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Rose is watching Kanaya watch her again.
Kanaya Maryam sits in the row ahead of them in biology class. She is also on the lacrosse team with Jade. These are the two points of intersection which Jade has with her. She is quiet, mostly; polite, usually; pale, always. Nearly translucent.
She watches Rose, covertly, but Rose always knows when she's being watched, so Rose watches her back. It's an even guess whether Rose is amused or flattered by the attention. She might well be both, but even as she's smiling at Kanaya she kisses Jade, so that's all right.
Kanaya is prim, although that image is muddled somewhat by her clear nervousness around Rose. But there's a certain fierceness as well, which Jade sees not in biology class but rather on the field.
Jade likes that about Kanaya.
Jade, John, Rose, and Dave have been a unit since they were young. Two sets of twins, all of them fast friends.
Jade has always thought of them as pack. She's never spoken of this to the boys, and has only whispered about the feeling to Rose, late at night. The feelings of unity; family; belonging. Pack.
"Shouldn't you be, like, concerned?" says John.
"About what?" Jade says, hanging upside down off the edge of the couch, hair brushing the floor. Staring up at the ceiling, which now resembles a very blank floor. John sits next to her, aimlessly flipping through channels.
"That another girl has a crush on Rose? Your girlfriend?"
Jade tilts her head. Thinks. "I don't see why."
"Well - some people would probably worry that the other girl would steal their girlfriend - not steal, that sounds bad, um - win over?"
"Rose does what she wants," Jade says. "There's nothing threatening to me about that! It's a fact."
"I've been thinking," says Rose, "about our biology project."
She and Jade are cloistered away in her bedroom, door shut and locked tight. Jade lies spread-eagle on the plush carpet floor, while Rose sits on her purple bed, knitting something of indeterminate nature. Outside, rain beats against the window.
"Yeah?"
"I think we should invite Kanaya Maryam to be our third group member."
The sound of her knitting needles clacking fills the silence as Jade contemplates this. In another person, she thinks, this is where jealousy would rise up. She mentally probes the spot where she expects it to be, but there's nothing, no clenching of her fists or of her heart.
"Just a group member?" she asks, finally, "or something else too?"
Rose stills. "I suppose that depends on you."
"Me?" Jade props herself up on an elbow, looking at Rose.
"On whether you would be amenable to such an arrangement," she elaborates.
Jade hums, thinking. Watching. Rose isn't tense exactly; rather, she is unnaturally still. Glacier-like. Waiting for Jade's judgment.
Rose, Jade, John, Dave. This is her pack. But belonging does not mean ownership and it does not mean exclusion.
"I think... yes," she says. "I mean, I don't see any reason why not. And..." She thinks of Kanaya, on the lacrosse field. "Maybe I'd even have someone to hunt with!"
Rose starts knitting again. "Perhaps," she says, with the hint of a smile.
The next day at after-school lacrosse practice, Kanaya seems out of sorts. In particular she seems to be watching Jade, which is unusual for her. Jade doesn't dwell on it, even when Captain Feferi (on the field she's always Captain Feferi) yells at Kanaya to take a few laps until she has her shit together.
Things like that don't distract Jade on the field. She immerses herself in the game, breathes it. She's been known to howl in victory after blocking a goal.
After practice, though (once Captain Feferi admits it's raining too heavily to continue) Jade wonders, and once they're in the locker room, she leans against her locker and asks "Hey Kanaya, are you okay?"
"I'm alright," Kanaya says after a moment. "Just tired." She doesn't just look tired; she looks disappointed, somehow.
"Oh boy, yeah, I know what you mean," Jade says, and turns around to rummage in her locker, trying to fit in all her gear. It gives her something to do during this conversation. "Hey, have you started on tomorrow's problem set for biology?"
"Um, no, not yet," she says. "I was going to in class, but then..." Kanaya trails off, seeming to hunch inwards.
"Yeah," Jade says, because that sentence wasn't ever getting finished. She turns to look at Kanaya, who is about halfway changed into dry clothes. Her hair is still dripping wet, and she seems... smaller than usual.
Jade knows: this is where she could abandon course, keep Rose all for herself. If she wanted to.
She doesn't really want to.
"Hey," she says, "do you want to partner with me and Rose for the semester project? We’re looking for a third person for our group.”
Kanaya looks up at Jade sharply, eyes wild. Jade cocks her head slightly and says perhaps the most ludicrous sentence in this entire conversation: "You know Rose, right?"
"That sounds agreeable," Kanaya says. For that moment she sounds like Rose, at least until she adds, stuttering, "I'm in."
"Great!" Jade grins. "Hey, I'll see you at morning practice tomorrow!" She bangs her locker shut, hefts her duffle bag, and leaves. She's still wearing her uniform, but whatever. Success.
In their next biology class, Jade makes a beeline for Kanaya's table, Rose following behind. Jade sits next to her, slamming her book on the table and slinging her bag beneath the desk, which leaves Rose to sit across from her. A lab station vent hangs in between Rose and Kanaya.
Jade flips through her textbook. "Jeez," she says, "What are we even learning about today? If I have to stare at one more set of slides, I swear... You know, I've always preferred physics. Let me plot a graph from equations, not draw pictures of messy petri dishes!"
Lots of things in Jade's life are messy. Gardening. Lacrosse. Hunting. Science, at least, ought to be orderly.
"I would argue there's a bit of messiness in every scientific discipline," says Rose. There, again, the quirk of her mouth, a hint of a smile.
