Trinity shuts the door, leaning back against it. Victoria fidgets in place, not sure if she should be the first to go.

“So,” Trinity says. “You live with your mom.”

Victoria stares in mild horror. “This isn’t all about getting to her, is it?”

“God—no,” Trinity says, nose wrinkling.

“Okay. Okay. Good.”

“I was just saying,” Trinity says. “It’s probably hard having your parents around, watching you all the time.”

Victoria shrugs. “I guess.”

“Well,” Trinity says, “you can stay at my place tonight, if you want.”

Victoria stares, wide-eyed. Her heart rate, which had just started to slow, redoubles. She feels warm all over.

“Yeah. Yes.” She clears her throat. “I’ll, uh, I’ll have to ask my mom.”

Trinity snorts. “I’ll call in for another surgery consult.”

“Don’t,” Victoria says. “I’ll just text her.”

The corner of Trinity’s mouth lifts. “Okay.”

Victoria nods, a little feverishly. “Okay.”

[1:59] You: Hi mom!
[1:59] You: Sorry to bother you.
[2:00] You: I know I’m supposed to be home for dinner tonight, but one of my coworkers has invited me over to her apartment hang out, and I figured if I was staying late it might be safer to spend the night than take the bus.

[2:42] Mom: Which coworker?

[2:45] You: Dr. Santos.
[2:45] You: But I promise I’ll get enough sleep and I’ll be back before ten tomorrow. I’m not even working.

[2:55] Mom: Send me her address in case something happens.

[3:12] You: Of course! Thank you!

When Trinity finds Victoria at the end of their shift, her hair is loose. It’s a little greasy, plus stiff and oddly-shaped from being kept in a ponytail all day, but looks soft nonetheless.

“Hey,” she says, bumping her shoulder against Victoria’s.

“Hi,” Victoria says. She tucks her own hair behind her ear, wishing it was less frizzy after a shift. “Do you have a car?”

Trinity grins. “Obviously. I wasn’t gonna make you leg it.”

“Cool,” Victoria says. “I, uh, I usually take the bus. So no worries.”

Trinity looks surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah, well. I don’t wanna be dropped off, and I don’t have my own car yet,” Victoria says. “My, uh, my trust fund only kicked in when I was twenty-one. So.”

“Get on that shit, then,” Trinity says. “How loaded are your parents, exactly? Like, could you get a BMW?”

“I’m probably just gonna get a used Volvo or something,” Victoria admits.

Trinity rolls her eyes. “God, you’re a lost cause.”

They start towards the parking lot together. No one’s paying them any mind, and even if they were, it’s not like it’s suspicious for them to leave the building together. Still, Victoria can’t help but feel like every pair of eyes in the room is on her, and knows what she might be about to do.

“Are you gonna get a cool color, at least?” Trinity asks as they step out into the night air. “Or just, like, gray?”

“I don’t know. I like red,” Victoria says. “But white and yellow cars are implicated in the fewest accidents.”

“And red in the most,” Trinity adds.

“There’s arguably a psychological reason for that, though,” Victoria says. “People who are more aggressive drivers, particularly men, choose flashy, masculine cars.”

“God, you’re such a nerd.”

When they enter the parking lot, Victoria realizes she won’t need to ask Trinity which car is hers. She unlocks it, for one, and Victoria catches the flashing of the headlights across the lot, but it’s also obvious because Dennis is leaning against the bumper.

Victoria stills. A second later, Trinity realizes she’s not following and looks back, brow furrowed.

“What?”

“I…” Victoria gestures at Dennis.

“Huck?” Trinity says. “He’s fine, he won’t say shit.”

Victoria hesitates, then keeps walking. It’s not like seeing him at some point is exactly avoidable, but she hadn’t put together that they’d be driving to Trinity’s apartment in the same car.

“Hey, loser,” Trinity says.

Dennis looks up from his phone with a smile, though it fades when he sees Victoria. She waves at him awkwardly with the hand still holding the strap of her backpack.

“Hey,” he says. “What…?”

“Javadi and I are having a slumber party,” Trinity says. “It’s a girls’ night, though, so no boys allowed. We’re going to braid each other’s hair and talk about which guys we think are cute. That Zac Efron is just sooo dreamy.”

Despite herself, Victoria laughs. Dennis’s expression crumples, and he looks from Trinity to Victoria like a kid whose mom has brought home a new boyfriend.

“Shotgun,” he says, dejectedly.

“You heard him, Crash,” Trinity says. “Backseat.”

Victoria doesn’t sympathise with Trinity’s choice not to play music while she drives. It makes the whole ordeal incredibly awkward, and Victoria finds herself shrinking into the door with her arms crossed like she used to on summer camp field trips.

She was the only kid at math camp who’d be going to college in the fall, and she feels a similar sense of social division in the backseat of Trinity’s car. No open animosity, but a distinct awareness of being outside of something she’d quite like to be a part of.

Dennis and Trinity are easy with each other. They chat amiably about their days, make plans for when their next grocery run will be. Trinity jabs at him more than she does anyone else, but Dennis takes it easily, never demonstrating more than surface-level offense. It’s a partnership more than a friendship, really. It’s nice to watch.

Victoria does kind of feel like a kid coming over for a playdate, standing in front of Trinity’s apartment building with an oversized backpack and baggy sweats. She avoids Dennis’ eye as skillfully as he avoids hers, from the lobby to the elevator to the front door. As soon as they’re inside, he mumbles something about being tired and disappears into his bedroom. Victoria’s pretty sure she hears a lock turning.

Trinity sighs, kicking off her sneakers. Almost to herself, she says, “Always with the shoes. I never should’ve moved in with a white guy.”

Trinity’s apartment is cozy. There’s an overhead light, but also funky novelty lamps everywhere that suggest that it might go unused. The couch faces a modest TV and is draped with a few crochet blankets. The whole place smells like essential oils, cedarwood and lavender.

Trinity lets her bag drop to the floor, then reaches over to turn on a lamp shaped like a tall white cat, sitting politely. It glows yellow from its stomach.

“You hungry?” she asks, running a hand through her hair. Victoria’s eyes follow the movement.

“Kinda,” she says.

Trinity nods, making for the kitchen nook. Victoria follows tentatively.

“You allergic to anything?” Trinity asks, opening the fridge.

“No,” Victoria says. “I don’t usually eat meat, though. I mean, I’ll have it, but…”

“All good,” Trinity says. “You wanna call dibs on the spaghetti, then? It’s just tomato and, like, red wine because we forgot to get ground beef.”

“Sure,” Victoria says. “Sounds good.”

She watches as Trinity unloads a few heavily-stained Tupperware from the fridge and goes about the process of heating and plating them. She rotates them through her microwave in what seems like a very particular order. She ends up with one plate of spaghetti, which she deposits in front of Victoria alongside a shaker of parmesan cheese, and two plates of mashed potato, leftover rotisserie chicken, and peas.

“You guys eat like kings,” Victoria deadpans.

Trinity sticks out her tongue. “At least my mommy doesn’t cook for me.”

“Dad cooks,” Victoria says.

“Oh,” Trinity says. “Well, that’s against God.”

She delivers one of the plates to Dennis’ room, with the explanation that “he’ll be too scared to come out now,” then returns to the kitchen table and sits across Victoria.

They eat in silence. Victoria takes delicate bites of her spaghetti—which is fine, if a little overcooked—afraid that if she gets too ambitious, she’ll spill something on herself or wind up with a forkful too big to fit in her mouth. Trinity apparently doesn’t have the same reservations. It turns out that at home, she’s as bad as Dennis.

“I’ll wash up,” Victoria says, on instinct, as Trinity shovels her last bite of potato into her mouth. It’s the habit drilled into her by her mother when visiting other people’s houses.

Trinity swallows, then smirks. “We have a dishwasher. But that’s very sweet of you. What a polite young lady you are.”

Victoria rolls her eyes. She loads the plates into the dishwasher.

Turning back around, though, and meeting Trinity’s eye again, she kind of wishes she’d dragged it out for longer. Expectation hangs heavy in the air. Trinity’s resting her arm on the back of her chair, picking at the lining.

“Wanna hang out in my room?” she asks. “I have a TV in there too. We could watch something.”

Victoria tucks her hair behind her ear. “Yeah. Okay.”

Trinity’s bedroom is decorated in much the same way as the rest of the house. There’s a green rug under her queen-sized bed, and a shelf full of scented candles and incense.

“Are you, like, a tarot girlie?” Victoria asks.

“Uh, kinda.” Trinity shucks off her hoodie, and hopefully doesn’t notice when Victoria checks out her arms. “You?”

“Not really,” Victoria says. Trinity’s disappeared into her ensuite bathroom. “Would you, uh, ever do a reading for me?”

“If you want,” Trinity calls. “Hang on a sec, I’m just gonna brush my teeth. Sit wherever.”

Victoria looks between the narrow working desk and the plush, throw-cushion adorned bed. She decides on the bed, sitting gingerly on the very edge of it with her hands braced on her knees.

A couple of minutes later, she hears Trinity spit, followed by the sound of running water. Trinity emerges, lips wet, wiping the side of her mouth with the inside of her wrist.

“Here,” she says, holding something out for Victoria to take. “I don’t have a spare toothbrush, so…”

Victoria looks down. It’s mouthwash. She feels her face grow warm, taking the bottle from Trinity’s hand. Trinity rolls her eyes.

“It’s not meant passive-aggressively,” she says. “No one likes making out with spaghetti-breath.”

“Fine, whatever,” Victoria says, but she can admit to herself that it’s a good idea. She wouldn’t want Trinity grimacing at the taste of her. She’s already self-conscious enough.

She uses the mouthwash twice over, spitting it out into Trinity’s bathroom sink. When she turns around again, Trinity’s reclined among her pillows, remote in hand. Her eyes are fixed on the TV mounted on the opposite wall.

“What were those shows you said you watched?” she asks.

“Killing Eve,” Victoria says.

“Still a hilarious answer coming from you,” Trinity says. “Also, seen it.”

“Of course you have,” Victoria says. She takes a step closer. “Severance?”

“I don’t live under a rock, Crash,” Trinity says. “Also, no Apple TV. We rotate subscriptions in this house.”

Victoria rolls her eyes. “Well, you don’t wanna see Gilmore Girls.”

“Uh, yes I fucking do,” Trinity says. “Even if it sucks, I get more material to ruin your life.”

“Nice,” Victoria says.

“I think so,” Trinity says, and pats the bed beside her.

It’s not a big deal. She’s over the covers, and there’s so much space that they won’t even accidentally touch. Heart racing, Victoria approaches the bed, sitting down carefully so as not to make the mattress squeak. She tucks her legs underneath herself, crosses her arms, and generally tries to make herself feel as small as possible. She can feel Trinity smirking at her and stares firmly at the TV.

“Just put it on,” she says.

Trinity picks a random episode from season one. Victoria tries to get comfortable, which is hard when she’s also trying not to touch Trinity at all.

It’s an episode heavy on the Chilton stuff. Paris Geller and Rory Gilmore bickering like children in gilded hallways over boys, grades, the newspaper, whatever. Victoria is only half-paying attention.

“Wow, she’s a bitch,” Trinity says, maybe halfway through.

“Who? Blondie?” Victoria asks.

“Well, yeah. But the other one’s pissing me off,” Trinity says. “They’re both egomaniacs, but at least Blondie’s owning it. I hate the innocence schtick.”

“I guess,” Victoria says. Thoughtlessly, she says, “I think I wrote fanfic about them in college.”

She realizes her mistake as soon as the words leave her mouth. Trinity’s expression becomes one of absolute delight and she shuffles over on the bed to face Victoria properly. Victoria lets her head loll to the side, looking Trinity in the eye.

“Like, lesbian porn of them fingerbanging each other?” Trinity says.

“Fuck you. It was more intellectual than that, okay?” Victoria says. “It had, I don’t know. Character development and shit.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Trinity’s eye glints. “So, when you say ‘college….’”

Victoria groans. “Fuck. Don’t.”

“I mean, technically you’re still in college. So I have to ask.”

“Not college-college!” Victoria splutters. “I was, like, sixteen, okay? Undergrad.”

Trinity’s lip twitches. “How does a virgin write lesbian porn?”

“Why are you so sure it was porn? Perv,” Victoria says, face heating up. It was definitely porn. “And, I don’t know, because I have an imagination. I never went to high school either, by the way, but I figured that out.”

“You don’t think sex is more complicated than high school?” Trinity asks.

“I don’t know,” Victoria says. “I’ll never find out, anyway. So.”

Trinity raises her eyebrows.

“I meant I’ll never be in high school,” Victoria says.

Trinity lifts her hands in mock-surrender. Apparently bored with getting on Victoria’s nerves, her eyes drift back to the TV, upper body resting against the bedframe. She runs a hand through her hair, letting it slip through her fingers, then adjusts herself so her hand is pillowed behind her head, her arm bent. Her other hand rests on her stomach over black t-shirt, her thumb idly stroking back and forth.

The thing is, Victoria’s still kind of annoyed. Not just annoyed, but desperate to prove herself to Trinity as if sex is a new form of competition like any other. The derisive way Trinity drawls the word virgin almost overcomes Victoria’s anxiety.

“Shit,” she mutters, mostly to herself, and climbs onto Trinity’s lap.

She’s never seen Trinity quite so caught off-guard. She blinks, and her chest expands with a sharp breath that’s almost a gasp. Her hands come off the bed and hover somewhere over Victoria’s thighs, which are braced on either side of her hips, and Victoria’s also never seen her this unsure about her touch. Usually, Trinity puts her hands wherever she wants them, as if wanting is justification in itself.

Victoria squeezes her thighs around Trinity’s waist. Trinity’s mouth falls open a little, red and wet, and Victoria kisses her.

Trinity makes a desperate noise and fumbles for the remote. Victoria is distantly grateful, not particularly interested in listening to Lauren Graham’s voice while they make out, but not grateful enough to make the task easier for Trinity. She wraps her arms around Trinity’s neck and tries her level best to take charge for the first time.

Eventually, after a few moments of distressed button-mashing, Trinity gets the TV off. She promptly drops the remote on the floor and wraps one arm around Victoria’s waist, slipping her fingers past the hem of her form-fitting tee and lightly stroking the skin there. Her other hand lands on Victoria’s upper thigh—finally—and squeezes lightly, her thumb pressing into the crease.

It’s fast, wet, dirty. Like their first kiss, probably, but not muddled by tequila and not limited by a semi-public location. No, this kiss is definitely buildup. A precursor to something better, Victoria thinks giddily. She pushes her hands into Trinity’s hair, making a mess of it, and pulls back to suck on Trinity’s lower lip. Trinity moans. Like, actually moans. Victoria grins, severing their kiss.

“Are you the same girl who was too embarrassed to talk dirty over text?” Trinity says, a little breathless.

“Fuck you. I wasn’t embarrassed.” Victoria kisses the corner of Trinity’s mouth, hoping she won’t be able to tell that she’s lying. “I’m just not an idiot. Like, what if someone hacked my phone?”

“Oh, yeah, they’d kick you out of med school for being such a dirty whore,” Trinity says, like that’s the stupidest thing she’s ever heard. “What are you even talking about?”

“What are you talking about?” Victoria says. She regrets it when it makes Trinity open her mouth again. “Nevermind. Don’t talk.”

“Asshole,” Trinity tries to say, but Victoria swallows it.

This feels good. It’s not just the physical sensations, Victoria is surprised to note, but the power of it. She likes being on top of Trinity, pushing her into the wall with the force of her kisses, squeezing around her waist periodically just to feel her lose her train of thought.

