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Haley was drunk.
She didn’t want to be at the saloon. She didn’t often touch it in the first place, only present for holidays and driven by a desire to get her sister off her back about “being involved in the community.”
But Alex had pleaded, puppy dog eyes and hands clasped like an altar boy, as if he wasn’t asking because he wanted to get homosexually dicked down by the emo-boy-next-door. So Haley spent the last hour at the bar, half-heartedly sipping on Stella after Stella, while Alex leaned over the pool table one room over.
Haley faced the bar, sometimes making idle conversation with her sister, sometimes doomscrolling while she polished off another beer. But out of the corner of her eye, Haley had been watching them the whole time.
Sebastian’s cheeks were pink more often than they weren’t. Alex wasn’t all that much of a flirt, but he must have been laying it on thick to get Sebastian, stoic on a good day, to blush. Sam spent a good amount of time hunched over one of the arcade games against the wall. Haley didn’t know what game it was, but then, she didn’t spend much time in the saloon, especially not in the game room with Sam, Sebastian, and Abigail.
Haley tried not to look at Abigail. In the last year, Haley found it harder and harder to ignore her. In a distant life, they’d been friends. Then they weren’t. Not that their feuding was founded on anything besides being different, a trivial choice made by a 14-year-old Haley, appalled at the mere thought of being associated with the word “alternative.”
She’d grown out of it, had pulled her head out of her ass by the time high school was over. But by then her relationship with Abigail was long-gone. Instead, they navigated their lives in parallel, close, but never touching.
It was easy before Alex decided he had feelings for Sebastian. And despite his fratty demeanor and fondness for pumping iron outdoors and half-naked, Alex’s fit into their little group was snug. It wasn’t a struggle for him to integrate into the Stardrop Saloon’s ecosystem.
Haley was not part of this ecosystem. Aside from the lack of time she spent at the saloon, there wasn’t room for her there. Haley was a dick to them for at least half of the last decade. She understood their distance, didn’t judge them for it; it was her fault, after all.
Alex didn’t need her there. Haley assumed this was Alex’s shitty attempt at forcing his friends to be friends. But when Sam and Abigail sat on the couch, they each sat in the crease between cushions, leaving no space for Haley to sit even if she’d wanted to. Not that she wanted to.
So Haley sat at the bar, chatting with Emily, Gus, even Shane, when he looked up from his blank stare into his glass. Alex stopped by every once in a while, asked her again if she wanted to play, or even just stand nearby.
It was sweet of him to try, at least.
In her own way, Haley loved Alex. A long time ago, she wholeheartedly believed they would get married, that they’d have a house and half a dozen beautiful babies. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Haley believes Alex would have been okay with that. They were all of each other’s firsts, and had been together through the entire second half of high school.
But Haley liked men about as much as she liked Pelican Town, which is to say, she didn’t. She tolerated both just enough to get her through the day, the week, the year.
Alex, well-intentioned and dumb as rocks, was thrilled by Haley’s revelation. Not in the way most boyfriends are, which is under the assumption she was asking for a threesome. Alex was just happy, genuinely happy, to learn Haley liked women.
She’d broken the news to him, teary-eyed and snot-nosed, the worst she’d ever looked in front of another person, a few weeks after graduation. Alex was supposed to leave on a gridball scholarship, and they both knew they would’ve broken up anyway, at least for a little while.
“I just want you to be happy, Hales,” he had said, strong arms wrapped around her, his letterman jacket catching her stray tears. “Besides, this means we finally have something in common.”
Liking women, he meant. It was a dumb joke, though the rest of his jokes were never much better. She couldn’t help her laughter, her voice still a little thick with tears.
She really did love Alex. And for a long time, she wished she could be in love with him. Alas, trying to sexualize the feeling of Alex’s rippling pectorals pressed against her in their embrace made Haley want to gag.
Haley’s journey of self discovery led to Alex’s.
