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The only sounds that could be heard coming from apartment 217 was the furious tapping of keys as Laura searched the web for the perfect gift for the office Galentine’s Day gift exchange. She had pulled a random coworker’s name- Megan was it? - someone who Laura know almost completely nothing about. It wasn’t because she didn’t care to get to know this random person who ran around the office. Laura has just had a lot on her mind recently—like work, and meeting the new college intern wasn’t on her top of her to do list.
“I have absolutely no idea what to get you—” Laura trails off as she looks down at the sticky note on her desk to remind her of the intern’s name, “Megan.”
She’s scrolling through Amazon trying to find that perfect gift because when it comes to gift giving, Laura will not settle for anything less than perfect. Even if she has no idea about the person she is buying the gift for.
“What do I get her? What. Do. I. Get. Her!” Laura says as her frustration rises rapidly as she scrolls through Amazon’s New and Interesting Finds! section. She seems to be taking her frustrations about work out on her mouse pad.
Laura likes the newspaper she works at right now, but her editor tends to play favorites a lot. Right now, Laura shares the religion beat with another reporter. It’s not exactly what she wants to do, nor does she think they really need two reporters on the same beat, but she’s just happy to be reporting on something. A lot of times, her editor bumps her pieces though—more often then not, actually. With barely any reason given except, “hey, don’t worry about it! It happens sometimes” to which he ends with a smug smirk that makes Laura want to scream.
That’s why she is actively searching for a new job, maybe even at a bigger and better newspaper. She went on an interview yesterday at the New York Dailey News. Her dream since she was little was to work at a respected Dailey newspaper, so when she got the interview for a staff reporter job, she went right home and complied the best portfolio of her work she could get together.
She put so much time and energy into making sure she was prepared for probably the most important interview of her life that she barely slept these past few days. When she walked in to the interview room, she instantly hit it off with the editors. The dialogue and positivity throughout the time she spoke with them was very promising in her mind. When she left the room after shaking everyone’s hands, there was a smile permanently plastered on her face. They told her they were a little pressed for time, and had to make a decision by five o’clock the next day, so she should keep her phone on in case they needed to reach her. She hadn’t received a call yet.
“Bunny slippers? Does she need bunny slippers? How about a Dinosaur onesie? Wait, do I need a dinosaur onesie? Maybe I’ll just save that to my quicklist- Oh! A Harry Potter House Truck set! All seven books!” Laura’s shoulder sag, “Oh, but its all Slytherin. I’m so not a Slytherin.”
“You sure about that?” says a voice out of nowhere.
Laura jerks in her chair. Her back straightens almost immediately and the hairs on her arms stand up.
There was a long moment of silence as Laura glares into her computer’s camera.
“I told you to stop doing that! You almost made me fall out of this chair!”
“At this point, you should just expect it; so you getting scared is your own fault, Creampuff,” the voice says unapologetically.
“Carmilla, this is so not the time. I’m beyond stressed about this gift exchange, and about-“ Laura trailed off as her eyes grew sad and her shoulders slumped. She looked away from the computer camera to try and hide it from Carmilla, but the other woman saw it anyway. Not wanting to upset the tiny journalist and possibly end their conversation too soon, Carmilla decided to file the questions she had away for another time.
“Well I can tell you right now you shouldn’t be spending $275 dollars on a Harry Potter book collection for this random girl you don’t even know. I personally wouldn’t get this chick anything and call it a day, but I know you don’t work like that- so just get her a candle.” Carmilla says with apathy.
“I’m not just going to get her a candle, Carmilla! I like my gifts to be thoughtful and, and, perfect! Maybe if I had some insider info…” Laura trails off, batting her eyes at the computer camera.
“No.” Carmilla immediately answers.
“Carm.”
“No.”
“But Carm!”
“No.”
“Why!”
“No. You are not using me for my recon skills. I work for the FBI, Cupcake. I’m not your personal spy. This is a serious job. I just don’t play around all day.”
