20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
“Have you always been the kind of person who’s late?” Hope demanded as Alison arrived down onto the main pathway around the lake late on a Sunday morning. “Because we’ve been friends for like, half a year and I swear you get later and later all the time.”
“I’m not that late,” protested Alison. “And we’ve only been friends for about a third of a year, actually.”
“You’re twenty minutes late!” Hope’s eyes went wide. “I’m basically frozen now.”
“I would have been ten minutes late, but I was making you this.” Alison handed over the travel mug filled with hot chocolate. “Which should warm you up quite nicely if you can stop complaining long enough to drink it. Besides, it’s your own fault for not dressing better. ”
“I’m dressed great, ” Hope disagreed, taking a grateful sip of the hot, sweet beverage. She did somehow manage to make a plaid shirt look chic, but it was her warmest layer and Gold Hill in spring was still adamantly not warm. Alison herself had made a similar error, nothing but a long-sleeved running top above her crop top and leggings. The sun had peeped out momentarily from the clouds so it had looked warm enough outside when she’d glanced out the window. Her mistake. They began to walk briskly to warm up, because Hope actually did look slightly shivery.
“I’m sorry,” Alison said belatedly. “I was on a phone call with Norah about a client. It ran on a bit.”
“You’re forgiven,” said Hope. “Since you’re being all moral and helping people.”
“That’s so kind of you,” Alison said drily.
“I just wondered if it was a rich person thing,” Hope said idly. “Like, you’re always more busy and important than everyone else.”
“Are you trying to get yourself pushed in that lake?” Alison raised her eyebrows.
“I’d like to see you try,” Hope said. Alison burst into laughter. “Oh, okay now that’s offensive,” Hope complained. “Yes, you’re taller and we all know you’re a gym bunny, but if I can manage an angry horse or a cow I can manage you. ”
“Give me that back.” Alison tried to snatch the hot chocolate out of her hands. Hope clutched it closer and ducked away. “You absolutely don’t deserve me bringing you sweet little gifts if you’re going to compare me to livestock.”
“Stubborn, unwieldy, literally never doing what you’re told, despite all the ways I’ve tried to train you. I think it’s an apt comparison actually. Plus you have those lush eyelashes.”
“ Train me?” Alison glared at her and Hope snickered. They crossed the small bridge over the stream outlet and headed on toward the far side of the lake. “How you have any friends at all is increasingly a surprise to me.”
“Oh you needed training,” Hope told her, unrepentant. “Training in how to leave the house, how to let people in, how to behave at parties that don’t involve canapés and little forks, how to speak politely to people who care about you. Come to think about it, you still haven’t mastered that last one.”
“Cute,” said Alison. A slight breeze picked up off the lake and small pinpricks of rain hit her face. They picked up the pace without needing to discuss it. “How do you know I haven’t been training you this whole time?”
“Because I’m far too smart for that,” Hope said.
“Mm. ”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh please. Fine. What do you believe you’ve been training me in?”
“I mean honestly…” Alison said, holding up her hands like there were too many things to mention. The pinpricks had turned into real rain drops, and she had to look down to stop them from getting in her eyes. “How to have boundaries about people’s cars, how not to be a home invader, how to stop asking nosy questions when it’s clear that someone doesn’t want to tell you the answer-”
“I’ve learned none of those things,” Hope said brightly, even as she frowned under the raindrops. “God. Whose fucking idea was it to go for a walk in this weather?”
“Yours,” Alison reminded her. “Oh lord!”
A rumble of thunder crashed above them and the steady rain turned into a roar.
“Oh my god!”
They both began to jog .
“This way!” Alison started to laugh. They were barely a third of the way around the lake and Hope was trying to run two-thirds in the wrong direction, still clutching her half-drunk hot chocolate.
“For fuck’s sake,” Hope gasped as she turned and jogged after her, rain beating down on their heads.
“Maybe we should just shelter under the trees?”
“Ali, no, Jesus, that’s how people die from lightning strikes,” Hope told her. “God, you’re like an innocent baby sometimes.”
Water splashed up their legs, soaking their shoes, while rain bucketed from above, drenching their clothes. Another crash of thunder boomed overhead.
“This is ridiculous,” Alison complained as the two of them raced up the hill toward her house.
“You love it,” Hope accused, panting, as they ran through the gate, crunching over the wet gravel and up to the front door. “You look totally exhilarated, it’s disgusting.”
“You look like an angry drowned rat,” Alison spluttered a laugh at Hope’s drenched appearance, her hair plastered to her head .
Hope rolled her eyes and pushed her hair back, shaking her head like an annoyed wet puppy and Alison laughed harder, even as she wrestled with the key to her front door. She let Hope in first and closed the door against the elements.
The foyer was dim in the sudden storm, and quiet as the heavy door shut out the pounding of the driving rain against the pavers outside. They looked at each other for a second, and both began to laugh.
Alison toed off her ruined sneakers and soaked socks and Hope did the same, both of them dripping puddles on the floor.
“Ugh,” said Hope, holding out her drenched shirt. She pulled it up to tug over her head and immediately got stuck. “Fuck!” she struggled and Alison watched her, laughing helplessly.
“Oh my god.” She couldn’t stop laughing, Hope flailing with her shirt stuck around her head.
“Can you fucking help me please?” Hope demanded, even as she too, began to laugh. Alison stepped forward and helped, disentangling Hope’s wet hair from where it was caught on the button and pulling the shirt up over her head. “Thank you, ” Hope said with exasperation as she reappeared, pushing back her tangled hair with a huff. Alison let her wet shirt hit the floor with a slap.
“Don’t be mad just because some of us can undress ourselves without help,” she said, pulling her skin tight running top up over her head where it immediately snagged, clinging under her chin.
