28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Emerging into the bright light of the outside world felt like an out of body experience. Hope’s lips were bruised and tingling, her inner thighs sticky, and she could still feel the dull ache from where Alison’s firm fingers had so thoroughly claimed her. Alison - beside her now as they rounded the corner back towards the party, her cheeks flushed, perfect dress creased, Hope all over her fingers - still looking for all the world like an elegant party guest on her way to purchase fine art. Hope struggled to believe for a second that she wasn’t dreaming.
Their eyes met as they reached the door. Alison was glowing, the look in her eyes almost feral with pride. It was no wonder; she’d undone Hope with breathless authority, pulling her orgasm from her like a helpless toy until Hope was wrecked by her, completely in her possession. The whole thing had been over in what was probably fifteen minutes, but Hope had come so hard she was pretty sure she couldn’t even survive another touch of Alison’s hands. Good girl ringing in her ears , Hope’s knees trembled as she just managed to stay upright. Walking back into the party felt like a whole new world, a whole new Hope, a whole new them.
Friends, Alison had warned her. They were friends. But this - this Pandora’s box they’d just opened - there was no way that was the last time they’d do that. It was impossible. Surely it was impossible. Right?
Oh god, maybe they should have talked before they’d walked back into this party. The studio was packed, stifling hot, the roar of hundreds of conversations filling the space. Alison brushed by her side and Hope was just about undone. She wanted, with every fibre of her being to pull Alison close, to meld herself into her body, to nuzzle her face into her soft skin, to reassure herself with another deep kiss. Her eyes flicked to Alison’s and Alison bit her lip hard.
“You can’t look at me like that,” she warned Hope as they stood close, pretending to look at the art.
“Then I can’t look at you at all,” Hope said thickly. Alison’s breath sped up. For a second, Hope wondered if she was about to wrench herself away, to disappear into the crowd. Instead, she felt Alison’s fingers brush her own at her side, softly stroking her pinkie finger, so delicate it almost didn’t happen, so intimate that Hope flushed all over again with need.
“I have to walk away from you right now,” Alison said, her gaze focussed on the sculpture in front of them. “We need… we need a minute.”
“Mmhm,” was all Hope could manage. “Go then,” she dared her. Alison’s whole body brushed hers.
“I mean it,” she murmured. “I’m going to take a walk. Clear my head.”
Good luck with that, Hope thought. Their eyes met and Alison took a sharp breath. She shook her head at Hope and straightened her spine. Then she turned and left. Hope stared at the sculpture. It was an abstract, all curves, no sharp edges. She could barely make her eyes focus, her brain tumbling with images: Alison on that couch, thighs spread just enough, eyes burning with lust as she commanded Hope to strip; Alison’s lips parted, panting as she fucked her; Alison gleaming with sweat and afterglow from making herself come.
What was happening? The first words out of Alison’s mouth were to reassure herself that their friendship was intact. Or were they a warning for Hope not to get ahead of herself? To remind her that this wasn’t romantic. Did she want it to be? Oh god. She knew with lightning certainty that she wanted it to happen again. What about Alison? Was the point of walking away so she could steel herself, wall herself back up, chalk it all up to another mistake?
She remembered the soft trace of Alison’s fingers only moments ago, the heated indulgence in her eyes. Perhaps not. A bolt of excited heat ran through her. Oh fuck , she felt drunk with it .
“Hello, you.” Camille’s voice broke through her reverie and Hope turned around like she was floating on air.
“Hey daydreamer.” Prisha was beside her. Both her friends were flushed with heat and probably champagne, glowing with sheer happiness and the success of the party. Joy raced through her at the sight of the women she adored. She was spilling over with it, her brain still overwhelmed by the intense rush of hormones.
“Oh my god,” she said. “ Hi.”
“Hi.” Camille looked amused. “Are you okay Hopie? You look a little high.”
“Share the goods please,” Prisha agreed, her eyebrows raised.
Hope laughed. She must look like a mess, sex-ravaged, flushed, melting with delight and confusion.
“I am high,” she revealed in a heady whisper. “Alison just fucked me.”
“What?” Camille leaned closer, her smile faltering like she hadn’t quite heard right .
“Alison fucked me,” she repeated, giddy even to be saying the words. “I can’t even describe how I feel right now.”
