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Humpback Pump Track is regularly busy during the hours of five and nine in the evening, which is why Pearl and Marina visit at ten. The staff is usually cleaning up after closing and they don’t mind if Pearl and Marina hop down to the track and participate in what Marina lovingly calls lessons. The truth is that they look forward to these days—every third Monday of the month—because it’s nice to be in on a secret, to be allowed to see the hottest idol group in Inkopolis afterhours when they’re relaxed and joking around, when they seem normal.
And, the biggest truth of them all is that they love to watch Pearl, rowdy, confident Pearl, struggle to learn to ride a bike.
It goes like this: Pearl is usually dressed like she’s going to a funeral—all black, jeans ripped, hoodie big enough for two of her, and her snapback is always different, the only splotch of color on her. Marina, meanwhile, is always practical: sundresses in the summer, sweaters and tight jeans in the winter, long coats, beanies, a couple bandannas. Sometimes, Pearl dons knee pads but only when she’s looking particularly sullen.
They begin on a children’s bike, one with training wheels and a flag. Pearl glares hard at the horn and doesn’t use it. Marina pushes her up and down the hills, directing her on how to use the pedals to brake, how to turn the handlebars. Then, after an hour, they change to an adult bike. This is usually where things begin to go wrong. Pearl’s balance is atrocious, and Marina has to stick close to hold her upright. They go over how to use the handbrake and the gear change. Pearl glares desperately at the track in front of her.
Inevitably, Marina convinces her to go it alone and Pearl looks at her like a panicked bird. Then, she puffs up like that same bird, confronting her own fear, unwilling to let anyone other than Marina see her so desperately unsure, and she pushes off.
She always falls, always tips to the side, always lands with the bike on top of her. But, every time she makes it a few more feet before she drops. Marina never laughs, just helps her up and congratulates her.
Pearl doesn’t try again, which is why they always have to start over every month, but she makes progress. Marina hugs her tight, encourages her to keep trying, and Pearl grins like a loon, eyes only for Marina. They both wear expressions that say that they would do anything for each other.
The final, secret truth that the staff of Humpback Pump Track never reveal: it’s clear that Pearl Houzuki and Marina Iida of Off the Hook are absolutely in love with each other.
6. Pearl
Pearl isn’t sure why she does it. Maybe it’s because she actually wants to learn, deep down, in that part of herself that wants to be good at everything. Maybe it’s because she’s ashamed that she’s never gotten good at it, that she never learned to shed the training wheels. Maybe it’s because she’s sick of being infantilized as a quick joke. Like, haha Pearl’s small—she gets it. But she’s also a grown woman. She’s about had it.
(Actually, it’s because she would do anything that Marina asks, and Marina really wants to teach her. Marina is always excited to teach her things. It’s a nice flip to the script. After all, Pearl is actually the one who’s done most of the teaching—she taught Marina her second language and all about Inkopolis, and how to navigate the music industry, and how to invest/save her money, and how to cook a few things, and—
So, when it comes to teaching, Marina jumps at the chance to show Pearl a thing or two. She wants to return the favor, she claims, and it’s a delight to show Pearl how to do things. To Marina, Pearl knows how to do everything. She’s come a long way since Pearl found her out in the wilderness near Mt. Nantai, when she believed literally anything Pearl told her, and she sees through a lot of Pearl’s shit now, doesn’t trust as easily, but she still comes to Pearl when she doesn’t understand some aspect of Inkopolis or inkling culture. She still respects Pearl as the experienced one.
But, that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t ecstatic at the chance to teach Pearl something, especially something that she’s so good at.)
It was Marina that arranged these little trysts with the bicycles at Humpback Pump Track. One day, Marina towed Pearl onto her motorcycle and sped them right there, to the building, where Pearl stared up at it with a furrowed brow. She’d been here a few times, but usually it was for turf war or splatfests, and she wasn’t exactly one for extreme sports—
“C’mon, trust me,” Marina said as she pulled her helmet off and shook her hair out, sending her tentacles flying in a way that made Pearl’s mouth go dry. “You trust me, don’t you?” Marina set Pearl with her pout, the really unfair one that made her look so adorable—
“Of fucking course I trust you,” Pearl said, and Marina’s face cleared up into a bright smile. Pearl suddenly felt like she was being manipulated, but she didn’t care.
