"You're serious," Becca said. Not a question, a statement.
"I'm serious."
"This is... El, this is a big step. This isn't watching me talk to someone across a bar, this is…”
"I know what it is."
Becca was quiet for several seconds, looking at Ellie with that intense, unreadable focus. Then she said, very carefully, "What are you asking me to do?"
"I'm asking you to be honest with her. Tell her the situation. If she walks away, fine, we go home and have an amazing night together like we always do. If she doesn't walk away..." Ellie forced her voice to stay steady even though her insides were not. "Then we see what happens."
"See what happens meaning...?"
"Meaning whatever you want it to mean. I trust you. I trust us. You take it as far as you want to.”
Becca reached for Ellie's hand and held it tight. She was trembling slightly, or Ellie was, or maybe they both were. It was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
"You're sure?" Becca asked, and this time there was no playfulness in it, no teasing, no flirty banter. This was Becca the therapist, Becca the wife, Becca the woman who had loved Ellie since they were eighteen, asking a serious question and needing a serious answer.
"I'm sure."
“What if I take it very far indeed?”
“I want to see that. If you want to do that.”
“All the way?” Becca asked, eyebrow raised in a question.
Ellie took a deep breath. “If you want to do that, yes.”
Becca looked at her for one more long moment. Then she did something that Ellie would remember for the rest of her life.
She reached up to the back of her own neck, unfastened her necklace, the one Ellie had given her when they were nineteen, the one she hadn't taken off except to sleep in seven years, and held it in her palm for a second, looking down at it. Then she stepped close to Ellie, reached around the back of Ellie's neck, and fastened it alongside Ellie's own.
Two pendants now resting against Ellie's collarbone. Identical. Side by side.
Becca didn't explain. She didn't need to. Ellie understood it instantly and knew what Becca was saying without a single word:I'm yours. Hold this while I go. I'll come back for it.
"Keep those safe," Becca whispered, and kissed Ellie on the lips, brief but tender and full of love. Then she turned and walked back through the crowd towards Kelly.
Ellie stood by the pillar and watched her go, her fingers touching the two pendants at her throat, her heart beating so fast she swore she could hear it over the music. She watched Becca reach Kelly and saw Kelly's face light up at her return. She watched Becca lean in close and start talking, and she saw the exact moment that Becca gestured back towards where Ellie was standing.
Kelly followed the gesture. Across the bar, through the crowd, her eyes found Ellie's.
And Kelly smiled. Not the surprised or awkward smile of someone who'd just been told the woman she was flirting with had a wife watching from across the room. A warm smile, interested, playful, maybe a little amused. She gave Ellie a small nod, respectful, acknowledging her presence, and then turned back to Becca.
She was still interested.
Ellie exhaled a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding and went to get herself another drink, because she had a feeling she was going to need it.
***
She found a spot at the bar where she could watch them without being obvious about it, perched on a stool with her back against the wall and a fresh drink in her hand, both necklaces reassuring against her skin.
Becca and Kelly were talking differently now. Whatever Becca had said, the truth, the real situation, had changed the dynamic. Before, there’d been a flirtatious uncertainty to their interaction, the will-they-won't-they tension of two strangers who didn't know where the conversation was heading. Now that tension had been replaced by something else, something that had direction and intent.
Kelly knew. She knew Becca was married, knew Ellie was watching, knew the context, and she was still there, still engaged, still smiling at Becca with that warm, interested expression. If anything, the knowledge seemed to have relaxed her… Ellie could see it in her posture, the way she'd settled more comfortably into the conversation, as if the removal of ambiguity had freed her to be more herself.
Becca, meanwhile, was doing something Ellie had never seen before. She was flirting with genuine purpose. Not the casual, playful, semi-conscious flirting of the past few weeks… this was Becca with the handbrake off, fully committed, directing the full force of her charm, her beauty, and her intelligence at this one woman with the explicit knowledge that her wife was watching and wanted her to.