“ Oh, ” Prisha said. Her eyes skittered between Hope and Camille. “That’s amazing,” she said, her voice not anywhere near as excited as Hope expected.
“Here?” Camille’s voice came out high. “At my party?”
“Um, yeah,” Hope confessed. “In your office. God, sorry.” She couldn’t help her awkward goofy smile. “It was sort of… urgent.”
“Okay.” Camille’s jaw clenched. She was staring at Hope, a look in her eyes that Hope didn’t understand but she definitely didn’t look happy for her. Hope felt a trace of impatience suddenly fill her. Camille and Alison had been getting on so well recently, and yet Camille was looking at her like Hope had just slapped her roughly in the face. “I-” Camille looked around until her eyes snagged on someone across the room. “I gotta go mingle,” she said tightly. She turned sharply on her heels and left.
Prisha visibly wavered.
“Hope,” she said softly. “Did you really have to do that here? And now? ”
“I don’t get her sometimes.” Hope stared after Camille’s retreating back. “It’s got nothing to do with her.”
Prisha’s shoulders dropped.
“Sometimes,” she said to Hope, annoyance flaring in the clench of her jaw, “you can be a little too oblivious.”
Hope stared at her. There was a trace of fire in Prisha’s eyes that she’d never seen before.
“Preesh?”
“Just… stay away from her, okay?” Prisha stared her down for a solid five seconds before she too, turned and followed Camille back into the crowd.
What the fuck was happening? The world seemed to be inverting itself. Refined, held-back Alison was thrusting her elegant fingers inside Hope with lust-filled abandon; sparklingly happy Camille in the midst of her own party was freezing Hope out; her sweetest, kindest, most laidback friend Prisha was snapping at her. She whirled around, trying to catch sight of any one of them, but she was alone.
Feeling a strange sense of panic, she pushed her way through the crowd. No Camille. No Prisha. No Magnus. No Flynn. Finally she caught sight of Alison, in conversation yet again with the stunning redhead who’d been gazing at her with obvious intent earlier that afternoon. Alison was her cool contained self, but she couldn’t help looking like a whole mouthwatering meal in that tiny sundress, that sundress that Hope herself had, that very afternoon, pushed above her hips to lick her lips at the sight of Alison’s soaked underwear.
Hope pushed her way through the crowd toward her. Alison’s eyes went a little wide at her appearance, the redhead turning to see where she was staring.
“I’m sorry.” Hope was aware she was interrupting, that she probably looked slightly wild. “Can I borrow you for a minute?”
Alison’s eyes narrowed just slightly, because this wasn’t the space they’d just agreed on, but as she looked at Hope a flash of concern hit her eyes.
“Excuse me,” she said to the redhead. “It was lovely talking with you.” She took Hope’s arm and steered her to the door and out into the fresh, sweltering air. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Hope said honestly. She was hot and sweating and on the verge of some kind of emotion she couldn’t untangle. Alison looked at her closely, then took her hand and towed her across the lawn to the shade of a massive gum tree.
“What’s wrong?” Alison asked. “Is it… did I do something?” She looked tense and Hope shook her head. God, now everything felt wrong. Alison was either beating herself up, having regrets or annoyed that Hope couldn’t keep her shit together and honestly, right now, Hope couldn’t keep her shit together.
“I’m spinning out a little,” she admitted. “And I… told Prisha and Camille what happened-”
“You told Camille?” Alison interrupted sharply. Her shoulders nearly hit her ears and Hope frowned.
“ Yes. I’m sorry. I know you’re all friends too and that you probably wanted this to stay private and I’m sorry. I’m just… it’s all a lot and I needed someone to talk to.”
“You told Camille we...” Alison couldn’t even seem to finish her sentence and suddenly Hope felt a jolt of annoyance. Forty-five years old and she couldn’t say the words for what she’d just done to Hope?
“That you fucked me stupid on the couch in her office? Yes. ”
“Hope.” Alison looked appalled and Hope started to feel sick.
“What? Are you regretting it?” The words came out hard, because nothing about this was feeling okay all of a sudden .
“Hope! Camille… oh my god.” Alison looked despairing. “Camille’s in love with you,” she said tightly. “She’s in love with you and you just told her you had sex with me, at her home, on the biggest day of her life.”
