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"Do you want to talk about it?"
Tuner looks genuinely concerned and Anni almost says 'Yes' - because in a way she does need to talk about it, because her head is a mess and she's angry and hurt and confused, but - no. She doesn't want to talk about it. Not now, not with him, not ever, preferably. She'll take a leaf out of Katrin's book, ignore everything and move the fuck on.
"I just want my job back," she says and when Tuner looks confused she adds: "This job, I mean. At 'Vereinsheim'."
//
Of course, because it's just her damn luck, Katrin is one of the first customers coming in when Anni is working her first shift. God - or whoever - must fucking hate her.
She knows it's stupid and childish, but she cannot make herself look up. When Katrin doesn't say anything either she eventually has to.
"What can I get you?" she asks.
Katrin doesn't reply at first, just watches her. "So you're working here again?"
Anni rolls her eyes. "Yeah, looks like it, doesn't it?" she says, "Look, Katrin, can we just get this over with? What do you want?"
She's asking for coffee preferences, obviously, but it's a loaded question anyway. And something she probably should’ve asked earlier – before the kiss, before her stupid crush turned into something more, before everything. What the Hell do you want from me, Katrin?
„Coffee. Black. No sugar.“
Alright.
„Coming right up,“ Anni says.
„Same for me,” another female voice says, “But with sugar. Lots.”
//
“Rosa? What are you doing here?”
“I’m glad to see you, too,“ Rosa smirks, “And well, I could ask you the same,” she adds and raises an eyebrow, looking between Anni and Katrin – the latter giving Rosa the most irritated look in return.
Ugh no. Anni certainly doesn’t need this right now.
“Can we discuss this later?” Anni rolls her eyes at Rosa.
“Sure,” Rosa smiles, clearly amused, and she reaches for her coffee, “Tonight? Over dinner?"
//
Distraction is precisely what she needs right now. So when she enters Rosa’s hotel room, officially – to pick her up for dinner - she wastes no time. She grabs Rosa by the collar of her shirt, kicks the door shut with her foot and shoves the other woman against the wall. Rosa laughs, again, but then she’s kissing Anni back in that way that is sure to drive her crazy in no time.
Anni drops her hands to unbutton Rosa’s shirt, she pulls it from her skirt, impatiently, shoves it off her shoulders and finally pulls her mouth away from Rosa's just attach her lips to the other woman’s neck instead.
“Didn’t we want to--,” and Rosa gasps when Anni bites the sensitive skin just below her ear, “Didn’t we want to talk?”
Really?
“Later.”
Anni’s hands eventually drop to Rosa’s skirt, she’s just about to unzip it when--
“Anni, stop—“
“What?”
“Stop.”
“Why?”
Rosa pulls back and smirks at her. God sometimes she hates this.
“We shouldn’t do this.”
“Why not?” What the Hell?
“Because, as much as I love and enjoy having sex with you,” Rosa says, “I’m a little too proud for that one.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Katrin is the one you want, right?”
“Rosa, seriously, I—“
“Let’s talk about this.”
//
“Are you even listening to me?” Maren asks for the second time.
“What?—oh, yes, I’m so sorry,” Katrin rushes to say, “Can you—can you just say it again?”
And then there it is, that look Katrin has been dreading. Because, however good she may be at building walls around herself and keeping up an indifferent façade – Maren has always been more than excellent at looking right through this.
“Did something happen?” Maren asks.
“No.”
When Maren just crosses her arms in front of herself and keeps looking at her Katrin adds: “I’m just a little tired. Work has been Hell today, there’s just so much to do and to organize and—“
“It probably doesn’t help that you have no personal assistant anymore, uh?”
Katrin swallows at that and looks away.
Not good. Way too telling. Damnit.
“Well, yeah, bad timing, I guess,” she shrugs, “I’ll find someone new.”
“Why did she leave? Or did you fire her? What happened between you two?”
“Nothing happened,” Katrin says a little too quickly, a little too harshly.
This is so not going well.
Maren raises an eyebrow and leans back against the couch. “Well, now I know something happened.”
Katrin sighs. She doesn’t know what makes her do it, but eventually she reaches for her phone, scrolls through the messages until she finds that one and holds out the phone towards her friend.
Maren reaches for it, looks at the screen and: “What the Hell?”
“Do you understand now why I can’t work with her anymore?” Katrin holds out her hand, but Maren doesn’t make a move to give the phone back yet.
“’So you,” and she pauses, clearly having trouble to figure out Anni’s typo-filled drunk text – Katrin almost has to laugh, “So you know what you’re missing out on?’ Really?”
Katrin shrugs.
“And she just sent you this? Without any… preamble?”
“You know Anni.”
“Yeah, she’s a flirt, but,” and Maren nods towards the phone that’s still in her hand, “This?”
Katrin sighs. It’s Maren, right? She can tell her.
“She kissed me,” she says, “We kissed.”
//
“So now even you don’t want to have sex with me anymore – great,” Anni sulks – she seriously does – and Rosa can’t help but laugh again at this.
They’re sitting at the large table in Rosa’s hotel suite by now, waiting for their food to arrive.
“I do, but not like this.”
Anni rolls her eyes, “I still don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”
“I wasn’t aware this thing between you and Mrs Flemming was so serious. So, well, dramatic?”
Anni laughs, “That thing? There’s no thing. We kissed once, that’s it.”
“You two kissed?” Rosa smiles, “Well, that’s interesting news.”
Anni can’t even make herself care that she just – accidentally – revealed that part of information to Rosa. Not that it matters, not that the kiss mattered – Katrin made that pretty damn clear.
