Chapter Text
The good thing about time is that it goes on.
The months of Juniper’s term studying in Vienna zip by. At the beginning of June, when it’s finally over, she flies back to LA with the quiet return that, she tells her friends, she would prefer. Nothing fancy. Even so, her grandmother, Hugh, Myriam, Robin, and Athena—with her dangerously handsome new haircut that Juniper can’t stop looking at—excitedly take her out to eat once her plane touches down.
They drop her grandmother off at her duplex, and all five of them stay late into the night at Hugh, Myriam, and Robin’s apartment talking and talking and talking.
But Juniper is twenty years old now. She is not perfect; there is still much more she has to learn. Though she has completed Judge Courtney’s program with high marks and even though she passed her exams in Austria, all that’s left for her are the exams she must take to achieve her California licensure. Three difficult exams she will be studying hard for before her dream can be fully realized—and at such an exceptionally young age, too.
And perhaps it’s pathetic, but the challenges of her upcoming exams don’t stress her out as much as the more personal decision she’s resolved to make inside herself for herself.
This decision makes her rise a little early that next morning, tip-toeing across the sleeping bodies of her friends strewn out across the living room floor. It makes her grab her purse and her wallet and phone. She leaves a post-it note on the fridge, saying: Be right back! with a doodle of a sunflower in the corner before she heads out and shuts the door quietly behind herself.
The agency door swings open after just two knocks.
“Good morning, and welcome to the Wright Anything Agency! How can we help—you…”
Juniper Woods offers a meek grin, awkwardly standing in the doorway. She stares at the Wrights as they stare back at her from inside the office, both of them with twin expressions of shock on their slack faces. Juniper knows they aren’t related but at that moment, for some reason, it seems like they might as well be because of how identical they are side-by-side.
It’s Trucy, with the door handle in one hand, who comes to her senses first and clears her throat. “Uh, hi! Welcome, Junie! Wow! So you’re back from Austria, huh? Hey, it’s so good to see you! Why don’tcha have a seat? Athena—uh—Athena requested today off to hang out with you, I thought, but she should be back any minute! So sorry you must have just missed each other!”
“I might have to call her…”
“Daddy might have to call her, but she’ll be here any minute as soon as she hears where you are! So if you’d like to make yourself at home in the meanwhile—”
“Oh, no! Please don’t call Thena!” Juniper bursts, watching as Mr. Wright spins for his office. “Sorry. I knew she wouldn’t be here right now. I didn’t miss her. She was at—um—I just left where she was. She’s still sleeping. But that’s why I came now, because I knew she wouldn’t be here.”
Just as quickly as he starts moving, Mr. Wright stops and turns back around. Trucy, with both arms curved towards one of the bright two red couches in the front office, also freezes. And then they’re right back to where they were at the start of the hour, staring at each other.
Juniper takes a shaky breath and squeezes her hands together. “The truth is: I need your help.”
“I… uh…” Mr. Wright seems to be at a loss. He shares an unreadable look with Trucy, and then lifts his gaze back up to meet Juniper’s. “I think Athena would be really glad to help you if it’s something legal—”
“No, no. It can’t be her.”
The exhale that sweeps out of Mr. Wright’s chest might have been mixed with a pained groan. Something along the lines of god please don’t make me get stuck in between you two sounds as if it had been squeezed out of his diaphragm. “Ms. Woods, look, I appreciate how highly you think of my lawyering skills, but I really think—”
“It can’t be her because I need your help for her.” Juniper settles her nerves. She closes her eyes tight. Then, she bursts: “I need your help because I want to ask her out!”
Silence falls over the office.
Both Mr. Wright and Trucy heave out gigantic sighs of relief that nearly bend their bodies to the floor.
“Oh thank god,” Mr. Wright says at the same time that Trucy sharply perks up and gasps.
“Wait a second!” she bursts. “Hang on! You wanna ask Athena out, too?!”
Too.
Too.
Juniper’s heart flutters. She has to swallow it down and fists her hands in front of her chest to keep it inside. “T-too?! What do you mean, ‘too’?!”
Trucy slaps her gloved hands over her mouth.
“Trucy…” Mr. Wright crosses his arms over his chest.
