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Lydia doesn't want to be at this party; she doesn't actually know anyone besides Allie, who slipped away ten minutes in and left her standing alone in some stranger's basement, holding a solo cup of God-knows-what and the bass of the music throbbing through her skull.
But Lydia can make friends anywhere she goes. And maybe she's a little quieter now, a little more withdrawn, but she's been in this exact situation countless times before. She can handle this.
She's halfway through her second cup of what-the-fuck-ever and dancing with some hot, awkward guy in hipster glasses and an actual sweater vest when she sees Gigi.
It's surreal.
Lydia is used to seeing Gigi prim and proper, dressed in business clothes, her hair smooth and perfect, smiling and elegant and rich. Lydia is used to seeing Gigi through the buffer of a video screen.
This ... is not that Gigi.
She's wearing a tight miniskirt that Lydia would swear came from Forever 21, and a low-cut glittery tank top that clings to her body in ways those suit jackets just didn't. Gigi's makeup, usually minimalist and professional, is heavy and sparkly and smeared across her entire face; her hair, usually coiffed to perfection, is rumpled from dancing and sticking to her neck with sweat. Lydia feels her jaw physically drop from the shock of seeing Gigi like this, here in a dark sketchy basement, unframed by the blue of the Domino graphic and unfiltered by her sisters' introductions.
The strange part is, it doesn't look strange at all. Lydia feels like Gigi should look like a fish out of water here, should look awkward and uncomfortable in the dim sweaty noise of the basement. At any moment, Lydia expects Gigi to smooth her hair down, wipe off that dark red lipstick, and start chirping about grad school and ice cream and "life-revealing applications." But Gigi doesn't do that; she dances, body flowing like she was born for this. She turns, grinds against the tall blonde girl next to her in a decidedly not-heterosexual way; Lydia's throat dries up. Gigi continues dancing, and Lydia watches, watches the way her hands slide along blonde girl's hips, watches the way her earrings sway with the movement, watches every little thing Gigi does, brain reeling with shock and confusion and something else.
Gigi looks up, locks eyes with Lydia, and oh God what why; Lydia watches the expression on her face change from concentration to shock to something unreadable, and Lydia blinks, swallows, clamps down on the panic rushing through her body, ignores the unfurling of something hot and mysterious in the pit of her stomach.
Lydia turns, forces a smile, and tells hipster dude she's going to the bathroom.
It's not a lie, either; she needs to get out of that room. The bathroom is tiny and everything is seashell printed, but even though she can still hear the bad german dubstep pounding through the door, Lydia is grateful for the bright light and relative quiet.
She looks at herself in the mirror. She doesn't know why seeing Gigi here threw her for such a loop, but there's no denying that it did. Lydia briefly considers getting introspective in the bathroom, and then decides against it. Self-examination has never been her strong suit, not when there's free alcohol and relatively hot boys to distract herself with. She washes her hands just for something to do, then reapplies her strawberry scented lipgloss. Her face in the mirror looks - normal. Pale, but she's always pale; not calm, exactly, because she's never calm, but -- collected? Mostly?
It's good enough. Lydia smiles, bright and adorable as ever, and if it's forced she knows nobody but her will be able to tell, and she slips out of the bathroom back into the dimness of the party. She bumps against someone leaving the bathroom, and she turns to apologize, when --
"Lydia! Hi!" Gigi chirps, and seriously?
"Hey, Gigi," Lydia responds weakly, her smile almost slipping off her face before she forces it back up a little weaker than before, "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Oh, yeah," Gigi says, self-conscious, "It's not exactly my usual scene, but I've known Tim for years, and figured I'd come. Who doesn't love a good dance party, right?"
"Right," Lydia echoes. "Tim?"
"Yeah..." Gigi says slowly, "Tim. You were dancing with him earlier? It's his house, yknow?"
"Oh," Lydia says sheepishly, "I didn't know his name, to be honest. I don't know anyone here, actually; my friend Allie dragged me here and then kinda ... disappeared. I hope she's okay, actually, I haven't seen her in a while ..."
"Allie Russo?" Gigi asks, "I saw her leaving half an hour ago with some guy, I think she's fine. Here, follow me, let me introduce you to some people."
Lydia opens her mouth to protest, but then Gigi is wrapping a small delicate hand around her wrist and tugging, and any objections Lydia may have had just disappeared in a blur as her mind goes completely blank.
Her mind stays blank while Gigi introduces her to person after person, all the girls smiling and pretty and expertly dressed, all the guys wearing pastel shorts or t-shirts for bands she's never heard of and, really, they can't all be nearsighted, can they?
In fact, her brain only comes back online when Gigi says firmly, "Let's dance," and pulls Lydia into a clump of people. Gigi's hands on her waist are light and gentle and nothing like Tim the hipster's from before. The DJ, who Lydia is fairly sure is just a kid who might have been in her poli sci class with a macbook pro and a decent set of speakers, has switched from the German dubstep to blasting countless bad Icona Pop remixes, and it's clear from the way Gigi mouths the words that she knows the song.
It's fun in a way that things haven't been fun in a long time. It's also confusing, because Lydia is fairly certain she's supposed to hate Gigi. At least, if you'd asked her two hours ago how she felt about Gigi Darcy, she would've answered apathetic, with a tinge of mild distaste mixed with annoyance and petty envy.
She would not have mentioned the curve of Gigi's neck or the sharp angle of her collarbones or the way her lips shine redredred even through the darkness. She wouldn't have even considered the way Lydia can feel her body heat because they're pressed so close together, or the way Lydia's skin feels like it's fizzing where Gigi's hands touch it.
In fact, Lydia doesn't really want to consider it right now. But she wants to stop dancing with Gigi even less than that, so she forces her mind blank and focuses on the hyper swedish pop that's currently murdering her eardrums.