Without thinking, Victoria grinds forward against Trinity’s stomach. It doesn’t feel like much, just softness, but the implication of it is thrilling. As she does it, Trinity’s hands tighten on her waist. Her breathing quickens.

“Fuck,” she mutters, against Victoria’s lips. “You know, I was so sure you were straight.”

Victoria can’t help but laugh. “Really?”

“Yeah, well, you look super hetero,” Trinity says. “I guess I should’ve known it’s just because you’re sheltered.”

Victoria rolls her eyes. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m bi. I mean, theoretically.”

“Yeah, I think I got that,” Trinity says, running her hands up and down Victoria’s sides. “Wait, theoretically?”

Victoria shrugs. “Well, I’ve never even kissed a guy.”

Trinity frowns. “But you’ve kissed girls?”

“Well, now I have,” Victoria says. She dips back in, but Trinity flinches back before their lips can connect, her eyes a fraction wider. “What?”

“You mean you’re actually a virgin?” Trinity says.

“I—” Victoria cuts herself off, suddenly squirming on Trinity’s lap for an entirely different reason. She figured that since Trinity had already assumed, they wouldn’t have to discuss it. “You were making fun of me for it five minutes ago.”

“I meant when you were sixteen,” Trinity says. “Figured somebody would’ve tapped that ass by now.”

“Okay, well. They haven’t,” Victoria says. She’s getting annoyed again, now, and not in the fun way. “Do we have to keep talking about it?”

Trinity swallows thickly, looking a little uncomfortable. The movement of her hands has slowed to a stop.

“I don’t think I’m the right person for you to do this with,” she says.

“What?” Victoria stares at her disbelievingly. “Also, tough. That’s not for you to decide.”

Trinity shifts underneath her, inadvertently pushing her up so she has to shift her weight to her knees.

“I’m an adult, you know,” Victoria points out. “I can have sex with whoever I want.”

Trinity grimaces. “Please, let’s not talk about your age.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Victoria says. “I want this, okay? Do you…” She pauses, suddenly unsure. “I mean, do you want it too?”

“Fucking obviously,” Trinity mutters. Victoria feels a burst of relief.

“It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that,” she says. “Don’t make it more complicated than that.”

“Crash…”

Victoria leans down and presses a kiss to Trinity’s jaw. Then another, and another. She bites the junction above Trinity’s collarbone.

“Jesus,” Trinity mumbles, her grip tightening on Victoria’s waist. “Hey, careful with that. Remember where we work?”

Victoria almost says something snide about the fact that Trinity didn’t mind everyone knowing that she and Garcia were seeing each other, but she manages to bite it back in time. It probably wouldn’t do her any favors when everything is so precarious.

She licks Trinity’s clavicle. Tugs the worn-loose collar of her shirt aside to kiss her shoulder.

“Okay, okay,” Trinity says. “Hang on a sec.”

Victoria pulls back, her lips wet. “Yeah?”

Trinity looks at her for a moment, her brows drawn. Then, she turns them both over, hand on the small of Victoria’s back. Victoria lands back on the mattress with a thump. Her stomach twists at the sight of Trinity bracing herself over her, tucking her hair behind her ear so it won’t fall into her face.

“Can I?” Trinity asks, thumbing at the hem of Victoria’s shirt. Victoria nods. Taking in a heavy breath, Trinity pulls and tugs Victoria’s shirt until it’s off her body, throwing it somewhere to the side. Her eyes rake over Victoria’s chest and Victoria kind of wants to cover herself. She’s wearing one of her utilitarian bras, almost a sports bra, so it’s not exactly a sexy look. She’s just glad it’s a black one so the pit stains are invisible.

“My eyes are up here,” she says flatly, propping herself up on her elbows.

“Yeah, but they’re only your second-best feature,” Trinity says, but she looks at Victoria’s face again anyway.

When she leans down to kiss her, it starts out as just the barest brushing of lips. Victoria sighs, pushing her hands into Trinity’s hair again in an effort to direct her to tilt her head, to deepen it. She doesn’t take Victoria’s instruction. This time, they kiss like they did earlier that day, in the supply closet, pushing and releasing and reconnecting.

It’s slow and deliberate enough to make Victoria squirm. She’s almost grateful when Trinity’s hand comes up to grab her boob, tugging her bra out of the way, because it returns a little indecency to the situation, cutting through all the gentleness. Trinity’s thumbnail circles Victoria’s nipple at the same time as she slips her tongue into her mouth, and Victoria breathes out shakily.

“Come on,” she urges.

“Foreplay, Crash,” Trinity says, pinching her nipple lightly.

“Don’t care,” Victoria pants. Her sweats are bunched up between her legs, growing damp, and all of Trinity’s forcefulness has been abandoned. She’s desperate for something to grind against, for Trinity to cover her and push her down into the mattress.

“Aw,” Trinity says, kind of mockingly, and Victoria’s stomach clenches. Pressing kisses around Victoria’s jaw, Trinity’s hand trails down from her chest to her stomach, rubbing just above the waistband.

“Jesus Christ, just take them off,” Victoria hisses.

Trinity snorts, then lifts up a bit to slide Victoria’s sweats down her thighs. When they get to her knees, Victoria pulls Trinity back down by the neck and kicks them the rest of the way off herself.

Trinity indulges her for a moment, but quickly pulls back, settling herself with one knee on either side of Victoria’s thigh. She gets a good look at Victoria’s underwear, her hands braced on her hipbones. They don’t match her bra, which Victoria can’t decide if she should be embarrassed by. What she is embarrassed by is the lightness of the pink fabric and how obvious her arousal must be against it.

“Fuck, you’re wet,” Trinity says, almost to herself, and hearing it feels like getting struck by lightning, but only kind of in a good way.

Trinity isn’t close enough to kiss, so Victoria just has to watch, squirming, as Trinity traces up Victoria’s thigh and presses her thumb decisively against her clit through the fabric.

“Shit,” Victoria hisses, her head falling back.

Trinity’s eyes are fixed on where she’s touching her. She grinds her finger in a circle with a faint slick sound, and Victoria gasps, hand flying up to grip Trinity’s spare arm where it’s braced against the mattress.

“Come on,” Victoria says again, head getting a little fuzzy. Trinity’s eyes flicker up to meet hers and she swallows, fighting against squeezing them shut.

“You sure?” Trinity says, matter-of-fact.

“Oh my god,” Victoria says. “Touch me.”

It doesn’t happen immediately. Trinity tugs off her jeans first, carelessly, like Victoria isn’t short-circuiting at the visual of her in those little boyshorts. Then she settles herself half-over Victoria, lying on her stomach but positioned so that their legs are kind of interlocked.

Face impassive, trying to play it off as an accident, Victoria bends her knee so that it pushes against Trinity. She savors the sharp intake of breath, and the feeling of the wet heat of her, even through fabric, dragging against her skin.

Trinity kisses her again, for a while. Victoria doesn’t know how to say that she doesn’t need it, that she’s ready to go, in a way she hasn’t already tried. She tries to grind up against Trinity, but can’t get a good enough angle, and Trinity just kind of laughs at her.

“Don’t be a jerk,” Victoria says.

“Aw, okay,” Trinity says, before slipping her hand down the front of Victoria’s underwear. Victoria maintains that she does not squeak.

Trinity’s fingers are exploratory at first. Slipping over her with light touches, avoiding anywhere too sensitive in a way that might pass for unintentional if Trinity weren’t a doctor, a lesbian, and someone with a vulva. Victoria’s breathing heavily by the time Trinity’s fingers draw up and press against her clit.

“There,” Victoria says suddenly.

“Yeah, no shit, Crash,” Trinity scoffs.

She draws slow, light circles, just enough pressure to keep the pleasure thrumming like a livewire under Victoria’s skin. Victoria tries to grind up into the feeling, but Trinity’s weight over one of her legs stops her from being able to properly move her hips, so she just lies back and takes it.

Part of Victoria’s grateful that Trinity’s easing her into it. She’d been kind of afraid that she’d come thirty seconds after Trinity started touching her, and she’d never hear the end of it. She’s definitely lasted at least thirty seconds. A minute and a half? Whatever, it’s not like her brain is working at full capacity.

Trinity’s mouthing at Victoria’s neck. She’s definitely biting, which is kind of hypocritical, but it feels good enough that Victoria doesn’t want to stop her.

“Can you—inside?” Victoria asks.

“Mhm,” Trinity says, sounding kind of out of it herself. She’s started grinding a little on Victoria’s thigh.

She pushes one finger against Victoria’s opening, then slowly presses it inside her. Victoria whimpers, arching into the feeling. It’s so much better, deeper, steadier than when she’s tried to do this herself. Then, Trinity returns her thumb to Victoria’s clit, and and all Victoria can do is clutch Trinity’s shoulder and try to keep her breathing steady.

The infuriating thing is that Trinity hasn’t sped up. She’s maintaining that slow, gentle rhythm, which would read as tentative if Trinity weren’t always so sure of herself.

“Harder,” Victoria urges.

“Hm. Nuh-uh,” Trinity mumbles, dragging her teeth along Victoria’s jaw.

Victoria whimpers, hips twitching up. “Fucking asshole.”

Trinity smiles against her skin. “Could you come like this?”

Victoria squeezes her eyes shut. She could come with Trinity’s mouth on her shoulder and her knee between her thighs. She could come on her own fingers, braced on her knees between Trinity’s legs. Hell, as keyed-up as she is, she could probably come with no stimulation at all. If Trinity kissed her, deep and dirty, and tugged on her hair at the root, she’d be riding the edge.

“Think so,” Victoria gasps.

“Good girl,” Trinity says.

Victoria groans. “God, you’re such a cliche. Get some new material.”

“Whatever, loser. It’s working on you.”

“It’s not,” Victoria mutters.

Her legs are trembling. Stupid noises are escaping her mouth with increasing frequency. She’s sweating, and she can smell herself, and Trinity must’ve strung together a necklace of hickeys by now.

“Trinity,” she whines, not really thinking.

Trinity pulls back for a moment to look at her. Her expression is almost pained, drawn and tight like a grimace.

“You okay?” Victoria manages. “S’your hand cramping up, or something?”

“Fuck—no. What are you talking about? Shut up,” Trinity says. “Shut up. Are you close?”

Victoria breathes heavily, fingers flexing over Trinity’s bicep. She nods.

“Fuck,” Trinity mutters, head dropping to rest on Victoria’s collarbone. Victoria fists a hand in her hair, tugging a little, and Trinity whimpers into her ear. That’s it—Victoria gasps, and comes.

Rather than rushing through her, quick and intense, it washes over her body. She tenses, trembles, her eyes squeezing shut, as she pushes as much as she can into the movements of Trinity’s hand.

“Enough,” she says, feeling sluggish. She tugs at Trinity’s wrist. Trinity takes the hint, carefully pulling out. She lifts her head just enough for Victoria to see the heavy blush on her cheeks and sucks her middle finger into her mouth.

Victoria groans, her head dropping back. “Gross.”

Trinity pulls off and swallows, audibly. “Don’t be so repressed, Crash.”

“Not repressed,” Victoria says. She props herself up on her elbows again.

Dopamine mostly depleted from her system, her brain starting to reconstitute, Victoria realizes that she has no idea how to do this when she’s not ridiculously horny. Her eyes flicker nervously over Trinity’s face and down her body, settling at the wet spot she can feel on her thigh.

“What do you…?” she asks, hoping Trinity will fill in the blanks.

“Like this?” Trinity asks. She squeezes her thighs around Victoria’s to demonstrate.

Victoria swallows. “Really? You don’t want … my hand, or my mouth, or…”

Trinity laughs, the sound a little delirious. “I’m already pretty fucking keyed-up. Just—bite me or something. Pull my hair again, too.”

Victoria nods, more comfortable when she has a set of instructions to follow. She hesitates before adding, “Take your shirt off?”

Trinity snorts, but complies, shucking off her bra as well. She drapes herself over Victoria again, and Victoria almost flatlines when she feels all that warm skin against hers. She slips a hand back into Trinity’s hair and pulls, maybe a little harder than she should’ve. Trinity’s smug, easy expression contorts, and she makes a wounded noise, rocking her hips forward onto Victoria’s thigh.

Slowly, the redness returns to Trinity’s face. Every breath she lets out is a huff, and every other huff approaches a whimper. Her lips trail aimlessly along Victoria’s jaw, neck, chest, just getting at skin, until Victoria pulls her head back and fixes her own mouth to Trinity’s collarbone. She sinks her teeth into it, sucks hard enough to leave a burst of color. Trinity whines into her ear.

Victoria drags her nails down Trinity’s back, feeling her rebuilt composure already crumbling. She hadn’t known this part would be this dizzying, especially when she’s not even really doing anything. She thinks Trinity might’ve kept her shorts on to make Victoria more comfortable, but she wishes she’d asked for her to take them off now. She presses her thigh up into Trinity, pulls her down by her hips, and finds herself wanting feverishly to feel everything, without a barrier.

When Trinity comes, she grips Victoria’s waist hard enough to bruise. She breathes jaggedly, like she can’t get enough oxygen, and Victoria swears that if she focuses, she can feel Trinity throbbing and twitching against her skin.

Afterwards, Trinity melts on top of Victoria, hot and sweaty and ruddy. Victoria stares up at Trinity’s white ceiling, wide-eyed, heart fluttering in her chest. Absent-mindedly, she strokes Trinity’s spine, fingertips smoothing over the nail-marks she’d left in a vague gesture of comfort.

In the morning, Victoria uses Trinity’s shower and tries her best not to freak out.

When she woke up, Trinity was still asleep. They hadn’t cuddled or anything through the night—not that Victoria had expected that—and Trinity was starfishing so aggressively that Victoria was practically falling off the bed. She was drooling a little, and there was a purple bruise peeking past the collar of her shirt. Victoria had quietly thought, cute, then bolted for the bathroom.

She lathers shampoo into the roots of her hair, warm water hissing down her back. The shampoo smells like Trinity—obviously—the same green apple scent that sits under the perpetual cloud of tropical vape smoke. Victoria rinses it out, but the smell clings. It probably will for a couple of days.

When she emerges from the bathroom, Trinity is awake. She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, her hair a mess. She’s yawning when she looks up at Victoria, who must seem like such a slob rewearing yesterday’s clothes.

Trinity blinks. “Your hair.”

Victoria grimaces. “Shut up, okay?”

“It’s curly,” Trinity says.

“Great catch, Einstein,” Victoria mutters. “They should let you finish your residency tomorrow.”

“You straighten it?”

“Well, yeah.”

Trinity frowns. “You shouldn’t.”

Victoria looks at her flatly. “I guess I should stop wearing heels, too. And make-up, because girls just look so much better natural.”

“Whatever, Crash. That’s not what I meant,” Trinity says. She stretches, joints popping, and Victoria watches the subtle twist of her muscle, her sinew. “Gonna shower.”

“Probably a good idea,” Victoria says, and Trinity snorts. She gets up and disappears into the bathroom, locking the door behind her, and Victoria wonders if she should’ve come out here in a towel, or something, instead of getting dressed.

It’s painfully easy to fall back into their usual rhythm. Victoria doesn’t know what that means for the memory of last night, Trinity’s unexpected softness.

She’d imagined sex with Trinity as rough, fast, overwhelming. Maybe it was, usually. Maybe Trinity made an exception for the blushing twenty-one-year-old virgin she antagonized at work.

Trinity always looks good, so it probably shouldn’t be a surprise when Trinity looks good freshly-showered and pouring cereal into a bowl.

“Sorry, no Cap’n Crunch today, kiddo,” Trinity says, sliding the box of Cheerios back onto the table.