“Oops.” Trucy bites her lip and then waves her hands at the level of her shoulders in a semblance of a dance. “Uh, ha ha ha, surprise, I guess! Athena Cykes likes you back! Haha… ha…”
Is this a surprise? Should it feel more like a surprise? Why does it not? Yes, Juniper’s heart is pounding in her chest, but it’s not as if some part of her never knew how Athena felt about her. She’s been learning that over the past year and longer: the effect she has on her childhood friend. Perhaps some part of Juniper has always known. So no. This is not new information, she tells herself. Even if her heart wants to treat it as if it were. “That’s… that’s okay! I can’t say I’m… not extremely happy to know this. But that’s besides the point! I still need both of your help to ask her. And your office.”
“Oh my god.” Trucy hurries around the back of the couch to bang her hands on the cushion with more fervor than before. “You should’ve just said that’s what you wanted when we first opened the door! Of course we’d love to help you ask out Athena!”
“We?!”
With her shoulders bunched, Juniper laughs. “Oh, thank goodness! I’m so relieved! Thank you so much!”
“Well, now, hang on.” Mr. Wright puts out the palm of his hand in a slow down gesture. “Hang on, ladies. As much as I’m excited, too, about this new, uh, development, here’s the thing: ever since we knew the date of your flight, asking you out is all Athena’s been talking about.”
Trucy stifles a snicker, resting her cheek against her knuckles. “That’s all she’s talked about for a lot longer than that, Daddy.”
The heat on Juniper’s face floods down her neck and to her collar.
“You know how she is, wearing her heart on her sleeve and all,” Mr. Wright continues. “Athena’s bound to ask you out herself sooner or later. Especially now that you’re back. So why don’t you just… wait until then?”
Oh.
“Daddy!” Trucy scolds with the biggest, angriest pout Juniper has ever seen.
“Hey! I’m just asking!”
Quickly, Juniper shakes her head. “No, no! It’s a valid question. Honestly, I… it’s something to think about. This is already scary enough—this whole process of laying your heart bare for someone else. If I know how Thena feels about me already, then yes, I suppose it would be easier to wait for her to come to me.”
Both Wrights turn back to Juniper as she averts her gaze.
Somehow, without trying, her eyes fall upon Athena’s desk in the front office, across from Apollo’s empty and clear one. Athena’s is messy and unkept, with post-it notes sticking everywhere, framing the monitor of her computer in an uncoordinated swirl of pinks and yellows and blues. Typical Athena. It makes her smile. “But then I think about how much I’ve done that: waiting for her. Sitting and staying behind while Thena does what needs to be done, or has something happen in her life that tears her away from me.”
Juniper doesn’t expect the lump in her throat that forms as she talks. She clears her throat and blinks her eyes. “Thena’s such a doer, that if I did wait for her to ask me out, she wouldn’t think anything about it. She might not even notice that I had. But then… I would know I had waited, wouldn’t I? I would know that I had made the conscious decision she wasn’t worth an active effort to pursue.”
She turns back to the Wrights who are watching her steadily. Their faces are once again unreadable. It’s almost eerie how shared that quality is between the two of them. “I can’t stomach that. I don’t think Thena deserves that.”
Even though Mr. Wright clears his throat, his voice still sounds raspy as he says, “Yeah.”
“Thena has never once hesitated to jump at the opportunity to do something for someone else. This time… I want to do something for her. I want to beat her to it, be faster than her, at realizing what I want in life and that what I want in life right now is her.” Juniper clasps her hands together. “So please, if it’s not too much trouble… please help me ask her out. You don’t have to do anything. I already have a plan for how I want to do it, and it may be a little cheesy, and perhaps it’s kind of juvenile, but I want to give her something really special that she doesn’t realize she’s never had before, and I—”
“Say no more, Junie.” Trucy’s grin is all teeth, though there’s a shine in her eye that’s marvelously bright. She lifts up a finger to push up the rim of her hat, leaning on the back of the couch with her forearm draped across the top of it. “If you want to ask Athena Cykes out, you’ve come to the right place. The Wright Anything Agency is here to help!”
Mr. Wright shakes his head, smiling.
Juniper’s shoulders sag. “Thank you.”
