8. Los Angeles #3
"I was going to say guarded, but yes. That." Margot smiled, and it looked real this time. "It was the most beautiful cake I've ever seen. I should have told you."
"You're telling me now."
"I want to tell you everything I should have said." Margot turned on her side, facing Becca. "I want to see you make something. Sometime. When I visit. I want to watch you bake."
"That's boring. Lots of waiting around." But Becca was already picturing it—Margot perched on her counter, bare feet dangling, asking precise questions about rise times while Becca dusted flour onto her nose.
"I don't think it will be. Not if I'm watching you."
"Smooth."
"I'm learning."
Becca tilted her head up and kissed her, slow this time, unhurried. The urgency from earlier had softened into something steadier. When Margot's hands slid under her shirt, Becca didn't pull away.
"Is this okay?" Margot murmured against her mouth.
"Yeah." Becca arched into her touch. "Yeah, I want—I want you."
"Even though you're still mad?"
"Especially because I'm still mad." She pulled Margot's shirt off, the silk one, definitely ruined now, and pressed her palm flat against Margot's chest. Her heartbeat hammered against Becca's hand. "I can want you and be angry at the same time. I contain multitudes."
"Walt Whitman."
"Nerd."
"Come here."
They undressed each other without rushing.
No frantic urgency, just discovery. Margot learning the places where Becca was ticklish, which was basically everywhere.
Becca learning the sounds Margot made when she touched her right, these breathy, surprised little gasps, like she didn't know her own body could feel that much.
When Becca finally slid her fingers inside, Margot's eyes fluttered closed.
"Look at me," Becca said.
Margot's eyes opened, dark and unfocused.
"Stay with me." Becca kept her gaze. "Don't disappear into your head. Stay right here."
"I'm here, promise."
She kept her eyes open. Even when her breath stuttered, when her body arched off the mattress, when she came with a cry she didn't bother to muffle. She kept looking at Becca. Present. Solid. Real.
After, Becca kissed her forehead, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth.
"That's the version I need," she whispered. "The one who stays."
She blinked, eyes a little damp and said, "I'll stay."
"I'm going to hold you to that."
Margot pulled her closer, and Becca let herself be held.
Morning came too fast.
Becca woke to cold sheets beside her, a spike of panic. She left, she actually left. And then the smell of coffee. Bad coffee, the cheap emergency stuff, but coffee.
She padded to the kitchen, the floorboards cold under her bare feet.
Margot stood at the counter wearing Becca's robe. The pink one, too short on her, too bright, absolutely ridiculous against her whole composed aesthetic. She was frowning at the ancient coffee maker like it had personally wronged her.
"It keeps making noises," Margot said without turning around.
"It's old. Possessed, probably." Becca leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her sleep shirt. "You have to hit the left side."
Margot hit the left side. The coffee maker gurgled in submission and resumed dripping.
"Magic," she said.
"Experience."
Margot turned. Her hair was a disaster, sticking up in three different directions. She had a pillow crease on her cheek and yesterday's mascara smudged under her eyes. She looked nothing like the polished woman Becca had met four days ago.
She looked perfect.
"What time is your flight?" Becca asked, even though she already knew the answer.
"Two-thirty."
"So we have a few hours."
"A few hours." Margot's smile wobbled. "Not enough."
"No." Becca crossed to her, slippers shuffling on the cracked linoleum. "Not nearly enough."
She made eggs, scrambled soft, with chives from the plant on her windowsill that she'd somehow kept alive, and toast from the sourdough she'd baked last week, slightly stale but still good when toasted.
Margot watched her move around the kitchen with an expression that Becca was starting to recognize: wonder, like she'd never seen anyone do something as simple as make breakfast before.
"What?" Becca asked, sliding a plate across the tiny table.
"Nothing. Just—" Margot accepted the plate. "I like watching you. In your space. Doing your thing."
"My thing is feeding people."
"I know. It's a good thing."
They ate with their knees bumping under the table, and it felt like a promise. This could be us. Regular Tuesdays. Scrambled eggs and borrowed robes.
At the door, Margot dressed in yesterday's wrinkled clothes, they stood holding each other for a long time.
"Three weeks," Becca said against her shoulder.
"Three weeks."
"I'll come to New York. See your fancy apartment." She pressed her face into the collar of Margot's blouse, breathing her in one more time.
"The famous view."
"It better be a good view."
"It is." Margot pulled back just enough to look at her. "But I'd trade it for this kitchen in a heartbeat."
"Liar."
"I'm not lying." Margot kissed her, soft and quick. "Call me when you wake up. And before you go to sleep. And whenever you make something you're proud of. And—"
"That's a lot of calls."
"Get used to it."
Becca drove her to LAX. The goodbye was terrible. Standing at the departures curb, both of them pretending they weren't about to cry, both of them failing.
"I love you," Margot said.
"I love you too." Becca wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "Don't do anything stupid on the way home."
"Like buy a ticket to Des Moines?"
"Exactly like that."
"I'll try to restrain myself."
One more kiss, and then Margot was walking through the automatic doors, carry-on over her shoulder, and Becca was standing alone on the curb watching her disappear into the terminal.
Her phone buzzed before she even got back to her car.
*Margot: Made it through security. No Des Moines this time.*
*Becca: Proud of you. See you in three weeks.*
*Margot: Three weeks. And then Tuesday.*
*Becca: ???*
*Margot: A regular one. Our first.*
Becca stood in the LAX parking structure, cars honking around her, and laughed out loud.
Our first regular Tuesday.
She could work with that.