“Ha-ha,” Victoria says. She pours herself a bowl, too. “Also, don’t call me that.”

“Oh, you prefer Crash?”

“No,” Victoria says, quickly, then pauses to think. “Well, kind of? McKay calls me ‘kiddo.’”

Trinity pouts, putting a hand over her heart. “Aw, is it your special nickname?”

“No,” Victoria snaps. “I just don’t want you perverting it. I have to, like, respect her and stuff.”

“Honestly kind of flattered that you think I could perv-ify a word just by saying it to you,” Trinity says.

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I have to say, though, I think ‘kiddo’ is already pervy.”

Victoria glares. “It is not.”

Trinity shrugs, in that way she does when she’s perfectly comfortable in her belief that she’s right.

“Can I come out?”

Victoria looks over Trinity’s shoulder to see that Dennis’ bedroom door has cracked open.

“No, Huckleberry, we’re both fully naked in the kitchen and working our way through the cucumbers,” Trinity says.

Dennis walks stiffly out of his room, his hair damp and his face red all the way to his ears. He grabs his own bowl from the cabinet, then shoots Trinity a pointed look before collecting a second carton of milk from the fridge.

“Oh, right. I should’ve said, we do actually have whole milk,” Trinity says. “Only because Huckleberry misses his childhood where I presume he sucked his milk straight from a cow’s teat.”

Dennis wrinkles his nose. “Shut up about that. I’ve told you a million times, it went into a bucket first.”

“I’ll believe you when you get your mom on the phone and she tells me herself,” Trinity says. Then, to Victoria, “Anyway, have whichever one you want.”

Victoria reaches for the oat milk. Trinity grins like this is some great victory, and tries to fist bump her over the table. Victoria ignores her.

“You didn’t have to drop me off, you know,” Victoria says. “I could’ve taken the bus.”

“And miss an opportunity to see the Shamsi-Javadi mansion?” Trinity scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

She turns onto Victoria’s street. Victoria’s vaguely embarrassed about living in such a nice neighbourhood, especially now that she’s seen Trinity’s apartment in person. Spacious, well-decorated, but not exactly luxurious.

“It’s not a mansion,” Victoria says. She leans forward and points at her house. “That one.”

Trinity raises her eyebrows. “‘Not a mansion’ my ass.”

“Shut up,” Victoria says.

Trinity parks the car out front while Victoria tries to fight off the inexplicable sinking feeling in her stomach. She stares at her house through the window—sleek and white and minimalist, dotted throughout with small status symbols that Trinity probably wouldn’t even recognize. Victoria is surprised to find she envies that.

“Kiss your mom hello for me,” Trinity says.

“Stop,” Victoria says, then gets out of the car, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. She hesitates, hand readied at the door. “Hey, Santos?”

Trinity’s smile falters. “Yeah?”

Victoria steels herself. “I, uh. I wanna do this again.”

“Yeah, I bet you do.”

“Santos.”

Trinity sighs, picking absently at the base of the steering wheel. “Yeah. Me too, I guess.”

Victoria tries not to smile. It doesn’t really work.

“God, get out of here, dork,” Trinity says, reaching across the center console to shut the door for her.

As her car speeds off, Victoria turns to face her house again, sun warm on her skin. This time, she registers that her mom is visible through the first-floor window, reading a heavy paperback on the couch.

She swears that for a moment, their eyes meet, like maybe her mom had been watching. When she goes inside, though, hoodie pulled high around her collar to hide her hickeys, her mom says nothing—not even hello.

“Have fun on your day off?”

Victoria’s head snaps up. McKay’s leaning over her work station, fingers drumming against the surface. Her expression is knowing, if a little smug. Victoria laughs nervously.

“No. Nope,” she says. Her neck itches. “Pretty much stayed home. Read this, um, book I found on TikTok, but it was kind of bad. Spent way too much time on Twitter.” It’s not technically a lie.

“Huh,” McKay says.

“Why, uh.” Victoria swallows. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” McKay says. “You just seem like you’re in a good mood. You were smiling at the computer and you’re writing about a rectal foreign body.”

“I don’t know,” Victoria says. “It’s just good to rest. Recharge.”

“Yeah, I bet,” McKay says, eye sparkling. “Hey, can I check something?”

Victoria frowns. “Sure?”

Which is how McKay ends up leaning forward and swiping a thumb over Victoria’s neck, just above her collar. It’s with enough pressure that the hickey there smarts under its thick layer of concealer.

McKay looks at her finger, then shows it to Victoria. It’s covered with a smudge of make-up.

“Who is he?” McKay asks.

“She,” Victoria corrects automatically. She grimaces. “But I don’t want to talk about it. It’s not a big deal.”

“Fine,” McKay says. She barely raises an eyebrow at the revelation that Victoria’s seeing a girl. “As long as she’s being nice to you.”

Victoria considers this. “I think she is.”

“Okay, then,” McKay says, grinning. “Use the cold spoon trick next time, though. Constricts the blood vessels, speeds up clotting.”

“Got it,” Victoria says, desperate for this interaction to be over.

When McKay walks away, she opens the camera app on her phone to check on her cover-up job. She still doesn’t think it’s that noticeable—she used color corrector and everything. McKay must’ve just been paying close attention.

[7:38] Santos: wearin boxers today btw

[7:43] You: ???

[7:44] Santos: they’re actually kinda uncomfy under scrubs
[7:44] Santos: i don’t need everything to breathe like this.....

[7:46] You: why are you telling me this

[7:46] Santos: cause u have a thing for butches duh
[7:46] Santos: and so u think abt it when u see me later

[7:47] You: fuck you

[7:47] Santos: lol
[7:47] Santos: wanna come over again after work

[7:47] You: yeah

[7:47] Santos: word

Trinity pushes Victoria against her bedroom door the second they get past it.

“You’re not butch, are you?” Victoria asks, slipping her hand up Trinity’s sweatshirt to stroke the small of her back.

Trinity wrinkles her nose. “What?”

“When you—ah— texted me today. That’s what you called yourself,” Victoria says. Trinity is biting at her jaw. “Hey, not again.”

“Sorry.” Trinity kisses the spot. “Also, no, not really.”

“Hm.” Trinity’s hands are in Victoria’s hair. “You should’ve said futch, then.”

“What?” Trinity scoffs. “God, you need to get off Twitter.”

“It’s a perfectly legitimate term.”

“Oh, I’ll show you something perfectly legitimate.”

“Wow, good one.”

Victoria pulls Trinity back in. Trinity makes an approving noise, then starts pushing at the hoodie on Victoria’s shoulders. “Off,” she mumbles insistently, against Victoria’s lips, and Victoria moves them both away from the door so that she can remove it. When it hits the floor, she bites her lip, and pulls her shirt over her head too.

Trinity’s eyes widen.

“Nice,” she says. She runs her finger underneath the lacy strap of Victoria’s pale blue bra.

Victoria tries not to preen at the way Trinity’s pupils dilate. After her poor planning last time, she did several loads of laundry and made sure to have nice underwear to change into on any day she and Trinity were scheduled for the same shift.

“Oh,” she says. “Um, it was just what was clean.”

Trinity raises her eyebrows. “Right,” she says, and pushes Victoria back onto the bed.

With the lights dim and Trinity between her thighs, Victoria kind of loses track of her surroundings. Her trackpants come off at some point, and she gets to watch Trinity grin wolfishly when she realizes that she’s wearing a matching set. She runs her hand flat over Victoria’s stomach at the point where it meets her hip, then slips her fingers under the fabric there.

“Just take them off already,” Victoria says, squirming.

“I’m starting to think your impatience is the only reason you got through school so fast,” Trinity says. “Don’t you ever take a beat? Stop and smell the roses?”

“I know you probably usually fuck girls who need to warm up to the idea of getting naked for you, but I’m good, okay?”

Trinity laughs. “I know that was meant as an insult, but it just kinda sounds like you’re desperate for me.”

“You wish.”

Trinity shrugs, still kind of smiling, and presses her face to Victoria over the fabric of her underwear.

A strangled gasp escapes Victoria’s mouth. It’s as much a reaction to the shock as the feeling of it. It takes a moment to get used to the sight of a person, of Trinity, between her legs, a capable hand splayed across her hip. To think that if she wanted, she could reach down and tangle a hand in Trinity’s hair, grind up into her mouth—which is opening, tongue sneaking out to lap at the fabric, get it wetter.

“Oh, god,” she says. “Just—fuck—take them off.”

Trinity presses a kiss to her inner thigh, then sits back on her heels. It’s only then, lifting her hips so Trinity can slide her underwear down them, that Victoria realizes Trinity is still fully dressed. She frowns.

“Why am I the only one who’s naked?” she asks, knees drawing shut.

“I don’t know,” Trinity says, leaning over her. “Maybe that’s what you get for begging me to take your clothes off.”

Victoria hooks two fingers in Trinity’s collar. “This has to go.”

Trinity looks less than happy about having to climb off Victoria’s body again, but does it nonetheless, pulling her sweatshirt and tee off in one swift movement. She stops there, though, leaving on her sports bra, and descends on Victoria. She draws kisses from Victoria’s mouth to her neck to her collarbone, then lifts her head.

“Everywhere under the clothes is fair game, right?” she says. “Like. To mark.”

Feeling like all the blood in her body has gone to her head, Victoria nods.

Trinity makes quick work of Victoria’s bra. Victoria’s barely gotten over the whiplash of being completely bare in front of Trinity before there’s a mouth covering her nipple.

Victoria’s head tips back, her hand winding into Trinity’s hair. “Shit, that feels weird.”

Trinity pulls off with a sound that makes Victoria squirm. “Bad?”

“Not bad.” Victoria tugs Trinity’s hair, trying to direct her back down. “Weird. Good.”

“Okay. A little advice for you, though: maybe avoid the word ‘weird’ in bed unless you want someone to stop whatever they’re doing.”

“Okay, mom,” Victoria deadpans.

Trinity laughs, leaning down to press her lips to Victoria’s chest. “Should’ve known you’d have a mommy thing.”

“I don’t have a ‘mommy thing,’” Victoria says indignantly. “It was a joke, I was just—ugh, whatever.”

It’s not worth arguing when Trinity is doing that with her tongue.

By the time she’s satisfied, starting to move further down Victoria’s body, she’s put a sizeable hickey on the swell of Victoria’s breast and Victoria is quivering. She props herself up on her elbows eagerly, though, when Trinity’s mouth reaches her hipbone, the crease of her thigh.

“Can I see you?” Trinity asks, and Victoria realizes she’s asking her to part her legs.

She does, slowly, her knees drawing up. She doesn’t think she’s much to look at from this angle, but Trinity swallows thickly.

“Fuck, you’re hot,” she says, almost to herself.

Victoria shifts her weight on her elbows. “Really?”

Trinity looks up at her, eyebrows raised. “Uh, yeah?”

“Oh,” Victoria says, wide-eyed. “Um. Okay.”

Trinity snorts. “You’re so weird.”

“Hypocrite,” Victoria mutters.

Trinity just shrugs, like she can’t be bothered to have this argument, and hefts Victoria’s right thigh over her shoulder. Victoria gasps, grabbing Trinity’s other shoulder to steady herself. Her fingers dig in harder when Trinity drags the flat of her tongue over her clit.

“Shit,” she whimpers, a kind of broken noise.

If she didn’t already know Trinity was experienced, she’d know it now. She licks at her with teasing, steady movements, swirls her tongue, presses her fingers bruisingly into Victoria’s upper thigh. Victoria stares at the head of brown hair between her thighs, at the delicate nose pressing into her pubic bone, as if they might disappear if she blinks.

When Trinity wraps her lips around Victoria’s clit and sucks, she outright moans.

“Fuck. That feels—that feels good,” she says, cringing at herself a little. She swallows, throat suddenly dry. “This is so much better than I thought it’d be.”

Trinity pulls off unexpectedly, and Victoria cries out in protest. Trinity wears an expression of bemusement as she nips at Victoria’s inner thigh.

“You’ve thought about this?” she asks.

Victoria whimpers. “I’ve thought about—about oral sex in the abstract before, sure.”

An amused smile plays across Trinity’s lips. “But not with me.”

Trinity’s putting her mouth everywhere but where Victoria wants it. Her thigh, her hipbone, her stomach. She even leans up to lick her belly button, and it feels good but it’s not fucking enough.

“I mean. Once,” Victoria says, just to get it to stop.

Trinity pauses. “Actually?”

“Yeah. Yes,” Victoria says. She’s embarrassingly breathless. “Remember that night when we—texted?”

“Ah,” Trinity says. “After you chickened out.”

“I didn’t—” Victoria cuts herself off with a whine, Trinity laving a kitten-lick against her center.

“And in your imagination, I’m bad at giving head?” Trinity asks. “I’m kind of hurt.”

“You weren’t bad. I just figured…” Victoria says. “I don’t know, that it couldn’t be much better than my fingers.”

“Ah,” Trinity says. She makes like she’s going to lean back in, then stops. Victoria might kill her. “You know, at least I left you with some material that night. You didn’t give me anything.”

“What, those—those two shitty lines?” Victoria tries.

Trinity shrugs with her spare shoulder. “Better than only having your imagination.”

“Poor you,” Victoria says, not having the brainpower to dissect the implication of that. “Can you just—can you—?” She moans; it’s like the pleasure redoubles after it’s been taken away. “Yeah. That.”

Thank god, Trinity doesn’t stop again to ask if she can finger her. She just hums questioningly, vibrations sending sparks radiating through Victoria’s body, and presses her fingertips against her entrance.

Victoria nods feverishly. “Please.”

She gasps as Trinity pushes inside her. It’s immediately obvious how much deeper she can get from this angle, how much more precise. She synchronises the movements of her fingers to the heady swipes of her tongue, and Victoria feels her thighs start to tremble.

“Fuck—fuck, don’t stop,” she says, half-incoherent, her chest heaving. “Don’t you dare stop.”

The sound Trinity makes against her might be a kind of laugh, but Victoria can’t even find it in herself to be annoyed. Instead, the embarrassment and indignation compound with everything else she’s feeling, and all she can do is grind up into Trinity’s mouth and down onto her fingers.

She falls apart when she comes, eyes squeezing shut and nails digging hard into Trinity’s shoulder. Trinity works her through it dutifully until the wave crests, and Victoria’s pushing weakly at her forehead.

Trinity licks her fingers clean again, which Victoria thinks might just be a habit of hers, and leans her head against Victoria’s stomach. She seems relatively content there, satisfied, drawing patterns on Victoria’s skin with her spit-wet fingers, so Victoria figures it’s okay just to bask in it for a while too.

She feels pleasantly numb between her legs, and warm everywhere else. Trinity is a heavy, constant weight across her lower half, and she finds herself letting go of Trinity’s shoulder to run a hand through her hair. Not digging, pulling, but just kind of stroking, letting the strands fall through her fingers. Touching just for the sake of it.

“Okay, enough of that,” Trinity says, sitting up so that she’s straddling Victoria’s middle. “What do you wanna do now? I think we should order a disgusting amount of bad Chinese food and make ourselves sick. Watching Gilmore Girls the other day inspired me.”

Victoria raises her eyebrows, then, without fanfare, presses the heel of her palm against—hopefully—Trinity’s clit. There’s several layers of fabric between them, but Victoria can still feel the dizzying heat of her. Trinity breathes in sharply, bracing herself against the mattress.

“You want to?” she asks, voice tight.

“Yeah,” Victoria says. “Get up here.”

Trinity clambers up and lies next to her, smoothing her hair back. She tugs her sweats off for good measure, and Victoria licks her lips. A sports bra and boxers is as good of a look as she always imagined.

“These, too?” she asks, slipping her fingers just past the waistband.

