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It’s kind of an accident—this whole thing where Shauna runs through Jackie’s entire college soccer team in the span of a single sophomore semester.
Which sounds ridiculous, Shauna knows. Who just… does that? Let alone on accident?
But there are a few explanatory factors here. A few key details that had created the perfect storm of circumstances to lead her straight into the mess she’s unthinkingly created for herself.
First, there had been high school. The graduating class of 2024. Shauna had played soccer with Jackie back then, forced into it in the same way that Jackie had constantly pushed her into most things. It had been one more thing to add to the pile—made Shauna secretly resent Jackie even more than she already had—and one more thing that had pushed her to seek out something else to call her own, apart from Jackie, kept from Jackie. Jackie had already stolen her first kiss several times over, and she’d finally wanted a love life of her own.
So, while Jackie had been off giving unenthusiastic handjobs to her idiot boyfriend, Shauna had experimented with a girl from her AP Calc class in the backseat of an old jeep.
Then she’d done it again with a junior from the school softball team, and again with their senior class president, and again over the summer with a coworker at the Jersey Foods. And it had continued through freshman year of college at Rutgers, with excuses to Jackie about staying out late at the library to study, mostly.
She’d been rejected from Brown and never told anyone, and gone to Rutgers with Jackie while privately hating it, and watched Jackie thrive within her sorority and on the school soccer team—which Shauna had finally put her foot down on and refused to join in favor of the school newspaper and a book club comprised of her fellow English majors.
But she’d gone to the games, and the team parties, always dragged along by Jackie—her dorm mate in freshman year, her roommate in their shared apartment now—and so she’d gotten to know some of them here and there. Tai and Van, the high school sweethearts. Nat, who always knows where to get weed. Sweet, religious Laura Lee; Mari, who’s incredibly annoying; Melissa, Gen, Akilah. Even Misty, the team’s mascot.
And Lottie, who had been first.
-
“You have a reputation, you know,” Lottie tells her at a team party Jackie’s dragged her to one night, joining Shauna by the wall she’s leaning against, drink in hand, and greeting her idly. Jackie’s been single for over a year now and has been doing the most with it—always flirting with guys and then never following through, enjoying being wanted, the chase. It’s as infuriating to watch her soak up attention with glee now as it had been in high school.
“For what?” Shauna asks sourly, and has to bite her tongue to resist the urge to add, Being Jackie’s sidekick? Following her around everywhere like I’m on a leash?
Lottie just gives her a once-over, though, blatantly checking her out, and says, “Girls.”
Shauna blinks at her. Right. That.
She’s not a lesbian. She’s tried out dating a couple of guys—the boys are the ones Jackie actually gets to know about, though Shauna had lied and denied having sex with them; both times Jackie had met them once and then torn them apart afterward and shamed Shauna into breaking things off before it could really go anywhere—but it’s definitely the women that make up the bulk of her sexual history, and it isn’t close.
Lottie’s dangerous for more than one reason. She’s not just on Jackie’s soccer team; she’s also in her sorority. (One girl from Jackie’s sorority had been bad enough, and the second had really been pushing it, so Shauna really shouldn’t make it three.)
Shauna stares down into her drink thoughtfully. “Who’d you hear that from?” She’d die if the news were making its way around Tri Delta. She’s never really considered actually telling Jackie what she gets up to, mostly because it’s just about the only thing she gets to have to herself, but also because she thinks Jackie’s head might explode. Just last week she’d spent half an hour ranting to Shauna about how tragic it is that they’re both almost 20 and “still haven’t found the perfect boys to lose our virginities to together”—and then she’d blushed and fumbled out, “I mean, not literally together, but like—“ and Shauna had tuned her out and used every bit of willpower she had to avoid rolling her eyes.
“People,” Lottie says vaguely, and then just smiles at her.
Shauna takes her in carefully, eyes sweeping from her long legs up to her twinkling eyes. Lottie’s obviously gorgeous.
She glances around them. No one’s really paying them any mind. Jackie’s got her hand around the bicep of some frat guy and is laughing too loudly at whatever he’s saying and glancing at Shauna every few seconds, showing off how much more wanted than Shauna she thinks she is, just like high school. It makes Shauna’s chest burn.
Fine, she decides, and then asks Lottie, “Did you drive here?”
