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“So is it true? Are you really dating the weed girl?”
Jules cranes her neck and sees Fiona leaning over the back of the couch with a shit eating grin. Fiona waggles her eyebrows. “Well? Is it?”
“I knew it!” someone else shouts, and Jules’ attention bounces to the doorway that now frames Kennedy. “Known it for weeks,” Kennedy adds. She comes into the room and folds herself gracefully onto the couch next to Jules.
Jules feels herself freeze in a cold panic. “I’m not—I’m not—“ Jules is babbling. She’s not saying a goddamn thing. And every set of eyes in the room is staring at her now. Jules feels a hot blush rise to stain her cheeks. “I’m not dating the weed girl!” she says in a rush. She frowns. “Ophelia. I’m not dating Ophelia.”
“Are you sure?” Fiona asks. “You guys are always together.”
“Lots of late nights,” Kennedy pipes in.
Fiona nods, excited for corroboration. “And Michaela said—“
“Oh, well if Michaela said,” Jules interrupts. She strains to roll her eyes and reach for blessed, casual sarcasm.
“—Michaela said,” Fiona continues pointedly, “That two nights ago she saw you two stumbling out of one of the dorms looking, well…”
“Tousled?” Kennedy supplies delicately.
“Fucked.”
Jules winces. Two nights ago she and Ophelia had been on a hunt for some scum from the wall, and he’d been a lot quicker on the jump than she’d liked or anticipated, and there had been a bit of a scrappy throwdown. Less making out, more kicking ass. So that was what Michaela had seen them slinking away from.
Jules’ mind now splits into two states of panic. The first is the job: If Michaela had seen them leaving the building, what else had she seen? What was she even doing at the dorms? Did she know the creep they had just squashed – and most worrying of all, did she have it in her to connect all the dots and start pointing fingers?
The second is the secret; the other secret. The scary, scary good one; the tangle of feelings that Ophelia has watered and tended in Jules over the past month. It’s what makes Jules freak out even though the accusation is patently untrue, that sense of how the double hockey sticks did you two figure this one out!?
Was she too obvious? Did she stare at Ophelia with moony eyes? How… humiliating. She’s not Ophelia’s type. She’d know it if she were, wouldn’t she? Ophelia is anything but subtle.
So Jules gulps, and pushes back her hair. “Ophelia is just my study partner.”
Kennedy arches a brow and doesn’t look convinced. “Right.”
“She is!” Jules insists, “We’ve just been… really doubling down lately. You know I’ve been kind of wiggy about being on academic probation.”
Jules feels like a jerk for playing on Kennedy’s compassion like this, but of course it works. Kennedy’s face softens; warm sympathy floods her stare. “I know you are, honey. How is that going, by the way?”
Jules answers on autopilot. A new knot of guilt works its way through her body. But what was she supposed to say? That actually, she and Ophelia were fly by night partners in righteous-but-violent crime?
“Yes,” Ophelia says later, around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni.
They’re at the record shop, sitting cross legged on the checkout counter with a white pizza box open between them. Harris wanders the stacks with a slice, halfheartedly taking inventory and shouting out his intermittent two cents to Ophelia and Jules.
“I don’t know why you don’t tell everybody in your sorority,” Ophelia adds. “You’d be a goddamn folk hero.”
“Um, earth to Ophelia? We stab people. I’d be pledging Zeta’s penitentiary chapter and wearing an orange jumpsuit.”
“That actually sounds kind of hot,” Ophelia says thoughtfully. “I’d watch the hell out of the movie.”
Ophelia takes another huge bite of pizza, and Jules feels her face grow warm. Sometimes, when Ophelia says things like this to her, Jules can almost believe that she’s flirting. But that’s also just the way Ophelia talks, just the way Ophelia is: gregarious, brash. Jules finds it completely disarming.
If Jules concentrates too much on this, she’ll find herself tongue-tied. Her hands fidget, tearing crumbs from the crust of her pizza slice, and she switches tracks. “You’re the one who said we’re like superheroes. Don’t superheroes need a secret identity?”
“Reed Richards didn’t,” Ophelia shoots back. “And he freaking ruled New York.”
“I have no idea who that is.”
“No idea who that—Harris! Get over here. We’ve got ourselves a Marvel virgin.”
“I saw Guardians of the Galaxy!” Jules protests as Harris makes his way to the counter.
The look Ophelia shoots her is longsuffering.
