Chapter Seventeen
Audrey was fast asleep when Hallie woke up the next morning. Nothing had happened between them last night but it still felt like everything had. She had admitted that she thought Audrey was beautiful… Maybe that was something.
She was beautiful while she slept too.
Hallie had worried Audrey would struggle to fall asleep in a new place, but the emotions of the day, and, hell, the week, seemed to have worn her out.
They’d snuggled up under the blankets together, too close for new friends, and talked into the night, Audrey’s eyes getting heavier and heavier until she started doing that adorable thing sleepy people did where they kept jerking awake.
Hallie had turned the lamp off and simply listened to Audrey’s steady breathing as she slipped quickly into slumber.
She’d needed rest so much. Hallie doubted she’d gotten any decent sleep while they’d been around the Sinclairs.
That level of distress was something she was glad to have never felt around her own family, but it wasn’t exactly hard to understand what Audrey was going through.
She was glad that being here wasn’t similarly uncomfortable.
On the bedside table, Audrey’s phone lit up. She had it on silent, but it still shone with the incoming call. Hallie frowned. It was early. Her family couldn’t leave her alone for a few hours?
She ached to reach out and wrap Audrey in her arms. In truth, she wanted to spend every morning waking up to Audrey and seeing where this energy between them could go.
But she knew it wasn’t going to go that way.
Audrey was in crisis. She needed a friend, not someone hitting on her.
And, come Sunday, she’d be back on a plane to LA.
A moment after the caller hung up, they called again. Whoever it was, they were persistent. Probably Michele again.
Hallie had barely been able to believe the messages she’d left her daughter yesterday. She’d heard plenty of stories about parents behaving badly, but it was something else seeing it up close, seeing how familiar with the behavior Audrey was, even when it cut deep into her soul.
The phone lit up again and Hallie figured she needed to do something about it. If they kept ringing, who was to say it wouldn’t bypass the phone’s silent features and wake Audrey up?
As carefully as she could, Hallie slipped out of the bed and padded around to Audrey’s side. She was surprised when she saw who was calling.
Zora.
Was she supposed to answer it? Zora was in LA. It was ridiculously early over there. If she was calling so insistently, that could signal something bad had happened.
She tiptoed over to the balcony door, slipped into her boots without tying the laces, grabbed several blankets from a chair, and slid through the door. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t answer other people’s phones, but she had to check if Zora needed Audrey awake.
“Audrey’s phone,” she said after answering the call.
“Hello, not Audrey,” Zora said, sounding somewhere between protective, amused, and a little confused.
“Hi, Zora.” Hallie felt particularly sheepish now that she was speaking to the woman and it didn’t seem to be an emergency. She should have just let the phone ring.
Zora laughed. “Okay, so you know who I am. My reputation precedes me. You love to see it.”
“Right. Yeah. Um… Audrey’s girlfriend, right?” It felt weird saying that after spending all night in bed with Audrey—thinking not very platonic things about her.
Zora choked on a loud, surprised laugh. “Her girlfriend? No way that’s how she described me!”
Hallie’s stomach twisted. She really shouldn’t have answered the phone. “Well, I suppose she didn’t actually say that…”
Had everyone been right? Were the two of them not together? And Hallie was stuck finding that out from Zora? She really should have asked Audrey.
Zora was positively cackling. “Let me guess. You’re River’s new girlfriend?”
“Oh.” She couldn’t fully function around the fact that Audrey had mentioned her to Zora—who was not her girlfriend. “Yeah. Yep. That’s me.”
“Okay, Hallie,” she said, more than a little amused. “What’s Audrey up to?”
“She’s just sleeping.”
“Is that right? And she… left her phone in a public spot? Doesn’t sound like her.”
Hallie grimaced. She definitely, absolutely, emphatically should not have answered the phone. “No. It was on the bedside table.”
Zora laughed loudly again. “You know, you two sneaking into each other’s beds at Sinclair Fest was not on my bingo card, but get yours, girl. I guess I know why she hadn’t messaged me in a day.”
“Ah. Well. We’re, um, not still at the cabin with her family.”
Instantly, Zora went silent, alert. “What happened?” she asked, her voice murderous.
Hallie understood that. If Zora wanted to start taking the Sinclairs out, Hallie was more than willing to join her. “I think that might be something best heard from Audrey.”
