“Same time, same room, yeah. We’ve got rules.” Mia glanced at Alexa, who nodded. “Lights off. And whatever you hear from the other side of the room, you ignore it. None of your business. It sounds weird but it works. We’ve been doing it since sophomore year.”
“It’s not weird,” Becca said. “It sounds practical.”
“It’s the only way one of us can get laid without the other having to sleep in the hallway,” Alexa said. “Which happened once, by the way. Freshman year. I sat outside our door for forty-five minutes in my pyjamas.”
“It was twenty minutes,” Mia said.
“It was forty-five. I timed it. I didn’t have anything else to do.”
“He was drunk and took his time. Don’t blame me.”
Ellie caught Becca’s eye and the look they shared was a mix of affection, amusement, and something bordering on disbelief. They were standing in a budget hotel room with two college volleyball players, drinking bad rum out of a water glass, negotiating the logistics of something kind of crazy using rules designed for sneaking boys back to a dorm room. It was so far from the boutique hotel with Cass, so far from Kelly’s ranch, so far from any version of this they’d imagined, that Ellie wantedto laugh. Not at Mia and Alexa but with them, at the beautiful absurdity of how the evening had delivered them here.
“Lights off works for us,” Ellie said.
“Yeah?” Mia looked relieved, as if she’d been bracing for a more complicated negotiation. “Ok. Cool. So, I guess…” She looked at Alexa, then at Becca, then at Ellie, and for the first time all evening her confidence wobbled. “God, how do you actually start this? With guys they just sort of… launch themselves at you. This feels way more civilised and I don’t know what to do about that.”
“You could start by turning the lights off,” Alexa suggested quietly, and there was something in her tone that told Ellie she was ready even if Mia was getting a last minute attack of the nerves.
Mia reached for the light switch. “Last one to the bed gets the sofa bed.”
Ellie stood still as the room went dark and she heard movement around her, then Alexa laughing. “Looks like I win…”
The only faint light was an orange glow from the other side of the curtains, enough to see shapes and movement but not a lot more. Ellie felt a hand take hers and squeeze, then Becca’s voice in her ear, whispering quietly, “Just me. Have fun.”
“You too,” she whispered back, then Becca let go. She heard the sound of Becca feeling her way over to the sofa bed then a giggle, probably Mia, followed by a whispered exchange she couldn’t catch before the sounds got quieter but more intimate. Definitely some kissing, she was sure of that.
Ellie stood by the double bed, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and felt Alexa’s hand find hers.
“Hey,” Alexa whispered.
“Hey.”
“I’m nervous.”
“Me too.”
“You don’t seem nervous.”
“I’m extremely nervous. I’m just good at hiding it.” Ellie paused. “Also I’ve had a lot of tequila.”
Alexa laughed quietly, and pulled Ellie down next to her. In the near-dark, with the sounds of Becca and Mia kissing a few feet away, Alexa kissed her again.
God, it felt good.
It was slower than on the dance floor, both of them had sobered up a little but only a little, and it felt like they had as long as they needed which was, Ellie realised, kind of true. Alexa’s hand found her face and Ellie’s hand found Alexa’s waist, and the kiss deepened gradually until Ellie felt Alexa’s tongue against hers, her whole body responding with a jolt that she felt right down to her toes.
They lay on the bed kissing, their bodies pressed together. Alexa was a little taller than Ellie, longer-limbed, and the angles were different to Becca, different body too, different everything.
Alexa’s hand moved from Ellie’s face to her neck, to her collarbone, trailing down, and paused at the edge of Ellie’s t-shirt.
“Can I?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
Alexa’s hand slid under the fabric, warm fingers on Ellie’s stomach, and Ellie felt her muscles tense involuntarily, not out of reluctance but rather because it was so unusual feeling a touch that wasn’t Becca’s. Alexa’s hand moved up, slowly, over Ellie’s ribs to the bikini top she was still wearing, and when her fingers found Ellie’s breast through the thin fabric Ellie heard herself gasp into the kiss.
From the sofa bed, the sounds had moved beyond kissing. Ellie could hear movement, the creak of the sofa bed frame, a low murmur from Mia that might have been words or might have been something else. She couldn’t see anything beyond shapes moving, but the sounds were doing plenty: the sound of her wife with another woman, somewhere in the dark, a few feet away, while a different woman’s hand was inside Ellie’s top, touching her, and Ellie was letting her, wanting her to.