She's surprised when Gigi pulls away a few songs later. "I'm getting a headache," Gigi shouts over Imagine Dragons, "Wanna skip?"
Lydia pauses. "I don't know, Allie's my ride, I shouldn't..."
"Your ride ditched you???" Gigi says indignantly. "Come on, that settles it, you're coming with me," and Lydia never lets anyone push her around like this, or she didn't, not before and not after so why oh why is this a thing now?
But Lydia nods and follows Gigi outside, shivering slightly when the cool air hits all the skin her dress leaves exposed. "I - " she starts to say, not sure how she's going to finish that sentence, but Gigi cuts her off.
"My car's right down here," she says, "We can talk in there, or I guess we could go get coffee or McDonald's or something, if you're hungry."
"Nah, I'm fine," Lydia says, and opens the door to the sleek silver sedan, sitting down and immediately slipping off her heels. "Let's talk in here."
Gigi kicks off her shoes as well. "I thought you hated me," she starts bluntly, and Lydia sighs.
"I never hated you," she explains. "Envied you, sure. Was furious at you for a while? Oh, definitely, that autoupload feature on Domino just wrecked everything for a while. Annoyed at you for looking better in lavender? Yeah, that's not going away."
"Jane picked the color, not me," Gigi protests, smiling, "And you look gorgeous in the bridesmaids dress, and you know it. Stop fishing for compliments."
"Fishing for compliments is like my number one skill," Lydia scoffs, "No way am I gonna stop now."
Gigi looks at her, and there's a strange fondness to the gaze that simultaneously makes Lydia feel warm and fuzzy inside and also want to scrub all her skin off, because the last time someone looked at her like that, it was -- bad. Gigi opens her mouth, and Lydia knows instinctively that she's going to say something Lydia really doesn't want to hear, knows she's going to open a topic that Lydia wants to stay firmly closed, and Lydia stops her the only way she knows how.
She doesn't think, doesn't pause, doesn't consider the implications of her actions, she just surges forward and kisses Gigi.
The angle is awkward; their noses bump and their teeth clack together sharply and she's stretched over the center console and can't really do anything to fix any of that. Lydia pulls back, stomach immediately roiling with dread. "God, sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to - I just didn't want to- "
"For the love of Christ, will you shut up," Gigi says breathlessly, and kisses Lydia again.
It's better this time; for one thing, there's no teeth, and Gigi's lips are soft and warm and deliberate in the way they press against Lydia's; Gigi's tongue swipes across Lydia's bottom lip and she gasps with surprise, Gigi taking the opportunity to lick her way into Lydia's mouth, and Lydia just melts into the kiss, letting Gigi press her back into the seat. She brings her hands up to twine in Gigi's hair, and then the horn goes off.
"Oh God, sorry," Gigi says, horrified, "This car is too damn small, one second." Lydia sits there, waiting, while Gigi clambers delicately over the center console and kneels on the passenger seat above Lydia, knees framing her thighs, hands coming to rest on Lydia's shoulders before she leans down to press her lips against Lydia's again.
It's awesome. Lydia's heart is racing and her blood feels like somebody replaced it with pop rocks and soda and she can feel that she has Gigi's red lipstick smeared all over her face and she doesn't care, not even a little bit. Lydia leans up, wraps one hand around Gigi's face and lets the other one rest on the small of her back, deepens the kiss further, losing herself in the sensations.
Gigi pulls back. "Why did you kiss me?" she asks, breathless, and seriously? Now?
"I don't know," Lydia answers, "I just felt like it. Why did you kiss me back?"
"I don't know," Gigi giggles, "I guess I felt like it, too."
Gigi leans down, sucks a bruise into Lydia's neck, and moves her hands from Lydia's shoulders down to her rib cage. "Actually," she says, "That's not necessarily true. I kissed you back because you look really, really good in that dress, and I couldn't stop thinking about you and your stupid strawberry lipgloss."
Lydia blinks. She presses a soft, chaste kiss to Gigi's lips, and then looks into Gigi's eyes and says, softly, "What about tomorrow, when I'm not wearing this dress anymore? What are we going to do then?"
"First of all," Gigi answers, "Hopefully you'll be not-wearing the dress long before tomorrow. And here's what we're going to do - I'm going to put my number in your phone. You're going to text me. We are going to go get coffee. And we will have this talk later. Right now, I am going to take the dress off you and you are not going to worry about a thing."
Lydia loses herself in kisses for a while; she's missed this, the way her whole world narrows to just herself and Gigi in the car, the way her stomach swoops and heart flutters and just -- everything about this is perfect, except-"
"You realize I'm not going to have sex with you in a car," Lydia points out, "Not only is it freaking tiny, we're parked in a very public place."
Gigi smiles. "Sure, fine, I have a very nice apartment."
"I don't doubt that," Lydia agrees, and then softer, "But I haven't ... not since ... I don't know if ..."
Gigi's face changes, sombers instantly, and she pulls back, folding her hands in her lap. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry," she says, "Here, let me take you home - I completely forgot -"
"Me too," Lydia agrees reflexively, and then -- yes, she does agree really; she had forgotten about him, completely, earlier, and that makes her mind up. She's probably not all better; she probably won't ever be totally fine again; she'll definitely never be the same. But she's ready now, ready for tonight and tomorrow and probably for any number of days after that.
"Yes," Lydia says decisively, "I want to see your apartment. I bet you have an awesome coffee maker."
Gigi blinks, surprised, then smiles. "Yeah, okay," she says, "Let's go." She kisses Lydia one more time, swift and sweet, and climbs back over the console back into the driver's seat. "Let's do this," she repeats, and starts the car.