She’s not sure if she’s right in thinking that Trinity hesitates. If she does, it’s only for a split second, and then she’s sliding off her underwear, settling herself back on the mattress.

Victoria’s eyes rove over all the newly exposed skin, and then she sees it. A collection of white lines on Trinity’s upper thigh. Her eyes widen, flickering up to meet Trinity’s. Trinity wears an expression of practised impassivity, even though she must know what Victoria’s reacting to.

What are these? Victoria wants to ask, which is a stupid question with an obvious answer. She notices that some of the scars are still in their maturation phase, and she doesn’t know how to name what that makes her feel.

She leans down and kisses Trinity. Their lips interlock, and she holds herself there for a moment, two, before pulling back and pressing in at a different angle. Trinity indulges it for a second before digging her hand into Victoria’s hair and pulling her in harder.

“Don’t be fucking gentle,” she says into Victoria’s mouth.

“You can be gentle with me but I can’t be gentle with you?” Victoria asks.

“Yeah,” Trinity says. “That’s how it goes.”

Victoria follows her instincts. She tries to copy what she does when she touches herself, except she’s never thought of herself as very good at masturbating. Whenever she tries to take her time, she gets impatient and ends up getting right to the point. Her hand gets tired easily, and she probably overrelies on technology.

This, though, is different. She can’t feel what she’s doing, but she can feel Trinity twitch up into her hand, can hear Trinity moan into her mouth. Trinity lets Victoria keep kissing her, even as she loses control of her lips, her jaw growing slack.

But when Victoria brings her hand down to try to push a finger inside her, Trinity jerks away.

Victoria stills, eyes wide.

“Sorry,” she manages. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

Trinity looks suddenly tense. “Don’t try to do something like that without asking.”

“Right.” Victoria nods. “Right, sorry.” Tentatively, she rests her hand on Trinity’s thigh, which seems to be okay—Trinity doesn’t flinch, at least. “Do you not like … penetration?”

Victoria cringes at herself a little, but Trinity doesn’t seem to react.

“I like it fine,” Trinity says. “I just like to be warned before someone tries to shove their fingers inside me.”

“Oh,” Victoria says. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” Trinity mutters.

Victoria bites back another sorry. “Okay.”

For a moment, she wonders if this is over. Not just this, but everything between them. Sometimes, Victoria’s overconfidence gets in her own way, as much as Trinity’s gets in hers. Maybe Dennis had been right about the only-child thing.

“Come on, Crash,” Trinity says, squeezing her hand on Victoria’s waist. “It’s fine. Don’t leave me hanging.”

Victoria nods, suddenly eager to make up for her mistake. She tries to ease Trinity back into it, trailing her fingers over her, then rubs her hard, fast, rough. She wishes she’d asked Trinity to take off her sports bra, too, but mouths at the peaks of her nipples through the fabric anyway.

She kisses up to Trinity’s neck, to the spot behind her ear. She says, a little shakily, “You’re hot too, you know.”

Trinity gasps, and mocks, “Really?”

“Shut up,” Victoria says. “You know you are.” She tugs at the strap of Trinity’s bra, pulling it back so that it snaps against her skin. Trinity whimpers. “God, I want this fucking thing off.”

“Next time,” Trinity says, and for that, all Victoria can do is bury her face in Trinity’s collarbone and press her fingers down harder.

If she thought it was hot to feel Trinity come last time, on her thigh through a layer of fabric, it’s mind-numbingly good to feel it this way, to induce it, to feel her under her touch. Trinity’s muscles clench, and she moans, holding onto Victoria like a lifeline.

Then she collapses, heaving, and Victoria slows her touch to nothing. Red paints Trinity’s cheeks.

“You’re not bad at that,” she says, panting. “Lot of practise?”

“Well, it’s not like the basic concept is hard,” Victoria says, and Trinity laughs.

“It’s only, like, ten, you know.”

Victoria looks up from her phone, where she’s been scrolling through her TikTok mentions. She gets a lot of videos of rashes and descriptions of afflicted genitalia.

“Yeah?” she says.

Trinity, who’s been swiping through Twitter on the other side of the bed, says, “Well, we’re both doomscrolling, but it’s not even like the night’s over.”

Victoria wrinkles her nose. “Please don’t make me go out to a bar.”

“I mean, I definitely will at some point, but that’s not what I meant,” Trinity says. She sighs, then gestures towards the door as she asks, “Do you want to watch a British soap with my lame roommate?”

“Oh,” Victoria says. “Um. Sure.”

Dennis only comes out of his room when Trinity bangs on his door and shouts. Even then, he emerges tentatively, looking between her and Victoria, who’s by the couch, like they’re about to pull a prank on him.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.

Trinity shrugs. “You wouldn’t open the door.”

“I was wearing earplugs,” he says. “Our downstairs neighbors must hate us.”

“Sucks to suck,” Trinity says. “Wanna watch TV with us?”

Dennis hesitates, glancing over at Victoria again. “Just watch TV?”

“Yes, Huckleberry, just watch TV,” Trinity says, steering him over to the couch by his shoulders. “I promise we won’t jump each other.”

“You’ve promised that before,” Dennis says, and Victoria raises her eyebrows. Trinity mouths, He’s lying, over Dennis’ shoulder. Victoria just shakes her head.

They do end up ordering the bad Chinese food Trinity wanted. Victoria thinks privately that it doesn’t get much more white American than this, eating Kung Pao tofu out of a cardboard box with disposable chopsticks, cross-legged in front of the couch, the TV on.

“Hey!” Victoria hears, periodically, only to look over her shoulder and find that Trinity’s stolen another egg roll out of Dennis’ hand. There’s plenty of food left in the containers—she does it to screw with him, Victoria guesses. To make him splutter, flushed and indignant.

“You know, if you didn’t look at me like I shot your dog every time, I wouldn’t do it,” Trinity says, licking her fingers free of grease.

“You could also just not do it out of the goodness of your heart,” Dennis says, grabbing another egg roll.

“Pretty sure she doesn’t have that,” Victoria says, impulsively. She doesn’t usually put herself between Dennis and Trinity. At work, sometimes, but in these new contexts, it feels weird and a little self-absorbed to insert herself into their rhythm.

“I do so,” Trinity says. “I just don’t waste it on sexually repressed farmboys.”

Victoria lets out a shocked laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.

“I’m not—!” Dennis cuts himself off. “Shut up.”

“Not making a great case for yourself, bud,” Trinity says.

“Whatever. I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

“You’re right, you don’t need to. It’s already clear you can’t hook up with someone without also playing house with her.”

Dennis gestures exasperatedly. “Is it even worth saying for the millionth time that it’s not like that?”

“Hm,” Trinity says, tapping her chin. “No.”

“I believe you,” Victoria offers, just to be nice.

“Thank you,” Dennis says, and Trinity snorts.

“Sucking up to him isn’t gonna get you anywhere, Crash,” she says. “He’s not the man of the house.”

“Technically he is.”

Trinity raises her eyebrows. Victoria picks at a thread on her trackpants.

“Like, unless you’re falling into sexist stereotyping,” she says, “pretty sure he’s the only one here with, you know. The associated secondary sexual characteristics.”

“God, you’re so annoying,” Trinity groans. “I can’t be antifeminist for five minutes? Pretty sure I’ve put in the hours to earn it.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re a martyr.”

Victoria refocuses her attention to the TV. She’s already lost track of the plot again, but she’s pretty sure someone’s having an affair with someone. She’ll have to narrow down who.

They pass the rest of the night like that. Dennis and Trinity are scheduled to work tomorrow, though, so they wind down before midnight, shutting off the TV and organizing the takeout into various Tupperware to save fridge space.

Victoria helps. She notices pretty quickly that an unspoken system’s been developed. Dennis and Trinity have rules about what foods are acceptable to mix—special fried rice can go next to orange chicken, but not lo mein, and anything spicy has to be segregated in its own container so as not to contaminate something else.

It’s a small thing, but nonetheless a routine she’s become privy to. Dennis and Trinity’s insular, unknowable relationship opens for a second, and allows her in.

“Mom, I’m home,” Victoria calls from the foyer. She leaves her keys in the dish and pushes the door shut behind her. “Mom?”

She walks into the living room, but it’s empty. The kitchen is, too. She finds her mom’s home office next, knocks lightly on the door with the back of her knuckles.

“Mom?”

A moment of silence, then, “Victoria? Come in.”

Victoria cracks open the door. Her mom is at her desk with her email open on her desktop, tired lines underneath her eyes.

“Did you need something from me?” she asks.

“No, I just…” Victoria gestures at herself. “I’m home.”

Her mom nods. “Good.”

Victoria waits for something more, but it doesn’t come.

“Okay, then,” she says. “I won’t bother you.”

“You shouldn’t spend time with Dr. Santos if it keeps you from sleeping enough,” her mom says, just as she’s going to close the door. “You look tired.”

“Oh.” Victoria scrubs at her eyes, wondering if they’re red. “Yeah, uh. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re a special girl,” her mom says. “You need to take care of that brain of yours.”

“I will, Mom,” Victoria says. “Promise.”

“Good,” her mom repeats.

Victoria goes to leave again, and then hesitates. “I, uh. I was thinking we could read that article you were telling me about. When you get a free minute, I mean.”

Her mom raises her eyebrows. It’s not that Victoria’s not willing to do that stuff, but she doesn’t usually suggest it.

“I’ll print a copy,” her mom says.

“Cool,” Victoria replies. “Okay. Well. I’ll talk to you later.”

She closes the door to her mom’s office, and her shoulders sag.

It becomes kind of a routine. After a shift where neither of them are especially exhausted, Victoria will tell her parents she’s having a sleepover at Trinity’s.

They’re surprisingly cool about it—Victoria thinks her dad might have some latent guilt about the lack of socialization she was allowed in her teens. Cool doesn’t mean indifferent, of course. Victoria still gets the silent treatment from her mom, as much as she tries to redeem herself with extra-rigorous study.

She keeps trying to figure out if either or both of her parents have guessed what she does at Trinity’s apartment. It’s not like they’ve ever cared about her sexuality—they run in socially liberal circles, and she told them she was bi when she was fourteen. What they might take more of an issue with is the fact that she’s seeing an emergency medicine doctor, or the fact that she’s having sex. Anything that might distract from or divert her future.

It’s worth it regardless, though. Knowing she has plans to hang out with Trinity makes any shift ten times more bearable. Spat on, bled on, screamed at, at least she’ll end the day with her dopamine receptors fried from overuse.

It’s not just the sex she looks forward to; she watches a lot more bad TV than she ever thought she would, too. Once Trinity gets tired of Eastenders, they move onto Grey’s Anatomy, then Love Island, then, on a whim, MILF Manor, which they drop after an episode and a half.

Victoria still doesn’t really get the appeal of watching something to make fun of it, but she does enjoy the element of stability it brings. She anticipates it, nights spent on the couch in the presence of other people around her age. She thinks this might be what college is like for normal people. Living in conjunction with others, building interdependent routines.

On nights like these, Trinity has taken to leaning her head on Victoria’s lap and kicking her feet across Dennis’. She never lets Victoria stroke her hair, though, or rest her hand on her shoulder. She treats the position like the bodies she’s supporting herself against are just obstacles between her and the couch.

One night, though, she falls asleep like that. Victoria only realizes when Dennis yawns, switching the TV off, and Trinity doesn’t make to get up. Victoria looks to Dennis, unsure what to do. He just puts a finger to his lips, then lifts her legs with his hands, easing himself out from under her so as not to jolt her too harshly.

He helps Victoria get free, too, supporting Trinity’s head as best he can and replacing Victoria’s lap with a spare throw pillow.

“She has a hard enough time sleeping as it is,” he tells Victoria in a low voice, once they’re a few steps away.

“Really?” Victoria glances over at her, but can only see her feet peeking out from around the back of the couch.

“I thought you would’ve known,” Dennis says. “She, um, she comes out into the living room some nights when you stay over. Until maybe two, three in the morning. I think she’d usually just watch TV in her room, but I guess she doesn’t wanna wake you.”

“Shit,” Victoria say. “Um, maybe I should go home, then.”

“Trin would tell you if that’s what she wanted,” Dennis says, waving Victoria off. “She’s always saying she thinks you need to move out of your parents’ house anyway.”

Victoria blinks. “She talks about me?”

Dennis looks at Victoria oddly. “Well, yeah.”

“Oh,” Victoria says.

The apartment is silent enough that if she focuses, she can hear Trinity breathing.

Dennis presses his lips together, then says, “Your parents are probably pretty intense, huh.”

“Kinda,” Victoria admits. “My mom more than my dad, I guess.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Dennis says. His hand comes up like he’s going to pat Victoria’s arm—then he changes his mind, rubbing the back of his own neck instead. “I’m, uh, glad when you’re here. If it means you’re not there.”

“They’re not abusing me, or anything,” Victoria says. The idea is laughable. “They just want me to be successful. It’s better than them being crack addicts, or something.” Her eyes widen. “I don’t mean to stigmatize drug addiction, though. Obviously there are a lot of sociological and environmental factors that contribute to that stuff.”

“Right,” Dennis says. “You know, they don’t have to be abusing you for you to be better off somewhere else. I swear, getting away from my parents saved my life.”

Victoria crosses her arms. She still can’t imagine any parent being disappointed that their kid became a doctor. It doesn’t feel like some subjective expectation her parents have—it’s a universally-recognized yardstick with which to measure and advertize your genius, your dedication, your ability to impress. A title that tells the world, definitively, Hey, I’m not some loser.

“Yeah, maybe,” she says.

Dennis nods. With a parting half-smile, he walks back over to Trinity. Victoria watches him grab a blanket from one of the armchairs and drape it gently over Trinity’s body, tucking it around her shoulder and making sure her feet are covered.

Victoria goes to sleep alone in Trinity’s bed. The sheets smell of her: sweat, green apple, pineapple-scented smoke.

“Just let me put something on you.”

“Fuck. Off.”

“Body glitter.”

“No.”

“Black eyeliner.”

“No.”

“Brown eyeliner. It’ll make your eyes stand out but you won’t look like you’re wearing make-up.”

“I don’t know if he needs any help with that,” Victoria says. “They’re already huge.”

Trinity laughs, outstretching her hand for a high five. Victoria rolls her eyes, then returns it.

“I hate you both,” Dennis says. “Look, I’m already wearing the shirt you wanted, even though it makes me look four bucks a pop. I’m done.”

Victoria thinks privately that the shirt Dennis is wearing isn’t nearly as slutty as he thinks he is. It’s a loose, dark button-up, done up low enough to show his collarbones, but high enough to hide his weirdly hairless chest.

“Ugh, whatever,” Trinity says. “If you wanna look washed-out and ugly tonight, that’s fine by me.”

Dennis wrinkles his nose at her. Victoria smiles.

They take the bus to the bar Trinity wants them to go to. “Sorry, but I want to get trashed,” she says, but Victoria hadn’t thought of using public transport when choosing her outfit. She feels naked in her miniskirt now, even sitting down, and shrinks towards the window with her torso folded forward.

“Want my jacket?” Dennis asks her.

“Oh, no, I’m not cold,” she says.

“No, for your lap,” he clarifies, as he shrugs it off his shoulders. “Here.”

“Oh,” Victoria says, surprised. “Thanks.”

“Such a gentleman,” Trinity says as Victoria drapes Dennis’s jacket over her knees, feeling significantly less exposed. “Protecting the young lady’s modesty.”

Dennis rolls his eyes, not bothering to respond.

He’s standing, holding onto one of the overhead poles. The traces of his conservative upbringing are obvious in moments like this, where he lets the women he’s with take the free seats on the bus without thinking, like it’s more a duty than an act of kindness.