The first lesson was a disaster. Pearl barely managed to hold her balance long enough to kick off without training wheels, and she took so many falls she was sure she was going to be bruised on the inside come tomorrow. Marina never laughed though, just helped her up and encouraged her, gave her pointers, straddled the bike with her muscled, practiced legs and showed Pearl how to lean.
It wasn’t fair really. Why was Marina so good at bikes anyway? It wasn’t like she had time to experiment with them in Octo Valley. But, as soon as their first single cracked its way onto the charts and was picked up as a Turf War track, she seemed to (spontaneously, if you asked Pearl) develop a fascination with bikes. Her motorcycle was the second thing she bought with their music earnings (the first was a good pair of headphones) and as soon as she climbed on it was like she was born there.
Pearl even had trouble staying on the motorcycle in the beginning. Marina had to show her how to balance, how to lean, how to hold on. Really, a bicycle is a lot safer than the motorcycle considering it doesn’t go a million miles an hour, but Pearl just can’t get it.
It’s probably because Marina isn’t on the bike with her like she is on the motorcycle.
There’s gotta be some grand cosmic lesson in the fact that Pearl doesn’t know how to balance without Marina. She can sense it, the same way she can sense when Marina’s looking at her sideways, in that way that makes Pearl want to climb into her chest and love her from the inside out. But the universe will have to wait. First, Pearl has to learn how to balance on two wheels by herself.
The subsequent trips out to Humpback Pump Track weren’t much different from the first. Pearl fell; Marina picked her up. Somewhere along the way, Pearl began to become increasingly familiar with Marina’s hands, increasingly aware of how they lingered, on her back as she taught, on her shoulders as she pushed, on her face as she comforted. Pearl looked up at Marina, silhouetted by the lights, after one particularly rough spill during their fourth lesson, and she swore that she could see something in Marina’s eyes, a fondness that went far deeper than their already deep bond.
Pearl began to enjoy the lessons (though she never told Marina that), mostly because it was something they did together, and she really did want to learn. Marina always looked at her so fondly when she swung her leg over the bicycle and tested the pedals, pushed it back and forth, waiting for some sort of direction. And Marina always gave it patiently, leaned close, close enough that Pearl could feel Marina’s breath against her neck as she showed her how to grip the handlebars for the sixth time in so many months.
That day, Pearl is wearing her typical black, but she has a new helmet. It was a gift from her father because he found out about the lessons when Marina accidentally let it slip. She looked so chagrinned with her hands so gracefully over her mouth, eyes wide, as he laughed at Pearl’s expense, at the fact that she never learned. Pearl merely leaned back in her seat and said, “I mean, a student is only as good as her teacher, eh Pops?”
That shut him up. He’d never been able to correctly teach her, and he swore that was his only failing as a parent.
The helmet arrived in their mailbox two days later.
It’s a bright pink, a shade that Pearl usually prefers, but, today, she can’t help but feel like it’s cramping her style. Here she is, a hardass in her black, extremely ripped jeans and tank top, piercings all over her face because they remind her that she’s metal as she’s falling off a fuckin’ bike, with a bright pink helmet on her head like a spotlight. It’s like she’s a shadow that fell asleep with her head in a vat of cotton candy or something.
“I like it,” Marina says as she bends down to adjust the chin strap. “Makes it easier for me to keep track of you.”
Pearl pushes it up slightly. “Well...” she says, struggling for a response because Marina really is right there. Pearl can see the dimpling of her skin, can smell her faded perfume and the slight tang of sweat after a long day. “I’m not that hard to keep track of.”
Marina hums and reaches up to push the helmet back down into place. “You can be, when you’re moving really fast. You’re like a blur. Now you’re a pink blur.”
Pearl grimaces. “I’m always a pink blur.”
Marina smiles and touches her nose, a feather’s brush. “That’s why I like the helmet. Still a pink blur.”
Pearl can’t say anything for a second because her brain short circuits at the nose touch. She coughs once to clear her throat and her head. “Fine. What are we doing first, oh teacher of mine?”
Marina blushes turquoise at that. Pearl wonders if it was the word mine that caused it. “Let’s start with training wheels.”
Pearl scowls. “Fine.”