-
Lottie’s long legs are comically inconvenient when Shauna’s trying to go down on her in the backseat of a cramped little convertible, as it turns out. They make it work anyway: Lottie’s hand in Shauna’s hair, gripping hard, pulling just enough for it to hurt in the way Shauna kind of likes.
“Okay,” Lottie says afterward, catching her breath, eyes dark and curious on Shauna as she watches her lift her head from between Lottie’s thighs and wipe at her mouth with the back of her hand. “I definitely get it now. You’re really good at that.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” Shauna tries to press, but Lottie’s smiling again and it feels like a lost cause. So she amends, “Fine; just don’t tell anyone who’d tell Jackie.”
Lottie laughs, says, “That’s hilarious,” and doesn’t elaborate, just lifts her hips and starts to pull her skirt back up her legs.
Shauna doesn’t really see the humor in it.
-
It snowballs quickly, and one week later Shauna thinks she’s meant to be helping Laura Lee study in the back of the library, but instead Laura Lee takes her hand and pulls her into the furthest corner she can find, weaving through row after row of shelves, and then faces Shauna and chews on her lip and declares, “Do you think you could help me with sex stuff?”
Shauna blinks once at her, not sure she’s heard her correctly. “Sorry, what?”
Laura Lee fidgets. “It’s just… kind of intimidating, and I wanna lose my virginity to my future husband but I’m worried about what to expect, and practicing with a girl feels… safe. And Lottie says you’re good at it.” She smiles hopefully.
This is ridiculous. And a little offensive. It’s also the first time that Shauna gains enough self-awareness to realize that she might actually be a little too… open, sexually, because she’s kind of seriously considering this.
(“Hot date tonight, Shipman. Wish me luck!” is what her latest text from Jackie says as of fifteen minutes ago. Which is totally unrelated.)
“Now?” she checks. “Here?”
Laura Lee gulps, and then nods, and then says, “Yeah. Unless your apartment’s free? I have roommates.”
A horrific movie plays in the back of Shauna’s mind: Jackie coming home early, barging into Shauna’s bedroom to complain about yet another date going terribly, and finding her fingers-deep in Laura Lee. She’d have to kill herself.
This is a terrible idea.
“We can do it here,” Shauna’s mouth says anyway.
-
Laura Lee’s moans sound more like embarrassed squeaks, and she comes after thirty seconds of a single finger pumping into her and then practically flees from Shauna with beet-red cheeks after mumbling something about hoping Shauna has a blessed rest of her week.
It’s fucking bizarre. And kind of cute. Shauna doesn’t have anywhere to wipe her finger off on, so she sucks on it instead on her way back to their shared study table.
-
A month passes, and then Melissa happens, which is the most normal and natural of them all so far, because Melissa’s had a transparent crush on her since the start of the year. And maybe Shauna knows that she’s on the soccer team, and also that Jackie can’t stand her, but sue her; she’s allowed to just enjoy being liked for once.
“Doyouwannagooutonadatewithme?” Melissa blurts drunkenly to her at a party, having finally approached her while Shauna’s waiting by her car for Jackie to be done drinking and flirting for the night, and Shauna laughs in Melissa’s nervous, flushed face and then turns her down.
“No.”
Melissa wilts. “Oh. Um. Okay.”
“I can’t really do a relationship right now,” Shauna tells her. She hopes that Melissa won’t ask why, because she’s definitely not about to explain how her entire love life has to work around the whims and ego of her controlling best friend, and she doesn’t have the ability to come up with a convincing lie at the moment. “We can hang out, though.”
She means as friends, and Melissa seems willing to settle for it. Behind Jackie’s back, they meet for lunch a couple of times a week, and Shauna visits Melissa’s dorm and works on assignments while Melissa shows her what Fortnite is, and it’s easy and a little boring.
Shauna’s maybe not a good person, though, because after a few weeks of it, when she starts to tell Melissa a story that begins, “I slept with this girl this past weekend and—” she sees the way Melissa flinches and gets a little bit of a sick thrill from it. She pauses, says instead, “You’re jealous.”
“So?” Melissa asks defensively, tense and stiff where she sits on her own bed.
Shauna, at her desk, closes the notebook she’d been writing in and sets it aside. “I’m not gonna date you,” she warns her, “but we can have fun. If you want.”