Trucy giggles and gestures with her arm again towards the two couches in the center of the office. “So come on, then! Tell us how we can be of service. Let’s get Operation: Ask Athena Cykes Out started!”
Magician and performer extraordinaire Trucy Wright is one of those people who has perfected the art of being difficult to read. She lives behind anonymity and masking her true feelings behind a bright and cheeky smile, but over the past several days, even Athena Cykes has started to detect that she might be hiding something.
“Okay, so like, here’s what I’m thinking,” Athena says over the phone, walking down the sidewalk. The sounds of LA are bustling around her, clamoring and bright. It gives her a bit of a pep in her step. “Junie loves flowers, right? She loves them. And her grandmother’s got this amazing garden at her new duplex that I’ve been helping out with this past year. And Junie loves to garden! So what if I ask her grandmother for some flowers so we can make a bouquet and I can give that to her when I ask her out?”
“Uh-huh,” Trucy says very slowly on the other end of the line. “Wow, that’s… real sweet of you, Athena.”
“That’s what I thought!” Athena grins. She adjusts her bag over her shoulder. “Junie will like that kind of sentiment, and it may give me a chance to like, talk to her grandmother about it, too, before we actually start dating. Then, if we both go to your upcoming show at the Wonder Bar, maybe she won’t think anything of the flowers I bring until I reveal that they’re for her!”
“Oh. My show…”
“Yeah! You have one coming up, don’t you? I remember you talking about it because you were so excited to have a moderate gig back at where you started before you got big at Penrose. I was thinking maybe I could invite Junie and her Themis friends to see it. Your shows are always so fun and I know they’d love it! And then, while we were there, I could—”
“Oh no!” Trucy’s voice fizzes in and out with a completely fake kch and kzzt sound that Athena can tell is an effect of her mouth. “Athena, you’re breaking up! Is there a lot of construction going on over there?”
Athena stops walking. She looks around herself up and down the block—at People Park on her left and the Kitaki Mansion on her right. She waves at Ms. Plum in front of the gate with her broom in hand and continues on her brisk walk. “No… ? Actually, it’s pretty clear here. There’s not even any traffic. Are you feeling alright?”
“Huh. No, I definitely—kch—hear something—bzzt—so maybe be careful where you’re walking? Actually, maybe we should—kch—talk when you’re back at the agency? Kzzt.”
Athena frowns. She puts a finger in her opposite ear. “Trucy, you know I can tell you’re faking it—”
“What? Sorry. Kch. Can’t hear you! I’ll just talk to you when you’re back at the office.”
“Trucy—”
“Bye!”
The line goes dead with a click.
Once she’s crossed the street, Athena pulls her phone away from her ear and frowns, looking down at the ended call screen.
That was weird. What was that about?
Turns out: not just Trucy can play the ‘good at coming up with sudden distractions and interruptions’ game. Mr. Wright’s very adept at suddenly finding something very important to occupy his attention that isn’t listening to Athena’s plans to ask out her big-time crush and what she needs for said plan to go successfully.
“Boss!” Athena pleads, slamming her hands on his desk. “C’mon, I’m just asking for like, a second of your time, here! Trucy’s show at the Wonder Bar is a no-go—apparently—so I need to find a different opportunity that I can ask Junie out, so I really, really need this Friday off!”
“Sorry, Athena,” he says and to his credit, Phoenix really does sound sorry. But there’s a tiny sliver of discord in his voice as he adds: “But I’m already going to be away from the office myself and someone needs to be able to come in to manage it in case we get any new clients. You know how common Fridays are for new clients to drop by.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“Great, thanks. But we can talk about a different day you can take off, okay? It just can’t be this Friday.”
Athena’s eardrums throb. “Wait, why can’t it be this Friday?”
“Oh, would you look at the time! Wow! I suddenly remembered I have a super important meeting with Edgeworth coming up. Can this wait? Can we talk about this some other time? I should be walking out the door right this second; he’s gonna kill me—you know how he gets about these things—”
Athena frowns at him spectacularly. Slowly, she straightens up as she watches him slide on his blazer over his waistcoat, a whirlwind of motion around his desk. “You don’t have an appointment with Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth today.”
“It, uh, he called me! Just a moment ago. You weren’t listening. Anyway, point is: can we talk about your days off some other time?”
