Chapter 11
eleven
. . .
Tanner traipses out of her bedroom. Slippers shuffling against the hardwood floors. The light looks off when she gets to the kitchen. It’s not gloomy outside, but it’s not bright enough to shine through her linen curtains. She thinks about putting the record player on, but she’s not in the mood.
She feels off. Checks her app, her period isn’t due for twelve days. She taps her fingers against the worktop and sighs as she turns the kettle on. Every few moments, she glances at her phone. Akilah is usually an early riser, but the last text she sent last night suggests she left work late.
Tanner almost asked her to come over, but she didn’t want it to sound like a booty call, so she didn’t. She regretted it then, and she regrets it now.
She stares blankly at her living room. She made her flat her favourite place, but something is missing today. Fingertips tap along her worktop, but it’s not the right pace.
The kettle clicks off, and Tanner moves away from the steam she hadn’t noticed was fogging up her glasses. Her fringe will be a mess if she’s not careful. She watches the honey drip off her spoon, stirs it until it’s dissolved, and wills the weird feeling to disappear.
Her phone lights up, and she scowls until she sees it’s Akilah calling. Akilah doesn’t call people.
“Hello?”
It’s quiet for a moment. Tanner wonders if it’s a butt dial.
“Hi.” Not a butt dial. She’s nervous. Her voice is morning-low and the most pleasant thing Tanner could imagine.
“Hey. You okay?”
“Yeah,” she replies. What’s she doing, what she’s thinking about? Tanner wants to know more than she wants to know how her tea tastes. “Are you?”
“Mhm. I just woke up; the sleep grump hasn’t left yet.”
Akilah shuffles on the other side. Is she at home? She’s usually at the club, but Tanner wants to know what her house looks like. “But it’s sunny.”
Tanner smiles, and it lifts a little. “I know.”
“Are you busy today?”
Tanner taps her fingertips against her mug. Still too hot. She has to put the laundry away, maybe visit the supermarket, and plan the next week at work.
“No.” It’s quiet for a moment. She misses her voice. “How was your night? You left work late. I thought you wouldn’t be awake for a while.”
“I set an alarm,” she replies, then, “I didn’t want to miss you before you went off to be social.”
Tanner smiles against the rim of her cup.
She’s not sure when Akilah became someone who influenced her mood so easily, but it’s not a surprise.
Somehow, she can’t remember the bus route she uses daily, but she can remember that ‘I would have come out of Eden to open the door for you if I had known you were there’ is Akilah’s favourite of Emily Dickinson’s letters.
“I got a record player,” Akilah says. Tanner can see her feet shuffling. She thinks she’s wearing pyjama trousers, fluffy socks and a baggy top. If she closes her eyes, she can force herself into a soft-looking jumper.
“You did?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how to use it,” she replies, then, “and I only have one record, and I don’t like it.”
Tanner laughs, the movement sending ripples through her tea. “What one?”
Akilah grumbles on the other end of the receiver. “It was right next to the checkout. I picked it up for practice.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So, if you wanted to come over and bring things you like to listen to. I would like to spend the day watching you dance badly.”
“I dance so well, you’d give me a job so fast.”
Akilah hums a little laugh. “Should I come get you?”
Tanner smiles against her mug. Oh, how she missed what this feels like. She’s had girlfriends, but no one made her feel like this from miles away. “I’ll drive, then you don’t have to leave when I go home.”
Akilah grumbles again. She’s so cute. Tanner would stay if she asked.
“What do you want me to bring?” She places her tea on the side, already forgotten.
“Anything that makes you happy.”
Tanner thinks about how she’s skipping through her flat, the lighting now soft with a glow, though it hasn’t changed at all. “What if you make me happy?”
“I’m already here.”
Tanner chuckles. “I’m coming in pyjamas.”
“Okay,” Akilah responds. There’s a beat of silence again. “Does that mean you’re coming right now?”
“Do you miss me?”
“Desperately.”
Tanner is quiet the entire drive to Akilah’s house. She’s not nervous, but sometimes when there’s an excitement buzzing through her veins, she needs silence to concentrate.