Melissa gulps. “I mean—I’m fun. I can have fun.”
“Alright,” Shauna says evenly, and then spends two weeks making Melissa see stars in her bed—until Gen comes back to their shared room early one day and finds them in the middle of it.
It’s awkward. Gen can barely look at them, and her voice sounds wobbly and uneven as she mumbles, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t—“ and then she just hurries out of the room.
“Shit,” Melissa mutters, staring forlornly at the door.
She’s not moving, looking too lost to know what to do, and Shauna has more clothes on anyway, so she offers, “I’ll go talk to her,” and pulls her shoes on. She doesn’t really know why she goes after her, but there’s something about watching Gen get her heart broken over seeing her best friend with someone else that’s making her chest ache a little.
It gets worse as she searches the dorms, as she starts to think harder about it all. Why had Melissa sought her out in the first place? Gen is right there. Probably loves her more than anyone, and Melissa’s just tossed her aside for Shauna, who doesn’t even care about her, really.
She finds her locked in a bathroom stall, sniffling.
“Go away, Shauna,” Gen snaps at her, and Shauna sighs.
“You’re too good for her anyway, you know,” she says, which is what gets Gen to tentatively open the door. “You don’t need to waste your time being hung up on someone who doesn’t deserve it. It’s pathetic.” She shrugs. Gen stares at her. “Just… have fun instead. It’s easier, anyway.”
She’s edging around something that feels uncomfortable and untouched inside of herself. She wants to be distracted from it. “You’re really pretty, anyway,” she goes on, “so it’s not like you’d have trouble finding someone.”
Gen wipes her eyes. Blinks at her. Asks shyly, “You think I’m pretty?”
Shauna blinks back at her, thinks, oh, for fuck’s sake, because really, but there’s still something digging at her subconscious that she doesn’t like, so she shoves down her reservations and steps into the stall, pulling the door shut and locking it.
It’s fast and a little rough, with Gen egging her on to fuck her harder, transparently doing it out of revenge. Melissa finds them seconds after it’s over.
Shauna slips out of the dorm five minutes later with the sound of Gen and Melissa screaming at each other still reverberating in her ears.
She’s definitely not a good person. In fact, she might be a little bit of a terrorist. She hopes Melissa and Gen find a way to work it out before their drama spills over into soccer practices and Jackie’s around to hear it.
She needs to stop doing this. No more soccer players.
-
“That’s… interesting,” Nat tells her thoughtfully ten days later, once Shauna’s pressed her hips all the way forward until they’ve met Nat’s. “Huh.”
For the first time since high school, Shauna actually feels a little insecure in bed. Like she’s met her match. She knows Nat gets around. She’d come over to her place for weed yesterday, wound up getting high with her instead, and at some point Nat had started rambling about lesbian sex and strap-ons, asking giggly questions while completely baked because apparently someone on the team has a big mouth, and Shauna had just… offered. Also high, half-heartedly, mostly joking.
And now she’s back today, and Nat’s actually got really nice boobs, and Shauna kind of wishes she’d take her bra off. She’s staring.
Nat snorts, noticing. “Dude. You’re so fucking gay.”
Shauna scowls at her and gives her hips one small pump, and Nat blinks too many times at her, too quickly, her expression loosening.
“Do you like it?” Shauna asks her, smirk already forming. Her hips move again, start to find an even rhythm.
Nat’s eyes slam shut. “Oh,” she chokes out. Her legs wrap around Shauna’s waist. Her back arches to take the strap deeper. “Really… pound into me,” she says, “and I’ll let you see my boobs.”
Shauna laughs. “I’m not that pathetic.” But maybe she is, actually, just a little bit.
Nat’s fun. She rolls them over eventually, lets Shauna leave hickeys all over her chest with a breathless, “I don’t give a fuck, sure,” while she rides her until she comes, and then mutters, “Shut the fuck up,” when Shauna laughs at Nat’s fumbling fingers as she tries to return the favor. “Girls are harder.”
Shauna doesn’t get off. Nat stares angrily at nothing in particular while she dresses. “I’ll figure it out,” she insists. “Come over again tomorrow.”
