Archive of Our Own ^beta

“And then there was Evelyn and, you know—” Sophie gestures vaguely with her beer can.

"Mm," says Jane, who doesn't know but feels a familiar fizz of envy at the careless way she says his name. Sophie looks at her. “What?” Jane asks.

“Nothing,” Sophie says. The lamp behind her rims her head and shoulders in light. “I mean. You like him, don’t you.”

Jane stiffens. She’s wondered if Sophie noticed (God, she’s wondered if Evelyn noticed), but until now it’s gone unspoken. She doesn’t want to lie, but she doesn’t particularly want to humiliate herself either.

“It’s okay,” Sophie says. “We’re not dating anymore, you can tell me.”

Jane takes a sip of beer. The flavor is just barely made tolerable by how cold it is. “Yes.”

“Why?” Sophie asks, fascinated.

A blush prickles uncomfortably at Jane’s neck as she shrugs. “Well, you know. We’ve been close for a very long time, and I like his company, and…”

“And he’s got that mouth.”

“He is also attractive, yes,” Jane says.

“I like how you tried to pretend that was an afterthought,” Sophie says. “Like, the guy’s not ugly, you have to give him that.” She speaks with the casual assurance of someone who is also very attractive and knows it. “Those freckles down his back are pretty. Always remind me of stars.”

Jane tries to think of when she last saw Evelyn’s bare back and then lapses into irritation, taking another sip of beer. “I’m sure they do.”

“You can ask me what it’s like,” Sophie says. “Like, if you’re curious about what it’s like being with him.”

“Oh my god, Sophie,” Jane says.

“I mean, don’t tell me you’ve never wondered, you’ve been living with him for a year. If I were living with someone I liked I would be thinking about it all the time.”

“Yes, obviously I think about it sometimes,” Jane says, flustered.

Sophie swings her legs up to push her feet under the middle sofa cushion between them. “You get five questions,” Sophie says. “On the house, make ‘em count.”

“And what would you get out of this?”

“Entertainment, holy fuck, Jane. It’s Friday night and I’m barely drunk and sitting on my own sofa, it’s getting embarrassing.”

“Technically it’s not your sofa,” Jane says.

“Evelyn and I fucked on this sofa,” Sophie says contemplatively.

Jane almost coughs out her drink. There it is again, envy fizzing in her stomach, and for a second she wonders if Sophie is trying to provoke her. She definitely knows she’s pushing buttons. But there doesn’t seem to be any malice to it. Probably she really is just looking for entertainment, and determined to get it one way or another. 

“Often?” Jane asks grudgingly.

“Only once,” Sophie says, then looks up with interest. “Was that question one? Why am I asking you. That was question one. We never did it again, by the way, because Evelyn said the springs are on death’s door and you’d be pissed if we broke anything.” She raises her beer can. “Alright, hit me with the next one.”

Jane considers, then catches herself and thinks, Oh God, I'm actually considering this. 

The thing is: she does wonder. 

The thing is: he doesn't have to ever find out about this, and it's not like she'll ever get the real thing, and she's a little tipsy and a little lonely and the way Sophie's looking at her makes her feel like she has something to prove. 

She says, “Well. What was it like?”

A few questions in and every inch of Jane’s skin is burning up. Part of her mind warns her that she can only take so much of this but it’s getting drowned out by the rest of her, which is hanging off every word Sophie says. What she’s learning is that Sophie is a very good storyteller and has absolutely no shame, neither of which are surprises, but these previously overlooked traits are rising with a vengeance to her awareness.

“Fourth is probably when he’d kiss me on the hand, he thought that was so fucking romantic, and I mean, it kind of was. I think I kissed him on, like, the knuckles a few times, but when we held hands he liked to kiss me here,” Sophie says, and gives herself a quick peck on the inside of her wrist. Jane hadn’t actually asked for a full top five list, but as always, Sophie was feeling generous. 

“Third,” Sophie says, as Jane discreetly brushes her fingers across her own wrist. “Hmm. Neck kisses. No. Shoulder, right here,” she says, tilting her head to tap the juncture of her shoulder and throat. “Oh my god, those were so good. I loved those,” she says, eyes fluttering closed for a second as she rolls her neck. “Especially when he’d keep moving up my neck…”

The worst part is that Jane has seen every kind of kiss Sophie’s describing. Evelyn and Sophie could be… over-tactile, in public, and they were worse in the privacy of the apartment; she thinks Evelyn tried to be subtle when she was in the room but she’s still seen a lot. So when Sophie tips her head at the memory of lips on her skin, the mental image is vivid.

She’s so used to trying to pretend she doesn’t want him this way that indulging in the image is a furtive thrill, somehow made guiltier and more pleasurable by the fact that it’s Sophie telling her this.

God. Jane doesn’t have room in her head to even consider what Sophie must be thinking of her right now. Her drink is empty but she presses the can against her flushed neck, looking for the limited relief of cool aluminum.

“Second,” Sophie says, “Mouth, both of these last ones are going to be mouth but I'm counting them separately. Second favorite is when, okay, there’s this tongue thing he does that’s like—” she opens her mouth to show an indistinct pink flicker of movement, then makes a hooking motion with her finger that clarifies nothing, which she evidently realizes. “Like. Ugh. Can I just show you?”

“Like—?”

“Yeah, just—”

“Um, sure,” Jane says. Her pulse pounds in her ears.

Sophie scoots closer on the sofa so her knees brush Jane’s leg, folded up beneath her. Putting down the beer can, Jane shifts to face her more directly.

The look Sophie returns is charged with such naked intent that Jane’s mouth goes dry.

“Here, I’m him,” she says, “so I’ll be taller.” She rises a little on her knees, so she’s looking down at Jane. Then she takes Jane’s face in her hands, like Jane has seen Evelyn do, and kisses her. 

