Chapter 12
twelve
. . .
The record ended a while ago, but Akilah is terrified that if she brings it up, Tanner will realise she’s been here all day. The sun has already set. Akilah has been feeding her throughout the day, so she doesn’t lose her to hunger. It’s the sneakiest she’s been in years.
Tanner asked more questions. Mostly sarcastic but always interested.
Akilah didn’t realise how nice it was to tell someone something just because.
She’s so used to long conversations being for a reason.
She had to talk to her parents about her hormones and the surgery she doesn’t want.
She had to tell Damon that the club could close, and then he wanted to know why she opened it in the first place.
No one ever wants to know why she replays the same fifteen seconds in a song because the voice hits right. No one cares why she has six of the same books on her bookcase. No one but Tanner asks her things because they like her voice.
It’s quietly devastating in a way she knows she should scrub from her memory before it solidifies. She won’t. She’ll let it live there.
Tanner is closer than she was earlier. A whole cushion closer, but she still hasn’t touched her at all. Akilah misses her, and she’s right here. Somehow misses the weight of her hand on her thigh, the press of her fingers against the back of her hand.
Tanner spins, leaning against the back of the sofa, her elbow resting next to Akilah’s forearm. She’s so wonderfully beautiful. “What’s your weekly truth, pretty girl?”
Akilah runs her finger down the length of Tanner’s arm. “You’ll be mad at me.”
Tanner smiles, leaning her forehead against her bicep. “I’ve been at least thirty percent mad at you since you said you didn’t like Billy Joel.”
“I stand by it.”
“I’m going to change your mind.”
“I believe you,” Akilah replies. Fingers twisting in Tanner’s hair. She should have used the question time to ask her if she ever thought of dating someone like her.
“Not liking him is wild. It is basically a war crime. It means you should tell me your truth before I kick you out.” Akilah’s hand traces the curve of Tanner’s arm until she reaches her fingers. She thinks about linking their fingers, but ultimately chickens out.
Tanner wastes no time running her finger along the back of Akilah’s hand.
She looks at it with awe, as if she has the eighth wonder of the world at the end of her arm.
Tanner’s never made any suggestion that Akilah looks weird.
They’ve never discussed her being trans at all, and Akilah is mostly happy with how she looks.
But her hands are something that never look like they belong to her.
Tanner flips her hand over, presses her palm against hers. Flexes her fingertips against the middle of Akilah’s fingers. Smiles at something and then brings her hand close and kisses her palm.
“I think about your hands more than is reasonable.” She links their fingers, then looks at her. “What were you saying?”
Akilah is breathy when she replies. “It’s my house. You can’t kick me out.”
“You’d leave if I asked.”
“I would.” Akilah taps her toes against the rug. “My favourite thing is figuring out what your expressions mean.” Tanner swallows. “I wake up thinking about your pout.”
“That’s two,” she whispers, looking up at her. “Stop breaking the rules.”
“Scared we won’t be best friends?”
Tanner laughs, rests her forehead against her shoulder and then, softly, she tilts. Her lips brush her skin, and Akilah grips the sofa like her life depends on it.
“Tan,” she says quietly, as if she could split the atmosphere with anything above the hum of the record player. Tanner moves rapidly, smiling at her so wide and breathtaking that Akilah can’t be mad she messed up.
“What?” Akilah pants.
“You gave me a nickname.”
Akilah rolls her eyes. “I shortened your current name.”
Tanner drags her bottom lip between her teeth as she smiles. She moves closer, and Akilah can barely breathe. She doesn’t touch her right away, even as she gets so close that Akilah can smell the raspberry on her breath.
“It’s a nickname. You want to be cute with me.”
“You’re insufferable,” Akilah whispers. She watches the light bounce around Tanner’s eyes. Tries to figure out how to get that colour into the club redesign.
Tanner giggles. “Oh my God, you’re going to fall in love with me.”
Akilah tilts her head, her nose brushing against Tanner’s.
“I don’t need to fall.” Tanner’s lips touch hers once.
Barely a kiss if she had to categorise it.
Akilah knows the pressure of her lips will linger for the rest of her life.
Tanner pulls back, lets it settle. Let’s have her figure it out like she always does.
Akilah shakes her head. Her heart thumps uselessly. Tanner is stock still, like she’s trying not to influence her thoughts, but there’s the ghost of a smile there, tucked into the corner of her mouth.
“I’ve –” Akilah presses her lips to her jaw, creating a path down her neck, all teeth and tongue, and in a voice that’s low and rough and terribly, terribly sincere, she whispers, “I’ve been trying quite hard not to think about this.”