-
Nat figures it out. Shauna feels herself being studied again as she catches her breath with her eyes closed. She’s never felt more like a science experiment.
“It’s like if a guy actually had stamina,” Nat tells her when she straddles her again. “It’s not bad.”
“We should probably stop after this time,” Shauna decides, watching Nat’s hips roll.
“Probably,” Nat agrees. “Are you, like, making your way through the whole team to piss Jackie off or something?”
Shauna looks up at her with confusion. “What? You asked me to do this.”
Nat huffs out a laugh. “Nevermind.”
-
Shauna’s drunker than usual tonight.
Jackie is too, which always means she gets more touchy-feely. She’s been hanging off of Shauna for the last hour, and this time Shauna’s been dragged to some party for her sorority, which means that there are at least three girls here who’ve hooked up with Shauna, and even worse, that Mari is here.
She’s been taunting Shauna all night behind Jackie’s back. Catching her eye, licking between the V of her fingers and making scissoring motions with them anytime Jackie comes within a foot of Shauna. Which is like, constantly tonight.
“You’re my date to this,” Jackie had declared happily two drinks in. “They wanted me to bring a boy; did you know that? But I didn’t wanna. I just want my best friend.” Then she’d gone oddly quiet and drank some more.
Shauna doesn’t have the bandwidth to put up with both Jackie and Mari much longer, so when Jackie says something about having to pee and parts from her for the first time in two hours, Shauna immediately hunts down Mari.
“Would you fuck off?” she huffs at her when she finally corners her in an upstairs hallway. “You’re not funny.”
“I think I’m hilarious,” Mari says. “I can’t believe she hasn’t heard about what a massive gay slut you are yet. The whole rest of the team knows. You’re totally fucked.”
Shauna crowds in on her threateningly. “She’s not gonna find out. Because you’re not gonna tell her.”
Mari smirks at her. “Oh, yeah? In exchange for what?”
Shauna’s nostrils flare.
-
“Where’d you go last night?” Jackie asks her in the morning—tentative, more insecure than Shauna’s heard her sound in a while. “I thought you were gonna hang out with me the whole time. You just… disappeared.”
Shauna sighs, rubbing at one of her temples. She’s got a little bit of a hangover, and what she really doesn’t need is for Jackie to see the flush in her cheeks right now. “Sorry. I didn’t feel well. And, um… Mari offered to let me sleep it off in her room. So I stayed there pretty late.”
Jackie looks confused. “Mari? But you can’t stand Mari.”
“Yeah. It was weird.” Shauna slips out of bed, avoiding her eyes. “Do you want coffee? I can go out and grab us some.”
Jackie softens, shooting her a thankful look. “Yeah, that’d be great.” She goes to Shauna, hovering almost awkwardly for a moment, and then shocks her by kissing her on the cheek. “Thanks. You’re a good friend.”
Shauna looks at her oddly. Why are her cheeks burning even hotter now? And why does Jackie look a little flushed? “Um. You’re welcome.”
She gets dressed. “Mari,” Jackie muses quietly as she does. “I’m surprised you two found a way to spend a few hours together without killing each other. Even if you were unconscious for most of them.”
-
“Say it.”
Mari’s thighs are bracketing Shauna’s hips and she has the phone camera trained right on Shauna’s face even as Shauna’s fingers slide dutifully in and out of her.
Shauna rolls her eyes. “You’re a better friend to Jackie than me.”
“Oh?” Mari’s breath hitches for a second, but as soon as Shauna tries to speed up, she grasps her wrist and slows it down again. “And why is that?”
“Because you haven’t fucked her whole soccer team behind her back,” Shauna recites. Then she adds, “You’re fucking her best friend, though.”
“Don’t go off-script,” Mari complains. “Tell me I’m hotter than you, too.”
Shauna’s fingers curl. Mari’s breath catches. New plan, Shauna decides.
“Yeah,” she agrees, fingers picking up speed again. “You’re hotter, Mar. You’re so fucking hot.”
It throws Mari off kilter. Shauna feels what it does to her between her thighs.
“What are you doing?” Mari asks her sharply, breathlessly.
“Making a video,” Shauna says. “Like you wanted.” She adjusts her palm, grinding it upward and earning a gasp for her efforts. “You feel so good. Like velvet. Too bad you’re not gonna last much longer.”