The day will consist of quiet periods. She’s grown to be fond of them. She’s learning the differences in how Akilah lines up pens. Learning what it means to negotiate with eyebrow raises—learning what it means to mean something to someone.
Someone who will buy a record player, so that she has an excuse to ask her over. Someone who sends her messages when she’s busy, so Tanner doesn’t overthink her lack of reply. Someone who waits at the window, ready to open the door before she lifts her hand to knock.
“Hi,” Akilah says, a shy shrug of her shoulders, as though she had no control over her actions.
Tanner smiles brightly. “Hi.”
Tanner waits for Akilah to move and let her in; instead, she walks closer and pulls her into a hug.
It’s a little awkward because there’s a step to get into her house, and Tanner hasn’t walked up it, and she’s already half a foot shorter than Tanner.
Her forehead practically rests against her belly button.
“Sorry,” Akilah says as she drops her hands and avoids looking at her entirely.
“Don’t be.”
Akilah’s house is nothing like Tanner imagined, and it suits her entirely. It’s brighter than she thought. Piles of books on the floor, she expected that. Perhaps, she can convince Akilah to tell her something about each of them.
“What were you expecting?” Akilah asks as she leads the way to the kitchen.
Tanner shrugs, looking at the multitude of photo frames that grace the walls. “I guess I was imagining the bat cave.”
Akilah snorts. “I don’t like black that much.”
“You are literally head to toe in black right now,” Tanner replies as she sits on the barstool. The kitchen suggests Akilah cooks often. Tanner wonders if she ever entertains. If there’s a long line of girlfriends, she should be jealous of. Tanner wants to be her girlfriend.
Akilah looks down. “There’s grey here,” she says, pointing towards the checks on her pyjama trousers. She’s Tanner’s favourite thing in the world.
“Is that your genuine defence?”
Akilah pouts, flicks the kettle on.
“How do you take your tea?” she asks, back to her. Tanner narrows her eyes. She wore that vest to fuck with her. She watches the movement of her shoulders, the architecture of her hips and thighs. Tanner blinks, looks at the counter.
“Honey,” Tanner says, replying far too late.
Akilah looks up. “Yeah?” God, she’s so fucking cute.
“No, I mean, I drink tea with honey.”
She blushes, and Tanner knows she’s going to have fun with her today. Still, her heart beats, be careful, be careful, be careful with her.
Akilah gives her a tour as their tea cools.
Two spare rooms upstairs that look like they haven't been touched since Akilah bought the house. A bedroom that definitely has space for Tanner’s hundred jumpers, Pieter the mammoth tucked beneath the duvet, and so much personality she never wants to leave.
“I can’t believe you have a sunroom,” she says, sitting on the couch. Olive green, suede, fancy for someone who took four days to pick a neon light colour for the bar.
“It’s a conservatory.”
Tanner gasps. “If you painted it sage green, left the brick at the bottom, threw a rug and a daybed in there. It’s a sunroom.”
Akilah hums, tucking her foot under her thigh. “Would you come over if I did?”
“I’m here right now with nothing but a normal living room to entertain me.”
Akilah smiles into her tea. Two sugars. Tanner is learning so much about her. How mortifying that she’s in love with her before she knew she had a favourite mug, and that she wears her rings around the house.
“Can I ask you something?” Tanner asks.
Akilah pulls at her lip with her teeth. “Are you going to be mean about my awful attempt at a hug?”
Tanner smiles brightly. “It was my favourite ever thing and I will bake a cake on the anniversary every year.”
Akilah groans, hiding her face behind her mug.
“Baby,” she says, tapping her toes near her. “Can I ask you the most important question of all time?”
“You’re going to anyway.”
Tanner smiles. She is. “What was your favourite childhood film?” Akilah thinks about it. Her eyes are closing as if she’s remembering a long, drawn-out memory. Tanner imagines she sat with a notebook, tallying inconsistencies.
“Toy Story.” Tanner smiles, and Akilah blushes. “Why are you smiling? Was that not a good answer?”
“You know, I thought you were the coolest, moodiest, most untouchable woman I’d ever met,” Tanner says, takes a sip of her tea, then, “And you are all those things. But you have a favourite childhood film, you have portraits of flowers in the hall, and you have hay fever.”