Hope cackled out loud and stepped in - even though Alison would have been fine , in just another second - gripping the wet fabric and pulling it up off over her head. Alison blinked out of the wet fabric to see Hope’s sparkling eyes, looking far too smug. And far too close. Pulling off Alison’s clothes.
Alison looked back at her, Hope now just in a soaking wet t-shirt clinging tightly to her curves. Those teasing eyes, her hair in wet tendrils around her shoulders, her skin flushed with exertion and laughter. Alison’s hands acted before her brain even knew they would, as if the next step was inevitable. She gripped hold of the hem of Hope’s t-shirt and dragged it up, off and over her head, letting it drop down to the floor next to her shirt.
Hope looked back at her, surprise flaring, now standing in Alison’s foyer in nothing but her bra and leggings. Her skin gleamed with rain, breasts spilling out the top of her bra, Alison apparently now just straight up stripping her without pretence, standing far too close, want pounding in her veins. They were both breathing hard; which, when had that started happening? The moment had flipped between them, on a dime.
Hope tilted her head, just slightly, her teeth sinking into her lower lip, her eyes fixed on Alison. The foyer was dim, cool, the rain the only sound in the dark grey light. For a second, time stretched out and neither of them moved. Then, very deliberately, Hope arched her spine, just enough. Her shoulders tilted back, so knowing, so clear that Alison wanted to look at her, to drink her in, to watch. The look in her eyes was nothing short of daring, of bratty even, and that was it. Finally. Enough. Too much.
Alison snapped. Her hand shot out and immediately tangled in Hope’s hair. She grabbed hold of her wet locks at the back of her scalp, tugging her head back sharply. She held Hope there, just for a second, just to hear her gasp. Then, she pressed her lips hard against Hope’s, so soft and plump and open, so desperately warm despite the cold rain on their skin. It felt like falling into a whole new world.
In this world, Hope moaned into her mouth, arching into the kiss, coming up onto her tiptoes and Alison pinned her there, one hand gripped in her hair, the other pressing up firmly on the small of her back - her skin bare and slick - tasting this woman’s mouth like she’d been starved of kisses her entire life.
Hope pressed closer, a short choked hungry sound escaping her and Alison kissed her harder, pulled her tighter, and Hope’s hands clung to her hips, anchoring herself, opening up for Alison to taste her, to take more, and oh god, did Alison want to take everything.
“ Mm-” Hope moaned, the sound a heady, hungry approval, then she tugged back, just enough to gasp, “what’s happening?”
The words were just enough to break through the incredible haze Alison was in, where Hope was half naked, in her arms and kissing her. No, Alison was the one doing the kissing. Oh fuck. She let go of the ferocious grip she had on Hope’s hair and let her down off her tiptoes.
“Oh god-” Alison gasped. “Oh fuck . I’m sorry.”
“Mm-mm,” Hope shook her head. “No, that’s… that’s not a sorry moment.” She gazed up at Alison, dazed, pressing her fingers softly against her lips. “Oh my god, ” she whispered. She closed her eyes for a second, a slight whimper escaping her, before she opened them again, her expression still shocked. “I just… what’s happening? ” she asked again.
“I shouldn’t have,” Alison whispered. “Hope, I’m sorry. Oh god… I just… lost control there for a second.” She was horrified but still desperately turned on. Hope was staring at her, her body still temptingly exposed, still in arm’s reach.
“It kind of felt more like you took control, actually,” Hope said. There was a note in her voice Alison was too overwhelmed to decipher. Shock? Confusion? Accusation? Hope tilted her head back and forth, her fingers coming up to her hair, clearly feeling where Alison had grabbed her. She sank her teeth into her lip.
Alison was mortified.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “God, I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again. ”
Hope watched her.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” she said softly. She licked her bottom lip, then sucked it into her mouth. “ God, Alison. You can’t just go around kissing a girl like that. Not if you don’t intend to do it again.”
Oh god. Hope was looking at her with giddy, undisguised lust. She wanted more. Alison did too. She took a breath. Oh fuck, she could kiss her again.
No. The word announced itself in her brain like a neon flashing light. No. No, she couldn’t keep kissing Hope. Because it wouldn’t just be kissing, one look at Hope’s parted lips and heaving chest as her breathing hitched told her that. Alison would take absolutely everything Hope would give her, but what did she have to give back?
Absolutely nothing. Just drama, baggage, risk, inexperience, pain.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered now. And oh god was she sorry.
“Alison.” Hope straightened up. “Don’t look like that.”
“I’m destroying this.” Alison heard her own voice, cracking with desperation .
“Okay, well now you’re being dramatic,” Hope denied immediately. Her brows lowered into a frown. “Ali, it’s just a kiss. It’s literally just two friends, who kissed. You need to calm down.”
Alison’s chest felt like it was caving in. Hope was so blasé. Alison was so deep in this moment she’d acted out of pure desperation, so hungry for this woman she’d just about lost her damn mind. She’d had the kiss of a lifetime, the only kiss she’d ever truly felt. And for Hope? For Hope it was just a kiss.
“We don’t all kiss our friends,” she snapped. “It is a big deal to some of us.”
“It doesn’t have to be!” Hope’s eyes went wide. “It doesn’t have to be this thing where we all freak out and ruin a perfectly good friendship. It’s just a kiss, Alison. Can you please just fucking chill? It’s just your mouth, on my mouth. It happens.”
“It doesn’t just happen to me!” Alison cried. “Can’t you just let me have this moment? It’s not your job to tell me how I feel all the time, Hope! I’m not feeling chill about this. I’m not some cool hipster who fucks all her friends, okay?”
Hope looked at her, her expression suddenly extremely cool. She leaned over and picked up her bag. She left her wet clothes in a pool on the floor, opened Alison’s front door and stepped - barefoot, in her bra - out into the rain.