“You are literally not doing anything important right now. You hacked into my computer camera and microphone to tease me, and watch me shop for Rachel’s Galentine’s day gift.” Laura chides.
“Megan.”
“Who?” Laura’s faces scrunches up in confusion.
“The intern’s name is Megan, not Rachel. Really, Sundance, keep up.” Carmilla teases.
Laura’s cheeks start to redden a bit.
“I knew that! I was seeing if you were paying attention or not.” Laura tries to cover up her mistake, shifting her eyes to the side.
“Oh yeah sure, that’s what you were doing, Sweetheart.” Laura can hear the smugness in Carmilla’s voice.
Laura huffs and takes a large bite of a cookie she has sitting next to her on the desk.
“Whatever. Maybe I’ll just get her a really nice pen. All aspiring journalists need a really nice pen!” Both women are silent; knowing that’s not the quality of gift Laura really wants to give the intern. Laura huffs and drops her head on the desk.
“Ugh. Why is this so hard?” Laura puts her face in her hands.
“Relax, Creampuff.” Carmilla tries to put the tiny woman at ease. “You could write her a really thoughtful card, giving her advice for the future and letting her know you’d be happy to help her in any way.”
“That’s—” Laura pauses and shifts her mouth to the side, shrugging her shoulders up, “actually a really good idea, Carm! Look at you being all sentimental and deep!”
“No, no. Don’t call me that. Take that back.”
“Not a chance, you big softie.” Laura teases.
“I was only trying to stop you from flying off the deep end and crying yourself to sleep tonight over a stupid office gift exchange.” Carmilla tries to convince Laura.
“Sure Carm, keep telling yourself that.” Laura smiles at her camera. “Alright, I’m going to get this really nice pen, and I’ll pick up a blank card at the store tomorrow.” Laura pauses and looks down at her keyboard, “Thanks for helping me figure this out Carm—and for trying to keep me sane. I’ll talk to you tomorrow! Goodnight!”
“Goodnight, Cupcake.”
When Laura shuts down and closes her laptop, she leans back in the chair and sighs. A smile slowly grows over her face as she thinks about the FBI agent.
Her phone dings with a text and she picks it up.
(Carm) 11:47 pm: I’m not a big softie.
Laura laughs and her smile grows bigger.
(Laura) 11:48 pm: OK, Carm. ;)
Laura is sitting in her cubicle trying to keep herself busy so her mind doesn’t wander to worrying about the job interview she had two days ago, when Megan’s head pops up over the edge with a big smile on her face.
“Oh! Hey there Megan, I didn’t even hear you coming.” Laura says with a bit of surprise in her voice, trying to cover up the shocked look on her face.
Megan gives a little laugh. “Sorry if I scared you. I just wanted to pop over and thank you for the gift yesterday! My favorite pen just literally took a crap on me—seriously look at my shirt.” Megan pulls at the fabric of her blouse and Laura can see the ink splatter near the pocket.
“What bad luck, right?” Megan’s eyebrows are down and she had a hint of a frown, “but hey! Now I have this incredibly nice, new pen! Thank you so much for the extremely thoughtful card, too! Now I can see why you’re one of the best writers we have here! You definitely have a way with words.”
“Thank you, that’s very nice of you to say.” Laura smiles up at the intern. In the back of her mind she’s thinking about that interview. Hearing Megan’s kind words helps ease the worry a bit, and maybe build some more confidence too.
“Well, alright I’ll let you get back to work. Thanks again!” Megan says as she gives a little wave and smiles. She turns to walk away, then hesitates and turns back to Laura.
“You know, a bunch of us are going out to the bar tonight, you know, for Valentine’s Day. My boyfriend goes to college out of state and I was little bummed not being with him today, so some of the girls decided we’d go out together instead of being alone! You are welcome to join us if you don’t have anyone to spend…” Megan trails off.
“Oh, um, thank you but I’m spending time with a friend tonight.” Laura gives Megan a small smile, wondering to herself if everyone in the office knows Megan well except her. She starts to feel a little guilty.