Mari’s head tips back. The arm holding her phone falls a little so that the camera’s aimed at nothing now. “Fuck you,” she moans, and then finishes on Shauna’s hand.
“I think you were faster than Laura Lee,” Shauna muses as Mari slumps over her.
“Shut up, gaywad.”
-
Tai and Van are a little weird about it. They just sort of approach her out of nowhere when they see her around on campus, and then Van declares, “If you’re that determined to do this, then it’s gonna happen a certain way.”
“Do what?” Shauna asks, and Tai just raises an eyebrow at her.
She really doesn’t have an agenda, she swears, but Tai and Van are both attractive, and Jackie’s been weird lately and she wants to take her mind off of it.
They do it at Tai and Van’s shared apartment. Tai climbs onto her face; Van knows what to do with her hands. Shauna’s a little discombobulated after—but especially during, because there’s something oddly but incredibly hot about Van asking Tai, “Does it feel good when she moans, baby?” and then fucking Shauna harder when Tai nods rapidly in response.
Shauna’s still a little shaky-legged when they urge her to the door, their hands and eyes all over each other.
“Can we do that again?” Shauna blurts just before she’s shoved outside.
“No,” Tai starts; “but thanks,” Van finishes, and then the door slams shut in Shauna’s face.
-
“What do you think about guys?” Jackie asks her casually one evening, while they’re tucked under a blanket on the couch together, watching a movie in the dark.
It’s too casual, which is a Jackie special: asking something like it doesn’t matter to hide that it matters a lot.
Shauna snorts anyway. “What?”
“Like… guys? I don’t know.” Jackie shrugs with feigned aloofness. “Like. What do you think? You’ve been out with a couple.”
Shauna suppresses a scowl. Yeah, before you ruined it. “I mean. They’re fine.”
This seems to spurn Jackie on. She straightens up, turning toward Shauna a little, further engaged. “Okay,” she says animatedly. “But. Just fine, right?”
Shauna shrugs. “I don’t know.” She’s very lost. She has no idea what this is, or where Jackie’s going with it. She’s a little worried that it could be Jackie gearing up to ask her if she’s into girls. Maybe she’s finally gotten suspicious. Or heard something.
“Like, they don’t blow your mind. When they kiss you.”
Shauna’s eyebrows furrow. “Do they blow your mind?”
“I don’t know,” Jackie echoes too quickly. “I just… maybe most of them are bad at it. I mean, it’s fine. Better than Jeff ever was, usually. But it’s not, like…” Her eyes drift away, searching the room, and Shauna senses she’s pretending to look for an end to this sentence that she already has in her head. “You know. Other times.”
Shauna blinks at her, still lost. “Okay?”
“You know,” Jackie repeats, and gives her a meaningful look.
“Other times,” Shauna repeats, shaking her head slightly, shrugging. “Okay.”
“Other times, Shauna,” Jackie pushes, and then groans when she just gets another blank stare. “Forget it.”
“Okay.” Shauna doesn’t have the patience for this. “Whatever. It’s forgotten. Can we watch the movie now?”
Jackie stiffens and doesn’t say anything more.
-
Akilah’s kind of cute about it.
She approaches Shauna at the next party, greets her, “Um, hey,” and then waits for Shauna’s acknowledgment before she asks, “So, this thing with the team…?” There’s no thing with the team, Shauna snips in her head, but then Akilah wonders, “Is there a reason you haven’t asked me yet?” all shy and uncertain, and Shauna’s just… trying to be a good person this time, okay? A feminist. She can’t leave a girl feeling left out, or feeling bad about herself.
So what if she enjoys it a little too much? And if her whispered, “You’re beautiful,” during it all comes with her chest feeling warm and a terrifying intrusive thought about how it might feel to say it to someone she actually loves—someone, not, like, a specific person, just someone, eventually—well, that’s just part of making a girl feel good, is all.
-
“I have a date tonight,” she tells Jackie one morning a week after Jackie’s birthday. “His name’s Tim.”
Jackie doesn’t look at her from her spot in the kitchen, where she’s making herself toast for breakfast. “Oh. That’s a stupid name.”