“Listening is all I do, Boss! That’s kind of why you’ve got me around, remember? And I know I didn’t hear you talk to the Chief Prosecutor on your phone, and you never text if you can call instead because it takes you so long to text, so I know you didn’t message him either. What’s going on?”
“Later, Athena!”
In the silence after the front door to the office shuts, Athena stares at the space her Boss just occupied mere seconds ago. She fists her hands at her side and growls. “Why is everyone being so weird?!”
Athena was going to go mad. Like, actually mad. It gets to a point on the next perfectly normal Thursday where she nearly loses it in the middle of the Agency, standing in the center of the commotion of Phoenix and Trucy, constantly being told sorry that won’t work, or I’m so busy right now can’t talk, and with her hands fisting in her short hair, she just—
“Sorry, Athena. What was that? I didn’t catch it.”
Athena lets out a terrifyingly loud and long, frustrated groan.
Phoenix, behind her, freezes. Trucy, almost half-way out the front door of the Agency for a reason Athena can’t even remember, also freezes. They stare at her.
“Uh… Athena, are you—”
“I’m fine,” she says and runs her hands over her face. She rubs her nose and her cheeks and her eyes and sighs. She presses her hands against her cheeks and hums once. Twice. Another deep breath in and out. Roll one shoulder then the other. Let it out. Shake it out. She drops her hands to her sides. “I’m fine! I’m fine.”
“Are you…” Phoenix shares a quick glance with his daughter. “… sure?”
“Sí.” Athena nods triumphantly, in a way that lets the short strands of her hair bounce over her ears. “I’m good. I see what the problem is, now. I know how to fix it. So we’re good.”
“The problem?” Trucy echoes.
“The problem is I’ve been relying on you guys to pull off something I really should be handling by myself. That’s why it hasn’t been working! So I’ll just… do it.” Athena takes another breath. This time, when she nods, she’s nodding to herself, both hands on her waist. “I’ll figure out how to ask out Junie on my own. Besides, there’s not a deadline for asking anymore. I’ve got all the time in the world! I could do it today! I could do it next week! We’re gonna be fine! It’s gonna be great! Yeah!”
Trucy and Phoenix share another, longer, more pointed look. When Athena’s back is turned as she strides back to her desk, Phoenix reaches into his pocket.
Trucy watches as he pulls out a shaped green jade stone and gives her a solemn nod.
Uhhhhhh ok slight problem, Trucy says in her next text. I don’t think Athena’s gonna be talking to us about her plans anymore so if you want to beat her to the punch i think the sooner’s gonna be the better. This is then followed quickly by an independent Sorry :(.
That’s okay! That’s okay! Juniper messages back. Thank you for telling me. I’ll get everything ready tonight. Do you think you could help me set up those surprise streamers like you were telling me about? Robin helped me cut some confetti the other day. I’ll bring them to the office when I come over to set everything up. Please tell your father I will happily vacuum the office myself afterwards, he does not need to worry about a thing!
om g no don’t even worry about the office but Yeah!! Def !! i can set that up tomorrow no prob bob. magical girl trucy wright is on the case 🧙♂️✨
There isn’t a lot to do the night before because the nature of what she is doing is, admittedly, simple, and most of what Juniper needs, she already arranged and purchased ahead of time. It’s the sentiment that matters most—walking out of the Wright Anything Agency with a girlfriend matters most—and Juniper’s heart does a funny little twist as she thinks about that.
Girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend. She rolls the word around in her mind again. It’s so good, isn’t it? So wonderful? Juniper can’t wait until she can introduce Athena to future acquaintances using that word. This is my girlfriend, Athena Cykes, or Yes, do you remember that attorney who indicted the Prime Minister of France? That was amazing, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s my girlfriend. Athena Cykes. Athena Cykes, who’s my girlfriend. Did you know my girlfriend is Athena Cykes?
Juniper has to pause her work and put her hands over her face.
Soon, she tells herself to calm her fluttering heart. Soon.
Juniper gets out the large poster paper she fetched from the craft store. She tugs out all of her markers and all of her new bottles of glitter and all of the scrapbooking materials that she always swore she would use to memorialize past Disneyland trips with her friends but never did—and she reminds herself, I’m twenty now. I’m not sixteen. I can’t make this look juvenile.