Hope’s ears started ringing. Her head swam and her fingers went numb.
“ What?” A slightly deranged laugh left her lips. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry,” Alison said softly. “I know you didn’t want to confront this-”
“Confront this? I don’t- she’s not-” Hope choked over the words. Even as she denied the insane words coming out of Ali’s mouth she found herself tripping on every interaction she’d had with Camille in the last year. Date night, her eyes on Hope’s body, her wistfulness, her possessiveness, her perpetual singleness, her dislike of Ali… “Oh my god.” Hope started shaking. She looked up at Alison who was looking weirdly like she might cry. “You knew?”
“The first time I saw her with you, I knew,” Alison confirmed softly, which made Hope feel about a thousand times worse. “And you… you’re so intimate, the two of you. I know you love her. She’s… I know she doesn’t like me, but I think she’s wonderful, Hope. And she’s… she’s in love with you- ”
“I… have to go to her,” Hope said, sick with sadness and fear. “I have to go find her.”
“Okay,” Alison said quietly. Hope looked up at her. She wanted, like she’d never wanted anything, to melt into Alison’s arms, to cling tight to her and hold her close. But they’d never been hugging friends and right now Alison looked perfectly rigid. Hope nodded at her sadly and turned, blindly, to go and find Camille.
Camille wasn’t anywhere to be found in the crowded studio. She wasn’t in the office, Hope checking the room with an intensely guilty conscience. She couldn’t see her in the grounds anywhere, so she pushed her way into the house.
The house was blessedly cool compared with the outside world and utterly silent. Camille wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room, but when Hope entered the little reading room at the back of the house, she found her. Camille was standing very still, leaning both hands on the windowsill, all but pressed against the glass as if she could escape.
“Milly?” she said softly. Camille stayed frozen for so long that Hope couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. Slowly she turned around and Hope’s heart broke. Camille had been crying, her eyes puffy, her cheeks streaked with tears. “Milly.” Hope felt helpless. She wanted to pull her friend into her arms, hold her tight and stroke her hair while she cried, all the things she’d usually do. But now she didn’t know where the line was .
“Are you in love with her?” Camille broke out, a fresh set of tears spilling. Hope stared at her.
“I don’t-” Hope started. “We’re friends,” she said. “And yeah, I love her.” Camille sucked in a shaky breath. “We’re not… we’re not together. And I just… god, Milly, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t want you to know.” Camille wilted back against the window frame. She looked small, her usual glow all but diminished, her nose red, her skin mottled with emotion. “You don’t think of me like that.”
“Literally everyone in the world thinks of you like that,” Hope said. “You’re gorgeous.”
“But you-”
“No,” Hope said sorrowfully. “But I love you more than anyone.”
Camille nodded slowly. Then she straightened.
“You don’t know if you think of me like that. You’ve never given it the option.”
“You’re my best friend,” Hope was in the middle of saying when all of a sudden, Camille was kissing her. It was fast, Camille pulling her in, pained and desperate, her lips careful but insistent. Hope reeled back from her.
“Oh my god-” The voice came from behind them and Hope whirled around.
“Prisha!”
Prisha’s eyes were wide, her face mask-like with shock. She was already fleeing and Hope was having a heart attack.
“Preesh-” she went to dart after her.
“ Hope.” Camille sounded broken, pulling her back. “Please tell me you felt that-”
“Camille!” Hope’s voice came out in something close to a yell. “I didn’t! I don’t! I’m sorry. I don’t feel that way about you.”
“Oh god-”
“But Prisha does.” The words fell out before she could stop them, desperate to fix the pain spilling in every goddamn direction.
“ What? ”
Hope would have thought that having had her own identical blindness pointed out to her less than ten minutes ago she’d have had more patience, but she was deeply stressed and fresh out of nuance.
“Prisha’s in love with you. For fuck’s sake, Milly! And now she thinks we’re kissing!”
“ Prisha?” Camille looked like she was having trouble comprehending basic words, let alone forming them. For the smallest instant Hope wanted to laugh, because what the hell, was the whole world ending today?
“Just… please, take a minute,” Hope said wildly. “I have to go find her.”
“I can’t do this right now!” Camille scrunched her eyes closed, then covered her face. “Oh my god. This is… what is happening?”