There’s cheap beer on her breath and her hands are hot and steady. The smooth brush of her fingertips over Jane’s cheek and the sensitive skin beneath her ear sets those nerve endings alight. Jane feels her tongue and opens her mouth to give her better access, deepening the kiss. Then Sophie’s tongue is in her mouth and the tiny, overwhelmed part of her brain still endeavoring thought says, oh, that’s what she meant by the tongue thing and then gives up entirely.

It’s not fair that Evelyn’s been kissing Sophie like this and not her. It’s not fair that Sophie’s kissing Jane like this now. It feels so good. 

Jane’s hands find Sophie’s hips, trying to pull her closer; Sophie rises the rest of the way onto her knees, breaking the kiss and looking down at her. Golden lamplight catches the tiny hairs of her neck and the plane of her cheek. She’s so goddamn beautiful.

“Did you like that?” Sophie asks, breathing hard but pretending she isn’t. Like she can hide it when Jane still has her hips pulled nearly flush with her front.

“It was good,” Jane says, trying to sound collected. The slow way Sophie smiles makes that harder. 

"Good, then you're going to love the last one.”

"The last one," Jane says. "Right."

"Full disclosure, the secret ingredient here is hands up the shirt," Sophie says. Her thumb strokes Jane’s cheek, near the corner of her mouth. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I went and got one of his shirts to wear?”

‘Funny’ isn’t the word Jane would use. Weird and arousing, maybe. “Did he leave them behind?”

“There’s a whole box of flannels in his room. My room,” she says. But to Jane’s relief she doesn’t make a move to find one. “Okay, here,” she says, sinking back down until she’s almost sitting on her calves, just a few inches elevated. Belatedly, Jane recognizes the thigh strength it takes to maintain that posture. She is putting a lot of effort into this.

Jane pushes her hair back. “What about me, where do I put my hands?”

“Depends,” Sophie says. “If I’m him, are you me? Or are you you?”

“Oh. Um, you, I guess.” In her mind, the ever-present sight of Evelyn and Sophie in each other’s arms.

“You can be you if you want,” Sophie says. "Just don't overthink it."

“Then it wouldn’t be me,” Jane says. “Hands, Sophie.”

“Anywhere you want,” Sophie says, a smile flickering across her lips, and kisses her.

Evelyn calls the next morning. Jane’s heart gives a frantic sideways jolt at the name on her comms.

“Hi,” she says, putting the unit facedown on her dresser as she pulls off her pajama shirt and looks for a bra.

“No video stream again?” he pouts cheerfully, audio a little muffled.

“I’m getting dressed,” she says, digging through drawers.

“Did I wake you up?” he asks. “Sorry, I thought I got the time difference right this time—”

“No, no, you’re fine, I just slept in,” Jane says.

“Up late partying on a Friday night?” he teases.

She stops in the middle of buttoning up her blouse, remembers hands all over her, pretending they were his. An irrational fear hits her that he can hear the change in her breathing through the comms.

“Janie? Hello?”

“Yes,” she says, buttoning hurriedly. “No, um, no parties this time.”

“Wretched and Valiant reruns?” he guesses.

“If I ever start watching that by myself, you can assume I’m going through a serious crisis,” Jane says. “What about you, how have you been?”

“Really good! I went to the lecture I was telling you about, the linguistic preservation one, with two people from PHIL 307. It was not at all what I was expecting—did you know the Moons of Fortitude have over a dozen distinct dialects that developed here? Most of them only have a few hundred speakers at this point—”

Jane moves to the living room, lit with late morning light coming in over the dome of the cathedral. She doesn’t think she can sit on the sofa and not think about last night so she takes the armchair, on which she has never made out with Evelyn’s ex-girlfriend and no one has had sex. To her knowledge.

Taking a deep breath she turns on the video stream.

“Oh, good, hi!” Evelyn’s image appears against a roiling, bruise-green sky.

“Oh my god, where are you?” It looks like he’s about to be swallowed by some primordial pea soup deity.

“Dorm roof,” he says. A stiff wind tosses his curls across his face and he keeps trying and failing to tuck them back. “That’s why I called, there’s a really late season storm coming in and I’ve never seen anything like it!"

“Alright, well, I’ve seen it now, so maybe you should take shelter,” Jane says, equal parts concerned and endeared.

“Yes, yes,” he says, and the camera shakes, then sweeps across the rusted grating of a fire escape as he descends. Soon he’s inside a building, then a bedroom she recognizes as his from their past calls. He’s pinned up what look like a few brochures since last time, though the effect isn’t very impressive. “There we are. They said we might lose power tonight, so I went shopping earlier.” 

A door creaks open; Sophie appears in sweatpants and a sports bra. “G’morning,” she yawns. “Who are you talking to?”

“Is that Sophie?” Evelyn asks.

At the sound of his voice, Sophie’s gaze sharpens. Oh no. “Hey, Evelyn,” she says, coming over to the armchair and crouching to get in the frame of the video. “How’s it going?”

Don't mention anything. Don't mention anything. 

He runs a hand through his wind-blown hair, which only helps a little. “Good. Great. You?”

“Jane, is it okay if I—?” she gestures to the chair arm. Jane nods and she settles onto it, knee spilling into Jane’s lap. “It’s been good. I’ve been trying to convince the team you got extradited to Medea,” she tells Evelyn.

“For—?”

“Threatening to assassinate the director, probably,” Sophie says.

He raises his eyebrows. “I suppose I should be grateful you aren’t just telling people I’m dead.”

“Neither of you are funny,” Jane says.

“It was tempting,” Sophie tells him, “but I’m working on my self control.”

“Oh, that’s new.”

“What can I say,” Sophie says, resting her elbow on Jane’s shoulder. “Things have changed since you left.”

When Jane finishes the call she goes to the kitchen to make herself breakfast and Sophie is already there. She still hasn’t gotten dressed; the fluid line of her spine is visible as she bends to get something from the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. If she’s bothered by cold air on so much bare skin, it doesn’t show. Jane checks the fruit basket and then looks at Sophie’s back. No constellations of freckles. She’s more muscular than Evelyn, too.