But her legs kick into the air behind herself as she lies on her stomach and gets to work, and she thinks, Well, maybe the young woman who skipped her own high school graduation to study for the bar should get the chance to feel a little sixteen again.
The next day, Trucy’s text comes at 12:02 PM exactly: coast is clear !! come on in !
Juniper’s never been a delinquent and technically, she’s not even doing anything wrong or bad, but there’s a funny way her heart pounds as she clandestinely sneaks into the Wright Anything Agency within the next few minutes.
Trucy has barely finished setting down her phone on the Agency’s floating table when she looks up and meets Juniper’s eyes. Both of them grin at each other, one more nervous than the other. “Athena just went out to the Prosecutor’s Office on an errand for Daddy. We’ve got about forty minutes minimum before she gets back, so let’s do this.”
Juniper nods.
Trucy doesn’t explain how she sets up the trigger system for the confetti packs. She just takes the two bags Juniper hands her and somehow, like the magician she is, rigs it to the Agency’s door in about half an hour.
“As soon as I close it, the rig will be set. When Athena opens the door, those bags’ll pop. Then all the streamers and confetti you guys cut will fall,” Trucy says, grinning cheekily. “It might be loud.” She taps her nose. “But anyway, you’ve gotta be careful! Don’t touch the door after I close it, else you might trigger them before Athena gets here. Got it?”
Juniper nods. “Got it.”
“I’ll go meet up with Daddy at Eldoon’s and help him carry over the noodle bowls. You like the vegetarian bowl, right?”
Juniper nods again. She appreciates the thought of lunch, but it’s hard to feel hungry when her stomach is twisting like a wrung rag.
Trucy grins. She bites her lip, hands clasped behind her back, and it hits Juniper in that moment how indebted she is to this little girl. Magical Trucy Wright indeed, making the things Juniper always thought impossible for herself possible.
“Good luck,” Trucy breathes and gives her a thumbs-up.
“Thank you. I… I feel like I owe you—”
“Just make her happy, Junie. That’s all Daddy and I want.”
And then Trucy’s gone, turning the lights of the office off and closing the door behind her with a soft snap.
Juniper holds her poster in her hands. In the darkness, it’s a little more nerve-wracking. There’s nothing else to hold her attention than her own imagination and the ticking of the clock on the wall and her own thoughts. Juniper finds a seat on the armrest of the couch and rests her poster against her knees.
Soon. Just mere minutes, right? It took about thirty minutes to set up the confetti bombs. So in about ten minutes more, give or take, Athena will be…
Juniper pulls out her phone.
Her last texts from Athena were complaints about having to run that ‘errand’ for Mr. Wright—but at least he’s payin me back w/ eldoons for lunch :p. Juniper smiles to herself as she scrolls through them, a certain, eager giddiness in her chest as she thinks, She doesn’t know. All this griping, and she doesn’t know that she was sent out on that errand for a reason. She doesn’t even know I’m waiting for her. She has no idea what’s coming.
Oh god. That was both terrifying and exhilarating.
Just don’t say surprise, Juniper tells herself. Just don’t say surprise. It’s not her birthday. This isn’t a birthday party. You’re asking her on a date. So don’t say surprise. That’s not appropriate.
Right.
She takes a breath. She pockets her phone.
A few more minutes and then finally, Athena’s clunky footsteps sound outside the door.
Juniper jolts to attention. She grabs the poster. She sits upright. Her breath catches in her throat.
With aching slowness, the door handle clicks. The door cracks away from the door frame with a sigh. Then, it opens.
Juniper bites her lip; she watches as Athena’s hand darts out to flip on the lights before the door swings wide. “Ugh. I swear, if I have to—”
The confetti bags burst with two loud, instantaneous pops.
Athena yelps, stumbling back.
And there, under the sudden warmth and tiny slivers of paper that flood the office, Juniper yells, “SURPRISE!” jumping to her feet from the couch.
Wait.
Damn it.
Juniper internally curses herself and nearly stomps on her own foot. But she holds out her giant sign at the same time that Robin’s confetti streamers finish dropping to the ground.
The stunned silence settles. Juniper bites her lip.