They were in the city, most of the way drunk and out on the town for the night. Haley was busy in the backseat of a Honda Civic, head between the legs of a woman twice her age, and Alex was dutifully keeping watch at the entrance of the alley. He was leaning against the wall, one earbud in, when a butch turned the corner.
She thought Alex was a fellow butch. Alex thought she was a fellow man. The butch laid it on thick, and it wasn’t until Alex’s tongue was in her mouth, and he was pitching an obvious tent, that she caught on. It was a brief moment of horror and a period of ceaseless laughter later that Haley emerged from the Honda, fixing her lip gloss in the reflection of the car window and dragging Alex home by the ear.
His fascination with Sebastian was a much more recent development.
Sebastian was on his way home from Abigail’s in the middle of the night, electing to take the long way to be out of his own house a little longer. He’d stumbled upon Alex, sitting on a swing at the playground.
“You fucked Sebastian?” Haley asked. Alex startled, eyes wide.
“What? No, I did not fuck Sebastian! Yoba, Haley. No, we just… talked.”
“You… talked.” Haley said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes. We talked.”
“And what, pray tell, do you and emo boy have to talk about?”
“Okay one, rude, and two, a lot, apparently. He needed out of his house. I needed out of mine. And then we just… talked about nothing for hours. I think it was sunrise, and we were talking about how we were supposed to go to the same college. I said it was funny that neither of us ended up there.”
Alex kept talking, listing the two dozen pointless topics discussed during their encounter and all of Sebastian’s opinions on said topics.
At some point in the middle, Haley’s eyebrows drew together, her nose wrinkling just a little. She schooled her expression before Alex saw. He was happy. And he’d been so happy for her when she dumped him, it felt cruel to not support him in his first little gay crush.
It did not end up being a little gay crush. Alex looked for any and every excuse to be around Sebastian, whether it was watching them all, not just Sebastian, but also Sam and Abigail, in Sebastian’s basement during band practice, or like tonight, playing pool at the saloon.
“Hales!” Alex called from the next room over.
He’d spotted her standing. He was waving one arm in the air as if they were trying to spot each other in a crowd rather than across thirty feet of empty space in a bar.
Haley sighed, steeling herself as she approached the pool table.
“Boys,” she greeted. “Abigail.”
Sebastian and Sam each held up a hand to her. Abigail made a vague sound of acknowledgment, a low hum.
“Are you finally gonna let me kick your ass at pool?” Alex asked, dazzling golden-boy smile plastered across his face. If he wasn’t with Sebastian, Haley would’ve thought he was faking it. But no, Alex’s bright and sunny demeanor was authentic.
“Maybe in a second,” Haley said, dropping her purse on the floor in front of the couch, just a few inches from Abigail’s Docs. “I had, like, three-and-a-half beers, and they’re going right through me.”
It wasn’t untrue–Haley really did have to pee–but it wasn’t not an excuse.
As she trudged down the back hall to the restroom, Haley was glad she hadn’t worn heels. She thought about it. And for reasons she couldn’t bear to admit, she wanted to look a little put together today. She’d put on just enough makeup to not look like she was trying too hard, and her outfit was both Mid-West modest and a little revealing.
In the bathroom mirror, even when she felt fussy with how her scoop-neck, cashmere sweater sat around her waist, Haley saw how enticing she looked. Her chest was just visible enough to be tempting, but not so much that there would be complaints from her small-town-stereotype, conservative neighbors.
Her inebriation was significant enough for Haley to both look and feel flushed. She considered whether it was worth it to keep her sweater on, for the sake of looking a little better.
She pulled it over her head, setting it on the counter. The top underneath, a little blue thing with ruffles along the upper hem, was… more revealing than Haley remembered.
She sighed and set the sweater on the counter next to the sink.
It wasn’t until Haley was leaving the stall that the bathroom door swung open.
Abigail’s hair was pink now.