Shaking her head, Jane puts bread in the toaster, and turns to get the butter and jam as Sophie swaps places with her to get a cutting board. They circle again so Jane can get dishes; as she takes a plate from the cupboard, she hears Sophie pouring herself something to drink.

“Are we going to talk about last night?” Jane asks.

“Do we need to?” Sophie asks.

Jane can’t suppress an incredulous noise. Oh, that’s so Sophie.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Sophie says. “Look, I had fun—”

“That’s not the problem,” Jane says.

“Then what is it?” Sophie says, then understands. “Oh. It made things weird with Evelyn.”

“I don’t want him to know,” Jane says.

“Know what? That you’re in love with him, or that you spent two hours letting me show you how he kisses me?”

Hearing her say it so blatantly makes Jane irritated and flustered and then irritated about being flustered. “Either one.” She turns and Sophie’s already facing her, leaning back against the counter, arms folded above her bare stomach. A dark line of hair runs from her belly button down into the waistband of her sweatpants. Sophie must catch her look; she arches one eyebrow. “And can you put a shirt on?” Jane says.

Sophie does not look the slightest bit repentant, but she obediently disappears toward Evelyn’s—her—bedroom, and Jane breathes out.

The apartment feels different when she’s sharing it with Sophie. Part of the difference is tangible: cleats by the front door, blinds left open, spatulas put away in the wrong place. But part of it is that Evelyn’s presence has become so familiar that she didn’t think about how the rhythms of their lives interlocked, and now there’s someone new in his place. It’s a plaintive little ache that will almost certainly disappear with time. The problem is she’s not sure she wants to get used to his absence.

Sophie reappears and Jane’s wistfulness hits a wall.

“Really?” she manages.

Sophie shrugs in one of Evelyn’s flannels. “They’re soft,” she says, daring Jane to object. She hasn’t even buttoned it. It hangs loose and open over that same damn bra and sweatpants. Jane takes the shirt cuff, rubbing the fabric between her fingers, and Sophie lets her. She’s right. It is very soft.

She lifts Sophie’s wrist to her face on the pretense of touching the shirt’s fabric to her cheek. It smells ever so faintly of Evelyn.

“Look, you don’t want to tell him how you feel,” Sophie says. “Neither do I. So let’s not. You miss him, and so do I.”

“What are you saying?”

Sophie uncurls her fingers against Jane’s cheek, cupping her face, and presses a kiss to Jane’s lips. It’s not impetuous and overwhelming like the kisses they shared the night before. She’s gentle. And the sweetness of being kissed in the kitchen in the morning is so lovely and strange that Jane doesn’t know what to do with it. 

“Oh,” she breathes.

“Do you like that?” Sophie asks.

She likes it so much she thinks it hurts. Her heartbeat flickers high and fast.

“We could keep going. Just like this, just—pretending. If you want.”

And if she had asked should we, the answer would be no. Easily. Jane doesn’t do things like this, unstudied and impulsive and, and risky. But she said if you want.

And Jane does want it. The realization comes with a little frisson of excitement. She wants it, and Sophie’s offering, and that’s allowed. She thumbs Sophie’s sleeve down just enough to kiss the inside of her wrist, and Sophie’s breath catches. Against her lips she feels the warm jump of Sophie’s pulse. 

“Okay,” Jane says, and then reaches to take the open front of the shirt. Evelyn’s shirt, Sophie’s shirt. “Yes, okay, let’s keep going,” she says, and pulls her in.

Weeks later, Jane studies the angles of Sophie’s profile on the pillow beside her. “Is it wrong that we’re doing this?” Jane asks.

“Look, I’ll dress like Evelyn, whatever, it’s hot,” Sophie says lazily. “I will not moralize like him.”

“You make it sound like—like a kink thing,” Jane says.

“Oh my god, you’re so easy to scandalize,” Sophie says. She’s stretched out next to Jane, in a bed not nearly big enough for the two of them, one naked leg hooked easily over Jane’s. “Look. You’re single. I’m single. He’s single, god, we’re all single, it’s ridiculous.” Jane maneuvers herself up onto one elbow to see her better. “Anyway, it’s fine.”

“Mm, yeah, you’re not very good at this,” Jane says.

Sophie opens one eye and smiles crookedly. “That’s not what you were saying earlier.”

“Say that again,” says Jane.

“At least I’m good at— ahh.” Jane runs her fingers over Sophie’s bare stomach, tracing light shapes with her nails, watching the pleasurable shudder of muscle. “Jane.”

Jane flattens her hand on her stomach, unsure whether she’s relenting or teasing her further, and feels the rise and fall of her breathing return to regularity. Relenting, then. In the last few weeks she’s learned more than she ever expected to know about Sophie’s body. There’s always been a shine of imperviousness to the way she thought of Sophie; she was easy to bicker with, but hard to really faze.

It turns out, after years of trying, Jane has found the key to getting a reaction out of Sophie. All it takes is having her naked in bed. Even now, sprawled in an endorphin haze that should probably give way to showers and proper sleep soon, she’s sensitive to every touch or movement Jane makes.

That doesn’t mean this… situation, has become straightforward. Here’s the problem: Jane likes this more and more every time. Here’s the problem: Evelyn still doesn’t know.

“Oh my god,” Jane says. “We’ve been doing this in his bed.”

“It’s my bed,” Sophie says without opening her eyes. “I’m subletting.”

“What are we going to do when he gets back?” Jane asks.

“In seven months?” Sophie says. “Lady, I don’t know what I’m doing next week. Can you please lay back down?”

Seven months doesn't seem nearly as long as it sometimes has. Still. Maybe this will have run its course by then, like a fever. Or maybe Sophie will have gotten bored.

Jane scoots down, nudging Sophie toward the wall to settle against her side. “Next week you’re going to San Merced for your game,” she says, as Sophie turns her head to press a kiss to her shoulder. “And we’re going to try out the new Telite restaurant near the library.”

She feels Sophie smile against her skin. “Oh, yeah.”

Seven months of this. Maybe that’ll be enough.