“What’d you expect, O?” asks Harris. “Preppy blondes don’t read comic books. It’s like a law of the universe or something.”
“Hey, it’s the age of the geek. Everybody reads comics,” says Ophelia.
“I used to read a lot of Archie comics as a kid,” Jules puts in hopefully. Immediately, she knows she’s put her foot in her mouth, if the disparaging looks on Harris and Ophelia’s faces are anything to go by.
A moment later, Ophelia reaches between them and takes Jules’ hand, mock serious. “We have so much to teach you, young padawan.”
“That one’s Star Wars,” Jules says quickly, and Harris snorts.
And Ophelia still hasn’t let go of her hand. Jules wonders what would happen if she laced their fingers together and squeezed. She wonders if her hand is clammy. She wonders why Ophelia isn’t letting go, or if Ophelia feels the electrical charge between them, pooling in their cupped palms and flooding Jules’ skin.
Harris raises his eyebrows at them both. “Cute. That’s real cute. Maybe you should just tell people you’re hooking up. It’s a lot more believable than study buddies.” Harris frames his last words with pointed air quotes.
Jules snatches her hand away and concentrates on her pizza. “Oh come on.”
“He’s got a point,” Ophelia says, grinning. “We do spend an awful lot of time together.”
“Lots of late nights,” Harris adds, an echo of Kennedy.
“Be serious, guys,” says Jules. “Ophelia and I aren’t—I mean, we just—“
“Make an adorable couple?” asks Ophelia.
“And to think, I saw it all happen,” says Harris, and he and Ophelia exchange soppy, melodramatic expressions.
“It’s too confusing,” Jules blurts. Ophelia and Harris both shut up and stare at her, and now Jules finds herself unhappily put on the spot. Major backtracking time. “We’re already partners. We’re already lying to everybody. Throwing in a bogus story about us dating? That’s way too twisted up.”
Harris shrugs. “If you say so,” he says, but he sounds unconvinced.
Ophelia is watching her with a peculiar expression, but before Jules can read it, she blinks, and it’s gone. She breathes an inward sigh of relief. “Anyway,” Jules adds, striving for lighthearted. “I wouldn’t want to take you off the market.”
Ophelia grins, and the tension breaks.
What is it about Ophelia that ties Jules up inside? Sure, she’s hot, but punk slacker has never been Jules’ type. Something about Ophelia just glows. She’s so fierce and full of passion, and it intoxicates Jules, makes her feel urgently in a way she really hasn’t since… Well. Since before. When Jules is with Ophelia, she feels like something resembling alive again. She wonders how that could magnify if they kissed.
Harris finishes his pizza and brushes his hands together. “Well, ladies, it’s been a slice—“
“Ha ha.” Ophelia rolls her eyes.
“—it’s been a slice. But I’ve got to bounce.”
“Plans with Fiona?” Ophelia asks, raising her eyebrows suggestively.
When Harris smiles, it’s nearly bashful, which makes Jules nearly melt. Fiona has been telling her about the campus dealer’s cute friend since the semester started. She’s happy to see those feelings start to mutually bloom.
“Make sure you lock up.” Harris plants a stern expression on his face and shoots it towards Ophelia.
Ophelia waves her hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah.”
“I mean it Ophelia! Last time you left the store unlocked and I came in to some hipster wacked out on LSD and listening to The Wall on repeat.”
“You’ve gotta give the dude props for his commitment to being retro,” says Ophelia.
“Ophelia!”
“I know. I will.” Ophelia hops off the counter and slings her arm around Harris’ waist, leading him gently towards the door. “Go on your date, slugger. You can trust me, I promise.”
Harris eyes Ophelia suspiciously. “If you say so.” His gaze slides to Jules, and he waves. “Later, Jules.”
Jules waves. “Bye. Say hi to Fiona for me.”
A moment later, and Harris is gone, and Ophelia and Jules are left alone in the dusty light of the record store. Jules toys with her crust again. Ophelia walks back to the counter and leans against it. Her stare lingers over the pizza box.
“You want another?” Jules asks.
“Thinking about it.” Ophelia pauses thoughtfully for a moment, and then wrinkles her nose. “Nah, I’ll just make myself sick.”
Jules gasps, mock serious. “Ophelia Mayer, are you learning the meaning of the word restraint?” she asks.
“Maybe you’re finally rubbing off on me,” Ophelia suggests.