Haley noticed the day it happened, the brief glimpse of Abby stocking shelves in the corner of Pierre’s while Haley was picking up groceries for dinner. For a moment, Haley thought it was the farmer, who dyed their hair a new vibrant color every other week. But no, for the first time in years, Abby’s hair was a color other than bright purple.
The sight had Haley’s heart pounding.
Now, as she made her way to the sink, she kept her eyes trained on Abby’s reflection in the mirror, the swoop of her bubblegum pink hair and the slivers of skin showing through her ripped black tights.
When Abby’s eyes met hers, Haley gave her a polite smile, trying not to give away how affected she was. She could feel her heart in her throat, and her hands trembled as she turned on the faucet.
Abby appeared behind her in the mirror, fluffing her hair.
“Sorry,” Haley said, sidestepping, so Abigail could see her reflection better.
“No, you’re good,” Abby replied, just a little bit stilted. “I just needed a break from watching Seb and Alex eye-fuck each other across the pool table all night.”
The comment caught Haley off-guard, and she let out an involuntary snort.
Her cheeks burned in embarrassment, but Abby’s eyes glinted in the mirror, more amused than critical. It couldn’t be that bad if Abby was amused.
“It is pretty bad, isn’t it?” Haley replied, holding Abby’s gaze for longer than they had in years.
“Understatement of the year.”
Abby finally cracked a smile, and to say Haley felt butterflies would, too, have been the understatement of the year.
Haley’s stomach turned, and in her periphery, she saw Abby’s eyes glance down at her chest, heaving with her panicked breaths.
“You’re nervous,” Abby said, more of a question than a statement.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Nervous?”
Haley nodded.
“Nervous implies you’re afraid of me.”
Haley hadn’t even realized she’d been leaning toward Abigail, but the tips of her hair, a perfect golden even in the dark of the bar bathroom, almost whipped against Abby’s face.
The sudden closeness made Haley’s breath catch. Abby studied her face, her eyebrows scrunched. Her expression was scrutinizing, but not upset.
“I am afraid of you,” Haley admitted.
On any other day, Haley wouldn’t have let herself even think the words. But tonight, she was drunk and lonely and tired, and the longer Abby stared at her, the more Haley could feel her own heartbeat between her legs. She was still anxious. But that was secondary to the possibility of reconciliation, and maybe also her arousal.
In her nervousness, Haley caught her lower lip between her teeth. She became too aware of her lips being dry. She’d left lip gloss marks on every Stella she drank that night, and with no reason to reapply, it was gone.
For a fraction of a second, Abby’s eyes darted down to where Haley worried her lip between her teeth. The attention made Haley release her lip in an instant. When Abby’s eyes returned to hers, they were tinged with something Haley couldn’t place.
“What are you afraid of?”
Abigail’s voice was low, a little breathy.
Haley felt her anxiety creep up her throat a little more. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and once again, Abby gaze shifted down to her mouth.
The bathroom was silent for a beat too long.
“I was awful to you. I’m a little afraid you hate me,” Haley said, the words so quiet they were almost a whisper.
“I don’t,” Abby said with no hesitation, a decibel too loud for how close they were. “Hate you, I mean.”
“You could.”
“Maybe. But I don’t. I haven’t for a long time. Maybe even before you stopped hating me.”
Haley tried not to let her surprise show on her face. Her mind raced, brief flashes of Abby in high school hallways, head thrown back in laughter, of stumbling across Abby playing flute up in the mountains. Of her and Abby, ten-years-old, having a picnic outside the library, sitting so close their knees knocked against each other, and Haley blushing about it. Before Haley played stupid games, and won stupid prizes.
Of the brief eye contact she and Abigail had made a few weeks ago in Pierre’s, and how bad Haley wanted to say something. She didn’t think she could’ve.
“What’s the rest?” Abby asked, shaking Haley from her stupor.
“Huh?”
Haley mentally scolded herself for not paying enough attention when she had Abby right in front of her, so close it was a miracle they weren’t already touching. And then, when Abby dragged her back down to Earth, eyes dragging over her body, then back to her lips, and at last, straight into Haley’s eyes.