It leaves Victoria sitting knee-to-knee with Trinity. It shouldn’t make her nervous, but it does. She’s not used to being near Trinity where other people can see. She’s uncomfortable with the idea of being the subject of the Pitt’s gossip mill, and more than that, it’s not like they’re even a couple. It’d be weird to acknowledge each other that way at work when really, they introduced the benefits to their relationship before the friendship.

Here, though, there are no rules—only those invisible limits of Trinity’s which leave Victoria unsure of when she’ll next cross a line.

Trinity’s arm comes up and drapes over the back of Victoria’s seat. Victoria feels the warmth of her body heat against the back of her neck. As casually as she can manage, staring straight ahead, she leans back into the touch, pillowing her head against Trinity’s bicep. Just as casually, Trinity’s arm slips down and slings around Victoria’s shoulders.

Victoria doesn’t lean in. Trinity doesn’t tighten her grip. They remain as they are, offhandedly touching, until the bus reaches their stop.

Victoria becomes viscerally aware of how different clubs are from bars the moment she gets through the door. The music is loud enough to force all the thoughts out of her head, and the colored lights are somehow simultaneously too bright and too dim. There’s a fog machine somewhere, filling the space between bodies with thick clouds of moisture, turning everyone into silhouettes.

“I’ll buy you a drink,” Trinity half-shouts into Victoria’s ear.

“I can get my own,” Victoria says back.

“Yeah, but I actually have an income,” Trinity says. “I don’t want your allowance, nepo baby. Try again when you’re a resident.”

She pats Victoria’s cheek hard enough that it’s almost a slap, then grabs her and Dennis’ upper arms and drags them towards the bar.

“Screwdriver?” Trinity asks—at least, Victoria thinks that’s what she says—and Victoria nods. It’s not like she has any established preferences. She’s avoided alcohol since her twenty-first.

“A double?” she asks tentatively.

Trinity snorts. “Yeah, sure.”

As she leans over the bar to order, Victoria’s eyes drift around the room. For a gay club, the decor is pretty tasteful. Victoria had been imagining garish rainbows and glitter everywhere, and she’d only been half-right. There’s definitely a lot of glitter. Half the dance floor looks like they’ve walked off the set of Twilight.

“Anything for you, sweetheart?”

Victoria’s head whips around. Leaning her forearm against the counter is one of the bartenders, a muscular woman who must be in her mid forties, judging by the way the light clings to her lightly-creased skin.

“Oh,” Victoria says. “Uh. No, thanks. Sorry. My friend is getting something for me. Sorry.”

“All good,” the woman says. She seems to consider Victoria, then asks, “First time?”

“Yeah. I’m new,” Victoria says, wondering if it’s really that obvious. “Um, not to gay stuff. More to club stuff. I’m, uh, I’m twenty-one.”

The woman’s eyes crinkle, like she’s a little amused. “Wow. Young.” Victoria just nods. “I like your hair, by the way. I haven’t seen butterfly clips since the nineties.”

“Oh. Um, thank you.” Victoria touches the clips in her hair. They’re the glittery, half-see-through kind. “I was really debating if they were, like, club appropriate.”

“I think they work,” the woman says, just as Trinity reappears at Victoria’s side.

“Here,” she says, pushing a glass into Victoria’s hand. She glances at the bartender, who’s now being flagged down by another customer. “Wow, you really do have a thing for older women.”

“I don’t,” Victoria says, though it lacks bite. It’s hard to feel indignant the tenth time a topic is brought up. She takes a deep drink.

Trinity makes a patronizingly helpful expression. “You know they’re basically paid to flirt with you here, right?”

“Shut up,” Victoria says. “She wasn’t flirting, anyway.”

“Oh, yes she was,” Trinity says. “Face it, Crash. You’re a hot young piece of ass.”

“You’re gross,” Dennis chimes in.

He’s drinking from a tall glass of brown liquid. Trinity sees it and mimes gagging.

“Not another vodka redbull,” she says. “Jesus Christ, Huckleberry, your tiny heart’s gonna give out before you’re thirty.”

“Shut up, PBR,” Dennis says. “At least I don’t drink like a hick.”

“No, you just are a hick,” Trinity says, jabbing her can at Dennis. “God, I’m being crucified for being economical. You hearing this, Crash?”

“Yeah, and I don’t care about any of it,” Victoria says.

She thinks a flicker of approval might pass over Trinity’s face before she performatively rolls her eyes.

“Whatever, losers,” she says, “let’s go dance.”

Victoria gulps down her drink before letting herself be dragged away, not trusting herself not to spill it. As she slides the glass back onto the bartop, she thinks she catches the woman from before wink at her while she she moves to collect it.

The crowd envelops them. When Victoria moves even slightly, she brushes up against writhing body parts, patches of sweat-slick skin. It grosses her out if she thinks about it too hard. She can visualize with incredible accuracy what the surface of the human body looks like under a microscope, its congregations of bacteria.

So she doesn’t think about it. She moves to the pounding synth beat over the speakers, a little comforted by the fact that Dennis is definitely a much worse dancer than she is.

The same can’t be said for Trinity, though. Victoria’s far from surprised. Even if she hadn’t heard by now about Trinity’s past as a gymnast, Trinity’s absolute self-confidence in every physical endeavor would be enough of a hint. Trinity fucks Victoria with singular skill and focus; she handles surgical implements like kitchen utensils, knows just how to manipulate the human body to keep it alive; and she dances like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do.

Victoria gets the same feeling watching Trinity now, her baby tee riding up to expose her stomach, as she does watching Trinity in the chaos of a trauma, her hair falling sweatily out of her ponytail, her hands impossibly steady. Dishevelled, impulsive, in absolute control.

Trinity leans in, her spare arm winding around Victoria’s neck. She’s fever-warm, already flushed from the alcohol, and Victoria finds herself reaching up to clutch her bicep.

“You look like you have a stick shoved so far up your ass it’s in your throat,” Trinity whispers into Victoria’s ear.

Victoria huffs, and says back, “Well, I’m not a dancer.”

Trinity groans. “God, who cares? You’re a hot girl in a fucking club.”

“Doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing,” Victoria says, wondering if she should add that every time Trinity calls her hot, she gets closer to a spontaneous aneurysm.

“It doesn’t matter if you know what you’re doing,” Trinity says, pulling Victoria’s hand from her upper arm to her waist. “You can make anything look sexy.”

Victoria whimpers a little, the sound swallowed by the music. She smooths her hands over Trinity’s sides, then hooks her fingers in the belt loops of Trinity’s shorts.

“I’m gonna die if you keep saying stuff like that,” she blurts out.

Trinity pouts sarcastically. “Aw. But I’m just starting to like you better when you’re not a corpse.”

“Hilarious,” Victoria says flatly. Trinity bites down on a grin, and the silver glitter around her eyes catches the light. “God. Okay. Fuck it.”

Victoria pulls Trinity in fully, their bodies flush from chest to knee. Trinity turns her head to the side to take another sip from her beer, then puts her spare arm around Victoria too, covering the top of her can with her palm.

“You know, the frontal grind is a sacred art form,” she says. “Not just anyone can do it.”

“Really.”

“Yup. The only true masters are middle-schoolers trying to get their first kiss under the bleachers.”

“Oh my god, whatever, I don’t care,” Victoria says. Her head is swimming. Her alcohol tolerance is still nonexistent, and however much vodka is in a double is singing through her bloodstream. “Just dance with me, jerk.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Trinity’s mouth. “Yeah, okay.”

If it was beautiful to watch Trinity’s body move, it’s even better to feel it. Her waist shifts against Victoria’s, her hips move underneath her hands. She directs Victoria to copy what she’s doing, to reciprocate, and it’s a little like learning how to kiss. The push and pull of it. The thrill that’s part physicality, part intimacy.

“You’re not as bad at this as you think you are,” Trinity says.

Victoria frowns. “Really?”

“Yeah. When you let yourself follow your instincts.”

Victoria’s fingers tighten around Trinity’s hips. Trinity’s mouth is red, a little chapped, and parted attractively. Victoria wants to kiss her. Victoria wants to kiss her so badly she feels kind of stupid for it, like she shouldn’t let herself be consumed by a feeling so patently lacking in logic.

Trinity’s free arm falls away from Victoria’s neck, her hand settling in at the curve of her jaw.

“We can make out, if you want,” she says. “Half the people around us are here to hook up, anyway.”

“Oh.” Victoria swallows, her mouth dry. “What if you want to hook up with someone else, then? Won’t this ruin your chances?”

Trinity snorts. “Uh, no. I doubt it.”

Victoria’s hands slip over Trinity’s hips, flattening along the small of her back.

“So you do want to hook up with someone else tonight,” she can’t help but say.

Trinity rolls her eyes heavily, head tipping back a little with the force of the movement.

“God, you’re needy,” she says. “What do you want me to say? No, Victoria Javadi, I only have eyes for you.”

“Do you?” Victoria asks. Trinity scoffs.

“Whatever. If you want me to put it like that, sure,” she says. “I don’t want to fuck anyone else tonight. Happy?”

“Delirious,” Victoria says, alarmed at how close that is to the truth. Then, she leans in and kisses Trinity, slipping her tongue past the seal of her lips.

The night passes in a kind of blur. Victoria experiences it in flashes of consciousness, as much an effect of the alcohol as the strobe lights that keep flickering in and out.

Victoria dances with Trinity, then with Dennis. They go get shots. Victoria dances with Trinity again, and then all three of them dance in one of those awkward, bouncing circles that seem a lot less awkward in the moment. Dennis gets hit on by a hot guy in a Joy Division t-shirt, and he seems so genuinely distressed at the prospect of having to reject someone that the guy has to comfort him through it. More shots. A sloppy makeout session against one of the poster-plastered walls. Victoria takes a hit of Trinity’s vape, and coughs so hard she almost throws up.

By the time they call the Uber, it’s the early hours of the morning, and Victoria is bone-tired like she just worked a double. She tries to climb into the backseat with Trinity, but Dennis grabs her by the arm.

“Definitely not,” he says, pushing her gently towards the passenger seat. “If Trin gets a bad rating because you guys are all over each other, she’ll blame me for not stopping it.”

Victoria can’t be bothered to argue, but she does sigh loudly. She slumps into the front seat, blearily buckling herself in, and watches Trinity pillow her head on Dennis’ shoulder through the rearview mirror.

Once the Uber arrives at the apartment complex, Dennis herds them through the front doors, up the elevator, down the hall.

“Okay, okay. Fuck,” Trinity says when he tries to guide her towards her room. She bats his hands away. “M’fine. I think I can get to bed on my own.”

Victoria laughs, and Trinity laughs too. Dennis pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Fine, whatever,” he says. “Goodnight.”

Trinity takes Victoria’s hand, loosely interlacing their fingers, and drags her towards her bedroom door. She kicks it shut half-heartedly behind them, then collapses face-first on her bed with a groan.

Victoria kicks off her ballet flats. “You should probably get changed.”

“Can’t be bothered,” Trinity says, but she squirms out of her shorts anyway, letting them fall to the floor. She makes a valiant effort at handlessly removing her Oxfords, too, but the leather is too tightly molded to her ankle.

“Jesus Christ,” Victoria says, rounding the bed to stand in front of Trinity’s feet. “Stop kicking for five seconds.”

Trinity does, propping herself up on her elbows, and Victoria rests Trinity’s shoes on her thigh to unlace them. She pulls them off, then sets them neatly together by Trinity’s nightstand.

“I can’t believe you wore these into your room,” Victoria says.

“What part of ‘can’t be bothered’ are you not hearing?”

Victoria ignores her, pulling the butterfly clips free from her hair, then slipping off her miniskirt, folding it, and placing it on Trinity’s desk. She can feel Trinity watching as she takes off her top, too, replacing it with the oversized t-shirt she brought over before they left for the night. She takes off her bra underneath it, pulling it out through one of the sleeves.

“Boooo,” Trinity says. “Tease.”

Victoria rolls her eyes, then crawls onto the bed next to Trinity, collapsing against the pillows with a yawn.

“Never doing this again,” she mumbles.

“I don’t know if you have a choice,” Trinity says, reaching out to pinch Victoria’s cheek between her knuckles. “How else are you gonna meet girls?”

“Old bartenders? I think I’m good,” Victoria says. She hesitates, then adds, “I have you right now, anyway.”

Trinity sighs. “God, you’re possessive tonight.”

“I’m just being honest.”

“Whatever, Crash,” Trinity says. “You’re still just a kid.”

“I know what I’m saying,” Victoria says. Trinity rolls her eyes. “I do.”

“You know that everyone your age thinks they have everything figured out.”

“Yeah, but they’re not gonna be doctors next year,” Victoria says. “I’m a genius.”

Trinity giggles a little. “Does your ego come out when you’re drunk?”

“Shut up. You only call it my ego because you don’t want to admit it’s true,” Victoria says. “How do I have an ego if it’s true?”

Trinity just laughs harder. Victoria frowns, propping herself up on her arms.

“I’m smarter than you,” she says. “Admit it.”

“I’m not admitting shit, Crash,” Trinity says. “God, I should get a camera.”

Victoria swings a leg over Trinity’s hips, pinning them to the mattress. “Admit it.”

“Is this a kink of yours?” Trinity asks. “Intellectual submission?”

“No,” Victoria insists. “I thought about this way before we … you know.”

Trinity raises her eyebrows. “About this.”

“Yeah.”

She gestures to herself. “About pinning me to a bed and making me say you’re better than me.”

“Well.” Victoria’s brow furrows. “Not exactly.”

“Then I hate to say it, but it was always sexual,” Trinity says.

“Whatever. I don’t care,” Victoria says. She grabs Trinity’s hands, which were creeping up her thighs, and pushes them to the mattress on either side of her head. “I wanna hear it anyway.”

A wry smile lifts the corner of Trinity’s mouth. Victoria has no idea how even now, she manages to look unbearably smug. She swallows, her throat dry.

“Fine,” Trinity says. She shifts underneath Victoria a little, as if to demonstrate that she could throw her off if she wanted. “You’re smarter than me.”

Victoria blinks. “Wait. Really?”

“Sure,” Trinity says. “Maybe not now, but age-wise, yeah. You’re smarter than me.”

Victoria’s heart thuds thickly in her chest. She feels her grip loosening around Trinity’s wrists, but even as she lets go of them, they don’t move. Trinity snorts.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she says. “Doesn’t your mommy tell you you’re special?”

“Shut up,” Victoria says.

“Is this getting you hot?” Trinity asks. Then she furrows her brow performatively, puts on a whiny voice, and continues, “Oh, Dr. Javadi, I need your help. I’m just a lowly resident, need to be put in my place by the prodigy of the PTMC…”

“Shut up. Fuck,” Victoria says. “I really, really hate you.”

“Uh-huh,” Trinity says, because at this point, it’s probably obvious that she’s lying.

Victoria leans down and kisses Trinity, hard. Trinity makes a pleased noise against her when she immediately makes it open-mouthed, sloppy, the kind of kiss that’s only hot if Victoria doesn’t think about it too much.

Trinity’s hands come up, trailing down Victoria’s back over her shirt then pushing beneath her underwear to grab at her ass, pulling her down to grind against her thigh. Victoria hums a little, approving, then remembers herself—pulls Trinity’s hands away from her and pushes them to the mattress again.

“No,” she says, against Trinity’s lips.

“Fuck,” Trinity mutters. “Forgot you’re a control freak.”

“Fuck you,” Victoria says. “Take off your clothes.”