“Can we please not talk about this?” Anni asks.
“I thought we came here to talk about this.”
“And I thought we came here to fuck.”
Rosa laughs. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure Katrin thinks that this is what we’re doing right now.”
“Why do you keep mentioning her?” Anni snaps, “One could think you’re the one who’s obsessed with Katrin.”
“So you’re obsessed with her?”
“You know what?” Anni says and gets up from the table, “I’m done. I’ll just leave. This is fucking stupid.”
“Anni…”
“No.”
Rosa sighs. She gets up, walks towards the other woman and grabs her by her upper arm just when she’s about to open the door and leave.
“Hey,” Rosa turns her around, “I’m sorry, okay? I was just teasing you.”
Anni says nothing, but also makes no move to leave the room anymore.
“You like her, so what?” Rosa shrugs.
“I don’t—like her,” Anni snaps, “I was attracted to her, yes, but I’m over it. I’m getting over it.”
“Bullshit.”
“She treated me like a stupid kid with a crush, Rosa,” Anni says, “I’m done with her.”
There’s a knock at the door then. Their food. Rosa nods towards the table and, more or less willingly, Anni walks back towards it and sits down again.
“She likes you, Anni,” Rosa says, a little later, pouring them both a glass of wine, “Didn’t you see that look on her face earlier at “Vereinsheim”? It’s surely eating her up that you’re with me right now.”
Anni snorts. “Sure.”
“She was jealous. And not for the first time.”
Anni just shakes her head.
"A few weeks back? When she literally watched us make out in the car? Come on, Anni."
"Yeah," Anni says, "I misinterpreted that once. Not again."
Rosa sighs. "God, you're stubborn."
"Can we stop talking and have sex instead?"
"Eat your food."
//
"Wow," Maren says, "I mean... okay. So you kissed Anni. Your assistant. A woman."
"It meant nothing," Katrin insists, "I was just curious."
"Yeah", Maren laughs, "This sounds exactly like you."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Kissing someone you work with, a woman you've known for a long time, a woman you have history with - out of curiosity, no meaning whatsoever? Come on now."
"I've had one-night-stands before, Maren. I mean-," and she can feel the heat rushing through her body, "I mean, not that we were going to-- but you know what I mean."
Maren is smirking now and somehow this is really irritating.
"What?"
"Well, you're blushing."
Katrin runs a hand through her hair, a nervous gesture that surely isn't helping things. "Can we drop this now?"
"Hmm.. no."
"Maren, honestly. This.." and Katrin pauses, unsure how to explain herself or if she even wants to. She settles for the half-truth. "Anni, I don't know, she developed a crush on me and yeah, fine, I did enjoy this a little. I was flattered. Hell, she's young and-- what woman at my age wouldn't be flattered?"
And that she was. When she had first over-heard Sunny and Chris talk about Anni's attraction to her she was a little taken aback at first, but also flattered. This feeling had only intensified when she'd caught Anni checking her out over and over again in the past few weeks. What she hadn't expected was for that feeling to be replaced by something else. Curiosity, yes, but also some sort of longing she definitely wasn't ready for.
"Hmm. Well, was the kiss good?"
Maren honestly has got some nerve today.
"It was hardly anything," Katrin shrugs. Her voice comes out hoarse and she has to clear her throat.
"It had quite the effect on you," Maren replies, unimpressed, "Considering it was hardly anything."
"What do you want me to say?" Katrin snaps and regrets it right away. "I'm sorry," she adds.
"Anni's pulling you out of your comfort zone and you hate it."
"Anni is-- this doesn't matter. There is nothing going on anymore."
"Which was surely your decision and not hers."
"Someone had to be the adult."
"Okay, now you're getting unfair, Katrin."
Maren is right. Of course she is. If Katrin is really honest with herself - and she's been having some trouble with that lately - she has to admit that it was her who encouraged Anni, it was her who basically made Anni kiss her just to then play it all down and pin it all on the other woman.
"It doesn't matter," Katrin says again and then her thoughts drift back to the afternoon at "Vereinsheim" where she'd met Anni. And Rosa. "Anni is with Rosa Lehmann now anyway. So I guess the crush wasn't that bad after all."
Oh, what a stupid thing to say.
In front of Maren of all people.
Her friend grins. Of course she does. "You're jealous."
"Nonsense."
"Why are you being so defensive about this?" Maren asks and she's giving her a serious look now. Katrin thinks it's even worse than the smirk before. "We're friends, right? You can tell me. Do you think I'm going to judge you? Me? Really?"
Katrin sighs. "No, I just--," she hesitates and decides to settle for the full truth this time, "I don't even know what I'm feeling myself. I just know that I'd rather feel nothing. I can't do this. Not yet. Not after--" and she falls silent, but of course Maren knows. Till.
After some hesitation Maren asks: "But you're feeling something for her?"
"I don't know."
Maren gives her an unconvinced look. She's being extra persistent today Katrin decides.
"She-- she confuses me, knocks me off balance with her bluntness. I can't stand it, but at the same time--," Katrin pauses, "It excites me, I guess. She does excite me."
"And Mrs Lehmann?"
Katrin rolls her eyes. "Anni's Ex."
"Who is in town today and is spending time with Anni right now. Which.. doesn't bother you at all, of course?"
"What do you want to hear?"
"The truth?" Maren shrugs.
"Yeah, it bothers me," Katrin says then, "I wish it didn't, but I can't help it. The thought of them having sex right now.. it's driving me crazy."
//