Chapter Fifteen
“Tell me you’ve kissed her already,” Wes said, voice hushed as he caught Hallie on her way out of the bathroom.
Hallie shot him a look. “You want to talk about who I’ve been kissing? That’s weird.”
He rolled his eyes. “I want to talk about the fact that she’s awesome, you two are definitely into each other, and you’re on a limited timeline so you need to do something about it.”
Hallie’s stomach churned unpleasantly. She was so incredibly aware of the timeline, so aware that they lived thousands of miles apart.
She’d looked it up quickly, while she’d been waiting for the bathroom, and it was a thirty-four hour drive.
Sure, planes were faster, and it wasn’t like they’d be the only sapphic couple in the world doing long-distance, but that was one hell of a distance when you’d only known each other for a week. How on earth did you make that work?
Wes groaned. “This is you worrying she’s got a girlfriend? Mom asked if we thought she did…”
“So glad she brought that up,” Hallie deadpanned.
“She asked because—what? You think she does so you’re holding back even though she clearly doesn’t?”
“I heard her tell the woman in question that she loves her.”
“I love you,” he said flatly. “That proves jack shit and you know it.”
“We’re related, weirdo. That’s not even close to the same thing.”
“It could have been a friend or… whatever. That doesn’t prove she has a girlfriend.”
“Well, um…” Hallie felt herself blushing. “If she does, I think it’s poly or an open relationship of some kind.”
“Why?” Wes asked urgently, right as Isaac appeared in the hallway, clearly planning to tell the two of them to hurry up.
However, upon seeing the hushed conversation, he wiggled his eyebrows and moved closer. “Why what?”
“Nothing,” Hallie replied quickly.
“Not nothing,” Wes shot back. “Why does Hallie here think that, if Audrey’s in a relationship, it’s an open one?”
Isaac shook his head at her. “Definitely not nothing. Tell us.”
“She, uh, well, she…” Hallie wished she hadn’t brought it up, but she really needed to talk about it. Audrey’s comment had been bouncing around her head all through dinner. “She made a comment that the woman in question would either be at work or an orgy. And she didn’t seem concerned about that.”
“As an expert in the field,” Isaac said proudly, “she wasn’t pinging my polydar. It’s probably just a friend and she loves them getting theirs at an orgy.”
“That’s not a real thing.”
“Mine has a perfect success rate.”
Hallie shook her head. She wasn’t sure exactly how Isaac kept happening upon poly people and guessing correctly but it was obviously working for him and she loved that for him and them. She did not, however, believe he could just tell whether Audrey was poly.
Wes put a hand up. “It’s probably not even a relevant conversation because there’s no way that woman in there, who has been looking at you like you hung the moon all night, is in a relationship.”
Isaac looked like he wanted to correct Wes and point out that poly people absolutely could look at multiple people like they’d hung the moon, but he stopped himself when he realized it wasn’t actually the point of this conversation. “You should just ask her if she’s either single or available.”
“I will…” Hallie promised. She already knew she needed to, it was just tricky. “But not today. The last thing she needs right now is more complications.”
“Okay,” Wes grinned, stepping around her to finally go to the bathroom. “But you’re sitting next to her for movie night and it’s a romantic one…”
“Sit close,” Isaac said, laughing as he led Hallie back to the living room.
Hallie wasn’t sure if she wanted to thank her family for being so excited and supportive about Audrey or if she wanted to murder them.
But, when she saw Audrey heading back from the kitchen holding a mug for herself and Hallie’s Christmas one, featuring a gingerbread man in a Santa hat holding a festive ‘H’, she was pretty sure she wanted to hug them all into oblivion.
She also really wanted to buy another Christmas mug. This one with an ‘A’ on it…
“Thank you,” she said sweetly, bounding up to Audrey’s side. “You didn't need to do that.”
Audrey laughed weakly. “If we were keeping track of all the things we didn’t need to do, I don’t think I’d even be here right now.”
“That’s different.”
She shook her head. Her eyes were usually a light brown, but they looked deep and dark in the low lights. “It’s not. You didn’t need to do any of this. I’m grateful that you did, so, please let me do something tiny like bring you a drink.”
Hallie smiled up at her, head tilted to one side. “Okay. But hey, maybe try not to miss LA too much while we’re watching the movie. You know, as a trade.”
Audrey laughed and followed Hallie to one of the corners of the sofa. “This is the first time all week I haven’t been missing home. I think you’re good.”
Her soft, private comment sent shivers down Hallie’s back. LA was home for her, of course it was. She clearly liked Michigan when her family wasn’t involved, but her life was in LA. And that had to be okay.
The others joined them, finding spots on the massive, wrap-around sofa and strategically giving the two of them a little privacy. They were all being ridiculously obvious. Though, Hallie was too.
