Page 43 of Saving Graces
“So what are you afraid of?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “I’m afraid they won’t say it back. Or that if I say it first, they’ll stop… chasing me.”
“Cassie,” she said, “I think it’s pretty clear you’re caught already. I mean, you’re monogamous right? For like, half a year?”
“Of course!” Cassidy looked shocked. “But there’s other ways you can still be kind of running,” she said, casting her eyelashes low. After a while, she looked up. “Lane had this pattern, before me, of only dating girls they couldn’t really have, or of ending it as soon as it got real.”
“You think if you admit you love them it’ll get real? Too real?”
“I don’t know,” Cassidy said quietly. “But I do know they’ve never once used the L word about me. Or at least, not about all of me.”
“Huh?”
“You know, they’ll say like I love your eyes or… whatever, that kind of thing.”
“I love your tits,” said Kinsey and Cassidy went scarlet, her head jerking up. Kinsey giggled, her eyes going wide, “I was impersonating Lane, jesus christ, Cassidy.”
“You get my point, at least,” Cassidy said, her face still flushed, avoiding Kinsey’s eyes.
“Look.” Kinsey stopped laughing. “I don’t know what’s going through Lane’s mind but you could ask literally anyone who’s ever seen you two together. They’re in love with you. Like so in love. If they run because you love them back… that would be the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever heard.”
Cassidy sighed. She seemed deflated, her fingers picking at the end of one shoelace, her shoulders hunched. Then she straightened.
“Want to write a song about that?”
“Hell yes.”
There really must have been something in the air in that room because the song came together so fast it felt like actual magic. As Kinsey sounded out chords and sketched out lyrics she thought of Rosalie, in the streetlight, telling her you literally don’t know me enough to like me and not for the first time she wondered if Kinsey saying I like you was the real reason she’d run so damn fast. What did it mean, to Rosalie, to hear that someone liked her, that would make her shut it all down? And, God could Kinsey have come off any less cool? Maybe she should have taken a leaf out of Cassidy’s book.
“Wow,” Cassidy breathed as they played it through again, the whole thing starting to fit together. “I’m glad you came to Vermont with me, cos this whole thing,” she waved her hand around at the room and at the space between the two of them “is ridiculously good.”
Kinsey’s knees felt slightly weak, her heartrate spiking at the potential lighting up around them in sparks so bright she could almost see them. “It is, isn’t it?”
——
After a few hours, they decided to take a break and let the music breathe for a while. Cassidy left to go and find Lane, and Kinsey stayed a little longer, just soaking up the atmosphere of the hallowed space, lost in her own thoughts. When she drifted up the stairs, she stepped out the door into the hall, and instantly collided with someone going the other way.
“Oh god,” she said, hands shooting out to steady them both. “Sorry!”
The words were barely out of her mouth before she recognized that silken auburn hair and sharp inhale of breath. She was holding onto Rosalie’s hips, those bright green eyes wide and staring. She felt unbelievably good, but Kinsey forced herself to release her and take a half step back. It was the first time they’d been alone since the night they’d been together.
“Hey,” Kinsey said. “How’ve you been?”
Rosalie was slightly flushed from the closeness of the unexpected encounter and already Kinsey imagined tugging her back in and kissing her. It felt like it would be so easy to. She thought of yesterday, in the hot tub, Rosalie’s gaze roaming her body, that same deep hunger she’d seen flash in her eyes before. There was want here, sparking furiously between them, of that Kinsey was perfectly sure.
“I’m… good,” Rosalie said, her voice uncertain. How anyone could look this tempting in jeans and a little knit sweater, Kinsey had no idea. “And you?”
“I’m very well thank you,” Kinsey returned, her voice deliberately aimed at prim. “Thank you so much for asking.”
A small smile broke on Rosalie’s face.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said quietly, tucking back a lock of her beautiful hair. For a few seconds, they just looked at each other. Kinsey had never been so aware of someone else breathing before. A few bars of the song she and Cassidy had just written echoed in her ears.
“Listen,” she said, still standing close. “This doesn’t have to be weird.”
“No… of course not.” Rosalie’s fingers were still fiddling with her hair.
“It was a couple of fun hours, that was all,” Kinsey told her lightly. “No big deal.”