“Oh, I didn’t know you had someone special!” Megan claps her hands together excitedly and smiles at Laura.
“No! No one special—just a friend I made plans with—not romantic at all—whatsoever—just buddies, pals, amigas—two peas in a pod--- strictly platonic—I’m not attracted to her at all! Not one bit. Nope!” Laura pops the “p” in nope hard. Rambling on while her cheeks grow more and more red.
Megan’s eyes grow a bit wide and she taps her hand on the cubicle wall. “OK, yeah, I totally get it. Just friends! Should be a fun night! I’ll see you tomorrow” she says as she backs away.
Laura leans back in her chair to look around the cubicle wall to make sure the coast is clear.
“Oh my gosh.” Laura groans and drops her head on her desk.
“So yeah, anyway, Megan loved her pen and her card so I’m going to count that gift exchange as a win.” Laura says to the other woman on the phone.
Laura and Carmilla were texting back and forth as they watched same bad TV show, but Carmilla decided that was too much work for her and Face Timed Laura instead. When the call came through, Laura sat straight up in bed surprised, looked at herself in Harry Potter pjs, ran her hand through her hair, took a breath, and answered the call.
“See, I told you everything was going to be fine. What did you get in this gift exchange?”
“A candle” Laura responded in a monotone voice and rolled her eyes.
Carmilla stared at Laura through the phone.
“Don’t you say one word.”
Carmilla acted like she was zipping her lips, but a big, toothy smile broke through as she tried to hold back her laugh.
Laura just glared at her then pretended to turn back to the TV and watch the show she hasn’t been paying attention to. A comfortable silence fell over the two as they pretended to pay attention, all the while sneaking glances one another.
Carmilla raises her arms above her head in a big stretch and she yawns loudly. Laura tries not to stare at her exposed stomach.
“Alright so what’s been up with you?” Carmilla questions through hooded eyes as she lies in bed.
“I’m not sure what you mean?” Laura replies, shifting her eyes around the room trying not to look at Carmilla.
“You’re trying to hide something from me. Something that’s really bothering you. Might as well just let it out, Creampuff.”
Laura chews on the bottom of her lip. She doesn’t want to talk about the job interview with Carmilla. They never really talk about stuff that is upsetting them. Everything with them is light and fluffy with a bit of teasing woven in between. Laura doesn’t want to spew her thoughts and fears to Carmilla and make it awkward, or worse—make her not want to talk to her anymore.
“I can see the gears turning in your head, Buttercup. Just talk to me, get it all out—you’ll feel better and, well, I can get on with my life.” Carmilla tries to be nonchalant about this, but Laura can tell in her voice she actually cares or she wouldn’t have asked.
“I applied and interviewed for my dream job and didn’t get called back. They said they would make a decision by five o’clock the next day and I didn’t get the call. I wanted this so bad, Carmilla! Ugh! I hate that I got myself so worked up over this! I just want out of this place so bad! I want to be writing about stories that actually mean something to me! I want to be treated and respected like the A+ journalist that I am! Not bumped for another story on God knows what that my editor feels like running that day! There has to be something better out there for me, but I’m just so disappointed in myself right now. I keep replaying what happened in the interview to figure out what went wrong because obviously something did! My pieces I brought to share with them probably weren’t good enough. I’ll never make it out of this stupid newspaper.” Laura’s fists are clenched on her lap and she’s glaring a hole into her bedroom wall.
“Stop. Stop this pity party. You know you are a great journalist. You know your writing is insightful and enlightening. When you write a piece you aren’t all over it. You aren’t pushing your views down the throats of your readers. You are just enough in it to hear your voice, but you let the story carry itself. You give your readers all the facts they need to form their own opinions instead of just spoon feeding them the information and telling them what to think. The world needs more journalists like you. The world would be lucky to have a ton of tiny Laura Hollis’ running around, reporting on everything happening. So fuck that newspaper for not hiring you. They can’t even comprehend the greatness they just skipped out on. Something bigger and better is coming your way, Laura. Somewhere you are meant to be. You’ll get there, I know it.”