Marina laughs and pats her lightly on the shoulder. Her hand lingers there for a second too long after each pat. “You need to find your balance.”
Pearl has to bite her tongue, or else risk saying I can’t with you here.
And it’s true. When they eventually get to the adult bike, Pearl makes it approximately twenty feet before she loses her balance and tips to the side. She lands hard on her knees and skids a few inches, sending a dull pain straight through her whole leg. She doesn’t have time to categorize more though, because then Marina is there, fussing over her, pulling her up, congratulating her for making it even those few feet. Pearl, intensely aware of Marina’s hands as they brush her down and then cup around her face, pull it up to look at her, to check her over for injury, can only stand there like a ragdoll.
“No split lip. Unlike last time,” Marina says, smiling. She rubs her thumb against Pearl’s bottom lip, as if testing to make sure.
There wasn’t one moment when Pearl realized she had it bad, but this the moment when it actually thuds into her. It’s a dawning realization, like the sun rising in the morning, like watching Marina wake slowly from her deepest sleep, like the sensation of falling off a bike in slow motion. It crept up on her, and then, suddenly, here they are, Pearl with a pair of throbbing knees because she landed wrong, looking up at Marina, and she feels something shift, something click, something in her mind that causes reverberations through her whole body.
And it’s all because she fell off her bike.
She’s got it bad. So bad. So, so bad. She has to force herself to stand completely still because she’s approximately .02 seconds away from doing something incredibly regretful with Marina’s thumb so close to her mouth.
She’ll need to do something about this soon. Next time. Definitely next time. It’s only right, to do it during one of the only moments they have alone, during these ritualistic, monthly bike riding lessons, where they return to where they started: teaching, learning, spending time together.
She promises herself that.
7. Marina
Marina loves the way Humpback Pump Track smells. It’s all rubber and metal, sweat and adrenaline. In another life, she’d probably be a BMX racer, competitive to a fault, bruised all over and in love with it. But, instead, she’s a musician with a tiny partner who she absolutely adores, who softens her competitive edges and actually makes her want to play defensively, to protect, to teach, to nurture.
Pearl leads the way into the building, dressed in her typical black. She has her helmet slung on her arm and she greets the man at the counter by name. It’s been a whole seven months of this, and Pearl makes a point of knowing people, of recognizing them, of talking to them, if she’s going to be seeing them that often. Marina, meanwhile, speeds by, cargo pants making only the softest swish as she goes. She tugs the child’s bike that Pearl’s been using out of the rack and checks it for issues, mindful of Pearl’s safety.
When Pearl eventually wanders over, she’s got a scowl on her face. It’s not because of the man behind the counter, but because she never looks forward to falling off the bike again. It amazes Marina that she comes back every month without a single complaint.
But, that’s Pearl. When she gets it in her head that she has to do something, she does it. It was like that when she found Marina at Mt. Nantai and it’ll remain that way probably until she dies. Back then, she couldn’t understand a single word Marina said, but that didn’t stop her. She convinced Marina to join her, to stay with her, to trust her, and she taught her a whole language from scratch, a whole grammar system, a whole new set of idioms, all because she felt that she needed to.
Marina pats the seat. “Hop on.”
Pearl’s scowl deepens. “I don’t hop.”
Marina’s mind happily offers her the image of Pearl doing just that during the last Splatfest, bounding from foot to foot, hair bouncing along with her. “Uh huh,” she says.
Pearl sticks her tongue out but does as she bid. She wobbles a little as she slings her leg over the bike, despite the training wheels, and carefully wraps her hands around the handlebars. “Where to, captain?”
Marina points ahead. “A few times around the track will suffice, young squire.”
Pearl nods and braces her legs, pushes down the pedals. She bikes away at a moderate speed, taking the humps in the track with practiced, familiar ease. This is the seventh month of this, and Pearl is intimately familiar with this track by now, even if she still can’t manage to stay upright on an adult bike. She’s getting better at making the circuit with the training wheels, even picks up a little speed here and there, just to show off. Really, Marina thinks that she doesn’t need to learn to ride without the training wheels—it’s not like she rides a bike in public much anyway or rides a bike much in general—but Pearl is determined now.
Plus, Marina loves these little evenings, where they spend it just the two of them with no cameras or people crowding them, still out in public while shielded from the outside world. She’s always looking for ways to spend more time with Pearl...
