I’d stumbled my way from a hookup to a liaison and now what I really wanted was everything. I wanted meals after work and waking up together and her being Dandy’s other mom and doing Christmas together like this every year.
It was too fast. It was too much. I knew that, but that couldn’t stop my silly little heart from choosing Mal.
It was an effort to hide it. About fifty times a day I had to stop myself from blurting out “I love you.” It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, and I didn’t know how much longer I could manage it.
Tally had been checking in with me and had heard all of my panicking while I’d been sitting next to Mal on the couch or lying next to her in bed.
Tally had decided she was Team Mal and told me to go for it, which surprised me.
Tally: You’re happy, Gray. I’ve never seen you like this. She’s good for you, and I think you’re probably good for her too.
I didn’t know about any of that, but what I did know was that I was going to blurt out those three words and then everything was going to change. I wanted to put that off as long as possible.
Our Christmas Eve was sweet and calm for the most part. Mal dragged her trunk of toys over to my apartment so we’d have them on hand. We watched movies and our favorite holiday episodes of shows in the light of my lesbian Christmas tree and ate even more cookies. I made her my famous cocoa and forced her to dance a little to one of those classic Christmas songs.
All in all, not a bad Christmas Eve at all.
We went to bed early, but not to sleep. Mal had this ridiculous idea about trying to make me come with every single one of her toys. We were on toy number five out of thirty or so. I was dubious that I would survive this little experiment, but that wasn’t going to stop me from letting her do what she wanted with me.
I swallowed those three words as she kissed me. As she touched me and caressed me and told me how good I was. While she edged me until tears rolled down my cheeks that she licked and kissed away.
All of it was perfect and good and sweaty. I’d never had transcendent sex before, but that was what this was.
This time she’d snuck her hand down and touched herself as she drove me to my own climax, and we came almost simultaneously.
The words were right there, clogging the back of my throat. It hurt to hold them back.
Mal snuggled with me as we caught our breath. We both needed to take a quick shower and get ready for bed, but I was comfortable right where I was.
“I have no idea if this is the right time to talk about this or not, but it’s been on my mind. Are we…are we dating?”
It took my sluggish brain a few seconds to figure out what she was asking me.
I lifted my head from where I rested it on her chest so I could see her face.
“Oh. Um.” I couldn’t seem to make the right words come out of my mouth.
“It’s okay if the answer is no. We can continue to liaise. But I just… We gave each other our door codes and that feels like a dating thing. You know?” Instead of looking at me, she played with my fingers.
Ugh, she was all nervous and it was cute as hell.
I clutched her hand and brought it to my lips.
“Yes, Mal McCoy, I would love to date you. Be your girlfriend. Do allllll that shit.”
She snorted. “All that shit, huh?”
“Yup. It’s gonna be awesome. Get ready because I’m actually really good at being a girlfriend.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Are you now? Well, you’ll have to be patient with me because I haven’t been a girlfriend for a long time and I’ve never done this… I’ve never felt like this about anyone.” The last part she whispered. As if she was scared of it.
“Me neither. It’s the best and the worst, right?”
That made her smile. “Yeah it is.”
Eventually, we made it to the shower where we proceeded to do more making out than showering.
“One of these days I’m going to help you wash your hair,” I told her. She hadn’t let me yet.