The grocery store is always awash with Royal College sweatshirts and student laundry day get-ups on Saturday afternoons, and Jane sees three classmates and the Psychemistry department administrative assistant by the time she makes it through the produce section.

The certainty of encountering acquaintances is only part of the reason she and Sophie are shopping at the same time but not together. The main reason is that Sophie’s grocery shopping strategies are arcane and incomprehensible. Jane isn’t really sure what logic she’s operating on, since this is the first time they’ve gone to the store at the same time and even now they’re not coordinating, but as she compares cereals she sees Sophie cross back and forth past the end of the aisle four times, which casts suspicion on the organization level of her shopping list.

“Not that kind again,” Jane says, passing behind Sophie as she adds a six-pack of beer to her basket. Sophie startles at her voice then catches herself, suppressing a smile.

She doesn’t turn to acknowledge Jane. “This is my favorite.”

“I know,” Jane says in a low voice. “And it’s not very good.”

“You don’t have to drink it,” Sophie says, but she puts it back and hooks her finger between the packaging rings of a different brand. “Better?”

“Better,” Jane says.

Sophie glances at her from the corner of her eye, smile bleeding through, like they’re playing some sort of game. It feels like they are. It feels like she’s winning.

Sophie moves her hand to a bottle of wine. "What about this?"

It's the kind Jane usually buys. Jane pauses. Does Sophie remember that? Is this on purpose? Jane doesn’t buy drinks often and didn’t expect Sophie to know her preferences. Obscurely complimented, she says, “Good.”

“Okay,” says Sophie nonchalantly, and puts it in her basket.

They cross paths again in front of the candy displays and without stopping to look, Sophie snags a brightly-colored bag of peach gummies off the shelf and drops it in Jane’s cart. Again, Jane wants to ask questions—is she making some sort of joke, does she just want to see if Jane will buy it?—but doesn’t call after her. She’s learning the shape of the game: who will get away with more.

By the baked goods, she sees Sophie talking to a man she vaguely recognizes and changes course to pass by her, brushing a hand across the small of her back. Sophie straightens like she’s been electrified, looks over her shoulder, and catches Jane’s eye for a second before Jane looks pointedly down at her shopping list. Only a few things left. Then they can go home, away from prying eyes.

But when she turns into the freezer aisle to tick the last item off her list, Sophie’s already there. She puts down her baskets—at some point she had to get a second, she really should have gotten a cart—and leans exaggeratedly against the door of one of the freezers.

It’s probably a bad sign that that’s all that’s needed to make Jane hyper-aware of her. She’s going to try something. It’ll be embarrassing if it works.

“Empty aisle,” Sophie says.

“For the moment,” Jane agrees.

Sophie flips up the back of her shirt and sighs as she presses a strip of bare back against the cold glass door. “Oh, that feels nice.”

“No,” Jane says immediately.

“No, what?”

“Not at the grocery store,” Jane says.

“No one’s around,” Sophie says.

“Everyone’s around!” Jane says. “And we can’t go home until you get out of the way of the frozen peas.”

Sophie pushes herself upright so Jane can open the door, and Jane grabs a bag of frozen peas, glad for the refrigerated air on her cheeks. Did Sophie do this with Evelyn too? The goading, the bids for attention? Maybe she’s overreacting. It’s just different. Things feel different now. Maybe this would be easier if they weren’t trying to keep anything a secret. If she hadn’t insisted on keeping their hands to themselves in public, she wouldn’t be so tempted to touch Sophie.

Although. She made Sophie promise to keep her hands to herself.

Jane hadn’t promised anything.

In an instant she’s more certain than ever that Sophie has been trying to goad her into making the first move. Jane squeezes the bag of frozen peas like it can grant her restraint. She’s not going to do anything. She won’t.

Sophie bends to pick up her baskets and the bow of her shoulders and the plane of her back is just too inviting. Jane slips her hand under her shirt, touching her glass-chilled skin. A rabbit-shiver runs over her and she twists upright so her face is inches from Jane’s. Jane slides her cold fingers from Sophie’s chilled lower back around the warm curve of her side and she inhales, choked.

“Jane,” she breathes.

“Hmm?”

The corner of her mouth twitches. “There’s a person getting ice cream at the other end.”

Jane snatches her hand back and drops the peas into her cart. “Let’s get home.”

Jane has been hunched over her textbook for a long time when Sophie comes out of her room. Without preamble she climbs onto Jane, knee sliding between her thighs as she takes Jane’s face in her hands and finds her mouth. In an instant the notes that Jane was memorizing are wiped from her mind by the urgency of Sophie’s kiss, the suddenness of her presence. Heat pours through her.

“I was studying,” she says breathlessly, catching the backs of Sophie’s thighs to keep her steady, as Sophie moves to her jaw, mouthing swift, hot kisses across sensitive skin.

She pauses; her breath is warm on Jane’s ear. The sensation raises goosebumps on her neck. “Study break?” she suggests, shameless.

“A few minutes.”

A distant part of Jane’s mind notes that she didn’t used to be the kind of person to be so easily swayed—or maybe she always has been, and just didn’t have the chance to find out. It’s not like anyone has ever wanted her so insistently as Sophie, even if—even if it’s not, not—

“God, Sophie,” she exhales. She can hardly form a thought; Sophie has worked one hand into the hair at Jane’s nape, pulling gently to tilt her head, and Jane turns to putty at the motion. She exposes her neck and feels wet lips or tongue and then suction. Jane’s breathing stutters. With some effort, she gets out, “Are you trying to leave a mark?”

The warmth of Sophie’s mouth barely lifts for a response. “Maybe.”

Jane doesn’t mean to react to that, but she’s sure Sophie notices how she does—the slight involuntary roll of stomach and hips—because she swears she feels a ghost of a laugh. “I’ll have to wear a scarf,” she says. Sophie’s hair tickles her cheek; the faint citrus scent of her shampoo mixes with whatever warm, undefinable smell is Sophie in her brain.

