“Seriously though,” Mia said, leaning forward, “can we hang out with you guys tonight? I know that’s a weird thing to ask but we are so over spring break. We’ve been here since Saturday and I’m tired of being the oldest people in every room. Everyone else is nineteen or twenty and it’s like babysitting.”
“And now it’s Thursday,” Alexa added, “and the guys have got worse, the music’s got louder and we’re at the top of the social pile because everyone else is a sophomore, which sounds fun until you realise it just means they all want to be able to go home saying they fucked a volleyball playing senior.” Alexa shook her head. “We came out tonight hoping to find some actual conversation and instead we got them.” She jerked her thumb toward the bar where the group of guys were already attempting to engage a new target. “So yeah. Can we hang with you? We’re fun, I promise. We’ll buy rounds.”
“You can absolutely hang with us,” Becca said. “But you’re not buying rounds.”
“We’re not?”
“You’re college students. We have jobs.”
Mia looked at Alexa. “I love them already.”
“Same,” Alexa said.
They fell into a fun and easy conversation, swerving the easy option of giving career advice and instead comparing and contrasting Georgia and Stanford, finding common ground despite how different their respective college experiences had been.
“You’re staying in PCB too?” Mia asked.
Ellie shook her head. “About twenty minutes down the coast. We got a rental.”
“We drove along there on the way from the airport, it’s so much nicer than here. Wish we could afford that.”
“We’re married,” Becca added. “That helps.” Ellie saw a twitch of a smile, knowing that Becca enjoyed making the big reveal,we’re lesbians, we’re married, what do you think of that, and watched the other two for their reaction.
Alexa's face lit up. "That's so sweet! How long?” She turned to Mia. “Those are the kind of husbands I want, honestly, ones who are happy for their wives to go to spring break without them."
Ellie stifled a laugh and saw Becca force herself to keep a straight face. Maybe they could have a little fun with this.
“It’s great that you’re still close. My cousin got married and she barely sees her friends anymore,” Mia said. “You live near each other?”
“Yeah, Austin,” Ellie replied. “Been there for a year.”
“Before that we were in the Bay Area,” Becca added, her eyes twinkling with concealed amusement.
Alexa shook her head. “And you moved with your husbands at the same time? That’s commitment.”
“We’ve always been close.” Becca tilted her head. “Ellie’s worth it.”
Ellie kept her face perfectly straight. They’d done this before, the slow reveal, and the pleasure of it never wore off… the gentle comedy of letting people fill in the wrong blanks while the truth sat there plain to see.
“You two must be really close to uproot your whole life, your husbands uproot their whole lives too, like that,” Alexa said.
“We’re very close,” Ellie agreed. “Inseparable, you might say.” She paused. “We live together.”
Becca let out a little laugh and Mia’s drink stopped halfway to her mouth. Alexa sat up straighter. There was a moment of silence as the two of them recalibrated. “You’re married but you live together…” Mia said slowly.
Alexa pursed her lips but a grin was pushing through underneath. “There aren’t any husbands, are there?”
Mia gasped in realisation. “You absolute… how long were you going to let us think you were just friends?”
“As long as it took,” Becca said, laughing.
“We were doing so well until Becca cracked,” Ellie said. “She always cracks.”
“I do. I’m sorry. I have no poker face.”
“We’ve been together seven years,” Ellie said. “Married for two. Since freshman year at Stanford.”
“Stanford,” Mia repeated. “Married at twenty-three. While we’re out here peaking on day two of spring break.” She looked at Alexa, shaking her head. “We are catastrophically underachieving.”
