Chapter Text
One Sunday morning Lupe had been walking Jazz, her 10 month old pup. It had gotten all tangled up playing while on its extending lead and Lupe had momentarily unclipped the lead to untangle it.
Unfortunately as she’d been about to clip the lead back a rabbit had shot across the path in front of them and the dog had burst free and shot after it in hot pursuit into the undergrowth. Lupe had tried calling her back but the excited yipping had continued for a couple of minutes then it had gone quiet. Lupe had waited for the dog to return but it hadn’t and Lupe had been calling it, increasingly frantically, when someone had tapped her on the shoulder and made her start.
She’d spun round and found herself facing a slim blonde with piercing blue eyes and a puzzled expression on her face.
“Sorry, do you know me?” the blonde had asked.
Lupe stared back, completely confused by the question.
“It’s just you keep shouting my name” the woman added, looking at Lupe suspiciously.
“What? Um no, it’s my dog, Jazz, she disappeared a few minutes ago!” Lupe blurted out.
“ Jazz! Hell I thought were shouting Jess. Oh shit! What does she look like? I’ll give you a hand to look for her” the woman had replied, her face suddenly a picture of concern.
Lupe was about to rattle off a description when she remembered she literally had over a 1000 pictures of her beloved dog on her phone and quickly brought up a recent one to show Jess.
“A border terrier! She’s beautiful! My uncle used to have one.” Jess had exclaimed, a big smile on her face which faded quickly. “Fuck! Right, where did you last see her?”
Lupe pointed to the area to the left of them, scrubby woodland on a bank that ran down towards the river. “She went off after a rabbit. I heard her yipping then it went quiet. What if she’s gone down a burrow or something?” Lupe’s voice was rising in anguish. She felt a hand on the small of her back, trying to calm her, and took a deep breath but Jess spoke first.
“Look, you stay here. A dog will usually return to where it last left its owner, okay? I’ll go and search in there for her. Gimme your phone and I’ll put my number in. Text or Whatsapp me or something, then when one of us finds her we let the other know yeah?”
Lupe handed her phone over and Jess quickly put a number in and handed it back before disappearing into the woods. Lupe sent a brief message then started calling on the dog again.
It had felt like an eternity although it had only been about 15 minutes until Lupe had heard her phone buzz. She’d frantically hauled it from her pocket to find a Whatsapp message with a photo attached.
It had been a slightly blurred selfie of Jess laughing at the camera as the brown terrier held firmly under one arm was trying to lick her cheek. Even though the photo wasn’t the clearest Lupe could see specks of blood on Jess’s bare forearm (from the briars Jess had used her multi-tool to cut the dog free from as it had turned out). The message had read “Jess and Jazz, on our way back safe and sound”.
Lupe had felt the tears of relief come as she’d looked at the photo and had been still crying when the pair had emerged onto the path a short distance away a few minutes later, Jess having used her belt as a makeshift lead for the happy terrier.
She’d laughed as the dog had dragged Jess into a jog towards her and had dropped to her knees and hugged the wriggling pup tight, her tears falling into the wiry hairs of the dog’s neck. After a few seconds it had squirmed upwards and head butted her in the chin and she stood up rubbing her face ruefully and wiping her eyes.
Jess had been watching the joyous reunion with a broad grin and Lupe felt a rush of gratitude towards this unlikely saviour. Without thinking she’d pulled a startled Jess into a hug, thanking her profusely, before realising what she’d done and pulling away awkwardly.
“Sorry, I don’t normally hug random strangers” Lupe began, flustered words tumbling out “it’s just…..I thought I’d lost……I can’t thank you enough…”
“Woah, take it easy” Jess had cut in gently across Lupe’s rambling. “Guess I was just in the right place at the right time, that’s all.”
Jess’s soft words cut in to Lupe’s spiralling brain and she paused, almost seeming to look at Jess properly for the first time. In her mind she could hear her friends’ voices from a year earlier as she’d bemoaned the shortage of eligible women in her life. “Get a dog they’d said, they’re total babe magnets.”