Soon she forgets that too, as her focus narrows to the struggle of breathing and Sophie’s mouth on her skin, pressing hard kisses up and down her throat—always returning to the same spot that makes Jane gasp until it burns under her lips, stinging and exquisite.

Then Sophie relents, tucking her face into the crook of Jane’s neck, and Jane tugs at the back of her legs until she rearranges herself more comfortably on Jane’s lap. It’s not the most sustainable position—her weight and how it makes the chair dig into Jane’s thighs will become unpleasant after a few minutes—but for now the intimacy is irresistible. She breathes deeply and the motion rocks both of them. Sophie’s fingers draw little circles on Jane’s scalp.

Jane’s back aches with the relief of straightening from her hunched study position. Sophie adjusts her weight, and Jane steadies her with a hand on her hip. Returning to her work sounds unbearably dull now.

“What was that about?” she asks.

Sophie shrugs against her. “Finished a call. Wanted you.”

She makes it sound so simple. Jane’s heart swells. Kiss me again, she thinks, and almost says it out loud. She’s almost charmed enough to risk that kind of honesty. But no, instead she runs one hand down Sophie’s back, down the curve of her spine, smoothing the soft cotton of her shirt.

“Who were you calling?” she asks.

“Evelyn,” Sophie says.

Jane’s hand stills on her back. Envy, like an old favorite song. Well. That explains why she was so pent-up. 

“I’m glad you’re talking to him,” she says. “He misses you.”

“I know,” Sophie says. It's hard for Jane to read her tone. Jane feels one more soft kiss at the juncture between her shoulder and throat, and closes her eyes, soaking up the feeling. 

Eventually her legs start to tingle from lack of circulation. “Okay,” she says, shifting, and Sophie unfolds herself, “I need to get back to studying.”

“Of course,” Sophie says, gaze flickering to Jane’s neck. Instinctively, Jane lifts her hand to hide the tender skin. 

“Is it, um, did you—”

“You’re probably going to need that scarf,” Sophie says.

Jane squints against the sun as she surveys the bleachers. She should’ve brought a hat. The bag hiked over her shoulder holds sunscreen, a water bottle, an energy bar, a book, a seat cushion—but no hat. Oh, well, she couldn’t have thought of everything.

She makes her way toward the nearest empty seat, apologizing as she squeezes past an old couple on the end of the bench, and sits on her cushion. This is the first game she’s been to at university. She feels a bit of anthropological interest in the proceedings.

“Excuse me, do you know which color Royal College is?” she asks the old woman beside her as people start applauding some development she didn’t catch.

The woman looks her up and down. “Green and white. Are you cheering for Royals?”

“I—yes.”

“You’re sitting on the wrong side of the stands,” the woman says, then takes pity on her. “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t tell. Are you here for someone?”

“Yes,” Jane says. “My, um. Her name is Sophie. She’s—well, I guess she’s wearing green and white.”

“How about I cheer for your Sophie with you, and you cheer for my niece Stella with me, and then we’ll have a nice evening no matter who wins?” she suggests.

“That is so kind of you,” Jane says. “I, um, I’m afraid I can’t really tell which one Sophie is from here? And I wouldn’t know when to cheer anyway. But I’ll cheer for Stella with you.”

A roar goes up from the other half of the stands. Jane looks at the field.

“What just happened?”

“Score for your team,” the woman says, pointing at a player in green with one hand flung triumphantly skyward, like the spectators’ wild cheering is something tangible she can sweep up and keep.

“Oh! I think that’s her!” Jane says, and the woman good-naturedly joins her applause.

After the game Jane picks her way down to the field. Sophie’s talking animatedly to a cheerleader while a teammate uses her shoulder for balance to unlace their shoe. Her face and forearms shine with sweat; her chin is scraped pink. When she sees Jane, she double-takes, and her teammate nearly falls over.

“Shit, sorry,” she says, grabbing their elbow. “Jane! What are you doing here?”

“Cheering for Stella, mostly,” Jane says. “But you were here too so I thought I’d say hi.”

“Well, hi,” Sophie says. “Sorry—Marce, are you done untying your fucking shoe? Okay, thanks. Who’s Stella?”

“One of the de la Peña players,” Jane says, adjusting her hold on her bag. “I sat next to her aunt.”

“Why were you sitting on the de la Peña side?”

“Well, I didn’t know there were sides,” Jane says.

Sophie’s expression is open-mouthed glee; she’s radiant with exertion. It’s impossible to look away from her when she’s in her element like this. Before she can retort, the cheerleader says, “It looks like Gio’s on the move, we’d better catch her before she leaves us behind. Sophie, are you getting a ride too or going with—?”

“Jane,” Sophie supplies. “Right, Jane, this is Nicky Two and Marce.”

“Nicky One graduated last year,” says Nicky Two by way of explanation.

“Jane as in Jane Gonzalez Summer Sciences?” asks Marce.

Jane raises an eyebrow. “That’s me.”

“And that was fun,” Sophie says loudly. “Jane, come with me while I get my gear.”

“Should we tell Gio to wait for you?” Nicky Two asks.

“I’ve got my own ride,” Sophie says. “Good game, see you both later! Jane, tell me you’ll come to the afterparty with me.”

“You’re celebrating?” Jane says. “I thought you lost.”

Sophie tries to rearrange her expression into an imitation of outrage. “I hope you didn't just come to make fun of us." 

“Mm, yes, I got lost on the way here, paid actual money for a ticket, and sat in the sun for two hours just so I could make fun of you,” Jane says.

“You got lost?”

“Which I can already do in our apartment much more easily,” Jane adds.

“It was a very involved plan,” Sophie says, linking arms with Jane to pull her toward a dwindling pile of duffel bags. She’s sticky where their skin makes contact.

“Also I don’t know what the rules of the game are so I don't have much material,” Jane says.

“A poorly thought out plan,” Sophie says, shouldering her duffel bag. Most of the team is gone; lingering spectators gather their belongings or chat in pairs and trios. "How did you get lost?"