Her head swims with how quickly Trinity obeys. She squirms out of her boxers, yanks her shirt over her head, and Victoria bites her lip. She runs a hand from Trinity’s shoulder down to her chest, feeling the weight of her breast in her hand. She circles her thumb around the nipple, watches Trinity shiver, then pinches, a little meanly.

“Come on,” Trinity says, a little whinily. She pushes up the front of Victoria’s shirt. “Wanna see your tits.”

“You’re thirteen years old,” Victoria says, but pulls off her t-shirt anyway. She takes off her underwear for good measure, then drapes herself over Trinity, pushing her thigh up between her legs, feels the wet warmth there against her skin.

Trinity moans a little, almost under her breath, and runs her fingertips down Victoria’s back. She doesn’t have much nail, but what little she does have digs lines into Victoria’s skin. Victoria shivers. She thinks about pulling Trinity’s hands away again—ordering her not to touch, making her hold onto the headboard or something—but it feels good enough to be held onto that it’s not really worth being mean.

“How does scissoring work, exactly?” Victoria asks, and Trinity groans.

“Everything you say is such a turn-off,” she complains.

“You’re a filthy slut. How does scissoring work, exactly?”

“Nice upgrade,” Trinity says. “Also, too much effort. Just get yourself off on my thigh. Grind down like you’re fucking me.”

Victoria shivers a little, then does her best to emulate what Trinity described. She’s gratified when Trinity whines, digging her nails into the nape of Victoria’s neck.

“Like that?” she pants.

“Yeah, except don’t fucking stop next time,” Trinity says.

Victoria grinds forward again, her head dropping to Trinity’s shoulder. She never thought it could work like this between two girls, when even in her head it felt like an anatomical impossibility, but she thinks she gets it now. Being pressed as close to Trinity as is physically possible.

She feels the soft tissue of Trinity’s breasts against her sternum, the peaks of her nipples dragging rough against her skin. She hitches Trinity’s thigh over her hip, runs her nails down the back of it, and Trinity rewards her with a throaty noise, pulling her head up so that their mouths can meet. Victoria bites Trinity’s lip, soothes it with her tongue. She can feel it when Trinity gets wetter, her thighs tightening to keep the pressure where she wants it, and it does kind of feel like she’s fucking her, and it’s all so much, so fast.

“Fuck,” Victoria whines, choked, as her orgasm rushes through her out of nowhere. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Trinity holds her as she shivers through it, toying with the hair at the nape of her neck. Victoria thinks she might feel tears pushing behind her eyes, and she blinks them back. She was supposed to be the one in control.

“Did you just come?” Trinity asks, smirking, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Victoria mutters. She drops a kiss to Trinity’s shoulder, then another to the swell of her breast. She pulls their hips away from each other, kissing down her sternum, her stomach.

“Not making fun of you,” Trinity says, propping herself up on her elbows. “It was cute.”

Victoria shoots her a glare as she settles herself between her legs, pushing her knees up off the bed a little. Then, she leans in, licking a stripe over Trinity’s clit.

She still doesn’t feel like she knows what she’s doing down here. The first time she tried it, Trinity took ages to come, and Victoria got so flustered that she almost gave up on the whole thing. She would’ve, had Trinity not been close to crying with desperation, accidentally teased past the point of making fun of Victoria.

It doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy it. Once Victoria gets past her self-consciousness, she revels in the power of it. Holding Trinity’s hips down to the bed with her forearm, pulling strangled, trembling sounds from her lips. Feeling her twitch beneath her tongue. Gush around her fingers.

Victoria looks up to see that Trinity’s grabbing the headboard of her own accord. She usually likes to tug Victoria’s hair, get her hands tangled there, and the knowledge that she’s restraining herself lights some strange and indescribable fire in Victoria’s gut. She moans around Trinity, and Trinity gasps.

As Trinity comes undone, she squeezes Victoria’s head between her thighs. Victoria takes it, lets her grind up against her tongue until she’s had her fill, twitching with aftershocks, then crawls back up her body to push the taste of her back into her mouth.

Victoria’s pretty sure they fall asleep kissing. Her last memories of that night are of Trinity’s hand in her hair, their interlocked lips moving slower and slower and slower.

“It must’ve been that guy, right?” Dennis is saying. “The guy in the band shirt?”

“I don’t know,” Trinity says, for maybe the fourth time. “Yeah. Probably.”

Dennis turns over the paper in his hands again, as if he might discover some information hidden between its silvery folds.

“Who even gives away their number on gum wrappers anymore?” he says, waving it in Trinity’s face. “This isn’t the nineties! What if it’s an old person?”

“Then you should marry them and get yourself written into the will,” Victoria says. She takes another bite of her peanut-butter toast.

“Please, if they’re still going to the club at sixty-five, they’re blowing all their savings on coke,” Trinity says.

“I don’t get why you guys aren’t taking me seriously.”

“Because someone gave you their number! So what?”

“I don’t remember who they are, and I wasn’t even drunk,” Dennis says. “They must’ve slipped it into my pocket when I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Then they’re a weirdo and you shouldn’t text them either way,” Victoria says.

“Or they’re a hopeless romantic who saw you across the dance floor and was too shy to talk to you,” Trinity says. “Aw, Huckleberry, you’re someone’s Cinderella.”

“Wouldn’t they be his Cinderella?”

“True,” Trinity says. “Very true. We should knock on every door in the city and get them to write the Pittsburgh area code on a gum wrapper.”

“Forget it,” Dennis says, balling up the wrapper and throwing it in the trash.

Victoria’s just about to suggest they dig it back out, just to see if the handwriting looks old-person-y, when her phone rings. She frowns, dusting off her fingers, and pulls it out of her pocket. When she sees who it is, her eyes widen.

“Shit,” she says. “Shit. Why didn’t you guys say it’s already twelve?”

“Uh, why?” Trinity says, frowning at Victoria as she stands up and starts frantically gathering her things.

“Because, I have a morning curfew, and my mom is calling me.”

“Oh my god, really?” Trinity says, as if this is somehow delightful information. “Are you gonna get grounded, Crash?”

“I don’t know, maybe!” Victoria grabs her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder. “I’m gonna go. I have to catch my bus.”

“Woah, wait, you don’t want me to drive you?”

“My mom hates you. It doesn’t matter how much faster I get back, it’s not gonna be a point in my favor.”

Dennis smothers a laugh with the back of his hand. Trinity shoots him a glare.

“She doesn’t hate me hate me,” she says. “She respects my ambition.”

“She doesn’t,” Victoria says, yanking open the door.

Missed call from Mom.

[12:42] You: I’m so sorry.
[12:42] You: I can’t call you back right now because I’m on the bus but I will be home as soon as possible.
[12:42] You: I genuinely just lost track of time.
[12:43] You: I’ll be home soon. OK. I love you.

“It’s not about controlling you, you know.”

One of the few upsides to working in the same hospital as her parents is that their schedules so rarely align. Victoria will often get to spend her days off left largely to her own devices, maybe with one of her parents lurking around the house. It’s a particular stroke of bad luck that leaves her sitting on an armchair opposite both her mom and her dad today, of all days. She crosses her arms.

“Yeah, I know,” she says.

“You’re an adult,” her mom continues. “But as long as you live under my roof, I have to know that you’re safe, especially when you’re with people I don’t know or trust.”

“You trust Trinity,” Victoria says, before she can stop herself.

“I trust Dr. Santos,” her mom says. “I trust Dr. Santos to diagnose a gallstone. I don’t trust her with my daughter. Frankly, I don’t understand your friendship at all.”

Victoria shrugs. Me neither is probably the wrong thing to say.

“What your mother means is that we’re open to you having some more independence,” her dad says. “But we have to trust you to be responsible with it.”

“I am responsible,” Victoria says. “I just overslept.”

“You didn’t text,” her mom says. “You didn’t call to let us know you’d be late. We were worried.”

“You didn’t really think something happened to me.”

“We didn’t know.”

Victoria presses her lips together. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” her dad says. “You’ve already apologized.”

“Well, I don’t know what else you want me to do,” Victoria says. “Do you want to punish me, or something?”

Her parents share a look. It makes her feel like such a kid, petulant and red-faced and throwing a tantrum because she didn’t get her way. She leans back in her armchair, stares at her shoes.

“We don’t want to punish you,” her dad says, softly. “You’re not a teenager.”

“Then—I mean…” Victoria swallows thickly, trying to quell some of her rising anger. “With all due respect, why are you treating me like one?”

Her mom frowns. “Victoria—”

“No, Mom … I’m … I’m actually kind of tired of it,” Victoria says, voice a little strangled, a little high. “I mean, don’t you guys see how ridiculous this is? I’m twenty-one. I should be in charge of my own life.”

“You are in charge,” her mom says. “But while you’re under our roof…”

“How can you say I’m in charge?” Victoria says. “I can’t even choose my own discipline. You want me to be a surgeon, because you want your friends to respect you, and dad—you’re not subtle with all those meetings you set up.” She scoffs. “Did you know that people say I’m a nepotism hire? Everyone thinks I only have the opportunities I do because of you guys.”

“Vic,” her dad says, sterner than she’s ever heard him. Her eyes flicker over to look at her mom, whose jaw is unbearably tight. “That isn’t fair. You only got the education you did because of us.”

“I know,” Victoria says. She takes a deep breath. “I don’t mean… Like, I’m glad that you got me to this point. But I want to take it from here. Don’t you understand that I can’t accept a residency that I was only offered because of who my parents are? It’s humiliating. I’m better than that.”

“I’ve never, ever recommended you for a position that you don’t deserve,” her mom snaps.

Victoria shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. No one will believe me if I tell them that.”

“I thought you were better than choosing a career just to spite us.”

“That’s not—” Victoria cuts herself off, frustrated. “I’m good at emergency med. I’m really, really good at it. I’m good at thinking on my feet. I love talking to people. And yeah, okay, I like the people I’ve met there.”

“I see,” her mom says. “So this is about your social life.”

“I don’t know,” Victoria says. “Maybe it is.”

Her mom looks to her dad and gestures helplessly. “I can’t talk to her.”

Victoria glares, blood rushing hot, and before she can think about it, the words are flying out of her mouth.

“I wanna move out.”

Her parents turn to look at her. She’s never seen them surprised like this, at least not at her. It feels kind of good.

“We can discuss that,” her dad says.

“No.” Victoria shakes her head. “I mean, I’m doing it.”

“Alright,” her dad continues, switching gears. “Maybe we can look at some apartments next weekend.”

“I wanna look on my own,” Victoria says. “I wanna choose by myself. It doesn’t count otherwise.”

“Victoria,” her mom says. “You don’t want to move out without our advice.”

“I think I do,” Victoria says. “And … I mean, I have the money. You guys gave it to me to do what I want with because you know I’m responsible. I’m not running away or anything, I just…” She frowns. “I want my life to start feeling like mine.”

Her mom looks at her for a moment. Victoria holds her breath. Then, her mom stands up and walks away, not saying a word. Victoria’s dad shoots her a trepidated look, then goes to follow her mom.

Victoria feels a little numb. She sits in her parents’ living room which is feeling less and less like hers by the minute. Chic white chairs, glass coffee-table, every surface free from dust since the cleaner came through this morning.

Staring at the space around her through new eyes, Victoria becomes increasingly certain that a home should be strung together haphazardly. A collection of trinkets and moments and light, shelves stuffed with card games, carpet semi-matted from age. A place alive with warmth.

[9:08] You: hey, this is probably totally weird but can i ask you a favor?

[9:26] Dr. McKay (PTMC): Sure. Shoot.

[9:27] You: so i might be moving out.

[9:30] Dr. McKay (PTMC): Wow, kiddo! Congrats! 🥳🥳

[9:31] You: thanks lol.
[9:31] You: anyway, i don’t want to go apartment hunting with my parents, because i think i’ll just get confused with what i want and what they want
[9:31] You: but i also have no clue what i’m doing
[9:32] You: so maybe you could take me? just lmk what stuff to look out for
[9:32] You: let me know*

[9:39] Dr. McKay (PTMC): Of course! I’d be happy to.
[9:39] Dr. McKay (PTMC): Let me know what days would work for you and we’ll set that up.

[9:40] You: thank you so much :)

[9:45] Dr. McKay (PTMC): No problem.

On a Tuesday morning, one of Trinity’s patients dies.

Victoria hears it happen from across the room. A sixty-eight-year-old woman goes into unexpected cardiac arrest. The monitor flatlines, Trinity calls for assistance. Resuscitation efforts fail. It’s over in sixteen minutes.

Victoria only finds out later that it might’ve been Trinity’s fault.

“I mean, it wasn’t an obvious catch,” Dennis tells her in a low voice. “But she probably blames herself anyway.”

A couple of months ago, Victoria might’ve internally scoffed. A couple of months ago, she lived in the reality where Trinity didn’t care about patient death beyond how it affected her reputation.

She only sees Trinity a few more times throughout the day. She’s always walking somewhere, head held high, shoulders tight. It’s the kind of body language that would project confidence if Trinity weren’t always languorously swaggering around, like her body owns the space it’s in.

They don’t talk until the end of their shift. Trinity catches up to Victoria as she’s walking to her bus stop. She’s panting a little, slowing down from a jog.

“Fucking hell, Crash,” she says. “You walk fast.”

Victoria looks at her. “Hey.”

“Still no car?” Trinity says.

“You know there’s not.”

“Hm. Sad.”

Victoria shakes her head. “Why aren’t you in the parking lot?”

“Eh, figured I’d pick you up first,” Trinity says. “I know we didn’t have plans, but do you wanna come over tonight?”

“We have work tomorrow,” Victoria points out.

“Ugh, who cares,” Trinity says. “I want to fuck you.”

Victoria stops in her tracks, flickering her eyes over her surroundings. The street’s empty of anyone she knows, but that doesn’t stop heat from flooding her cheeks.

“You can’t just say that,” she hisses. “We’re, like, twenty feet from the hospital.”

“Whatever,” Trinity says. “Do you want to?”

Victoria hesitates. Trinity’s lip is quirked, and her head is tilted, and her eyes which are usually so bright are kind of dim.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Victoria says carefully.

“Why?” Trinity frowns.

“You just seem like you’re in a weird headspace,” Victoria says.

“What?” Trinity scoffs. “Because some old lady kicked it this morning?”

“Jesus,” Victoria mutters, cringing. “And—yeah, actually.”

Trinity blinks. Her jaw tenses, her lips drawing together tightly.

“Don’t pity me,” she says. “It’s not a good look.”

“It’s fine if you’re upset.”

“I know. It’d be fucking crazy not to be,” Trinity says. “I screwed up. Of course I hate myself.”

Victoria takes a small step forward. “I mean. You obviously shouldn’t hate yourself. Screw-ups happen.”

“Yeah, well, her kids probably don’t see it that way, do they?” Trinity says. “They’re … I mean, I might be looking at a lawsuit.”

“What?” Victoria says, frowning. “No way they have a case.”

“Yeah, I know that, Crash,” Trinity says testily. “Fucking fuck me for not wanting to be alone tonight, I guess. Sorry it’s not a logical feeling.”

“Wait, alone?” Victoria says. “What about…?”

“Heading up to the farm early, I guess,” Trinity mutters. “He has tomorrow off. So.”

Victoria’s brow furrows. Trinity’s looking at the floor, at the cracked pavement beneath her feet.

“Forget it, actually,” Trinity says. “Sorry, this was stupid.”

She starts to walk back towards the hospital, the parking lot, but Victoria reaches out and catches her wrist. She looks up sharply, her eyes like cut glass. Victoria steels herself.

“Do you wanna go get something to eat?” she asks.

Trinity frowns. “Like, at a restaurant?”