Athena freezes. Just like Juniper thought she might, her eyes are transfixed on the sign in front of her and the words that Juniper had so carefully written the night before with as many doodles as she could. Surrounded with old, forgotten stickers from so many abandoned scrapbook projects. Sunflowers and moons. Cute rabbits and hearts. Suns and stars.
WILL YOU BE MY GIRLFRIEND?
Athena stares at the words. She stares and stares and stares at them, reading them over and over again. Juniper can tell she is looking at them from front to end, from the first curve of the ‘w’ to the swirl of the question mark that has a little sunflower as its point below the stem.
Then, slowly, Athena lifts her eyes. “J… Junie?”
Juniper takes a big, big breath. “Athena, will you go out with me?”
Athena’s eyes widen. With a pathetic kind of slump, the bag over her shoulder with a manilla envelope sticking out of it slips to the ground.
Juniper clears her throat. Oh goodness. She can feel her breath starting to shorten again. She needs to get this out and quickly before she starts coughing. “B-before you say anything… let me tell you why. Please.”
Athena blinks once. She blinks several times. “Why?! You mean you’ve got reasons—”
“You always care so much about other people, Thena.” So far so good. Athena is stunned to silence and Juniper can feel her breath thicken. It’s becoming harder to get air out than in. But that’s okay; that’s okay. She’s practiced giving speeches before. She thinks, by this point, she must have learned a thing or two from it. “You have such a big heart, and you don’t even think twice about it. You just do things. You just give. W-without hesitation. You see someone in need, and you have to do something for them. You do whatever you can for them. And n-never, not once, do you think of yourself or what it costs you. I-I don’t even think you realized how much of your own life you sacrificed in order to save Prosecutor Blackquill. M-Mr. Wright may have given a handful of years after he changed majors, but you… you gave up your entire childhood to become a lawyer. And you don’t think about that! At all!”
Juniper clears her throat. “You don’t think about a lot of things, really. And I love that about you, as much as it… drives me nuts sometimes.” She laughs, a quiet, almost sobbing kind of sound. “I realized that, while I was away. And then… that made me realize something else. It made me realize that I want to be that person for you, Thena.”
“That person?” Athena’s voice is a bare whisper.
Juniper’s voice wobbles again, but there’s a brilliant smile on her face, reflected by the shine in her eyes. “Someone who cares about the person who cares about everybody else. Who takes care of her when she’s sick and who thinks of her when she’s sad and who is there to laugh with her when things are good. I… I want to go to Disneyland with you many more times and be the person y-you leave voicemails for b-between your trials. I want to b-be the person you w-wake up to and the last p-person you say ‘goodnight’ to. M-more than anything, I… I want to be the woman who is lucky enough to be the one who gets to take care of Athena Cykes.”
Juniper lifts her eyes. It’s a big relief, the biggest relief, when Athena’s blues are swimming with tears, too. They shine so beautifully, almost like the surface of Mercury, and Juniper finds herself laughing at herself and them and everything about them and their silly, long stretch of years that it took to get them to this point.
She ducks her head behind her sign, holding it up to hide her face. “I-I’m sorry! I told myself I wouldn’t cry!”
“Oh Junie—”
Juniper stifles a sob, shoulders hiked to the level of her ears. “I just… y-you mean so much to me, and you’re so good, so I wanted to make sure I got the words just right, because you’ve been waiting for me for so long, and—”
And then Athena is there. And then the sign is pulled from her hands and set to the ground, propped up against the side of the couch behind Juniper. And then Athena’s fingers are in her hair. And then Athena’s nose is brushing against hers and laughing a kiss into her lips.
And then they’re kissing.
Oh god, they’re kissing.
Juniper’s heart flies up and out of her body. She didn’t think she’d get this far. She melts under Athena’s mouth and under Athena’s hands until, mere seconds later, it’s over. And then Juniper realizes that the cold droplets she can feel on her cheeks aren’t her own. Or at least, there are more there than just those dripping down her own face. At least their tears can mix together.
Just like their hands, she realizes a little belatedly, as she threads her fingers through Athena’s over her cheek and leans into Athena’s touch.