Jules expects Ophelia’s sarcasm, Ophelia’s drama. She’s still at ends with Ophelia’s sincerity, and with the funny crooked smile she wears right now. It’s these moments that makes Jules’ heart flip somersaults and clarify that she is really, truly smitten over Ophelia Mayer, even if she doesn’t have the first clue what to do about it.
“So what now?” Jules asks. “You gonna go home, study hard, get a good night’s sleep, go to class?”
Ophelia snorts. “Please. You make yourself sound like an angel.
“I…” Jules trails off. Now that she’s thinking about it, that doesn’t describe her, not anymore. Her grades are slipping. She sees the backwards sunrise once a week at least. What makes her happy these days isn’t sunlight: it’s punching things, hard. It’s Ophelia and greasy pizza and late nights and the grim justice they eke out together. “I guess I’m not a poster child for restraint after all."
“No kidding.”
Jules scowls at Ophelia, but Ophelia’s eyes are dancing, and Jules quickly feels her sour expression melt into a smile. “It is getting late though,” she admits ruefully.
“Hey, the night is young!” Ophelia protests. She checks her watch. “Well, the night is starting to think about its 401k options. But it’s still got a few good years left in it!”
Jules giggles and slides off the counter. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Training? You need to work on your balance.”
“Yeah, alright.” Ophelia sounds disappointed.
“You want to fight, you got to train.” Jules says. She sounds stern. Well good – she means it.
“No I know. I was just thinking.” Ophelia pauses awkwardly. “You’re sure you want to head home?”
Jules looks at Ophelia, really looks at her. There’s a decision being made on the other girl’s face, a delicate flush to her cheeks. “Why?” Jules asks. “You got a better offer?”
“I was just thinking… about what you said. About things being confusing.”
“Oh?” Jules is all but holding her breath. This is new territory. She can’t guess at where Ophelia is going with this, but she can long.
“And about how maybe we could clear some of that up.”
“Oh?” Jules asks again. Hopefulness spilling into her tone. Ophelia has a full blush scalding her face now. Distantly, Jules notes that it doesn’t clash with her hair, not even a little bit.
“That maybe we could…” Ophelia trails off, and Jules realizes how hard this is for Ophelia to get out. How much braver she is than Jules. Jules’ palms itch, daring her to take Ophelia’s hand, to do something, but a shrill voice in her head keeps warning that she could be reading this situation all wrong. Her hands stay by her side for one, two, three beats more, and then Ophelia does the unimaginable, and reaches out both of her hands. Their fingers tangle together and squeeze. They’re drawn two steps closer together. “Is this okay?” Ophelia asks. Her voice is low and hoarse.
Jules nods, eyes wide, throat tight, and Ophelia slowly, very slowly, slides her hand up Jules’ arm, over the exposed line of her neck, and cups her cheek.
“Is this okay?” Ophelia asks again. Again, Jules nods, and Ophelia carefully brushes her thumb over Jules’ lip. “And this?” Jules nods, and Ophelia draws them closer together. “I want you to say it,” she says, voice barely breaking a whisper.
Jules’ head, her whole body is swimming. She thinks her knees might buckle if she speaks. But when at last she breathes out “Yes,” and Ophelia crushes their mouths together, Jules decides that she’s willing, even grateful for the fall. Ophelia’s hand slides from Jules cheek to the back of her neck; her other hand is still tightly laced with Jules’. And now they’re kissing, kissing harder, and Jules arches her back and presses closer to Ophelia, and Ophelia whimpers in the back of her throat, and Jules thinks that her chest could explode. Her free hand skims Ophelia’s side; her tongue darts between Ophelia’s open lips.
It’s long minutes before they part, panting. Breathless. And again, Jules says, “Oh.”
Ophelia smiles, and it’s kiss-giddy. “And now you’ve got something worthwhile to report to the Zetas,” she jokes.
Jules laughs. She tugs on a strand of Ophelia’s vivid green hair. “Always thinking two steps ahead.”
“Or three,” Ophelia agrees. She leans forward and kisses Jules again. It lacks the punch and the sear of the first; but it’s imbued with a sweetness of its own that knocks Jules’ heart to its knees.
I have to be up early, it’s getting late, you need your rest to train – these are all the things that Jules suspects she ought to say right now. But you know what? Fuck restraint.
Jules kisses Ophelia, and kisses her again, until they both succumb to heady bliss. They never lock up for the night.
They never leave.