Victoria considers their current state of cleanliness.

“Probably not,” she says. “There’s this good taco stand near here, though. McKay takes Harrison there sometimes, she told me about it.”

“Ah,” Trinity says. For a second, Victoria thinks she’s going to say no. Then, “It’s probably bad form to take your sidepiece to your girlfriend’s haunt, though.”

Victoria rolls her eyes. “You seriously have to stop being gross about McKay.”

“I seriously don’t,” Trinity says. She takes a step closer, so that their linked arms are no longer outstretched. “It’s Oedipal, is what it is.”

“She’s your superior, Trin,” Victoria says.

“At work, sure,” Trinity says. “Out here, she’s just your sugar mommy.”

“Does it count as a sugar baby relationship if I’m literally exchanging services for cash?”

“Pretty sure that’s exactly what a sugar baby does.”

“Babysitting services, you perv.”

“Ah, my mistake,” Trinity says. “You’re just the much-younger stepmom.”

Victoria shakes her head. “Do you wanna get tacos or not?”

Trinity bites the inside of her cheek, then says, “Lead the way.”

It’s a short walk. Summer is drawing to a close, and fall breeze bites at Victoria’s exposed neck. Victoria lets go of Trinity’s wrist, but they walk close enough that the backs of their hands brush with every other step, sending shocks of warmth up Victoria’s knuckles.

They order their food. Victoria insists on paying, mostly because it feels right, despite the fact that she should probably be watching her spending at the moment. Afterwards, they wait in silence. Trinity leans against the side of the truck, her eyelids so heavy they might as well be drawn. She’s wrapped her hoodie around herself, covering her chin, but it doesn’t disguise the cold flush coloring her cheeks.

“Where should we go?” Victoria asks once they’ve collected their styrofoam containers, moisture seeping out of the bottom and gathering on their palms.

“I don’t know,” Trinity says. “Park bench?”

The only bench they can find is cold metal, and divided in three by sharp armrests. Trinity rolls her eyes heavily at that, then sits on the back of the bench with her feet on the seats. Victoria copies her carefully, careful not to tip backwards and crack her head open.

Trinity opens her container and starts to eat. Victoria watches her for a moment, hands resting on top of her own box. She’s barely surprised to note that like with everything else, Trinity seems to have a technique for this. She sticks her pinky finger out while she lifts the taco to her mouth so that the salsa doesn’t run down her wrist.

“Just fucking eat,” Trinity says, through a mouthful of carne asada. “You’re such a voyeur.”

Victoria opens her container and takes a bite of her mushroom taco. It’s okay. A little rubbery, maybe.

“You know,” she says, chewing, “I think we’ve probably never spent this much time together alone before.”

Trinity pauses, then turns to look at her slowly. She wears an expression of such amusement and disbelief that Victoria shrinks immediately, feeling her cheeks grow warm.

“Stop, that’s not what I meant,” she says. “I mean like this. Just hanging out. Like—someone else is always there.”

“Hm. True, actually,” Trinity says. “I’ll have to tell Huck to stop third-wheeling.”

“Don’t,” Victoria says. “He’s the only reason I come over.”

“Ha-ha,” Trinity says flatly. “Javadi gets off a good one.”

“Are you ever gonna call me Vic?” Victoria asks, before she can think. She frowns. “I mean, when you’re not calling me Crash.”

Trinity glances at her. “I would’ve guessed you go by Tori.”

“Gross, no,” Victoria says. “Is it weird if I say that just makes me think of Tori Spelling?”

Trinity snorts. “Yes.”

Victoria takes another bite of her food, chews, swallows. The streetlights along the sidewalk flicker faintly, painting brief shadows across Trinity’s face.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Victoria tries.

Trinity shakes her head. “No.”

Victoria purses her lips. “Avoidance isn’t a permanent solution.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll figure it out later,” Trinity says. She runs a hand through her hair. “Look. I’m seriously fine. I’m an R2.”

“So you’re infallible,” Victoria says.

“No, worse things have happened to me,” Trinity says. “This, I can manage. I was just having a bad day, and…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. Sleeping in an empty apartment sounded like hell, so.”

She stares down into her food. The tendons in her neck are visible, and the way she speaks, Victoria has to wonder how long she was alone before Dennis. Before the Pitt.

“I can still stay over, if you want,” Victoria says, impulsively. “Keep you company.”

Trinity glances over at her, brows slightly drawn. “You don’t have to do that.”

Victoria shrugs. “I know. But I can.”

Trinity looks at her for a long moment. Crickets chirp in the park to their backs. A bird in some far-off nest trills. Victoria angles her knee to the side a little so it brushes against Trinity’s.

“Okay,” Trinity says. “Uh. Sure.”

Victoria just nods. She severs eye contact to continue eating, but she’s certain she can feel Trinity’s gaze linger on her for a second or two more before falling away.

“This one’s got a lot of natural light,” McKay says. She opens a door next to the bathroom. “Zero linen closet space, though, but I don’t know what your bedsheet situation is like.”

“They’ve honestly all looked the exact same to me,” Victoria says.

She’s ferried McKay from open house to open house, all one-bedroom apartments within a reasonable price range that she found on weird websites with nonsensical names. They’re all so deeply fine that Victoria doesn’t know how she’s ever going to distinguish between them.

“It’s always like that before you move in,” McKay says. “It can be kind of hard to visualize how the place will actually look day-to-day.”

“It’s not even like I have furniture to imagine. I haven’t bought any yet,” Victoria says. Her eyes widen. “Oh god. I’m gonna spend my first night here on a mattress on the floor like a single guy in his thirties.”

McKay laughs. “That’s one way to get black mold.”

“Really?” Victoria says, alarmed. “How do I not know that?”

“Because you’re twenty,” McKay says, reaching out and squeezing Victoria’s shoulder. “It’s fine. You’ll figure this stuff out.”

“Maybe,” Victoria says. “Or I’ll die because I mix ammonia and bleach in my toilet.”

“Hey, you already know that one,” McKay says. “Don’t freak out. I’ll hit up IKEA with you once you sign a lease, if you want.”

Victoria nods. “Thanks. That’d be … good.”

McKay pats her upper arm as she lets go.

“You’re a responsible kid, Javadi,” she says. “You’ve got a better head on your shoulders than most people your age.”

“Yeah, well. That’s what people are always telling me, but then they still treat me like I can’t think for myself.”

McKay frowns. “You’re not talking about me, right?”

“God—no,” Victoria says. “Just … my parents, I guess.” She grimaces. “I guess I decided I was moving out on a whim, just because I was pissed at them. Which was probably stupid. I should’ve thought about it some more. Or at all.”

“I doubt it actually came out of nowhere,” McKay says. “I mean … being your age, living at home, working in the same place as your parents. Sounds like a lot.”

“Kind of,” Victoria says. “They think it’s good for me, though.”

“Yeah, well, they love you,” McKay says. “In my experience, though, love can feel a little like suffocation when you’re trying to grow up.”

She beckons for Victoria to follow her, then walks into the kitchen where a young couple are just leaving. The counters are a boring slate gray, but there’s a lot of space on them. This being the fourth apartment, Victoria is no longer surprised to see the empty spaces where the fridge and oven should be.

“Not bad for a one-bedroom,” McKay says. “You do a lot of cooking?”

“Not really,” Victoria admits. “I kind of never learned how.”

“Something else to figure out, huh?” McKay says. “I pretty much lived on instant ramen when I first moved out. I was eighteen, though, so maybe you’ll have better sense.”

“Santos and Whitaker cook,” Victoria says. “I think they take turns.”

McKay smiles wryly. “Too bad you don’t have a roommate.”

“Yeah. I … I guess.”

Victoria slips past McKay and sets about opening some of the overhead cabinets, just because that’s what everyone apparently does at open houses, but the space she sees with the door open always ends up being the same amount she estimated with the door closed.

“Should I be getting a roommate?” she asks. “Like. I don’t know anyone who’s looking for a place, but. Craigslist or something.” McKay scrunches her nose, and Victoria quickly amends, “Okay, not Craigslist. But you know.”

“I mean, I think that if you can afford to live on your own, you should,” McKay says. “Moving in with a stranger is a roll of the dice, and moving in with a friend makes you hate them. Trust me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Victoria says dryly. “I’ve watched sitcoms before.”

“‘Friend’ including ‘girlfriend,’ by the way,” McKay adds.

Victoria looks over her shoulder. “Uh, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

McKay huffs. “Fine. ‘Situationship.’”

Victoria laughs a little. “How do you know—?”

“I don’t turn eighty until next week,” McKay says. “Also, I think you’ve said it in one of your TikToks before.”

“Never should’ve told you about that,” Victoria says. She shuts the last of the cabinets, then starts on the drawers.

“So, ‘situationship’ is right?” McKay says lightly.

“I guess?” Victoria says. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“Yeah, well, you say that now, and then four months into leaving things undefined, they sleep with someone else and it fries your brain.”

Victoria looks up, wide-eyed. McKay shrugs.

“It happens. Better to figure out now rather than later whether or not you’d be upset.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Victoria says. She straightens up, looking once more around the kitchen. “So. Um, you like this place?”

“I do,” McKay says. “But it doesn’t really matter what I like.”

“I want your opinion, though.”

“Yeah, but yours is the only one that means anything.”

Victoria sighs, crossing her arms over her stomach. She walks back out into the main room, which might be a living room with a couch and a TV. She keeps defaulting to picturing Trinity’s apartment when she tries to think about how she’d organize the space, which is unhelpful, because in reality she’d go for something much more minimalist.

A pink rug, a dark wooden coffee table. Open-ended bookshelves. Victoria likes the idea of lamps everywhere, though she thinks she might like for them to be more cohesive. Yellow lightbulbs, white shades, enveloping the room in a soft warm glow.

She approaches the window, overlooking neighboring apartment blocks, facing east to catch the sunrise. This is the part that appealed to her when she saw it in pictures online. The view, sure, but more than that, the balcony. She pushes at the glass door and is pleased to find that it slides to the side.

Victoria’s always found the idea of a balcony kind of romantic. Probably the fault of reading Romeo & Juliet way too young. She moved past the fantasy of being serenaded from below one, obviously, but the image of that secluded atmosphere remained ingrained in her mind.

She steps out into the breeze. This is probably the place she can imagine as lived-in most clearly. She’d put out a few low, plush chairs, and come here to read or think or scroll on her phone, just pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist for a little while.

It occurs to her that Trinity always complains about there being nowhere in her apartment to vape. She has to go to the roof, she says, and there’s no shelter up there—she freezes her ass off. Victoria can’t help but imagine she’d like it here, were she to ever come over. Can picture her wind-bitten and blowing smoke out through the black grating fence.

McKay would probably chastise Victoria for thinking it. After all, the whole point of doing this is to have something of her own for once. It’s not really hers if she only chooses it to lure an unbelievably annoying, stupidly hot girl into hanging out with her.

Victoria sighs.

Somewhere along the line, she must’ve learned how to live through Trinity and Dennis. She never liked the model of adulthood her parents imposed, of practicality and status and dull routine, and she latched onto the next example she was presented with. She looks around this empty apartment and can’t imagine her couch without Trinity napping on it, or her TV without Dennis watching it. They’re the lens through which she filters her future, and they’re not even a guarantee.

“Balconies are classy,” McKay says, finally approaching. “Just don’t pick up smoking.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Victoria says.

“Yeah, no one is,” McKay says wryly.

Victoria looks out at the view once more. She puts her hands in the pockets of her jeans, starting to feel the chill.

“I think I can see myself living here,” she says.

“That’s good,” McKay says, softly.

Victoria looks back over her shoulder at McKay. Her kind eyes, her warm smile. Victoria returns it as best as she can, then ducks inside again, shielding herself from the wind.

“So, what kind of reading do you want?” Trinity says, shuffling a thick deck of cards. “A love spread?”

“Oh my god,” Victoria says.

Dennis hesitates. “Are you sure this isn’t, like, actual witchcraft?”

Victoria presses her smile into the back of her knee.

“Oh my god, no,” Trinity says. “I just do it for fun.”

“It’s a belief like any other, though,” Victoria adds.

“That’s some woke shit for someone who makes fun of me for knowing my rising sign,” Trinity says. “But, true. If you’re gonna run with lesbians, Huckleberry, you’ve got to get cool with neo-paganism.”

“I’m cool with it. Take it up with my mom,” Dennis says. “If she ever does come to visit, we’re seriously going to have to hide all the incense under the sink.”

“All my incense, you mean,” Trinity says pointedly. “You don’t contribute shit to the ambiance of this house.”

The three of them are sitting on the floor around the coffee table in Trinity’s apartment. She’s lit a couple of candles for atmosphere, and the air smells like cedarwood. Victoria privately thinks that this feels kind of like a sleepover for middle-school girls, with tarot cards taking the place of the Ouija board, but it’s not like she ever got to have that experience, so she doesn’t complain.

“How about a ‘past, present, future’ reading,” Trinity says, laying the deck down on the table.

“Why would I need you to tell me what’s already happened?” Victoria says.

“Because I’m not a hack who’s trying to lie to you about getting rich,” Trinity says. “It’s, like, a reflective tool. You’re meant to self-actualize.”

Victoria huffs. “Fine.”

“Okay.” Trinity shuffles on her knees, placing her hands on either side of the deck. “Cut the deck somewhere. Like, wherever you feel energy, or something.”

“Wow, you’re so bad at this,” Victoria says. She cuts the deck somewhere near the top.

“Well, I never get any practise doing it out loud,” Trinity says, reorganizing the deck. “Huck hasn’t let me try it out on him yet.”

“Because you’re just going to say that I’m gonna get puked on tomorrow. Or die alone, or something.”

“Hey, I can’t control the cards. If that’s in your future, that’s on you.”

Trinity lays the top three cards from the deck face down in front of Victoria, then sets the deck to the side. She rubs her hands together.

“I don’t do reversals, by the way,” Trinity says.

“I honestly have no clue what that means,” Victoria replies.

“Great,” Trinity says, and turns the first card over.

Victoria leans over to look at it, and frowns. “Four of something. What’s the suit?”

“Cups,” Trinity says. “Associated with, like, water, emotions, relationships.”

“Water?”

“Shut up. Anyway, you can see that this dude’s, like, a loner,” Trinity says. She points at the three cups arranged in front of the figure. “He’s isolated from others, and so fixated on his current situation that he can’t see the new opportunities—AKA, cup number four—trying to get his attention.”

“So, I need to open my heart to riches unknown,” Victoria says.

“Well, I don’t know,” Trinity says, “have you been stuck in a dead-end situation?”

Victoria raises her eyebrow. “This feels pretty heavy-handed.”

“Whatever, Crash. Take it or leave it,” Trinity says, turning over the second card.

Victoria peers at it. “Sticks?”

“Wands, genius,” Trinity says. “Anyway, this is the Page. The Page is generally, like, a lighthearted, childish character. Kind of impulsive, ever-changing. The Page of Wands has a tunic painted like a salamander, which symbolizes personal transformation, I think.”

“Why a salamander?” Dennis asks.

“I don’t fucking know. They’re amphibians, or something,” Trinity snaps. “Why are you guys acting like I designed the deck?”

“So, I’m changing,” Victoria says, trying to get them back on track.

“Yeah, basically,” Trinity says. “Like, coming into your own.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Victoria says. She pauses, looking Dennis and Trinity each in the eye. “I, uh. I’m getting my own apartment. So.”

Trinity blinks. “Oh, shit.”

Dennis shoots her a look, then turns to Victoria and says, “Hey, that’s great.”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant, asshole,” Trinity says. “I mean, it’s about time, right?”