“I—scheisse,” Athena gasps. “I’d kiss you again, but I can’t even see you right now—”
“Th-that’s okay!” Juniper’s voice warbles. She quietly coughs. “That’s okay. I think—I think if we kissed a second time, I m-might actually pass out, so. Um. No, this is okay. If this is okay with you, anyway. I… I happen to like this, actually.”
Athena gives another sob of a laugh. Tenderly, she leans forward and presses her forehead against Juniper’s. Her thumbs circle the soft skin underneath Juniper’s eyes.
“Yeah,” she gasps. “Okay. I like this a lot, too, Junie.”
And Juniper closes her eyes. She lifts onto her toes to press her forehead more against Athena’s.
“So what are you two gonna do for your first date, then?”
Athena should have figured that Phoenix and Trucy had been in on the whole thing. When they got back to the office with their promised bowls of noodles, they had one more bowl in the bag than usual. That was all the evidence Athena needed to connect the dots between the two of them and her new girlfriend.
Girlfriend.
Girlfriend.
Mein Gott, they’re girlfriends now. Athena looks at Juniper beside her and can’t help grinning. She feels like she started smiling right when she got close enough to scoop up Juniper’s face in her hands, and since then, she hasn’t stopped. She doesn’t want to stop either—she has no reason to stop.
She’s dating Juniper Woods.
And even better: Juniper Woods said she wants to date her, too.
“Anything,” Athena confesses quietly, still staring at her girlfriend’s profile. “Everything.”
Juniper, finally noticing that Athena is staring at her, giggles over her noodle bowl. She swallows a few noodles and shakes her head. “While that’s a very sweet sentiment, Thena, that doesn’t help us narrow it down as to exactly what our first date should be.”
“I guess not. But it doesn’t mean I’m not excited for it. Whatever it’ll be.”
Trucy hums and taps her chopsticks against the side of her bowl. Her legs swing back and forth and back and forth over the edge of the couch. “Let’s see… you guys… could go see a movie! You could go to a fancy restaurant. Or you could do something really fun and go sky-diving or rock-climbing! Oooooo or maybe hiking or bike-riding or maybe even…”
Mr. Wright gives Trucy a funny look that’s caught between since when have you been thinking about dating activities, young lady? and are you gonna stop at any point now, or do you still have more to say?
Athena’s eyes brighten. “Oh! Those are some ideas! I like those! Especially sky-diving or rock-climbing.”
“For a first date?”
“Yeah, of course, babe!”
Athena blinks, freezing. At the same time, Juniper freezes. Immediately, both of their faces burn very red. They look away from each other, unable to bear it.
Mr. Wright takes his time noisily slurping up a very long noodle. “Ah. I see.”
“What? What do you see?” Trucy leans into his side.
“No psychelocks. No worries,” he tells her and sets down his bowl to lift his glass of grape juice from the center table. With the fingers wrapped around it, he gestures out to the two girls on the opposite couch, still insufferably scarlet. “Nothing else but a couple that’s going to apparently be one of… those couples.”
“Ah,” Trucy wisens back. “You say that like it’s going to be a bad thing. One of those couples.”
Mr. Wright shrugs and takes a long sip. “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. I guess we’re all gonna find out one way or another.” He casts a quick glance at Juniper and Athena. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I kind of feel like… you two have already been hanging out and talking to each other so much. What else is really going to be different now that you’re dating?”
“Us,” Juniper says at the same time that Athena blurts, “Everything, Boss!”
Mr. Wright lifts his eyebrows, chuckles, and holds up a hand. “Alright, alright.”
Athena and Juniper look at each other. Meekly, bashfully, Juniper smiles. Athena tucks a lock of hair that always sticks out in front of her ears behind it. She taps her earring.
“Yeah. This is just the beginning,” Athena says. “A chapter of our lives is ending… so now, we begin again and go forward onto pages that aren’t yet written. Right?” She scrunches her nose, grinning. “That’s how it went, right? Something like that?”
Juniper blinks. And then, all at once, everything in her face softens. “Yes,” she rasps. With a deep breath, she repeats words she once rehearsed over and over again a year ago. Somehow, she still remembers them like they were imprinted into her memory. She reaches out with shy fingers for Athena’s hand. Athena takes them and weaves their fingers together. “And maybe that is what is the most important part: how and what we shape our futures to be.”