“And you’re lucky,” she shot back, exasperation notching back up. “BecauseI’mnot going to out you. For the record, I can’t believe you’ve spent the last couple of weeks worrying about that.”
When Darcy could have spent the last couple of weeks having sexual fantasies. What a waste of her energy.
“Yeah, I wonder how I could have gotten the impression that you’d use that against me,” Darcy’s sarcasm dripped off her tongue.
“We reached a truce, did we not?”
“Nothingabout how we left things was peaceful.”
Darcy was right about that, admittedly. She’d thought constantly about Darcy in the last two weeks. Throughout her four shows on tour. Throughout the performance she’d had to do for Harrison’s fucking business. The last thing she’d felt waspeace.
“No, it wasn’t. But I made it very obvious where I stood on what I want.” How could Darcy have possibly have been left wondering?! “How could I have made it clearer? I took off my shirt. Told you to look at me. Told you to kiss me.”
Come on.
She ran her eyes over Darcy, hungry for the very sight of her. The way her curves filled out that jumpsuit, revealing her shoulders and the upper part of her back and her sides, but leaving everything else tantalizingly covered…
How was it that Darcy was so slow on the uptake? Juliet had spelled it out for her the last time they were together!
“I. Want. You,” she stated, punctuating each word with a step closer, entering back into Darcy’s orbit.
She’d had enough, frankly, of the conversation. She hadn’t anticipated this;she’dbeen ready to tear Darcy’s clothes off, and it was a little galling to her that Darcy hadn’t felt the same.
“You literally told me at our lunch a few weeks ago that you’d stab me in the back to get ahead. And now…” Darcy trailed off, shaking her head slightly.
Darcy’s agitation seemed to be waning, replaced with wariness.
She did want Juliet. She couldseeit.
But she could also see that Darcy was doing everything she could to stay rational. Annoying, because what Juliet wanted right now was the opposite.
Well, in her mind, this situation was the most rational thing: they were gay. They were both publicly closeted. They were attracted to one another. They were fixated on one another. They poured so much energy into the other.
But she wanted irrational, driven-out-of-your-mind sex.
“And I’m just supposed to believe that this–” Darcy glanced down at Juliet’s lips, licking her own in a response that Julietknewwas subconscious. It fanned at the flame that hadn’t come close to completely dying down inside of her. “– is totally independent from that?”
“Yes,” she answered, easily. Again, this seemed so fucking obvious to her. “Because things are different, now.”
“Things are different because I’m a lesbian? You don’t want to stab me in the back because of that?”
For a few seconds, Juliet could only stare at her. How could Darcy say that like it was so simple?
Apparently, she’d have to spell it out: “Things are different now becausenow, I know we’re in the same boat.”
Darcy’s rise to the top and her desire to try to stay there resonated with her, deeply. And there was an added layer to it, whether Darcy had seriously thought about it or not. Julietunderstoodher now. Because she understood those nerves and the doubts that came along with just being who they were.
Wanting to be at the top but also knowing that you very well might not be there if people knew the whole of who you were was a very unique feeling, one Juliet knew well. One that she could recognize in Darcy, now.
It changed, fundamentally, how she experienced Darcy.
“Because… you are also a lesbian,” Darcy said, slowly, her eyes searching Juliet’s.
“Yes, because I’m a lesbian,” she confirmed.
Her stomach still did that twinge inside whenever she came out to someone. But Darcy had come out first, which was exactly how Juliet liked it.
“And you want me,” Darcy continued to speak in that same tone, the one that told Juliet that Darcy was struggling to connect all of her wires. “Even though you started out our relationship by insulting me.”