Well, it wasn’t quite how Lupe had pictured that happening but there was no denying the woman standing in front of her was quite something with her expressive eyes and full lips. And as for those cheekbones and jawline…
Suddenly aware she was staring, and that Jess was watching her with the hint of a smirk, she’d blushed and lowered her eyes where they’d lit upon the drops of blood beading on Jess’s pale forearm.
“Shit! Your arm! Look, my apartment’s not far. Let me make you a coffee and clean that up for you. It’s the least I can do.”
Jess had looked ready to turn down the offer but then had looked into Lupe’s eyes for a moment as if searching for something then had nodded slowly.
“Okay, if I say yes can I get my belt back?” Jess had asked, a hint of teasing in her voice.
“What? Oh shit, yes, of course! Hang on”
Lupe quickly clipped the lead back onto the dog’s collar and unfastened the black leather belt. She couldn’t help but let her gaze slip to watch as slim fingers slid the belt through denim belt loops and felt a warmth flash through herself. To distract herself she dug a treat out of her pocket and tossed it towards the dog who tried to catch it and failed. The treat bounced off her nose and she pounced on it cheerfully. The sound of Jess laughing made her look up.
“God I miss having a dog, they’re so much fun” she said smiling ruefully. “We had one all the time growing up.”
They’d walked back to Lupe’s place where Jess had reluctantly let her clean her arm up and put some antiseptic on it. Lupe was acutely aware of warm breath on her neck as she did so and didn’t dare lift her head to make eye contact, however Jess had stayed for coffee, then lunch, the conversation flowing freely between them.
Lupe had learned that Jess had been the only girl with several brothers growing up in rural Canada. A feisty kid she’d been boisterous but not all that talkative. She’d also loved watching people and how they interacted. It had always amazed her when two people said things to each other while their bodies would be saying completely different things. She could never understand how people couldn’t read the non-verbal cues.
She hadn’t been inspired by school either until one day in biology the teacher had begun to talk about how animals communicated in the absence of speech and suddenly Jess’s ears had pricked up and her brain had engaged and everything had changed. She’d learned that kinesics was something you could study at university so she’d started taking more of an interest in class and had discovered she could make decent grades after all. Thankfully one of her teachers had spotted and nurtured her interest in the subject and had helped her search for suitable courses to apply for at university.
Four years later she had proudly graduated with a degree in psychology where kinesics had been a substantial part of the course. At that point Jess had let Lupe see the screensaver on her phone – Jess was standing in her graduation outfit, her Dad proudly next to her with his arm round her shoulders, identical grins on their faces.
Of course then there had been the question of what next. One of her tutors had suggested training as a counsellor as Jess had a reputation of being a good listener without being a gossip. That hadn’t really appealed though. It had been one of her friends that she’d played baseball with at university that had suggested she do something that involved motivating people. Jess had always had a knack of saying the right things to people to inspire them - she hadn’t realised it might be a career opportunity.
So that was what had brought Jess initially to the town where they were having lunch in Lupe’s apartment. Jess explained that by that time as well as being queer they’d also realised they identified as non-binary and had started using they/them. They had come here to do a post-grad masters which was centred on communication techniques and styles in the business environment. They’d been fascinated by it and the two years had flown by. They’d also loved the smaller town environment as oppose to the big city. They explained they’d often walked the paths and woods at the edge of town which is why they’d known to check the two large rabbit warren areas, the second of which had been where they’d found the tangled terrier.
As if on cue the pair were distracted as Jazz started whuffling in her sleep. She was lying in a patch of sunlight, her paws twitching as she chased rabbits in her dreams. Lupe shook her head and smiled as Jess laughed quietly in delight.