It’s actually Timmy, but Shauna had thought that’d be worse. “He’s nice.” He’s weird, from what little she knows from talking to him on Hinge, but Shauna’s been worried lately that if she doesn’t do one of these soon Jackie will get suspicious about her lack of a love life. She doesn’t expect it to go anywhere. Jackie never lets it anyway.
“Nice?” Jackie echoes. “If that’s the best thing you have to say about him, he must be boring.”
Heat flares in Shauna’s chest. “Oh, because your rotating list of frat guy clones are so fascinating?”
Jackie stiffens, midway through buttering a piece of bread now. “Well, I tried to talk to you about that, and you just wanted to watch a movie.”
“I’m sorry I’m not enraptured by your prospective move into indie band guys or grungy skateboarders or whatever else, Jackie,” Shauna says with a roll of her eyes. “Do what you want. Lose your virginity to whoever. I don’t need an update.”
Jackie drops the knife onto the counter with a clatter, eyes blazing now. “Why are you being so mean?”
Shauna feels her anger flag. She really isn’t usually like this. She’s actually almost never like this. But something about Jackie and boys and dating is finally getting under her skin, after years of having to talk about it and hating every second.
Still, she backs down. “I’m sorry. I just… classes are stressing me out; I’m not getting a lot of sleep…”
Jackie still looks a little upset, but Shauna can see her softening. “You could come sleep with me anytime you want,” she offers. “You always used to sleep better at my house.”
She hasn’t shared a bed with Jackie since high school. The thought of it is incredibly uncomfortable now. She doesn’t want to interrogate why. “Maybe,” she lies. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.” Jackie manages to force a smile as she says, “Good luck on your date.”
-
“What the fuck, Misty.”
“Okay,” Misty says, rising from the table at the cafe they’d agreed to meet at. Shauna and Tim, that is. “I can explain.”
“I really don’t need you to,” Shauna insists, already doing an about-face to leave.
Misty hurries after her. “I knew if I asked you like all of the others you’d say no! Especially because I’m not technically part of the team. But I thought if we got to know each other first—“
“So you catfished me?” Shauna asks her. “Also, I didn’t get to know you, Misty; you don’t fucking read Italian poetry.”
“Okay, so I embellished based on my limited knowledge of you,” Misty admits earnestly. “I just like being a part of things!”
“There is no thing to be a part of, and I’m not having sex with you.”
They’ve reached the parking lot now. “But I’ve been studying female pleasure. I’m sure I can hold my own if—“
“Ew,” Shauna huffs out under her breath, shaking her head. “Misty. No.”
“Not even if—?”
“No.”
“What if I can convince Natalie to join us?”
That does give Shauna pause for half a second, but then she shakes her head again. “Not happening.”
“Jackie?” Misty asks next, and Shauna stiffens.
“What?”
“Well,” Misty says carefully, “from what I understand, she’s the only one left from the team, right?”
“I’m not—“ Shauna starts, annoyed, but then she pauses. She kind of has been hooking up with the entire soccer team. Like, she’s literally done that. And maybe it has been on purpose. She’d rarely ever initiated it, but surely there’s a reason she’d always said yes. Made her way around the outskirts of something that had felt too scary to reach out for directly.
Or not. That’s definitely not it. “It’s a coincidence, Misty,” she huffs. “I’m not on, like, some mission to fuck the whole soccer team, and especially not Jackie, and—“
Misty tries again anyway. “But—“
“And I’m not doing this with you, because you’re creepy and sad and pathetic and—“ Shauna swallows thickly, unable to help herself even as she watches Misty’s face crumble. “Don’t fucking say that shit about Jackie and me ever again.”
She gets in her car and drives away, and doesn’t look back.
If she had, she’d have seen Misty’s lip trembling, and then her expression turning angry, and then her hand digging into her pocket and pulling out her phone.
-
Jackie’s on the couch when Shauna gets home. There’s a movie on, but it’s paused, and she doesn’t say a word when Shauna reenters not twenty minutes after leaving for her date in the first place. She’s too busy typing away furiously on her phone instead, eyes low, face a stony mask.
“He had to cancel,” Shauna tells her anyway, because she feels like she has to justify her presence somehow. “So I’m back. If you wanna… watch something.”
Jackie doesn’t even look at her. She’s still texting.
“Okay,” Shauna sighs out. “What’d I do now?”