Pearl makes two circuits, the first at a leisurely, warm-up pace and the second faster, harder, so that she catches air coming off a few of the hills. She lets out whoops of excitement even as she lands too hard on the right, putting a lot of stress on the training wheel, but she corrects quickly, catches herself. When she stops in front of Marina, her face is flushed pink and she grins up at Marina with sharp teeth on display.
Marina is taken, for a second too long, by the sight of Pearl breathing so hard, over-exerted, hands tight around the handlebars with a grip that will never release unless forced to, and that grin—
Marina hasn’t deluded herself. She knows that she feels some kind of way for Pearl, some kind of way that she hasn’t given a name to yet but has accepted fully and completely, the same way she’s accepted Pearl fully and completely into her life. Pearl lives in her hearts, fills them with her big smiles, her larger-than-life movements, her long glances, and her over-abundance of energy. Every curse, every sly look, every inside joke, every prolonged brush of their hands, every time Pearl watches her with this look on her face that’s nothing but happiness and contentment, every time Pearl laughs, high and chiming... Every single moment she’s shared with Pearl lives within her, and, sometimes, she swears that those moments, those memories, those feelings, are what carry her, give her body structure, hold her up.
This is what she’s accepted. All of these facts, all of these feelings, categorically filed and accepted, but she hasn’t put the word to it yet, hasn’t said it to herself. Because giving something a name gives it power and she’s not sure if she can handle lov— The L word just now. At least, she can’t handle the pining, not when there are always splatfests to be had, news segments to be planned, concerts to be put together, songs to be composed, lyrics to be written, choreography to be learned, brand deals to be filmed/photographed, photoshoots, fancy parties, red carpets, movie premieres... The list goes on.
They spend a lot of time (all of their time) together, Marina and Pearl, have since they met almost two years ago and Pearl undertook the elephantine task of teaching Marina a whole language with no shared culture base, then decided to educate Marina about all of Inkopolis culture, including its movies, TV shows, music, politics, geography, gossip, fashion, public transportation, money, food, the turf war scene, while they also composed singles and tried to promote themselves as a new musical duo. They spend... All of their time is spent together, pretty much, but they never get tired of each other, never get snappy, know each other’s quirks and moods, know how to move around the other’s spikey bits when things get rough.
And somewhere along the way, Marina found herself balancing, like a tight-rope walker, over that abyss, the one that required naming the feeling she got when she was sitting on the couch and Pearl fell asleep with her head in her lap because they stayed up too long throwing around song ideas. Marina looked down at Pearl’s sleeping face, skin smooth with the peace of dreams, lips poked out just there, and felt her hearts spike and then plummet down, down, into her stomach, where they upset the flock of butterflies that called it home. That feeling. That was the feeling that she dare not name, that she stared down at from atop that tight-rope.
That’s also the feeling that she stares right in the face as Pearl grins her toothy grin and swipes sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. She’s breathing hard and Marina can hear it hitch in her chest—it does strange things to her insides.
“How was that?” Pearl asks, breathless. Marina simply stares at her, unable to compute those words. “Mar?”
“What?” Marina shakes her head. “Uh, it was— It was good! You almost fell but you caught yourself. Good job!”
Pearl squints at her. “You good? You look like you were visited by the ghost of bikes or something.”
Marina chuckles a dry chuckle and waves her hand, as if clearing Pearl’s confusion away. “What? I’m fine. C’mon, let’s change bikes.”
Marina goes to pull the other bike from the rack, and she can sense Pearl as she follows her. That’s the thing too: Pearl is very deliberate in telegraphing her movements, so even if Marina didn’t have highly trained senses forged through militaristic violence, she would always be aware of her. So, she’s not surprised when she turns and Pearl is there, hands on her hips, staring up at her.
“This is about the tension, isn’t it?” Pearl asks. She points a finger right at Marina’s face. “You feel it too.”
Marina, balancing the bike, suddenly feels trapped. She glances around for an out and only finds Pearl, at her full four-foot-nine, with her feet spread in a wide, stabilizing pose, like a small tree. Marina’s back on the tight rope now, staring down at the pit, at the word she won’t say, but this time, the void looks back and it’s got Pearl’s furrowed brow and bright, golden eyes. It welcomes her.