“I’m going to fucking murder them.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
“So, the two of you left?”
Hallie nodded even though Zora couldn’t see her. “I had to get her out of there.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Ah. Uh, to my mom’s. We only live a few hours away from Lansing.”
“I knew your whole thing with River was bullshit.”
She must have been doing an exceedingly bad job of pretending if someone thousands of miles away knew it wasn’t real. That was not ideal. “Audrey told you?”
“No,” Zora laughed. “She was too busy trying to convince herself it was real, but, come on. As if you were just waiting in the wings, desperate to go to the Sinclair shitshow. And she told me what you did for her at breakfast, and, girl, that was not remotely giving platonic.”
Hallie scrunched herself tighter into the blankets she was holding. That was a fair call out. She’d known it at the time and she knew it now. She was simply glad the Sinclairs hadn’t noticed—of course, that would have required them to pay attention to Audrey’s needs.
When she didn’t respond, Zora hummed. “You’re into her, yeah? Looking after her, diving in to whisk her off to safety… You’re sounding an awful lot like a knight in shining armor here.”
“Audrey doesn’t need someone with a savior complex trying to take over her life.”
“Too right she doesn’t. But she does deserve to be loved by someone who knows it’s a privilege to care for her.”
“And you’re sure that’s not you? I heard her tell you she loves you.”
“Yeah, she does. Just like I love her. Like she’s my family and I will happily destroy anyone who hurts her. Of course, she likes to veto that option, but if I ever see the Sinclairs, they’d better watch themselves.”
Hallie smiled. She didn’t think Zora would do anything to the Sinclairs, but she could appreciate how much she cared about Audrey. “Right.”
“I work at a queer non-profit. We do loads of training on discussing feelings and addressing hurt, and I’m telling you right now, if you put me in a room with them, we will be addressing all the hurt they’ve caused.”
“Oh.” Hallie hadn’t quite been expecting that, but that worked too. She was still in the angry phase of thinking Audrey’s family deserved every bad thing karma could send their way, but, actually, Zora had a point. Making them face what they’d done would probably be excruciating and effective.
“I notice you didn’t answer my question.”
“Which one?”
“The one about whether you’ve got a crush on Audrey. Face those feelings, Hallie. It’s healthy.”
She laughed, nervous and awkward. “I mean, it doesn’t really matter, does it? We live super far apart and we’ve only known each other for a few days.”
“First of all, you can know you have a crush on someone the first time you meet them, so that’s not particularly relevant.
Second of all, I know you two have spent a lot of time chatting together in an emotionally charged situation and you’ve been living in the same house.
That speeds things along and is the equivalent of at least ten dates.
By the tenth date, you can have been seeing someone for a while, so, yeah.
You can absolutely know you’re into Audrey. ”
“And the distance thing?”
“Planes exist, Hallie. I imagine you’ve heard of them.”
She laughed. This whole thing was ridiculous, but she couldn’t deny that she liked Zora. Ironic considering she’d spent the last couple of days being unbearably jealous of the woman. “Yeah, I think I know the concept.”
“Right, so, what’s the problem? I’m in LA right now and we’re talking just fine.”
“Yeah, about that… Why are you calling so early? I only answered because I assumed it must be an emergency.”
“Oh. No. I hadn’t heard from Audrey since early yesterday morning, so I figured things must be bad and set an alarm to call her before her family sank their claws in for the day.
” She hesitated. “When things get bad, as I’m sure you’ve been witnessing, she shuts down.
It’s not her fault but the way they break her makes it hard to think, to speak, to reach out.
So, yeah, I carry the mental and emotional load for a while until she’s better, until she’s safe, and I call her. ”
Hallie nodded again. She had seen that yesterday, and she, too, knew it wasn’t Audrey’s fault. It was hard to process when you were traumatized. “She’s lucky to have you.”
“Lucky to have you too, River’s fake girlfriend.”
“Oh, my god.”
“Hey, I’m not judging. I’d have done the same thing in River’s shoes, but I’m glad it’s Audrey you’re into.”
“I didn’t confirm I am.”
“You carry extra cutlery for her, you took her to your mom’s house when she was shutting down, and, as far as I can tell, you were sleeping in the same bed.
It doesn’t take a genius to put those pieces together.