Laura is stunned silent. Laura is never stunned silent. She can’t believe what Carmilla just said to her. Mostly because it’s Carmilla—the girl who doesn’t have an opinion on anything pretty much all of the time. But she has an opinion on Laura; an opinion on Laura’s writing? Laura didn’t know Carmilla even read any of her pieces to know that much about her writing! She feels like her heart is going to beat out of her chest.
“Wow. Um, thank you, Carm.” Laura pauses, taking a long look at the other woman in the phone. “That means a lot that you would say all that.” Pause. “You really think that?”
“Listen, Sweetheart, I choose my words very meticulously. I’m not going to say something I don’t mean, and I meant every word.” Carmilla never broke eye contact with Laura when she spoke.
“Is it getting hotter in here?” Laura thought to herself as she squirmed a bit on the bed. Another comfortable silence came over the two women, but all Laura was thinking about was Carmilla’s words. Carmilla actually thought that about her. Also, that whole speech did nothing to help this persistent crush she has on the other woman. Laura is really wishing she wasn’t spending Valentine’s Day alone in this bed tonight. On the bright side though, Carmilla is alone at her place too, not out with someone else. If anything, Laura has always been very hopeful.
“So look at us. Sitting alone on Valentine’s Day watching bad TV.” Laura giggled. “Megan asked me if I wanted to go out to the bar tonight so I wasn’t alone.”
“Megan asked you out? That really must’ve been a very nice pen.” Carmilla asked through squinty eyes.
“Well she like didn’t ask me out, ask me out. It was a group thing, with some other girls at the newspaper. In fact, I learned Megan has a boyfriend.”
“Oh.”
“Yup, she came by to thank me for the pen and card. She actually said some really nice things to me and—”
“Why didn’t you go?” Carmilla cuts her off, and Laura pauses and shifts her eyes away.
“W—Well, because we already made plans to talk tonight!” Laura’s eyes are getting wider, hoping Carmilla doesn’t push further.
“You could’ve gone out with your friends, Creampuff. Now you’ve just spent Valentine’s Day alone in your apartment.”
“I’m not alone! I’m Face Timing you, Carm!”
“No, I still think this counts as spending Valentine’s Day alone.” Carmilla retorts.
Laura huffed and brought her eyebrows down, “well I don’t feel alone.”
Now it was Carmilla’s turn to squirm. “Whatever floats your boat, Cutie. I’m just saying you could’ve had a lot better company tonight then a girl in a phone.”
“Well I like your company, Carm.” Laura says, staring right at Carmilla.
“Oh, well, that’s a first for me.”
“Well, get used to it!” Laura smiles at her as Carmilla yawns again, but Laura just thinks she’s trying to hide her smile.
“Well Cupcake, I think it’s time to start my hibernation for the next seven days, so I’ll say goodnight now and apologize again for making you spend your Valentine’s bored and watching bad TV with me.”
“Hibernation? How can you hibernate when you have to go to work? Unless you finally took some vacation time? And again, you didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. I had fun tonight! ” Laura is happy that Carmilla is putting herself first for once instead of that job.
“Bingo, little Lauronica Mars. I’m taking some vacation time. And OK, I guess I believe you. And since I’m in such a good mood now that I don’t have to wake up at an ungodly hour tomorrow, I’ll make this boring night up to you somehow. Maybe I’ll let you turn on an episode of Dr. Who while we Face Time—and I promise I won’t mute you this time.” Carmilla says with a small smile on her lips.
“My oh my. That’s a big promise there, Carm. I’m going to hold you to that! Although, I think you will be so bored in these next seven days that you won’t even mind watching Dr. Who with me!”
“That may or may not be very true, but I’ll never admit it to you. I’m not sure what I’ll do with these next seven days off.”