"I tried taking the L bus," she says. “Never trust—”

“Never trust the L bus!” Sophie finishes gleefully. She reaches over and swipes her thumb across Jane’s temple. “Sorry. There was sunscreen or something.”

“Oh,” Jane says, first touched then wondering if anyone saw. As though rubbing in stray sunscreen is revealingly intimate. “Thank you.”

They walk arm in arm across the muddy grass, jostling each others’ sides. The sun hangs low and orange in the sky. If anyone watching guessed that there was something between them, Jane admits, it probably wouldn’t be the touch to her temple that gave them away. She can’t find it in her to be upset about the idea.

“I never in a million years thought I would see you here,” Sophie says.

“Well, you told me like twenty times this week that it was your last home game of the season and I should come watch, so,” says Jane.

“Yeah, but—” Sophie looks at her, then grins and looks away. “Uh, anyway. Afterparty?”

“Does your ride have an extra seat?” Jane asks.

“Oh, I don’t have a ride. I just said that so they’d leave. It’s close enough to walk if we want, and there’s always a shit-ton of food because everyone’s starving.” She pauses on the corner. “Or, we could go home and watch TV, I know it’s not really your thing.”

“It’s your last home game of the season,” Jane says. “I don’t want to keep you from the afterparty.”

“And it’s your first game, like, ever. Guest of honor privileges,” Sophie says. “I promise I’m good either way.”

Jane planned to go right home after the game, and the party will be full of loud strangers who apparently mostly know her from the sweater Sophie stole last semester. But if post-match parties aren’t her thing, they’re exactly Sophie’s, and she doesn’t want her to miss this.

“Let’s go for a little while,” Jane says. “Then home.”

“I like it, we can steal food for movie night while we’re there,” Sophie says.

“Just, you aren’t allowed to disappear with your friends. Since you’re the only person I know. That’s my condition,” Jane says.

“Easy,” Sophie says, and grabs her hand. “One hand to make sure we don’t get separated, one hand to shove food in my bag, you’ll have to get the door as we disappear into the darkness afterwards. It’s the perfect crime.”

It’s a little ridiculous how the spotlight of Sophie’s smile still dazzles her, after weeks of spending more nights than not in bed together, and a good part of her waking hours tangled up on the sofa or pressed against each other in some corner. A swift and perfect tightness grips her chest.

“I think I can handle that,” she says.

“Okay,” Sophie beams. The sky overhead is streaked with pink and the evening breeze is soft. “I’m so fucking happy you came.”

Jane swallows and squeezes her hand. “Me too.”

Every day since Evelyn left, he and Jane have been exchanging faithful daily phone calls, drifting across the day as their time zones cycle in and out of sync. Sophie doesn’t have patience for that kind of math so she throws a dart at the metaphorical dartboard and calls him at two A.M. one night.

He picks up on the third ring. “Hey, Soph.” His questioning look is familiar in a way that makes her go, oh, of course. Like she forgot how much she missed him until she saw his face and was hit with this rush of affection and, on its tail, a sting.

“Hi,” she says, using one foot on the desk to tip her chair onto its back legs. She doesn’t remember when she last called. It’s been a while. “Uh. I just thought I’d say hi. Are you busy?”

“No,” he says. Behind his head, a window opens on a lawn streaked with blue evening shadows. It’s weird to not recognize the view. “I mean, not really. I just got back from dinner, I’m working on some readings. But I have time.”

“God, always with your readings,” Sophie says. “Any of them interesting?”

“You don’t want to hear about my readings,” he says.

“You’re right, I don’t. I was being nice,” she says. “Jane said you got locked in a basement after hours last week, tell me about that.”

The account he gives her of recent events is obviously a highlights reel, for which she’s glad. It sounds like he’s having a really good time on the Moons of Fortitude and she’s happy for him. But she can only take so much before it sounds like he’s bragging. Logically, she knows that her urge to prove that her life’s been just as exciting as his in the last few months is stupid. 

Or maybe she’s antsy for other reasons.

She catches herself looking more closely than she’s listening: watching the angle of his shoulders as he shifts in his seat, the dip of his clavicle above his collar, the way he gestures as he speaks. Not just in the way she’s always aware of Evelyn’s body. She’s measuring herself against him now.

He might notice the attention. God knows how he interprets it.

“Did you eat the whole thing?” she asks. She’s sitting on the desk itself now, feet on the chair, flipping a pencil and catching it.

“Absolutely not. I had to hide the rest in my napkin,” he laughs.

“Jane and I have been to this new Telite restaurant a few times, you should come with us when you get back,” she says. “The food they serve is absolutely zero percent charcoal.”

“That would be an improvement,” he says. “That’ll be nice.”

“You’ll have to sample all the desserts and tell us which the best one is. There is a right answer,” the fried ice cream, “but Jane would kill me if I told you, she’s been insisting we need an unbiased tiebreaker.” Spoon pointed sternly, half-finished tiramisu in front of her, lips sweet with Sophie’s ice cream.

“You know I’m not going to pick whichever one you think I should pick,” he says. “Because I don’t have your awful taste in sweets.”

“I don’t have awful taste!”

“Excuse me, I haven’t forgotten the time you put six kinds of gummies on your frozen yogurt—”

“I was bulking,” Sophie says.

“—and then threw up in my mom’s surfacecraft.”

She catches the pencil, grinning, and to her satisfaction, he can't resist returning the expression. “Oh, I did do that. Fond memories. Look, I’m happy as long as you don’t pick Jane’s favorite either. She’ll make that smug little expression.”

“We’ll see,” he says. “It sounds like you and Jane are getting on pretty well.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” Sophie says.

“I didn’t realize the two of you were spending so much time together,” Evelyn says. “From talking to Jane, I guess I assumed you were out most of the time, and she’s been studying so much.”