Nothing. Jackie sniffles a little and turns away from her, sitting sideways on the couch with her back to Shauna instead.
“Cool. Real mature, Jackie. Let me know when you wanna stop acting like a child and fill me in on whatever it is this time.”
She pushes into her bedroom and closes the door, glaring at her own bed as she moves to sit on the edge of it. She feels stupid as she pulls off her shoes and socks and changes into a tank top and shorts for the night.
She exits to go to the bathroom she shares with Jackie and take off the little bit of makeup she’d put on. She passes through the living room on the way—and Jackie’s still there, still texting.
She goes back to her bedroom. Her phone pings where she’s left it on her nightstand, and she picks it up.
“YOU’RE COOKED,” Van has sent her, and then there’s a screenshot from a group chat titled “the team ⚽️💪” posted beneath it.
“Who else???” she can see Jackie asking in the image.
And then, from Nat, “It was just a couple of times w me.”
And from Lottie, “More than once was an option?”
And Van: “I mean, Mel def went more than once. But most of us were once, I think.”
And Jackie: “Has ANYONE not fucked Shauna aside from Misty?”
And finally, Mari: “You ❤️”, which has several different laughing emojis reacting to it.
Shauna sets her phone aside slowly, her heart pounding, and braces herself for Hurricane Jackie, category 5.
Earthquake Jackie, 10.0.
Military Emergency Jackie, DEFCON 1.
She’s about to be torn a new asshole for having a sex life she’s kept secret, for daring to have a life outside of Jackie—and also for fucking, like, a fairly high percentage of her social circle. But still.
But the meltdown never comes. The apartment doesn’t shake. A fist doesn’t start pounding on her door.
No, what happens might be the one thing that’s worse: Shauna hears the faint sound of crying on the other side of the wall.
That alone is enough to send Shauna’s heart into her stomach, because she’d known she was being deceptive but she hadn’t ever meant to cause Jackie any genuine pain. Or embarrass her. Or whatever it is that’s happening now.
But then her phone pings again, this time with a text from Jackie, and she learns that it is indeed possible for her heart to sink all the way into the soles of her feet.
And, also, she learns that she’s a fucking moron.
“So you can screw my entire soccer team but you don’t want me?”
-
It turns out that there are a lot of things that had been waiting on the tip of Shauna’s tongue—or in this case, fingertips—once she’s stopped spending years repressing them. Her fingers are flying across her phone screen now.
“Fuck Jackie I do”
“I’ve wanted you so badly for so fucking long I can’t stand it”
“I hate seeing you with guys, I hated Jeff so much, I hated you for not letting it be me”
“I slept with so many girls so I didn’t have to think about how badly I wanted all of them to be you”
“I fucked your whole soccer team like a total psycho because I didn’t think I could ever have you and they were the closest I could get”
“I’ll do anything, please please forgive me”
Her hands freeze. She stares down at her phone with her pulse in her throat.
It’s an incredibly pathetic display. She’s well-aware. But it doesn’t matter, because Jackie is in the other room typing back a response now.
She waits with bated breath.
And then:
“Come in here and say all of that again to my face.”
She practically trips over her feet racing to the door.
-
“There,” Jackie whines into her ear half an hour later, writhing under her, hips bucking up into Shauna’s hand. “God, I hate you. Your fingers feel so good. Fuck you.”
“You’re so perfect,” Shauna whispers reverently to her anyway. Jackie yanks angrily at her hair in response, which works for her, actually, but she bites back a moan because it’s probably for the best. “You’re beautiful. I love you.”
“I can’t believe you. For three fucking years—“ Shauna pulls away, kissing hurriedly down Jackie’s bare body and burying her tongue between her thighs. Jackie lets out a choked cry. “Oh. You—Wow. You really know what you’re doing.” Her hips give a sharp jerk. “You’re just such an asshole.”
Shauna moans into the apex of her thighs in response. Jackie yanks at her hair again. “You taste so good,” Shauna groans to her. “Better than anyone else.”
Jackie quivers against her, fluttering on her fingers with a soft gasp. “Alright,” she exhales. “Let’s finish fighting later. But you owe me an orgasm tonight for every person that wasn’t me.”