“OH! You could come visit me and we could watch all of my favorite shows together! Right next to each other! Can you imagine!” Laura teases Carmilla with a big smile and extreme enthusiasm.
“Ha. Fat chance at that happening. I’d rather pluck my own eyeballs out.” Carmilla counters.
“Ew. Carm, that’s gross.” Laura makes a disgusted face and shivers.
“Yeah, well, gross is my middle name. Goodnight, Cupcake.”
“Goodnight Carm.” Laura responds as Carmilla plops her face into the pillow and ends the call.
It’s finally the weekend and Laura is ready to just sit on the couch and stuff her face with treats as she watches reruns of her favorite shows. She hasn’t spoken to Carmilla that much since Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, but she chalks that up to Carm catching up on her sleep—hibernating like she said she was going to do.
After a few hours pass by, and a lot of cookies have been eaten, Laura has this nagging feeling that she should probably shower and look somewhat presentable instead of sitting in her own cookie crumbs all day. Besides, a hot shower doesn’t seem so bad right about now.
After a nice and long hot shower, Laura finishes drying her hair and walks back into the living room to start another episode.
“Huh, it’s already 5:24 pm. Man, the days sure fly by when you are watching Buffy kicking butt and taking names!” Laura says out loud to an empty room. She’s about to mentally berate herself for talking out loud to no one when the doorbell rings. Laura freezes in her living room while her thoughts race a mile a minute trying to guess who that could be at the door. Slowly and quietly she moves towards the door and peeks through the peephole. When she sees who’s standing there, Laura gasps.
“Open the door, Cupcake. I’ve got a lot of stuff here and would really appreciate it if you could let me in before I just drop it all outside your door. Don’t think I won’t do it.” Carmilla yells through the door.
Laura is in full panic mode at the moment. Silently thanking the Gods for nudging her to take a shower, but also cursing them for letting her put on matching Gryffindor pjs. Oh well! she thinks as she runs her hand through her hair and goes to open the door.
Laura doesn’t know what she is expecting. She’s being talking to Carmilla on a pretty regular basis for about three, maybe four, years now. They’ve texted, Face Timed, emailed, and even wrote some stupid letters back and forth. But now, with Carmilla standing right in front of her in person, it’s like the whole axis her earth spins on is going all wonky. She probably looks rather ridiculous—staring at Carmilla like this. It isn’t until after a few seconds—minutes?—that Laura realizes Carmilla is talking to her.
“Yes, well, alright Creampuff. Super great job at opening the door. Now if you could just move out of my way so I can enter into the apartment and put all this heavy stuff down—that would be fantastic, Buttercup. No? Still not going to budge? Don’t think I won’t throw these bags at you. I’m not above that.” Carmilla says as she is trying to gather everything in her arms and make her way into the apartment. It’s then that Laura finally snaps out of her trance.
“Oh my gosh you’re here—like actually in front of me—wait how did you get here?—and what is all this stuff you are carrying—hey! Don’t push me out of your way I was moving—don’t look at me like that. Here let me help you. What is all this? I can’t believe you’re here!” Laura rambles out in about two seconds flat.
“Geez. So many questions from just a tiny person.” Laura crosses her arms and huffs, Carmilla continues. “Where is your table? Over here?” Carmilla asks as she begins to walk that way.
“My table? Why do you need to see my table?” A bag starts to slip out of Carmilla’s arms and Laura lunges to catch it.
“I got it, don’t worry. Oh, hey, do you happen to have to two glasses I could borrow for a quick second?” Carmilla asks.
“Um, yeah I do have some glasses. Just two? Do you want them right now?” Laura is very skeptical of what is going on at the moment.
“Yup, right now would be great. Run along, I’ll be fine!” Carmilla dismisses Laura to the kitchen to get the glasses. As Laura starts to back away she watches Carmilla rip open a package. Was that a tablecloth? Who buys tablecloths anymore unless it’s for some fancy dinner?