Jane hasn’t actually been studying more than normal, to Sophie’s knowledge, unless you expand your definition of studying in dramatic, unconventional and sexy ways. This has the clear markers of Jane covering up topics she doesn’t want to discuss with Evelyn. Which Sophie will respect, even if it puts a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Well, you know how she is,” Sophie says. “The studying’s probably the most exciting part of her day to her.” She expects Evelyn to come to Jane’s defense, like he always fucking does, but instead he looks distracted. “Hey. Earth to Evelyn.”

“Sorry,” he says. “I was just remembering—did I tell you I talked to Louis last week?”

“Louis on the cheer team?” Evelyn nods. “No, why?”

“He has family from here, we were talking about that. He actually, ah. He said you and Jane were dating.”

Sophie’s stomach drops. “What? That’s not true.”

“No, I told him—”

“And if we were it wouldn’t be any of goddamn Louis’ business," she adds.

Evelyn frowns. “Excuse me?”

“We’re not dating,” Sophie insists.

“You know, I assumed he was just being stupid, but you’re acting really strange,” he says.

"We're not dating!" she insists again, but he looks suspicious. "The only thing—okay, I've been, like, hitting on her a little, but it's just recreational." She knows this isn’t what’s going on, but what is she supposed to say? I’ve been fucking her in your once and future bed, but don’t worry, I’m pretty sure she’s still pretending I’m you? Her ears go hot.

That’s the moment she knows she’s fucked.

"What the hell, Sophie?”

“Look,” Sophie says vehemently. “You and I were very clear we weren’t going to wait for each other for a year—”

“That’s not the problem,” he says. “You can't—look, do whatever you want, but don’t drag Jane into it. She’s serious about people.”

You idiot, Sophie thinks. You could’ve had her, but you never wanted her. Not like I do. “Jane is a big girl, she’ll make her own decisions.”

“Does she know this is ‘recreational’?” he demands. “Or are you leading her on because you want attention?”

She feels like she's been slapped. “Fuck you,” she says.

“I’m hanging up, I need to talk to Jane,” he says.

“You can’t call her, it’s like three A.M. here,” Sophie snaps.

He stops with his hand poised over the screen. “Why the hell did you call me at three A.M.?”

“Because I wanted to hear your voice!” A split-second after, she realizes how loud it was. Too honest. She squares her shoulders. “I missed your voice, that’s all. My mistake.”

His face twists. “I miss you too, but—”

The door opens, and Jane says blearily, “What are you yelling about?”

Sophie hangs up. She doesn’t know if she was fast enough to keep Evelyn from hearing. Her palms are damp. “I was—” she wants to lie and say it was nothing, but there is no way this stays under wraps “—misrepresenting our relationship to Evelyn.”

As if on cue, there’s a muffled ringing of comms from the next room.

“That would be him,” Sophie says. “Please don’t answer.”

Jane looks put out. “I’m going to answer.”

She disappears back to her room and Sophie throws herself face-down onto her bed, pulls her pillow to her face, and shrieks into it. Then she sits up and runs her hands through her hair. God, this is so over.

Well, it was a good run! It was fun, too bad she blew it!

Why did she have to call him? She could’ve made this last for months longer, if she just committed to the radio silence, if she pretended she’d forgotten him. Just let Jane keep making her daily phone calls that never mentioned Sophie and then falling asleep in her arms.

She remembers vividly the first time, maybe two weeks in, that she kissed Jane and thought, God, I hope she’s not thinking about him.

At first it really was simple: tipsy and touch-starved, she looked at Jane across the sofa and thought, we’ve known each other for years, and we’re both hot, and young, and we’ve never kissed even once. What’s with that? She’d thought things like that for years, but when Evelyn left, and she moved into the apartment, it went from curiosity to—something else. Don’t tell me you’ve never wondered what it’s like, she told Jane. If I were living with someone I liked I would be thinking about it all the time.

Maybe starting a relationship by offering to be a proxy for the person your crush is actually in love with is a colossally stupid and predictable way to get your feelings hurt, but this was Jane. Sophie knew Jane. She thought she was ready for, for whatever way this turned complicated. She just wasn’t expecting to like her so much.

She likes going to the grocery store with her. She likes winning arguments, and she also likes Jane’s smug expression when she loses. And obviously she likes kissing her, she likes sleeping with her, she likes… okay, she even likes that people think they’re dating. She knows what their relationship looks like.

It’s not surprising that they fooled Louis into thinking they’re dating. They’d halfway fooled Sophie.

Depending on what Jane and Evelyn are saying to each other in the other room, one or both of them is probably going to end up seriously upset with her—she’s done exactly what Jane didn’t want, and obviously Evelyn’s mad, there are half a dozen reasons for Evelyn to be mad. She doesn’t want that, though. She doesn’t want to lose either of them.

And, yeah, it also stings that Evelyn’s concern was all for Jane in this situation. She knows that Jane likes Evelyn better than her, but it hurts to be reminded of what he would never admit to himself: that he likes Jane better than her too. She's nobody's favorite.

Jane says goodbye to Evelyn and knocks on Sophie’s door. An audible thump of feet hitting the floor, and then it opens, revealing a Sophie whose hair is in significantly more disarray than the last time she saw her.

“You couldn’t keep a secret for one call?” Jane says, going in to sit on her bed. Getting launched from sleep almost directly into a concerned interrogation from Evelyn about her relationship status was not on the agenda for that night; Sophie better feel sufficiently embarrassed.

“I didn’t try to tell him,” says Sophie, with what sounds like genuine distress, dropping down next to her. Jane half expects Sophie to wrap around her immediately, bury her face in the shoulder of the worn pajamas that she's declared unfairly cuddly, but she doesn't.  “It just came up in conversation, and then he saw my face—”

“How did I come up in conversation?”

“Obviously you came up in conversation!”

“So you told him you’d been, quote, ‘recreationally hitting on me’?"

Sophie finally looks at her. "Jane Gonzalez, are you making fun of me?"

"I am, thank you for noticing. You didn't see how that sounded bad?" Jane laughs.

"What was I supposed to say?" Sophie sputters, relieved.

"You could've said friends with benefits," Jane says.

