Chapter 10
ten
. . .
Akilah craves the weight of Tanner’s hand the entire drive to her house.
It’s dark out, the trees shielding most of the lamppost’s light from her.
Every now and then, Tanner is bathed in a yellow glow, and Akilah tries hard not to look over.
If she fails in her endeavour, which she has done for the past three lights, she remembers how comfortable she was, how she could have slept with her head in her lap.
How badly she doesn’t want to leave her.
It’s been a long day. One with annoying customers and the thought of hugging Tanner goodbye when she went to work the other day.
Akilah thought about what it would mean, how things would change while she restocked.
Friends hug. Akilah’s not sure she wants to be Tanner’s friend.
If they hugged, would Tanner want to kiss her?
And if she did, would she want to kiss her all the time, or sometimes?
Akilah sometimes wants to kiss her. Most of the time, if she’s honest, kissing leads to talks of sex, and how she could touch Tanner, but doesn’t want to be touched herself.
The only way that conversation has ever gone is badly.
She knows it’s not fair to start anything knowing this is all true, but she’s not sure how to casually bring it up. Tanner, we’re friends, but do you think about me naked?
The car comes to a halt, and Tanner clicks the engine off. Akilah frowns.
“You okay?” Tanner asks.
“I don’t live here.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh my God, you don’t.”
Something heavy sits in her chest when Tanner puts her keys back in. Tanner turns to face her, looks away, then looks back.
“What’s wrong?” Akilah asks. “I can’t see your face.”
“Do you want to stay over?” she asks, and her voice is so uncertain.
“Yes.”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you questioning it now?” she asks. Of course, Tanner can change her mind, but Akilah hopes she won’t. “Did you change your mind?”
Tanner giggles. “No, but you might when you see we have to put the bedding back on.”
Akilah feels too big for her bedroom, but when she pulls shorts and a top on that Tanner lends her, and slips into bed, everything smells like her. She hoped to dream about soft brown curls and someone who refuses to look at her.
Tanner falls asleep easily. It’s after midnight when she stops giggling and clicks the lamp off, but Akilah hasn’t slept anywhere but her bed for the past eight years.
She’s not uncomfortable, but she can’t move.
Tanner is asleep, and Akilah doesn’t want to wake her up by fidgeting.
She counts to ten, a hundred, a thousand.
Thinks about the way Tanner smiled at her when she gave her a spare toothbrush and let her use her skincare.
The alarm clock reads one a.m., and Akilah is going to be a zombie tomorrow, but she gathers she can hide in the office. She runs her fingers across the soft material of the top Tanner lent her. Turns her head to watch the way Tanner’s ribs expand beneath her thin vest.
Akilah doesn’t know how to be calm and collected about her.
She doesn’t know how to enjoy this part of a relationship because what if Tanner wants more than she can give her?
She’s frustratingly kind to anyone they stumble upon, so it’s not like she couldn’t find someone to answer questions badly and also provide her with everything else.
There’s a terrifying thought that Akilah isn’t as lucky as other people.
She already knows that to be true. Childhood was a nightmare; her teenage years were somehow worse.
But she did get what she wanted. She knows people have it worse.
They grow up in countries and with families that don’t accept them.
Some people don’t dare to dream about living their truth. Akilah can. She had little trouble with hormones; she owns a club she loves. There’s no way she gets Tanner, too. But, oh, she needs her.
There’s no path forward for her where she isn’t helplessly in love with her.
Her heart thumps at the idea that she’s going to have to tell her at some point.
Sometimes, she pretends she could just love her and be her friend.
That the prospect of spending her life watching from behind a barrier is something she could be happy with.
She’d do it. She knows that she would, but it would kill her slowly, unkindly, with no protection at all. That’s not the worst part.
The worst part is that she can see the rest of her life.
Sundays, birthdays, and quick trips to the supermarket when they run into her sister.
Dinners that take too long, game nights that she’s forced to join and then shunned when she knows all the answers.
Trips to the beach, where she sits under the umbrella because she doesn’t like the feeling of sand on her toes, but will build sandcastles if Tanner asks her to.
She slots Tanner in so easily that it should terrify her.
It does, but not in a way that she wants to run from.
In a way that suggests she should ask Tanner if she wants this for real.
Perhaps not the exact thing. She might want to fold her laundry alone and has no desire to walk around town with her just because she wants to get out of the house.
But she might want Akilah in another way. In a way, that means they see each other more often in a way that blends their lives beyond the club. In a way, that means she wants to love her, too.
Tanner shuffles, a soft sigh escaping her lips, and Akilah takes the momentum to spin over, too. She’s lying on her back, and it makes it all worse. Akilah tilts her head a little, finds her heart in the dark.
“Ilah,” Tanner mumbles. She hums in response. “Did I wake you?” Akilah smiles, traces her silhouette with her eyes.
“No, baby.”
Tanner’s eyes flutter open with a smile. “You called me baby.”
“You’re a danger even in your sleep.”
She smiles, her hand creeping towards her. “Why aren’t you asleep?”
Akilah wants to explain that sleep doesn’t come easily for her. It’s not Tanner’s fault that the hum of the neon light is something Akilah will focus on. That the pillow isn’t the same one she usually uses, but she can’t fluff it up in the middle of the night.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Do you need to move around?” Tanner asks, and she sits up. Rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm. “Tell me how to help. Usually, you move when I move, but I just sat up, and you didn’t move once.”
“How do you know that?”
“I pay attention to you.” She says it so casually. Of course, she’s figured out how Akilah moves during the day.
“I – uhm. I didn’t bring my earplugs, so I can hear the light outside. Usually, I’d get around it by humming or tapping.”