She frowns. “Did you come into my home to find things to mock me about?”
“Maybe,” Tanner admits. “Now it’s your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
“To ask me something!”
Akilah raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t realise this was a two-way interrogation.”
“It is now. Go on.”
Akilah thinks for a moment, then asks, “When was the happiest you’ve ever been?”
Tanner grins. “Define happy.”
“Anything that would make me question your sanity because you’re smiling too much.” Anything like that, Akilah might have been right there.
“Oh, well, in that case…” Tanner taps her chin. “There was a time recently.”
Akilah tilts on her seat, head resting against the back of the sofa. Tanner wants to reach out to her so badly. Her eyes go to her mouth, the pull of want suddenly desperately urgent, but she masters it as she has done many times before.
“What happened?” Akilah asks.
“My jaw ached so badly I had to use an ice pack to sleep.”
Akilah is laughing now, full and carefree, and goodness, it fills the room, and Tanner feels herself fall a little further, sitting here on the opposite side of the couch as if nothing else exists.
“Don’t laugh!” Tanner protests, though she’s already giggling. Akilah’s hands stroke the cushion next to her. Tanner dreams about running her finger across her palm. “It was horrific. I thought I would have to go to the dentist and explain that a woman exists, and now my jaw hurts.”
Akilah presses her lips together, fighting a smile. “You haven’t told me what caused it.”
“You didn't ask. I’m being difficult.”
Akilah exhales, shaking her head. “That is painfully on-brand for you.”
“I resent that.”
Akilah chuckles, her hands resting in her lap. “Your turn.”
“Can I ask now?” Akilah asks, and Tanner nods from where she’s slid down the arm of the sofa. Her toes almost touch Akilah. She’s so sly.
“You don’t touch me.”
Tanner frowns. “That’s not a question.”
“You rarely touch me,” Akilah whispers, her fingers tracing a seam in her trousers.
“Well, you held my elbow at the museum, and often when we sleep, you reach for me, and I thought … You don’t touch me.
Not my hand, not my wrist. I’m trying so hard to be casual and chill, because you always have reasons for things, but you keep looking at me like you’re going to touch me and then you don’t. ”
Tanner’s heart races so fast she’s surprised she’s still sitting up.
Akilah looks at her, away, then back again. “So, I’m wondering if you’re going to?”
“You told me not to,” Tanner replies. It’s supposed to be more than that. She’s supposed to tell her she wants to touch her, but the only thing she can get out is that the only reason she isn’t touching her is that she asked her not to.
“What?”
“The day we were in your office,” she says, then, “When you told me there was literally no one left on earth to ask.” Akilah rolls her eyes. “You said you don’t like people touching you.”
“You’re not people.”
Tanner smiles. “I am. Hopefully not now, but I was then,” she says, chewing on her lip. “Your body is so important, and though I try, I can’t read your mind.”
Akilah frowns like she’s trying to replay the conversation to find that Tanner’s incorrect, but she can’t. Tanner smiles as she taps her toes against her shin.
“Ilah, you’re perfect, but you’re terribly difficult to get any information from. I need you to tell me what you want.”
Akilah shuffles, lets her hand fall to rest on her foot. “I feel stupid.”
“You are anything but.”
“I’ve been going insane,” Akilah huffs out, pushing her hair over her shoulder with one hand. The other rubbing at the arch of her foot. “How is it so easy for you?”
Tanner shrugs. “I dream about it. When I’m sleeping, when I’m awake, when I’m not even thinking.
There is a portion of my mind taken up by what it would feel like to have my palm resting against your neck.
Or how I’d love to feel your laughter through your fingertips against the back of my hand,” she says casually.
Then, she flicks her gaze up to Akilah’s blushed face.
“How I’d pull you closer if we kissed, or I’d wake up with my leg across your hip without immediately spinning away. It’s something I think about consistently.”
Akilah frowns. “Then I don’t understand.”
“It’s easy because you asked me not to.” Tanner smiles at her. “Baby, it’s easy because it’s you.”