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Kelley knows she shouldn't be doing this. Hope's married, and upset, and a little drunk, and she's finding it hard not to take advantage of her.
Hope isn't helping either, with her begging eyes and subtle touches to Kelley's knee and wrist and the inside of her elbow.
She's really not helping when she pulls Kelley's face towards her and kisses her, hard, and Kelley's almost certain she hears, "I don't love him anymore," mumbled against her lips.
Kelley can't stop herself.
It's hours later, when they're lying naked in bed, Hope asleep, Kelley far from it, that she regrets it all. Hope can sleep, because it meant nothing to her. Kelley can't because to her it meant everything.
So the tiny crush she'd been harbouring on Hope Solo since forever has spiralled out of control, and she knows theres no way to back out of it now. So instead of leaving, just getting up and pulling on her clothes and slipping out and staying in someone else's room tonight, and forgetting this all, she stays. She rolls over and presses her bare chest against Hope's back and breathes in the scent of her hair and tries not to cry.
~
The morning comes, and brings with it a wave of clarity for Hope, as the night before comes rushing back to her. There's a pair of arms wrapped around her waist tightly and it takes a full minute to figure out whose they are.
When she does, she recoils like she's been burned.
Up and out of the bed without waking Kelley, out the door of Kelley's hotel room within five minutes. She tries to ignore the muffled, "Hope?" that she hears right after the door clicks shut.
(It replays in her mind all day)
~
Kelley's been awake for at least a half hour when Hope thinks she's sneaking out. She fights back the tears that have been threatening her eyes since last night until she can't any longer, and they come in powerful waves, sobs wracking her whole body.
~
Practice is tense, but Kelley's calmed down by now, enough to realise that she never really had any of Hope, so she had nothing to lose.
Hope's words, "I don't love him anymore," play on repeat in her mind the whole way through practice, and it only fuels Kelley further. She goes harder than she's ever gone and the whole team notices. Tobin claps her on the back with a, "You did good today, girl," before she wanders over to Alex's side.
~
Hope doesn't know how, but within a week Kelley's talking to her again like she didn't leave her naked in bed the morning after.
It's the reason that when her and Jerramy fight again, after he's arrested for starting a bar fight when Hope's too far away to do anything, she tuns up at Kelley's door.
There's a repeat performance of last time and within a week, Kelley's ok again.
~
Kelley's not ok.
Kelley's far from ok, but Hope's got issues that she needs to work out, between her husband and her sexuality and all the other things she's confused about right now. Kelley's willing to be a warm body until she's fixed everything.
It's selfish of her, she knows it is, but it's all she's ever going to get from Hope, and it's even more selfish of Hope to keep turning up at her room when she knows Tobin isn't there.
(Tobin spends a lot of time in the room Hope's been sharing with Alex this trip)
Jerramy flies out to surprise Hope, and treats her to dinner, and the pain on Kelley's face when Hope announces it must be so obvious, because she's approached within a minute by Alex inviting her to a 'roomie night'.
~
There's some rubbish movie on the tv, and Tobin, Alex and Kelley are all squeezed on one bed, Kelley sandwiched in the middle. The laughter reminds her of when her crush was nothing more than a tingling in her stomach when she saw Hope, when it wasn't as complicated as it was now.
Tobin leaves at one point because she needs the toilet, leaving Alex and Kelley cuddled together on the bed.
"You guys are really cute together." Kelley starts in a hushed voice. Alex's face pales.
"We're not- we're not together. Tobin's straight." Kelley thinks about pressing it but she sees the same sad gleam in Alex's eyes as she feels in hers around Hope, so she lets it be.
"I'm sorry." is all she has as she pulls Alex in a little bit closer.
~
Tobin and Alex distract Kelley for a little while, but it's getting late and they have practice in the morning. Tobin hugs Alex a little longer than she should, before she joins Kelley to walk back to their room.
Kelley's spirits are lifted, until she sees a beaming Hope walking down the hall towards them, hand in hand with Jerramy. Tobin seems to sense something (Tobin always has an inkling) and strikes up a conversation to force Kelley to look away from Hope.
By the time they get back to their room Kelley won't remember a word of it. All she'll remember is Hope.
~
Somethings wrong with her, Hope thinks, that when she's just back from an amazing dinner with her husband, that all she can think about is Kelley.
~
Kelley knows something's wrong when Hope is at her door a day later, and she's stone cold sober, and everything's ok with Jerramy. Kelley rarely shies away from confrontation.
"Why are you here, Hope?"
"I thought we were friends."
"We are." There's silence for a beat until Kelley speaks again. "But you're married."
"I just thought-"
"Do you like me or not, Hope?" Kelley's starting to get angry, and this can't end well. "Because, I like you. I really fucking like you and you just come here and sleep with me and leave before I wake up." Hope's mouth's hanging open at this point. They've never talked about this, whatever it is, before. "You can't just use me like that. You couldn't. You must feel something."
The anger in Kelley's voice has turned to pleading, and tears are threatening her eyes. she didn't expect herself to be doing this and she didn't expect it to hurt so much.
The silence tells Kelley exactly what she wants to hear. Hope's next words contradict it. "I thought we were just friends doing friends a favour."
"You're not going to say it now, because you think I'll get attached. I know you felt something more, Hope. Either tell me I'm right or leave." Kelley's on the bed with her face buried in her hands. There's silence. The door clicks shut. Hope's made her choice.
She can't move, and Tobin finds her in the same position an hour later. Nothing's said, except an arm around the small of her back that says everything.
She doesn't know how long they sit like that, all she knows is she's the one to break the moment.
"Hey Tobs?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you like Alex? I mean- properly like Alex?" She feels Tobin nod.
"But she's straight."
"She thinks you're straight. You should go see her. Tell her. You two deserve to be happy."
Kelley's practically pleading because she's just watched her life fall apart. She doesn't want it to happen to her friends.
~
Tobin returns to the room with Alex in tow, and the beaming smiles on their faces are enough to lift Kelley's spirits for a while.
~
They find themselves all on the one bed again, once again with Kelley in the middle.
"I'm really sorry Kelley. About Hope."
"It doesn't matter. I'm just glad you're happy."
"You deserve to be happy too," Tobin interjects.
"The universe doesn't seem to think so."
Alex plants a kiss on the top of her head and mumbles, "Someday this won't matter."
Kelley thinks it's always going to matter.