“Don’t inconvenience yourself for me,” Tanner replies. When she lies down, she’s closer. “I want you here regardless. I can ask the news agents to turn the light off at night, but for tonight, please, move.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“I hate them,” she says softly. Akilah frowns. Tanner doesn’t hate things.
“Who?”
She sits up again, her brow so furrowed she shades the bottom half of her face. Akilah has it memorised.
“Whoever made you feel like you had to be smaller than you are,” she says. Her voice was softer than her words. She runs her finger down the side of Akilah’s face. “Whoever made you feel like you’re not allowed to be comfortable while you sleep. Whoever made you think you weren’t entirely perfect.”
Akilah swallows, tries to move her hands, and feels the familiarity calming her. “I don’t want to annoy you.”
“You are a number of things, and annoying isn’t one of them.”
“What’s one?”
Tanner lies down again. Akilah spins to face her. Her hand drops down her face, and Akilah kisses her fingertips as they pass.
“Stupidly pretty. Unwillingly funny. Possibly supposed to be ruling the underworld.”
“That’s three,” she whispers. “Who’s breaking the rules now?”
Tanner smiles, her eyes drop to her lips just once. Akilah moves closer until their noses brush. “I’m pretty sure I would do anything for you.”
Akilah always thought rules and truths didn’t exist during the night. It’s the time for werewolves and folklore. It’s the time for secrets and dreams.
Akilah touches her lips to hers with a soft gasp. “You would?”
Tanner sighs, and she feels it vibrate against her mouth.
“Yes.” Akilah kisses her again, harder this time. Tanner’s hands rest against her neck, her fingertips pressing against her skin as she moans. Faster than she can quantify, Akilah’s hands weave into Tanner’s hair, pulling her closer, until she’s not sure where she ends, and Tanner begins.
It’s so close to sex. Tanner’s hand drifts over her shoulder, down her arm. Akilah just needs to take their clothes off, and everything else is similar. She wishes she knew where the line between want and need lay.
Tanner’s hips move slightly. So slightly that Akilah can’t be sure it was on purpose, or if she’s just getting comfortable. Akilah isn’t worried that she’ll get an erection. It’s been so long that she’d be surprised if she could even do that anymore.
Her hands fumble past Tanner’s top, resting against her rapidly expanding ribcage. Her heart thumps beneath her palm, and oh, Akilah wants to be careful with her. She wants her to have whatever she wants, and with the way she moans against her, Tanner wants her.
Why can’t Akilah make herself want sex all the time?
She wants to hear Tanner, feel her, watch her come undone right now.
But they’ve never even spoken about her being trans.
Akilah hasn’t been naked in front of anyone since she was a child.
Tanner’s going to be expecting something else when she takes her clothes off.
But if she stops now, she’s not going to have sex tomorrow.
“Baby,” Tanner whispers. Akilah spins them until Tanner’s eyes fly open as her back hits the mattress. She looks up at her, hands light against her ribs. Akilah blinks, pulls back until she’s sitting on her heels.
“It’s okay,” Tanner whispers. “Please, don’t panic.”
Akilah rolls off her, and Tanner moves until there's so much distance between them she doesn’t know how to cross it.
She stares at the bare sheets, wonders how she can be fucking something up this badly.
Akilah doesn’t get the out-of-body experience often because she managed to shove it into a box where she only associated it with sex.
And then she never let anyone touch her.
“Ilah.”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me what you need.”
A hum forms at the base of her throat, and though she tries to stop it, the noise permeates the room.
“It’s okay,” Tanner says softly. “It’s okay to be comfortable. Do what you need to. Can I do anything?”
Akilah hums more aggressively as she pulls her knees against her chest. Fuck, she never wants to be seen like this.
Her hands flinch, making their way to her shoulders before she can force them back down.
God, she should have known it would be like this.
The last time she was invited to a sleepover, she hit herself in the head until she got sent home at eleven p.m..
She was eleven, but old habits die hard.
It would be over quicker if she would just – fuck, if she could just let herself be.
Tanner hums opposite her. Not a sing-song, just a light hum as she plays with her fingers. Akilah looks over.
Tanner shrugs. “You may as well, pretty girl.” Then she hums again. It’s not mocking as it has been before. There’s nothing on her face that doesn’t show she’s trying to help her, and she doesn’t know how.
Akilah lies down on her stomach, buries her hum in the mattress.
“Can you – can-”
“Yes.”
Her thumbs flex almost painfully against her palms. “I like pressure.”
“Okay,” Tanner says, and Akilah feels the mattress dip. Her fingers rest against her ribs. “Should I lie on you? Or like, I could press on your arm?”
“Lie on me.”
Tanner rests against her so fast that Akilah doesn’t have time to worry about it being weird.
“You know,” Tanner says as softly as the moonlight. “I think I should get to see you today as well.”
“You can,” Akilah replies, feeling brave, running her fingers against Tanner’s forearm. It’s possible no one has ever thought they get to see her, only that they have to.
Tanner leans her forehead against her shoulder. “I’m going to be dreaming about you in three minutes, and I get to see you tomorrow. I’m so lucky. I should buy a lottery ticket or something.”
Akilah hums.
“I would do anything for you,” Tanner says. “That includes stopping whenever you want. I’m not sad.”
Akilah reaches for her hand. Finds it easily.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be. Not with your body.” Akilah was going to ask her if she wanted to do this with her tomorrow, but now she’s not sure how this will end.
She kisses her forehead instead. “Go back to sleep.”
Tanner moves closer. “Will you want to spend the night with me tomorrow?”
“Naturally.”
She feels her smiling against her arm. Feels the way her toes wiggle against the sheets. Feels the way her eyes finally feel heavy.
Oh. Tanner might want to love her back.