“Okay, ready?” Tracy asked once everyone was settled and the only remaining lights in the room came from the garland along the mantelpiece and the lights that Wes had strung up outside.
There was a chorus of agreement and Hallie wriggled back into the soft, comfortable sofa as her mom hit the play button.
She’d been wrong. There were now four copies of The Holiday at her mom’s house.
Nobody could quite place where the additional copy had come from, but it didn’t matter.
What mattered was that she was watching one of her favorite movies with her favorite people, and Audrey’s thigh was pressed into her own.
There was enough space that she could have moved down, could have prevented herself from making contact with Hallie. She was choosing to stay close.
Hallie pulled the knee furthest from Audrey up onto the couch, blocking the view of her family when she reached out to press the back of her hand against Audrey’s. Earlier, her hands had felt like ice. They still weren’t much better.
She grabbed the blanket that was lying next to them and held it up in question.
Audrey looked from the large screen to Hallie with a tiny smile and a nod.
Hallie’s insides wanted to burst out of her.
Her mom and her brothers were right. Audrey was awesome.
She belonged here. She fit right in and being around her was easier than breathing.
Hallie would never get enough of her—listening to her talk about bugs or ancient languages, seeing the way her mind worked, snuggling up next to her while they watched a movie.
And she couldn’t stop thanking a world full of gods she didn’t believe in for how safe Audrey clearly felt here.
She was still composed and controlled, but she was relaxing in a way Hallie hadn’t seen from her all week.
It wasn’t fair they got so little time together.
Under the blanket, Hallie decided to push her luck and seek Audrey’s hand again.
She registered the way Audrey stiffened, pressed her lips together, and sucked in a breath.
And she was very aware of the resolute way Audrey was keeping her eyes on the screen.
But, best of all, she felt the way Audrey unclenched her hands and let Hallie take one.
Hallie, too, stared up at the screen, pretending it didn’t feel like her whole world was shifting. She’d held Audrey’s hand before, but that was when she was in crisis. Now, they were relaxed, free, and she was just… touching the hand of a woman she was ridiculously interested in.
She’d noticed the way Audrey tensed if anyone in her family touched her, and, in the last few days, she’d been doing research about OCD.
She was gathering that Audrey’s family felt contaminated and, if they touched her, she had rituals to deal with that, things she had to do in order to function.
But she wasn’t doing them with Hallie. She was glad of that and she knew, while she couldn’t cure Audrey’s OCD, she’d do whatever she could to remain a safe person for her, no matter what happened between them.
Still under the blanket, she placed Audrey’s hand palm up on her thigh, running two of her own fingers over Audrey’s skin.
Something was wrong with her fingertips, Hallie could feel it.
They were raw, dry, and hot compared to the rest of her hand.
When she reached the pad of Audrey’s thumb, she was certain she felt a small blister.
Her heart ached for Audrey but she showed no sign that she’d detected anything wrong.
Audrey would know already. Pointing it out wasn’t helpful and would likely only make things worse.
She didn’t have a choice in the compulsion, even when it hurt her.
Hallie would wager that Audrey’s mind probably felt like the physical pain was better than the mental pain that came with not carrying it out.
It did highlight, however, how much worse her OCD must be around her family. If she tormented her thumbs this much every day, they’d have grown accustomed to it. They’d have calloused over.
Hallie wasn’t sure she’d ever really hated someone she’d known in real life before, but she hated the Sinclairs. Not River, though she needed to get out of that family too. Nothing good came from being around them. Audrey’s injured, blistered hands were proof of that.
She trailed softly over the skin of each finger again before settling her hand back into Audrey’s. Her mom had some cream that would help. Antiseptic so it would be safe.
It was far too early to be thinking grand things like forever, but she’d read enough the last few days about people with OCD feeling like they were too much to love, and it didn’t feel like that.
She wasn’t in love with Audrey yet, but looking after her OCD was just a part of looking after Audrey, and that felt wonderful.
Not a chore, not a sacrifice, just a place she could help in whatever way Audrey needed.
She wanted to do that, to be beside Audrey in the bad times as well as the good ones, to demonstrate that her OCD was part of her but it wasn’t something to judge or be annoyed with.
It was hard to see her hurt, sure, but it was harder for Audrey and that was always going to be a million times more difficult than whatever someone around her experienced because of it.
Hallie’s heart ached for every person who’d ever been told OCD made them too much, for every time Audrey had been made to feel that way.
Across the couch, Wes turned slowly and subtly to catch Hallie’s eye and wink.
He couldn’t know she was holding Audrey’s hand.
There was no way he’d be able to see it.
But, maybe he didn’t need to see. Maybe it was written across Hallie’s face.
She wouldn’t be surprised. Sure, she enjoyed the movie, and she loved seeing her family, and she adored this time of year, but…
the radiant joy she knew she was feeling, that wasn’t coming from anything but Audrey, and of course he would notice that.