” She laughed again. “Actually, the closest thing to a genius I know is Audrey, and she’s been working overtime trying to convince us both you aren’t into her. ”
“Because she’s not into me.”
“No, ridiculous. Because she is into you and she thought you were dating her cousin.”
“Oh. Right.” Logically, that made sense. But Audrey being into her made very little sense at all.
Zora sighed. “Look, she’s going to feel like a burden, and I’d guess she’s in no place to go back to the Sinclair cabin, so she’s going to try booking a flight home today.
But… if she’s feeling well enough, and I’m guessing she is because she’s sleeping and she definitely wouldn’t be sleeping this late around her family, you should ask her to stay. At least until Sunday.”
“I’m not going to make her do something she doesn’t want to.”
“I know that. I wouldn’t even be telling you this stuff if I thought you would. I’m just saying, you have a place where she can be safe, and I think she likes you. Might as well use the time you have to test out what it could be.”
“Like it’s that easy?”
“Yep. People are always overcomplicating these things, but you don’t need to. You like her, she likes you. Might as well enjoy it while you can.”
Hallie couldn’t help but laugh as she tried to see things as simply as Zora did. “I guess I’m no longer surprised she thought you might be at an orgy.”
“Audrey said that?” she asked, sounding impressed with herself.
“Yeah, just as, like, a throwaway comment.”
“Nice. Yeah, no, this week, I’ve been to a threesome but no orgies. So far. The weekend’s still young.”
“It’s Thursday.”
“Exactly. Beginning of the weekend debauchery in my opinion.”
Hallie laughed. “Well, okay, then. Love that for you. Not what I was expecting from Audrey’s… uh…”
“Girlfriend,” Zora snorted. “But, maybe it’s not what you’d expect from her best friend, either. We have different needs and that’s okay. She knows I’d still drop all of that if she needed me. Just as I know she’d drop what she was doing to help me.”
“Yeah,” she replied softly.
“And,” Zora said knowingly, “you’re not asking me nearly enough questions to be interested in orgies, so, I’m guessing they’re not your scene either, but Audrey is.”
“Oh, I—”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“Of course it wasn’t.”
“Don’t waste the next few days, Hallie. She likes you and it’s been a long time coming. But look after her, because if you hurt her, you’ll have me to deal with.”
“I wouldn’t do that, but I appreciate the threat.” She did. She felt the same way about the people hurting Audrey, and she hadn’t known the woman nearly as long or as well as Zora had. She just wanted good things for her. “So… do you want me to wake her?”
“Absolutely not. Being around her family is exhausting. Let her sleep, but, when she wakes up and you tell her about this conversation, tell her I’m happy for her and I said I love her bigger than the whole sky.”
Hallie almost laughed. There was that phrase again.
Now that she wasn’t jealous of the woman who got Audrey saying that to her, she found herself immensely glad Audrey had someone who loved her like that.
She deserved all the love in the world. “Wait. How’d you know I’d tell her about this conversation? ”
Zora scoffed. “Because you care about her and, as far as I can tell, you’re already perfectly aware that all the veiled conversations and secrets in her family fuck her up. You wouldn’t put her through more of that.”
“Correct.”
“I wouldn’t be shipping the two of you if I didn’t think you were a good one.”
“Shipping… Okay. Cool.”
Zora chuckled. “She deserves good things. You’re good things. It’s really that simple. Now, you should get back to her because I don’t think she’s going to want to wake up alone in a bed she got into with you…”
“We didn’t have sex, you know?” Hallie wasn’t sure why she needed to clarify that. Probably something about wanting Zora to know she wasn’t just looking for a quick fling, that she wasn’t using Audrey for sex.
“I didn’t think you did. I just think you’ve been… emotionally fucking for the last few days and she deserves better than waking up alone.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It definitely is.” She laughed one more time, not allowing arguments. “Have a good day, Hallie!”
“Yeah, bye, Zora.”
Well, none of that had been quite what she’d been expecting but that was okay.
She shook her head as she squeezed back through the door without opening it too far, and her heart soared at the sight of Audrey still fast asleep and snuggled up in her bed.
She put Audrey’s phone face down where it had been and climbed back into the deliciously warm bed.
She’d already been hoping Audrey would want to stay here until her flight home, but, as she watched her sleeping, her breaths slow, deep, and soft, every atom in her body ached with the hope that she would.