She manoeuvres them, her hand against Tanner’s waist as she leans over her. Tanner’s heart stutters under her palm. Akilah’s pulse jumps in her ears, like a marching band at the apex of a song. She chases Tanner’s mouth again, another desperate kiss, hot and sharp.
“How’d that work out for you?” Tanner whispers against her lips, smiling. Oh, she’s going to be the death of her.
Akilah huffs a breath that might’ve been a laugh, but it catches in her throat. She kisses her harder this time, drinking down the trembling sighs. Then, pulling back enough to breathe, her words spill out, trembling:
“It didn’t.”
Tanner’s tongue runs along her upper lip, dipping into her mouth the moment she moves closer.
Akilah’s hand rests against her neck. She takes control, and Tanner lets her, lying back against the sofa.
Akilah is acutely aware of the way Tanner’s hands are cautious.
Instead, she focuses on her thighs against her hips—the way her calf presses against the back of her thigh.
“What’s your truth?” Akilah asks, terrified and horrendously hopeful.
“I want to do this to you for a really long time,” she whispers.
“But we should talk about it,” Tanner says, tilting her head until her nose bumps against Akilah’s and moving her again until she can kiss her.
Akilah smiles into it. Tanner moans, and Akilah swallows it, hand gripping her hip as she tries to remember the way it vibrated down her throat.
“Because you are entirely too alluring, and I don’t want to push you too far.”
Akilah chases her mouth again. “Okay.”
One more kiss until Tanner pushes her away with her hand against her chest.
“God, you’re good at that,” she says, then she shakes her head. “You don’t like sex, is this different?”
“Sometimes,” Akilah says with a pant. “I like kissing.” She hasn’t had to talk to anyone about her body in so long, but with Tanner’s soft fingers against her jumper, she’s not as terrified.
“Sex is something I don’t actively dislike; I struggle to want it a lot of the time. Though sometimes I’d want to touch you, if you wanted that. But uhm, kissing and being together like this is good all of the time.”
Tanner nods. “You are stubbornly opaque and annoyingly my favourite thing to exist. So, I can’t have you pushing yourself for me if you don’t want that.”
Akilah nods. Tries to understand how Tanner wouldn’t mind kissing, only to stop.
Akilah is barely well-versed in relationships, but she’s had enough (two) to know that stopping anything inherently sexual is laced with disappointment and the silent treatment.
Akilah likes the quiet, but not when it’s used as a weapon.
“I don’t want it like that,” Tanner says quietly. “Not at all. If you’re not a hundred percent in it, I don’t want it.”
Akilah chews on her lip as Tanner continues. “You know, the other day you wanted to see that foreign black and white film?” Akilah nods. “But I wasn’t all that keen, and you didn’t want to go anymore.”
Akilah shrugs. “Well, it wouldn’t have been fun if I knew you weren’t having a good time.”
Tanner smiles like she’s won a prize. “That’s what having sex would be like, if you weren’t into it. I won’t be mad if we ever have to stop anything. If you push through, it’ll kill me. I need you to trust me that I only want what you want.”
“Okay,” Akilah says.
“Okay,” Tanner replies. “Do you want to tell me about it, or I can do research?”
Akilah smiles at her. “I don’t have a label on it or anything. I spent so much of my life trying to figure out what I identify with, and then I’d learn about something else, and everything changes so often that I only talk about it when I have to. Being trans and-”
“What?” Tanner asks, her head tilted. Akilah’s blood runs cold. Her brows are furrowed. Confused, or horrified? Akilah can’t figure it out because her mind is spinning. Oh.
“You’re trans?”
Oh god. Oh, she knew this was never-ending well. Akilah grips the cushion, feels her heart thud to the floor.
“You didn’t know?” She’s told people before. Only a handful in this setting, so she knows it never goes well. Tanner won’t be as cruel, but she could disappear in a worse way, subtly, over time, purposefully.
Tanner frowns. “You never told me.” She shakes her head, but Akilah knows she’s ruined the only relationship she ever built for herself.
“Sorry, I’m not – I was shocked, that’s all. Can I ask you about it? I don’t know what the protocol is.”
Protocol. Like they don’t share thoughts about the end of civilisation and what ramen flavour Tanner wants for dinner. Akilah nods.
“Are you scared?” Tanner asks. “I’ve only spoken to Damon about it, like properly, but he transitioned before I even knew him, and you’re terrified of having your blood taken. Can you get hormones as pills? Are you going to take them?”