“You said you were only a little afraid that I hate you. What’s the rest? What else are you afraid of?”
“I’m–”
Haley caught the words before they left her mouth.
“I don’t know,” she said instead.
“You don’t know?”
Abby took half a step forward, though only because there wasn’t enough space between them for her to take a full one. The way she looked at Haley was almost… Predatory. It made Haley’s skin crawl, her head spin, and the fire in the pit of her stomach ignite.
“What about right now? Are you afraid?” Abby asked. “You’re shaking.”
It felt impossible for Haley to speak. Her mouth had gone dry, all the air sucked out of her lungs. Her tongue made another pass over her lips before she let out, with enough certainty to surprise even herself, one word: “Yes.”
Something in Abigail’s eyes changed, like a dam breaking. There was a glint in her eye that Haley had never seen before, her pupils blown.
In half a second, Haley was pressed against the counter, Abby’s arms bracketing her waist, Abby’s hair curtaining their faces, Abby’s presence encompassing her.
Haley couldn’t see her eyes; Abby was shifted just enough to one side for her to murmur in Haley’s ear.
“Tell me to stop.”
Abby was breathing heavy now, too, and the thought of Abby’s pulse racing because of her made Haley tremble with need.
“Why?” Haley said, swallowing hard.
“Because you want me to stop.”
The words were free of malice, of insistence even. Abby was uncertain. Haley could hear it, the way Abby said it as if she wasn’t asking a question.
Abby dipped her head to rest her forehead against Haley’s shoulder. Haley could feel Abby’s breath against her own clammy skin, ghosting down the front of her shirt. The sensation made her shudder.
Haley arched her back just enough for Abby to feel Haley’s chest brush against her own. The motion sent shockwaves of pleasure through her body, and Haley gasped, stealing the air between them. It was meant as an attempt to show Abby how untrue her words were, a loud enough display of her unadulterated want.
“I–”
Haley’s voice caught on the words, and Abby lifted her head enough for Haley to meet her eyes.
“Please don’t stop.”
A beat of silence. Then two. For a moment, Haley thought Abby might pull away.
Then they were kissing.
Haley didn’t want to think about how long she’d wanted this for. She didn’t want to think about the countless wet dreams and masturbatory fantasies of Abby’s head between her legs, or the color of Abby’s lips when she wasn’t wearing lipstick the color of the farmer’s wine, and how desperate Haley had been to kiss them up until this very moment.
She couldn’t help it. The feeling of Abby’s lips on hers did nothing to soothe the years of desperation.
The kiss wasn’t aggressive, nor was it messy. It wasn’t all clacking teeth, or her tongue reaching for the back of Abigail’s mouth.
No, it was needy.
The feeling of Abby’s plush lips, so soft and steady against Haley’s own, sent a rush of arousal through her, and if her panties weren’t soaked through before, they were now. She’d worn them for Abby. Pink lace, pretty in ways Abigail was never supposed to see. Haley wanted her to see.
The feeling of Abigail’s hands on Haley’s waist, cold and gentle against her bare skin, had Haley whimpering into her mouth. Then, Abby was grabbing her under one thigh and lifting her onto the counter. The cool marble against Haley’s ass sent a shudder through her, and she spread her legs on instinct.
In this new position, the seam of Haley’s pretty pink panties was against her clit, and she let out a sound, pathetic and keening. Abby shifted forward, standing between Haley’s legs as one hand returned to Haley’s waist. One hand made it’s way up to the side of Haley’s neck, firm enough to pull her toward Abby, to maneuver her head into whatever position Abby wanted. The thought was intoxicating.
Abby was doing everything right, and Haley felt like she was floating. It was the way Abby grabbed her ass, rough and unafraid. Or it was the way she expressed her desire, making sure she reciprocated Haley’s sounds and gave Haley silent encouragement when she did something right. It was the way her hands landed on Haley’s hips, holding her in place so she couldn’t rut against Abby’s leg, her grip so tight, Haley considered whether it would leave bruises in the shape of Abby’s fingers.