Jess continued on to say that much as they’d wanted to stay in town they had moved to find work, their first job being in HR in a big retail company. It had been useful experience but pretty soul destroying and after a couple of years they’d moved to a personnel training position in another firm which had been better and they’d been there another couple of years. Then they’d seen a vacancy posted looking for a senior trainer at a telecoms company for their centre back in this town where they’d done their masters. To their delight they’d landed the job so had moved back to the area just three months ago – it turned out Jess’s new rental apartment was only a 20 minute walk away from Lupe’s!
Lupe in turn had told Jess about her life growing up in Texas, how it had been shaped by strict family rules and the expectations of the Catholic church. She’d always been fascinated by the stories of her ancestors and their journeys through parts of South and Central America and Mexico before landing up in Texas. Maybe it had been inevitable that she would wind up studying humanities and doing her dissertation on migrant communities and the factors that led to their journeys. University had also been where she’d realised she was definitely a lesbian and there was no way she could go back to living a closeted life with her family. After a blazing row with her father who had expected her to come home and marry she had packed all her stuff and left, taking a chance and heading for New York. There she had got by on short term funded projects about immigrants experiences, or oral history interviews or searches of historical records about migrants’ journeys. It had been varied but stressful as funding was usually only for six to twelve months. But she had managed to get her name on a couple of papers that had been published in fairly well respected journals, and that had proved important.
Lupe always kept an eye open on job opportunities and had applied for one at the university here where Jess had done her masters. It was a mixture of research of written and oral records and teaching some undergrad tutorials in human migration. Fortunately the head of the interview panel had recently read one of the papers she had co-authored and Lupe reckoned that was what had landed her the post. Three years later she figured she must be doing something right because they kept managing to find funding for her.
The day wore on and Lupe was just starting to wonder is she should invite Jess to stay for dinner as well when Jess’s phone pinged. Glancing at it they suddenly started and jumped up from their chair at the kitchen table.
“Shit, sorry, I gotta go! I totally forgot I’m meeting a couple of friends in an hour.”
Lupe got up and walked Jess to the door, wondering how to not just let them walk out of her life forever.
“Thanks again for earlier Jess, I owe you big time for that” was the first thing she could think of.
Jess turned to face her, a warm smile on their face.
“Glad I could help, I loved meeting you both!” Lupe’s breath hitched as Jess ran their eyes up and down her body before continuing. “ I really enjoyed the rest of the day too.”
They looked at each other awkwardly for a couple of seconds then closed in hesitantly and just about managed to land a tentative kiss on each other’s cheek.
Jess was smiling shyly as they pulled back. “You know, text me if you want some company walking Jazz. I’m around most of this week.”
Lupe felt the smile spread across her face. “Sure, I will do. We’d both like that.”
Lupe watched Jess disappear and closed the door before she allowed herself a double fist pump and a “Yes!” of triumph.
She laughed as a sleepy looking dog emerged from the kitchen and started dancing round her legs demanding to be fed. Picking her up she hugged her tight and started dancing around the hallway with her, the dog’s tail thudding madly against her ribs.
“I should be mad at you for running off this morning but you might have just done me a huge favour. Just don’t make a habit of it yeah?” With that she kissed the top of the dog’s head and set her down then followed her into the kitchen to feed her.
Once she’d done that Lupe picked her phone up off the counter, wondering how long she should wait before contacting Jess so she didn’t seem desperate. She flicked to the photo Jess had sent earlier and just stared at it before smiling and setting it as her screen saver.
In the end her resolve lasted about three hours. She’d given Jazz her evening walk, tidied her apartment and even ironed a couple of shirts for the work week ahead before succumbing and suggesting Jess meet them for a walk on Tuesday evening if they were free.
There had been an agonising four minute wait before a reply had come through.
’yeah great, will I call round about 7?’
Lupe felt the relief wash over her almost physically and pinged back a thumbs up and a smiley face immediately.
That night she drifted off to sleep dreaming of blue eyes and pale fingers.