“Kind of,” Victoria says, smiling. She scratches the back of her neck. “I, uh. I honestly think it’ll be better for my parents, too. I’ll probably be able to tolerate them better in small doses. And they’ve always wanted us to be close, so.”

Trinity and Dennis share a look that Victoria doesn’t like. She knows that Dennis calls home once a fortnight, as if part of a preordained agreement, and Trinity has never mentioned her parents beyond how they drove her to gymnastics meets religiously. Victoria wants to say that two points of data don’t make a pattern, but Trinity is already moving on to the final card.

“Oh, no!” Trinity gasps, her hands flying to her mouth. “It says there’s going to be rats in your new place.”

“If that’s true, I’ll make you hunt them down and kill them yourself,” Victoria says.

“Uh, absolutely not. Gross,” Trinity says. Then, she lifts the card for Victoria to see. “Actually, though. It’s the World.” She places it back down. “That’s a Major Arcana card. So to me, it says that the next stage of your life is going to be one of the most important.”

“Well, yeah,” Victoria says. “I’m starting my residency.”

“Well, not really. The World is about, like, fulfillment and completion,” Trinity says. “It doesn’t really apply when you’re starting something new.”

“Literally all I’m doing is starting something new.”

“Well, tough shit. You’re going to find balance and inner peace.”

Victoria rolls her eyes. “This is all bullshit, isn’t it?”

“Only if you’re a stubborn asshole who won’t play along,” Trinity says. “Also, what happened to ‘respect all religions of the world’?”

“At least I don’t think you’re doing the work of the devil,” Victoria says.

“Neither do I,” Dennis protests. “I just … I thought it was worth asking.”

Trinity shakes her head. “Wow.”

“So,” Victoria says, “in conclusion, I was stagnant and narrow-minded, came into my own, and now I’m going to be at one with the universe.” She shrugs. “Not a bad deal.”

“That’s the spirit, Crash,” Trinity says. She stacks up the laid-out cards and slips them into the middle of the deck. “Also, I’m never doing this for you again.”

Victoria smiles.

Ever since Victoria agreed that hickeys were fair game where they’d be hidden by her clothes, she hasn’t managed to go a full week without some kind of mark on her chest. Even now, her bra off and her shirt lazily rucked up around her armpits, Trinity can’t seem to stop herself from sealing her mouth over a fading bruise and nursing it back to life.

“I don’t get how hickeys don’t gross you out,” Victoria says. “Aren’t you thinking about the capillaries bursting under your lips?”

Trinity lifts her head, lips wet with saliva. “Well, I wasn’t. Jesus, Crash.”

“Sorry,” Victoria says, not sorry at all.

“Yeah, right,” Trinity says, and slips a hand up Victoria’s skirt. She grinds the heel of her palm against Victoria, forcing out a gasp. “Hey, does you getting your own place mean I can finally stop hosting all the time?”

“Mm, yeah, because I’m such a bad guest,” Victoria says, trying to keep her expression from going lax. On her back beside Trinity, she pushes her hips down in small, subdued motions, trying to get more of that muted friction.

“No, you were obviously raised right,” Trinity says liltingly. “Little angel.”

“Stop that,” Victoria says, just as Trinity pushes her underwear aside, her fingers slipping through her folds. Victoria’s hand tightens on Trinity’s shoulder, her brows drawing together.

“I bet you’re an even better host, though,” Trinity says.

“Yeah, you’ll get champagne and olives at the door,” Victoria says, half-panting, as Trinity circles her fingers slowly over her clit. “And a manicure, because frankly, you need one.”

“Hey,” Trinity says. She grinds down hard with her knuckles, a little meanly. “Careful what you say.”

“Whatever,” Victoria says. “All you make are empty threats.”

The corner of Trinity’s mouth lifts, and she bends her head again, flicking her tongue over a nipple. Victoria’s hand slides up from her shoulder to her hair, tugging almost harshly, gratified at the way Trinity’s eyelids flutter and her skin grows a shade redder.

Without warning, she slips her hand away, sliding it up and around Victoria’s thigh. Victoria lets out a disgruntled noise, and Trinity just huffs a laugh.

“What gives?” Victoria says.

“Nothing.” Trinity nips at the blooming mark on the swell of her breast. “Do you wanna ride me?”

Victoria’s eyes widen, her ears filling with static. “Like with a strap-on?”

Trinity snorts. “Not if it freaks you out that much, weirdo.” She props herself up on her hands. “How about my fingers? Does that work?”

“Uh, yeah. That works,” Victoria says automatically, too embarrassed to explain that she wasn’t actually that opposed to the original idea. “How do we…?”

Trinity rolls off of Victoria, sitting back against the headboard with her legs outstretched. She pats her thigh. Victoria takes a steadying breath, then slips out of the rest of her clothes, leaving them balled up on the foot of the bed. Trinity watches hungrily as she swings her leg over Trinity’s lap, straddling her, feeling a little exposed as she clutches Trinity’s shoulders.

Trinity’s left hand comes up to rest on Victoria’s hip, while her other braces on her own thigh, bending at the knee to give Victoria a better angle. Victoria starts to see how this is going to work. Trinity presses lightly at her entrance, but does no more than that, putting Victoria in control.

Victoria winds her arm around Trinity’s neck, bites her lip, and sinks down.

She presses her forehead to Trinity’s, trying to steady her heartrate. It feels deeper from this angle, and Trinity’s thigh provides stability, gives her something to grind down against. She draws up, shallowly—Trinity’s fingers don’t allow for much movement—and sinks back down.

“What do you get out of this?” she asks, as her breathing grows heavier.

“What?” Trinity says, sounding almost as affected as Victoria. She crooks her fingers a little, gripping tighter onto Victoria’s hip. “What the fuck are you talking about? What wouldn’t I get out of this?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Victoria says. She clenches around Trinity, just to feel the shape of her. “I just feel like you’re always doing stuff for me.”

“It’s not selfless,” Trinity says. Her eyes are large, and she’s pink all the way down her chest. “Fuck, Crash, you have no idea how fucking hot you are like this.”

Victoria shakes her head. “I seriously hate that nickname.”

Trinity groans, her head falling forward until it’s resting against Victoria’s chest.

“Can we not do that right now?” she says. “It’s boring.”

“I mean it,” Victoria says. She swallows thickly. Her thighs are already aching a little; she viscerally regrets all those times she skipped working out to study. “Call me by my name.”

Trinity huffs. “Fucking, okay, Armie Hammer.”

“That’s wasn’t even the name of the movie,” Victoria says, more annoyed than is probably reasonable. Trinity shifts her hand so that the heel of her palm is pressed to Victoria’s clit, sending shockwaves through her body each time she grinds down. Victoria’s mouth falls open. “Ah, fuck.”

“Feels good?” Trinity says, smugness dwarfed by her hyperdilated pupils.

“Fuck you.”

Victoria slips her arm away from Trinity’s neck and cups her jaw instead. She runs her thumb along Trinity’s lower lip, Trinity parting her lips unthinkingly to make room. Victoria sucks in a breath, heartbeat thrumming in her ears, and pushes her thumb against the line of Trinity’s teeth.

A flash of surprise crosses Trinity’s face, and then she’s letting her jaw go lax, allowing Victoria to push past her lips and press down on her tongue. Trinity makes a muffled whimper, her head tipping back against the headboard with the pressure of Victoria’s hand. She hollows out her cheeks, sucking lightly, her teeth scraping against Victoria’s skin. It’s enough to make Victoria go light-headed.

She reaches down with her free hand, urging Trinity’s palm to straighten so she has room to touch herself. The second she does, pleasure shoots through her like lightning. She runs the back of her nail along the roof of Trinity’s mouth, then pulls out, dragging her pruned fingertip along Trinity’s cheek.

“Jesus, Crash,” Trinity hisses. “What’s gotten into you?”

Victoria shakes her head feverishly, bracing herself on Trinity’s shoulder again.

“Not my fucking name,” she says.

She doesn’t really think it’s going to work. But then Trinity’s eyes go half-lidded, and she wets her chapped lips. Voice anything but steady, she says, “Vic.”

Startled, Victoria moans loud enough to be embarrassed by it, even while hopped-up on dopamine. She drops her head to Trinity’s collarbone, her eyes squeezing tightly shut as her orgasm rushes through her, rough and fast and overwhelming.

She comes back to herself with Trinity’s fingers still inside her. It’s not like they had anywhere to go, though, Trinity’s leg having ended up flat on the bed.

“Holy shit,” Trinity says, sounding a little awed. “I can’t tell if that was sappy or unbelievably self-absorbed.”

Victoria rolls her eyes, pushing off Trinity’s chest. Trinity’s staring up at her, eyes sparkling.

“Neither,” Victoria says, even though it was probably both.

She realizes now that the endorphins are wearing off how sweaty she’s gotten. She pulls her hair into a ponytail for a second, just to get it off her neck. Weirdly enough, she’s in no hurry to get off Trinity’s lap. Instead, she looks at Trinity’s flushed, smug, euphoric face, and figures there’s probably no better time than now to broach the topic.

“McKay thinks you’re my girlfriend,” she says.

Trinity’s expression morphs from satisfied into one of vague horror. “What?”

Victoria waves her off. “Not you specifically.”

“Oh, well that’s comforting,” Trinity says. “Why are you telling McKay anything?”

“I don’t know, Trin, because I like her,” Victoria says. “I know you don’t usually see that side of me, but I am actually open with people who are nice to me.”

Trinity shakes her head. “I don’t get why you’re telling me this.”

Victoria worries her lip. “Are you my girlfriend?”

“Can you actually just…?” Trinity says, moving her fingers inside Victoria. Victoria winces a little at the feeling, then sits up enough for Trinity to get her hand free. She wipes it absently against the bedsheets. “I’ve got to say, your comedic timing is impeccable.”

“Wow, that means a lot coming from you,” Victoria says.

“Excuse you, I am fucking funny.”

“Right. Nice dodge, by the way.”

Trinity huffs, crossing her arms. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Victoria shrugs. “The truth, maybe.”

Trinity flashes her a flat look, her tongue pressing against the inside of her cheek.

“I’m not seeing anyone else,” she says, eventually.

“Oh,” Victoria says. “Well, me neither.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Trinity scoffs. She squares her shoulders uncomfortably, then adds, “I also don’t really want to see anyone else.”

A small smile graces Victoria’s face. Trinity rolls her eyes.

“I think you’re annoying and naive,” she says.

“I think you’re a stuck-up loser,” Victoria offers. “So we’re even.”

Trinity looks up at her, biting the inside of her lip as if to suppress a laugh.

“Get me in with your mom and we have a deal,” she says, offering a handshake.

Victoria pushes it back against her chest, grinning. “Not a fucking chance.”

“I’m starting to think you’re using me for my muscles,” Dennis says, forehead shiny with sweat as he hefts his fourth box of the day into his arms.

“Nooo,” Victoria says.

“What fucking muscles?” Trinity adds.

“Whatever,” Dennis grumbles, balancing the box against his hip and heading for the stairs.

Victoria’s bedroom is half-deconstructed. Her clothes were the first to go, so her closet is empty, and her shelves are next, books littering every spare surface as she tries to put them in some semblance of order. Trinity’s supposed to be helping, theoretically, but so far she’s been picking up random objects and practising her tight five.

“Do you hide sex toys under your bed?” she asks, and Victoria’s head whips around. Trinity is on her knees, peering under Victoria’s bedframe.

“Oh my god, stop looking,” Victoria says, cheeks hot. “You’re so nosy.”

“I’m just trying to figure out what you have,” Trinity calls. “You know lesbians merge stashes when they get together, right? Mi vibrator es su vibrator.”

“There’s no way that’s true,” Victoria says. “That’s so gross.”

Trinity just sits up on her knees and looks back at Victoria with one eyebrow raised. “You’re a med student, Crash. You should understand the concept of disinfection.”

“Whatever,” Victoria says. “Just—make yourself useful. Pack up my desk drawers or something.”

Trinity rolls her eyes, but picks up one of the empty, premade boxes and hugs it to her side.

“This is, like, my only chance to see your childhood bedroom, though,” she says. “My life would’ve been so empty if I’d never found your furry art.”

“Reading Warrior Cats when I was eight doesn’t make me a furry,” Victoria says. She stacks a couple of medical textbooks and sets them on top of an almost-full box, then shuts it, going over the seam with packing tape.

“You don’t think it might be the root of your current, very troubling, romantasy addiction?”

“No. Shut up.”

Victoria slams the tape dispenser down on top of the box. She turns around just as Trinity finally does something useful and opens one of her desk drawers. Trinity pauses, though, as soon as she sees the interior, and Victoria’s heart drops into her stomach.

“How do you keep finding weird shit?” she says. “If you’d asked me this morning, I would’ve said I don’t own anything embarrassing.”

“Oh, this isn’t weird,” Trinity says, slowly lifting up a crumpled purple party hat. “Just adorably sentimental.”

Victoria flushes. “Okay, I didn’t keep that on purpose. I just didn’t want to leave trash in the bathroom.”

“I don’t know if I believe you,” Trinity says, hugging the hat to her chest and pouting dramatically. “Ugh, my heart is just melting. The memento from our first drunk makeout.”

“It was also my twenty-first, by the way,” Victoria says, striding across the room. “You don’t get to make everything about yourself.”

She tries to snatch the hat out of Trinity’s hand, only for her to hold it out of Victoria’s reach. Victoria glares at her, arms crossed over her chest.

“I’m not jumping,” she says.

“Then you’re not getting it,” Trinity replies.

Victoria huffs. “Your arm will get tired eventually.”

“I have a lot of stamina.”

“Ew.”

Victoria frowns, thinking. Then, she puts her hands on Trinity’s face, leans in, and kisses her.

When she pulls away, Trinity’s expression is severely unimpressed.

“What is this, Love, Actually?” she says. “Grow some balls. Punch me in the gut.”

“Victoria.”

At the sound of Eileen Shamsi’s voice, Trinity actually, physically flinches. It’s enough for Victoria to have to stifle a smirk, even as she takes the opportunity to yank the hat out of Trinity’s hand and tuck it into her back pocket.

“Dr. Shamsi,” Trinity says, staring wide-eyed at the figure in the doorway. “Hi. Sorry, Vic let me in.”

“Hello, Dr. Santos,” Victoria’s mom says tersely, before turning to her daughter. “I won’t bother you. I just wanted to say that I’ll be in my office for the rest of this morning.”

“Oh,” Victoria says. “Yeah, I know, mom.”

“So my car will be available,” her mom says. “If you need any extra space for your things, you can borrow it. Might save you an extra trip.”

“Oh,” Victoria says. “Oh, wow, mom. Thanks.”

“The keys are on the table,” her mom says. “Please don’t make too much noise. I’m catching up on emails.”

“We won’t,” Victoria says.

“And I’d rather you drive,” her mom says, pointedly.

Victoria presses her lips together and nods.

Her mom is already out of sight when Trinity calls, “You have a lovely home!”

Victoria finally lets herself laugh. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Shut up. I don’t know,” Trinity says. “God, I finally have the perfect in, too.”

“Don’t bother,” Victoria says. “She can tell when you’re schmoozing.”

“All surgeons do is schmooze,” Trinity says.

“Well, then I guess you’ll fit right in,” Victoria says.

On a whim, she reaches into her back pocket and straightens out the party hat as best she can. It’s lost some of its luster under all its creases, but it holds its shape okay. Victoria reaches up and slides it onto Trinity’s head, making sure to extend the chinstrap before snapping it back onto Trinity’s neck.

Trinity wrinkles her nose. “Fucking ow.”

“Serves you right,” Victoria says, turning back to her stacks of books.