She could feel the dull pressure of Abby’s stomach against her clit, and Haley’s hips canted forward, chasing the pleasure. Haley moaned, too loud for being in a public place, their friends a hundred feet away.
Abby just laughed into their kiss. She caught Haley’s lower lip between her teeth, the drag of her canines sending more sparks of pleasure through the poor girl’s body. Though her knees lifted to bracket Abby’s hips, Abby was too far away for Haley to rut against her properly, so her hips moved against nothing. She practically sobbed.
She was so worked up, so needy and willing. If Abby wanted to drag her onto the bathroom floor and fuck her mouth, Haley would be happy to let her. She’d do anything.
When Abby’s fingertips finally brushed over Haley’s nipples, she let out a sigh of relief. Then, Abby was pinching, hard and sharp, and Haley was keening, breathy moans filling the room. She experienced distant consideration of whether she might need to be quiet, but the way pleasure bloomed in her stomach with every touch from Abby was, at this moment, much more important.
Haley had never felt like this before. All of her muscles were tensed, and she was almost too distracted to kiss Abby back. Instead, she whimpered into Abby’s mouth and balled her fists around Abby’s shirt, trying so, so hard to pull Abby closer.
And then, the thing that finally did it.
Haley’s grasp on Abby’s shirt was getting too tight, nails almost slashing holes into it, and with her thighs trembling and the way Abby’s hand gripped the back of her neck, Haley couldn’t release it.
“Let go,” Abby warned, voice thick with desire.
Haley half-processed the words, and despite her best efforts, she once again tried to tug Abby closer. Abby’s eyes narrowed, and the fear Haley felt at that look made her all the more desperate for release.
“Haley, let go,” Abby said again. She flicked the side of Haley’s thigh before her hand pulled forward and settled under Haley’s jaw. The way Abby looked down her nose at her almost made Haley sob. She’d be surprised if there weren’t tears running down her cheeks.
Haley’s fists clenched impossibly tighter. She was out of warnings.
Abby’s hand came down fast, her open palm cracking against Haley’s flesh, right at the top of her thigh, under her ass. It hurt. It hurt, and the way the heat curled and licked at Haley’s skin under Abby’s palm is so good, Haley could taste it.
With Abby between her legs and just a breath too far, Haley’s thighs clamped together as best they could, and then she’s gasping, pleading, moaning Abby’s name with reverence as she cums. She begs through Abby’s name like she’s praying and Abigail is the only God she’s ever known.
Her orgasm wracked her body in waves, her hips still canting like it would provide her any modicum of relief, and she receives only the most inadequate stimulation from the press of her thighs against her clit. There was no riding it out, and if Haley had the mental capacity, she’d be disappointed by this. And just as fast as it hit her, the pleasure tapered off.
When she came to, Haley’s ears were ringing, but her breathing had evened out, and she found herself slumped against Abby’s chest. Abby’s hand was carding through her hair, and Haley considered asking her to stop, almost afraid it’d ruin her meticulous curl pattern, before realizing how stupid that would be.
She blinked a few times and lifted her head just a few degrees.
Abby was already gazing down at her, eyes crinkling at the corners because–
Because she was smiling.
Her thumb came down to trace the curve of Haley’s jaw, her eyes following, before she tilted Haley’s face up by her chin. Abby gave her a soft kiss, almost sweet, and Haley was so ready to drown in the softness of Abby’s lips again, but Abby pulled away.
They stared at each other for a minute, air just a little thick with tension.
Haley’s voice was shot from how loud she’d been, but through her post-orgasmic haze and with a confused smile, she rasped out a small, “Hi.”
There was no confusion in Abby’s smile. With the softest eyes Haley had ever seen, Abby leaned down and gently bumped their foreheads together.
“Hi.”