“I know,” Hope empathised. “God, do I know. Milly-”
“I can’t see you again.”
Hope froze still. She stared at Camille, panic flaring, bursting through her chest .
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “We’ll be okay.” Camille stayed rigid and Hope felt her eyes go hot. “ Milly,” she implored. “ It’s me. It’s just… me.”
“And I’ve been in love with you basically since the day we met,” Camille bit back, wiping ferociously at another tear. “And I thought I could handle it. But I… I can’t. Seeing you with Alison is just… oh god, Hope. You’re falling for a friend, and that friend isn’t me. And then I fucking kissed you! Which you didn’t want! Shit! I’m… I’m unraveling here-”
“Prisha,” Hope said helplessly. “I don’t think she’s going to be okay, right now. We… all three of us, we can work through this, but we need to-”
“ Prisha. ” Camille looked like she was losing her mind. “I don’t- I can’t even think about this. Oh my god, we’re all fucked-”
“ We’re not-”
“ Go , okay Hope? Tell P… tell her… oh god. Oh no. Just… please, please leave me alone. ”
Camille was sobbing now and Hope’s own tears were escaping down her cheeks.
“I love you- ”
“Stop! Just go!”
Hope left. She raced up the stairs and burst into Prisha’s bedroom without even knocking. Prisha was sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees like she could hold herself together, her eyes blank.
“It’s not what it looked like.” Hope flung herself down next to her. She wrapped her arm tightly around Prisha’s shoulders, desperate to let her know.
“It was though.” Prisha didn’t budge, her body rigid. “It was Camille, in love with you, kissing you.”
Hope couldn’t argue with that.
“I didn’t kiss her back,” she said quickly. “I didn’t want that kiss.”
“It doesn’t matter though, does it?” Prisha’s voice was hollow. “I’d fucking die for her to kiss me like that. But it’s always been you. ”
“Preesh-”
“She’s heartbroken. On the biggest night of her life. And I can’t even comfort her because I want to die. ”
Hope went still.
“Not literally,” she said. “Prisha?”
“No, Hope,” Prisha snapped. “I’m not suicidal. My heart is in a thousand pieces and everything is fucked up beyond repair, but I’m very much going to have to live with it. We all are.”
Hope slowly pulled her arm back.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I know that Milly is too-”
“Hope… Hope , tell me you didn’t tell her.” Prisha finally looked at her, her eyes wide with horror.
Hope wanted to throw up.
“I… I couldn’t not. She needed to know-”
“It wasn’t your choice to make!” Prisha jumped to her feet. “Oh my god!” She started to pace. “Oh, Jesus. I have to get out of here.”
“Preesh- ”
“Hope, I swear to god. I love every fucking hair on your head but I can not be around you right now. Every time I see you, I’m just going to see you getting kissed by her and now… oh god, I know you and I know you didn’t mean it but you just kind of ruined my entire fucking life just now and I really need you to go.”
Hope nearly fell down the stairs she was crying so hard.
She found her way back through the garden, stopping in a quiet spot to try to force her tears to stop, to scrub her face, to take deep breaths. She couldn’t walk into the party like this. She wasn’t sure where to turn. She wanted, desperately, to be held and she knew with a certainty that was frightening who she wanted to hold her. But she’d seen Alison’s face outside the party, tight with discomfort, and she was pretty sure if she sought her out in a puddle of mess like this, Alison was not going to cope.
“Hope?” A gentle voice came from behind her. She all but fell into Magnus’s arms. “What’s wrong?” He held her tight. Clutching him back, she wept, words spilling from her in a desperate rush of nausea.
“Camille’s in love with me and Prisha’s in love with Camille! And Alison fucked me then Camille kissed me and Prisha saw it and now the whole world is ending!” Hope took one deep ragged breath and sobbed into his shoulder as the weight of it threatened to crush her into the earth.
“Oh,” said Magnus. He gripped her tighter for a long moment. “Shit, Hope. I thought for a minute something bad had happened. ”
“Magnus!” She punched his arm and started laughing through her tears as he held her fast.
“I kind of wondered if something had gone on.” Magnus stroked her hair. “What with how Alison told me to tell you she was leaving and asked if I’d be your ride home.”
“Oh my god.” Hope started crying even harder. “Please,” she said. “Please just get me out of here.”