"Yeah, okay," Sophie says. "Friends with benefits. I guess that is what's going on. I just didn't want him to—I know you didn't want to change things with him, I thought maybe if I made it sound like it was just me, he would… believe it. Which he did! So."

And there was the snag in the excuse of 'friends with benefits'; would Evelyn, who knew them both so well, believe it? It shouldn’t even be a question. It was the truth. How could he not believe it?

He wouldn't have. Not of Jane.

So that wasn’t what she told him, either.

"Well, that was thoughtful," Jane says. She takes Sophie's hand and interlaces their fingers. "If it hadn't directly led to me getting woken up at three in the morning I would even say very thoughtful."

"Very thoughtful, that's me," Sophie says, and lays her head against Jane's shoulder. "Did he call me an attention whore again?"

"You like to pretend people are meaner to you then they are sometimes," Jane observes. "I told him that I was aware that you weren't serious, and you weren't… leading me on, or anything like that."

She can hear a frown in Sophie's voice even if she can't see it. "So you didn't tell him we've—"

"No," Jane says.

"Why not?"

"Because telling my best friend that I've been sleeping with his very freshly ex girlfriend needs more tact than I could come up with on such short notice," Jane says. Because he wouldn't believe that she would do this without feeling something, too. 

Because he would know.

"Did he tell you that Louis thinks we're dating?" Sophie asks.

"Yes," Jane says carefully. "I mean, I understand why it seemed like that. But I know that's not what you're looking for."

A pause. "That's not what I'm looking for?" Sophie repeats.

"Um," says Jane. "Yes."

"That's not what you're looking for," Sophie says.

Jane goes very still. "No, you said we should pretend."

"Because you're in love with him," Sophie says. An unquestionable fact.

"Yes," Jane says, "but—"

After a second, Sophie prompts, "But what?"

“It’s more complicated than that,” says Jane.

“It’s not,” Sophie says, with a pinched smile. “It’s fine that it’s not. You’re in love with Evelyn but you’re fucking me, that’s allowed—”

Maybe a year ago Jane would’ve been fooled by the edge in her voice. Now the attempt to distract or offend is transparent, and she says, “Sophie.”

“What.”

Streams make this look so effortless. Jane searches for the words she needs without knowing exactly what she wants to say, because Sophie is strung tight enough to snap and Jane aches like a muscle tensed for months, and she thinks she’s realizing something that she hasn’t let herself believe until now. “You’re not Evelyn,” she says slowly.

Sophie barks a laugh. “Thanks, I am aware—”

“I don’t want you to be Evelyn,” Jane cuts in. “I like… this. And I think—I feel—” Oh, hell, she thinks wildly. “Do you want to actually date?”

Sophie stares at her.

“Because I would like that,” Jane adds.

For a second Sophie seems so caught off guard that Jane fears she misunderstood everything, or else spouted complete gibberish thinking it was coherent sentences. Then a glowing, open-mouthed smile spreads across Sophie’s face and she dives for Jane’s mouth.

It would’ve been a screenworthy romantic gesture except Jane is so startled she jerks back, and Sophie’s forehead hits her chin, and on pure instinct Jane grabs her face before she can course correct.

Sophie’s face is pinned inches from hers. “No,” Jane laughs, unable to resist. “I swear to God, Sophie, if you kiss me before we talk this out—”

Sophie bites her lip, trying to restrain her smile, face squashed between Jane’s palms. Her gaze darts to Jane’s mouth. “I kind of fucking love you,” she says. Jane’s heart skips a beat. “Can I kiss you now?”

“Wait,” Jane says. She feels a little dizzy.

“And yes, to your question.” Sophie says, pulling a leg under her to stabilize herself without making the slightest attempt to peel Jane’s hands away. “I would be, like, fucking delighted to actually date, if you want to.”

“I do want to,” Jane says quickly. Her skin is warm all over. I would be fucking delighted to. And she looks like it, too. Jane can’t help the rush of happiness she feels, almost doesn’t trust it. “I have, um, God, I have been wishing for a while—”

“Yeah?”

“I did try not to take it seriously,” Jane says. Maybe it’s ridiculous to feel like she should apologize for being swept away, and so fast. “But it was—it seemed so easy for you to keep your feelings separate. And it was so easy for me to pretend it was real.”

“It seemed easy for me to keep my feelings separate?” Sophie says incredulously.

“You would finish a call with him and then come kiss me like it was all the same—”

“Oh my god,” Sophie says. “That was… did anyone notice the hickey?”

“I thought I was going to pass out when I talked to Evelyn the next afternoon,” Jane says. “I couldn’t stop fidgeting with my hair to make sure it was hidden, and. I was so distracted he asked if something had happened.”

“Thinking about me?” Sophie asks.

“Don’t look so smug,” Jane says, smiling.

“Well, that’s what that was about,” Sophie says. “I wanted you to—you called him every day. And I was doing so much to, like. I was wearing his clothes to get you to look at me—”

A laugh bubbles up in Jane’s throat. “I noticed, yes. You aren’t very subtle.”

“That makes one of us,” Sophie says. The whine in her voice sounds eighty percent theatrical, twenty percent genuine grievance. “I didn’t even know if you liked me.”

“I didn’t expect this,” Jane admits.

She searches Sophie’s face: her flushed cheeks under Jane’s thumbs, the uneven line of her once-broken nose, her shining eyes and soft, waiting mouth. She’s beautiful, Jane thinks, the thought familiar as a song’s refrain.

“Evelyn is my best friend,” Jane says. “I do love him. I know you do too, and that’s, um. But this isn’t a side effect, I’m not trying to replace him. This has been really nice, and I’d like to make it real, if you do.”

“Yes,” Sophie says immediately.

“Yes?”

“Yes! It’s not going to make things less complicated, I know that, and you might drive me insane, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“How brave of you,” Jane says, warm and fond. “I do like you. If you were still wondering.”

She feels Sophie’s satisfied smile beneath her hands. “I like you too,” Sophie says, and Jane kisses her.