Shauna pulls back, hesitating. “Um. That might take a whi—“ Jackie yanks a third time, and this time it’s hard enough to bring tears to the corners of her eyes. “Yes, ma’am,” she says quickly, and leans in to get started.
-
Jackie watches over Shauna’s shoulder in the morning, hair mussed and eyes sharp as Shauna’s fingers fly across her phone screen.
She deletes Hinge. Then Bumble. And Tinder.
She opens a missed text from Lottie that says, “Hey,” sent at one in the morning last night, and types out, “No thanks, I belong to Jackie now,” looking hopefully to Jackie for approval and getting a satisfied nod (and a sour look) before she sends it.
She opens Twitter. Workshops a tweet with a glance back at Jackie after every few words she types, editing it based on Jackie’s hums of approval and her low noises that say not good enough or not that. She winds up with: “Just worked things out with the beautiful perfect love of my life Jackie Taylor #taken #reformed”
It starts racking up likes and responses within seconds.
Van is first: “collared and leashed in one night 😂”
Then Mari: “NO @jackietaylor06 text me back!!!”
Laura Lee is nice, at least: “I’m glad you two were able to talk things out <3”
Shauna doesn’t read the rest, just silently closes the app and opens Instagram next. She goes to her camera roll, starts scrolling until she finds a picture of herself and Jackie that she likes.
Jackie makes a short, low sound. Not that one. Shauna scrolls further dutifully, pausing on photos, waiting for feedback. After several more rejections, she gets to one from senior year. Jackie has her mouth open, is midway through laughter and facing more toward the camera, looking absolutely flawless, and Shauna has an arm around her and is staring at her so adoringly that it’s a little pathetic. “That one,” Jackie decides.
Shauna doesn’t argue, just selects it and starts working on a caption. She gets two words in before Jackie reaches over and takes the phone from her, taps away on it, and then hands it back to Shauna when she’s done.
It’s already been posted by the time Shauna gets her eyes on it: “Looking back on photos like these with you makes me realize how empty my life would be without you in it. You’ve always been by my side as my best friend and I can’t wait to have you forever as more than that. I love you.”
Shauna reads it twice before she looks up at Jackie again. She finds her waiting, having softened a little bit, like she’s not sure what Shauna will think of it.
Shauna tosses her phone aside and kisses Jackie down into the mattress.
-
Three Days Later
Shauna pulls into the parking lot and checks her reflection in one of her mirrors before she exits. She knows this isn’t a big deal—she’s just meant to be picking Jackie up from practice and then they’re seeing a movie; Jackie will have just taken a quick locker room shower and thrown on a change of clothes—but still, she’s understandably been eager to impress her lately.
She’s a little early, so she takes a walk down to the soccer field, nervous to see the other girls she’s been temporarily banned from getting anywhere near while she and Jackie are still finding their footing. She doesn’t mind the rules or being ordered around this time. It feels nice that Jackie’s so jealous and possessive—at least for now—because it means that she’s wanted.
She reaches the fence and peers out at the field. Her eyebrows raise.
Their coach appears to be missing in action, and instead Jackie is at the edge of the field, whistle around her neck as the rest of the girls all jog laps in various states of exhaustion.
“Keep it up, ladies!” she can hear Jackie ordering. “First one to stop gets a recommendation to Coach for extra cardio practice!”
Van crumples to the ground with a groaned, “Fuck you,” and when Tai tries to help her up, Jackie startles her by blowing her whistle.
Jackie’s not looking at Tai, though; her focus has shifted to Nat. “Scatorccio! Lap them!” Shauna watches Nat pick up speed, legs churning, and pull away from the jogging pack, rounding the corners of the field and completing an extra lap and a half to arrive at the back of the group, chest heaving.
“Melissa!” Jackie calls out next, and Shauna can practically see Melissa blanch and her soul leave her body. “Your turn!” Melissa takes off, arrives just behind Nat a minute later, looking like she might collapse at any moment. “Another! …Actually, you can just start sprinting until I tell you to stop!”
Shauna shrinks away from the fence before she can be spotted, disappearing back to the safety of her car, and hurriedly pulls out her phone. She has a few more posts to make on social media and some texts she needs to send to Jackie reminding her of how much she loves her and how sorry she is and what an idiot she’s been.
All true things, but also—just in case. Because she’d like to live long enough to get to make everything up to her.