Laura is rummaging through her cabinets for her nicer glasses. “What type of glasses do you need?” Laura yells to Carmilla from the kitchen.
“Wine glasses if you have them, but if not it really doesn’t matter!” Carmilla yells back over a bunch of rustling bags.
Wine glasses? A tablecloth? And do I smell Chinese? What’s going on here? Laura’s thoughts are going a mile a minute but she’s so caught off guard by everything happening at the moment to figure it out. She grabs two wine glasses and heads back to the table. When she rounds the corner, Laura almost falls flat on her face.
There’s Carmilla, standing there, next to a table all done up. A white tablecloth, with heart shaped paper plates, red candles in the center and a couple roses on in a vase. Some Chinese takeout containers are on the table ready to be served. Laura stands there with her mouth open, scanning the table with wide eyes, glancing back at Carmilla who is standing with her hands on a chair.
“Well don’t just stand there, come on and sit, Cutie.” Carmilla pulls back the chair a little bit for her. Laura slowly walks over—she doesn’t even know if she’s walking or floating honestly, and sets the glasses down before she takes a seat.
“I—I don’t even know what’s happening right now.” Laura admits, a little dazed.
“Well Creampuff, I felt bad that you had kind of had a rough week, and then you spent your Valentine’s Day in bed Face Timing me instead of going out with your friends, so I thought I’d recreate a nice Valentine’s dinner for you now.” Laura just stared at Carmilla as she spoke. “And I remembered you said you liked a special little Chinese place a few blocks away from you because the Owner Gary and his wife Christie used to make you dinner and eat with you so you weren’t alone when you first moved to the city.”
Again, Laura just stared. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t believe Carmilla remembered that story—she told her that like two years ago!
Laura was so speechless that she just began to sputter out nonsense.
“You don’t have to say anything, or thank me. Let’s just eat because frankly, lugging all this crap around and making sure I had everything worked up quite the appetite.
And so eat they did. Carmilla started digging into the takeout containers and telling Laura what all she got for them. When the smell of the food hit Laura’s nose she broke out of her stupor and started digging in. The conversation flowed all night long. The two women shared stories of what’s happened to them since they last talked on Wednesday, and shared quite a few laughs throughout the night. It was a perfect evening and Laura could barely believe it.
“This is so amazing, Carm. I can’t even begin to—I don’t know how to—this is just really nice. I’ve never had someone do something so incredibly nice for me.” Laura gushed.
Carmilla was silent for a few seconds and then she spoke. “I know this past week has been rough for you. You’re feeling disappointed and discouraged; maybe you’re feeling like you’ve lost that Laura Hollis spark that’s always been inside you and makes you so special. So I wanted to show just how special I think you are, Laura. I think you are a remarkable woman and a spectacular journalist. I hate to see you feeling so lost because I know you’re meant to do great things. This may be a rough patch right now, but I know that big break is going to happen for you soon. I just hope that when it does, you remember us little people who were rooting for you from the start.” Carmilla ends that speech with a soft smile, looking straight through to Laura.
“Carm—” Laura starts but trails off with lightness and admiration in her voice. “Thank you. How could I forget you when you’ve created such a magical night tonight for us. Definitely going to be hard to top, that’s for sure.” She smiles at Carmilla with a sparkle in her eye.
“Well—I’d like to try to top this night as many times as you’ll let me because you’re worth it, Laura.”
Laura abruptly stands up from her seat, which jars Carmilla a bit so she pushes her seat back. Laura walks right over to her and sits in Carmilla’s lap and wraps her arms around Carmilla’s shoulders.
“I’d really like that, Carm.” Laura says as she leans in close to Carmilla’s lips. A slow smile grows on both their faces as they feel each other’s warm breath on their faces. Carmilla slowly inches forward and captures Laura’s soft lips in her own. The kiss they share is a long time coming, but nothing short of magical for each woman.
Laura slowly and reluctantly pulls away.
“Best Valentine’s Day ever.” She whispers against Carmilla’s lips before kissing her again.