"Yeah," says Kanaya, sounding nearly like she's daydreaming. Jade turns to her, smiling. There's a pause before she continues, "But I prefer physics as well. There's something about it that can shock you, or... I don't know. That can make you small. It's like the grammar of the universe, or its ancient history. I mean, people say biology is the study of life, but doesn't life start with the movement of the stars?"
!!! Jade thinks. "Yeah!" She claps Kanaya on the shoulder. "That's what I'm talking about!" That was spot-on, she thinks, then, This will work. She fits.
Across from Kanaya, Rose tilts her head to the right, to look at Kanaya from around the vent. She smiles.
After class, Jade and Rose walk Kanaya to her study hall. Rose walks arm in arm with Jade and asks, "You're on the lacrosse team too, right?"
"Yeah," says Kanaya. She seems nervous.
Rose smiles. "I can imagine that gets a little tiring. I have difficulty keeping up with Jade's boundless energy myself most of the time."
"Ha ha," Jade says, dryly. Instead of poking fun at Rose's reservedness, she leans around Rose to ask, "Hey, when do you want to meet for the project? I was thinking -"
"Tonight," Rose says, completely cutting her off. "I think we should meet tonight."
"Um," says Kanaya.
Jade watches Rose carefully, brow furrowed. Her face doesn't reveal anything, but in her eyes there is a flicker of something like hesitation. Nervousness?
"If that works for you," says Rose.
"Okay," says Kanaya, smiling.
Jade laughs then, looking between them, because here they are, two elegant and eloquent yet secretly awkward girls, dancing around courtship.
"I'll see you then," Rose says, and for a moment she rests her warm brown hand against Kanaya's shoulder.
Then Kanaya trips over something and topples over.
"Oh my god!" says Jade.
Rose, for her part, kneels next to her and asks if she's alright. Kanaya - if she were anyone else, she'd be blushing furiously, but she seems to be one of those rare few who doesn't blush. In any case, she makes it to her feet and then leaves with all speed. Jade doesn't blame her.
"Alright," Dave says after school. "What I'm getting here is that Rose is courting another flighty broad, but you're cool with it?"
"Pretty much!"
He shrugs. "So long as you're cool with it, ain't nothing wrong with it."
Jade beams.
In Rose's room, Jade sits on her bed, waiting for Kanaya to arrive. Rose sits at her desk, papers pristinely arranged. Anticipating.
Jade looks over at her: she's tapping her fingers against her desk, softly but surely. "I can tell, you know."
"Tell what?"
"That you're just as into Kanaya as she's into you! You just conceal it better."
Rose raises an eyebrow. "Interesting theory."
"Come on, admit it!"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
There is a knock on the doorframe; when they look up, they see Kanaya standing there.
"Hi Kanaya," Jade says, beckoning her inside. She pats the bedspread next to her, and as Kanaya sits down Jade shoots Rose a smile.
"Hello, Jade. Rose."
Rose asks, "How's the knee?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot," Jade says. She grins at Kanaya, hoping to ease any embarrassment. "That was a pretty epic wipeout."
"I'm fine," says Kanaya.
Rose picks up a clementine she had snagged from the kitchen earlier and unpeels it. She always does so carefully, methodically, unpeeling the clementine all in one piece. The smell of citrus fills the room. It's a smell Jade associates with Rose.
"Throw me a piece," says Jade, because the smell of clementine is tantalizing.
"No."
"Oh, come on," she whines. "Selfish!"
"There's a kind of special magic to selfishness," says Rose, taking the clementine apart. "Having something entirely. Making something yours." She's staring at Kanaya as she bites into a clementine piece.
"Jesus," Jade mutters. For one thing, selfishness didn't seem all that magical; if she'd wanted to have Rose "entirely," Kanaya wouldn't even be here for Rose to stare at.
"What?" asks Kanaya,
"Oh, come on," says Jade, entirely fed up with the tension.
"Jade," Rose warns.
Jade doesn't listen. Left to their own devices, Rose will sensually eat clementines and Kanaya will stare and nothing will get done. So Jade drops her schoolthings on the floor and swings into Kanaya's lap, straddling her.
"Don't worry," Jade says into Kanaya's ear, "I'm not propositioning you. I'm helping you out." She glances over her shoulder to smile at Rose, who appears surprised but pleased. Then Jade turns back, leans in, and kisses Kanaya on the mouth, softly, with no heat. Kanaya's lips are cool, smooth, but Jade doesn't kiss her for long, pulling away and off of her lap and flopping back onto the bed, laughing,
Then Rose is there instead, kissing Kanaya fervently, crowding her up against the wall. Jade watches from where she's sprawled across the bedspread, smiling at a job well done. She even sees Kanaya blush, briefly.
When Rose pulls away from the kiss, she says, "I'm sorry, I should have asked. Is this okay?"
"Yes," Kanaya says, with fervor - but she looks at Jade, next. "Is this okay with you?"
"Hey," says Jade, propping her head up on one arm and eating her coveted piece of clementine, "I'm not the one who can't share." She smiles.
The five of them lounge in the park one day not long afterward. John and Dave are squabbling over movies, or something; Jade has stopped following the track of their conversation. She leans against the trunk of a great oak tree, hand intertwined with Rose's. Kanaya lies with her head in Rose's lap, and with her free hand Rose runs her fingers through Kanaya's hair.
Surrounded by her pack, Jade is content.