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For a long time now—longer than she might admit—Debbie had known something was missing from her life. Intellectually she knew that she didn’t need a romantic partner to fill some kind of void, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t want love. She had a long list of people trailing behind her who had broken her heart, men and women alike, and at some point Debbie figured that love must not be in the cards for her. Not even just romantic love, either; sometimes it seemed like everyone she loved, family included, decided to leave her. Or would leave her, one day. And it hurt, goddammit. She was a strong, independent woman, a working mom with her own business, but at the end of the day she still wanted someone to love her. Maybe she was still a silly little girl deep down. It didn’t change anything, though.
So she’d decided to stick with just fucking, just mindless sex where feelings didn’t have to be involved. It worked pretty well, too—didn’t have to worry about Franny getting attached to someone who’d inevitably leave. And Debbie knew she’d always get her heart broken no matter what, but it was Franny she worried about more. Maybe she’d had a chaotic upbringing, but she wanted better for her daughter. And it was…it was fine, for a while. She’d done tinder hookups with West Side lesbians when she could get one of her brothers to watch Franny—meet them at a bar, have some drinks, go back to their place and fuck, then leave as soon as the other woman was asleep. Not many, and not often, but enough that it scratched an itch. And she never, ever brought any of them back home.
But then she broke her own rule. Sitting on the front steps of the Gallagher home, she’d turned to Sandy Milkovich and took the cigarette out of her mouth, looked her straight in the eye and said, “Wanna fuck?” Then she’d tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach when Sandy blew out a lungful of smoke and gave her a lazy grin, all “fuck yeah” in her low, gravelly voice. They’d gone up to Debbie’s childhood bedroom and fucked in her bed, and Debbie was never so grateful that her daughter slept like a rock.
And suddenly Debbie had someone who was there —who stepped into her life like there’d been a spot perfectly carved out for her. Sandy didn’t have to stay, but she did. They slotted against each other like they’d always meant to be there. And Franny, well…Franny adored her. One day Debbie had come home from work, dragging her tired body up the stairs to the bathroom so she could take a much-needed hot shower, only to find Sandy and Franny in there already. Franny giggled as she played with Sandy’s hair, making it into a huge mess, but Sandy glanced at Debbie in the mirror and shrugged.
“No one else has long enough hair for her to practice with,” she said by way of explanation. Franny looked up at her mother and grinned, hugging Debbie’s leg in greeting.
“Hi, mommy! I missed you!” she said.
Debbie crouched down and hugged her little girl back as tight as she could, loudly giving her a smacking kiss on top of her forehead. “Mwah! I missed you, too, Fran. Did you and Sandy have fun today?”
“Yeah! We got ice cream, and played at the park, and watched monster hunters!”
Sandy shrugged, but Debbie could see her fighting off a grin. “Your kid really likes monster hunters, by the way.”
“Does she, now?” Debbie asked, leaning over and giving Sandy a kiss as well. Sandy brought her hand up to mess with Debbie’s ponytail a little bit, which was a mess from her hard hat that she’d had to wear on the job site. After the whole debacle with Julia and almost getting arrested—Claudia apparently had had no idea that seventeen was the age of consent in Illinois, so the case against Debbie had fallen through really quickly—Debbie had never been happier to get back to work. Their union had managed to secure some good concessions in her absence, and the other welders on site had given her a lot of pats on the back for being the one who started the whole thing in the first place. Sure, being out of work for so long hadn’t been great, but it was worth it now that she was making good money. Enough that maybe she could splurge a little more on Franny this year for Christmas.
“Oh, yeah,” Sandy told her. “Said she wanted to watch the rest with you tonight. Mick and Ian are off doing newlywed shit or something, so we probably could make one of those frozen pizzas and watch TV till this one falls asleep on the couch.”
Debbie grinned. “I like the sound of that. Hey, Franny, go get changed into your pajamas, okay? Mommy’s gotta get a shower.” Franny nodded and ran off to their room, and Sandy closed the door once she was gone.
“Maybe it’d be a good idea if we showered together,” Sandy told her, one eyebrow going up almost suggestively. “Conserve water, and all that shit.” She pressed Debbie back against the door and kissed her, a hand going to the back of Debbie’s neck to pull her in closer; Sandy’s other hand went to her waist, tracing along the waistline of her jeans. Debbie couldn’t help but grin into the kiss. She couldn’t stop thinking about how well they fit together, every time they fucked just better and better, not to mention how easily Sandy had found a place in her and Franny’s lives like she’d always been here.
“Hmm…” Debbie said, pretending to think it over as she draped her arms over Sandy’s shoulders. “You know, you might be onto something there. Anything we can do to keep the water bill down, right?”
Sandy chuckled, her lip ring bumping against Debbie’s mouth. “That’s me,” she said, “always trying to be conscientious of the bills.” She reached up and pulled Debbie’s long hair out of her ponytail holder, and Debbie maneuvered them around so she could get the water running.
It was almost a revelation, being so easily comfortable with someone so quickly. Debbie had always fallen fast, anyway, but Sandy had fallen into their family life with little effort. Maybe it should scare Debbie that it could lead to heartbreak—no matter how she tried to do things differently before, it had always led to that in the past. But maybe that was the trick: maybe it was about letting things happen as they would, and not overthinking it too much. That had always been her downfall before. But with Sandy, it was easy to let the world fall away.
Later, they sat on the couch with Franny, eating slices of frozen pizza that they’d heated up in the oven, Franny enraptured by the show on the TV while Debbie lay stretched out with her head in Sandy’s lap. Everything in her life was about her family—her siblings, her daughter. At one point that family had included her parents, before they both disappointed her beyond repair. And now there was Sandy, who was combing her fingers through Debbie’s damp hair and handing Franny a pack of markers from the coffee table so she could draw the sea monster that this episode was all about hunting. This little family was good, too; as a rule, Debbie tried not to get her hopes up too quickly anymore, having learned that lesson the hard way too many times. But maybe, just maybe, this could lead to something good.