“What tension?” she hears her voice ask. (She knows what tension. She’s seen the way Pearl looks at her. It was just a matter of time. But she’d figured they would’ve ridden this out until the end of the splatfests at least, but here’s Pearl, proving her wrong.)
Pearl steps closer, lays a hand over Marina’s, the one resting on the bike’s seat. “I... Marina...” She lets out a hard breath. “Marina, you know I like you right?”
Marina laughs, resisting the void’s alluring call. It would be too easy, wouldn’t it? To jump right in, especially here, in the middle of a lesson, in the middle of this ritualistic thing that only she and Pearl share... It would be too good.
“Y-yeah...” Marina returns. “I like you too. You’re my partner and—”
Pearl smiles small, just there, and shakes her head fondly. “Marina... Marina... Holy shit, Marina. I really like you.” Her fingers tighten around Marina’s and she looks up and pins Marina with a look that’s all heat, that’s all desperation, and Marina can see the truth there, can feel it in Pearl’s fingers as she clutches tight just like she does to the handlebars of the bike. “I have for a while.”
Marina feels herself tip, feels herself lose her balance, and the abyss, that feeling that she can’t name, blossoms open. Her stomach bottoms out as she slips, as she tumbles, head over heels right into the L word.
“I like you too,” she whispers, in a totally different tone from before. It’s more than just like and she knows that Pearl knows it. This time, it makes Pearl’s face drain of its worry and desperation and Marina watches as it’s replaced with a small grin.
“This is... This is so sappy, dude...” Pearl says, suddenly blushing. “And really cute...”
Marina tightens her fingers around Pearl’s. Her fall slows, as if she’s no longer bound by gravity, and she softly lands, enveloped by the net that’s always been there. The net that’s all Pearl.
“Let’s get out of here!” Pearl pulls her hand free so she can grab the bicycle and push it to lean against the wall. Then, before Marina can stop her, she laces her fingers through Marina’s again and tugs her, pulls her toward the door. Marina, still confused by all this, by the vertigo, by the rush, by everything, but also delighted by it, ecstatic about it, allows herself to be dragged along.
7. Pearl
Once they get outside, Pearl lets go of Marina’s hand and stops right in front of Marina’s motorcycle. “I’m just going to get it out,” she says, because she can’t take it anymore. A month of waiting for the right moment, of preparing what she was going to say, of standing in the mirror and staring at her own face and saying Marina, I think I’m in love with you. And here they are, back where this all started, where everything clicked into place and Pearl decided that she needed to say it. “I like like you, Marina. And I know you know what that means because we had a whole lesson about it back in the day and—”
“Pearlie...” Marina laughs and covers her face with her hands. It’s a wild laugh, one that’s out of control and full of awe. “I... I can’t keep up with this. It’s happening so fast. But... But, I... like like you too?” She laughs again, this time at herself, and pulls her hands away so she can stare at her own palms. “I... It’s... Yeah.”
Pearl feels her hearts jump and jive, suddenly dancing to a rhythm that’s all Marina. “You do? I...” Now she’s the one laughing that out of control laugh. “I can’t believe how dumb we’ve been...”
Marina leans back against her bike. “Yeah...” She shakes her head but there’s a huge smile on her face.
“Hey...” Pearl steps close, places her hands on the bike, on either side of Marina. “You know what this means?”
“What?”
“I can kiss you. If... If you want me to, I mean.”
Marina’s face lights up with turquoise and she bites her lips and refuses eye contact for a moment. “I... I mean... Only if you want to.”
Pearl grins. “Oh, I want to.”
Marina finally looks down, finally gives Pearl the full force of her eyes, and they’re all she’s ever wanted—shining and excited and shocked and gleeful. Pearl swears she can see forever staring back at her.
Pearl elevates onto her toes and Marina leans down. Suddenly, finally, Pearl isn’t falling off a bike. Finally, she’s falling upwards, right into Marina—
Their lips touch and Pearl’s whole body lights up like the stars in the sky.
8. Marina
One month later finds Pearl and Marina right back at Humpback Pump Track like nothing ever happened. Pearl greets the man at the counter and Marina breezes by to the bike rack. This time though, Pearl is dressed in a bright pink t-shirt and gray track shorts. Kneepads equipped, along with elbow pads and fingerless gloves. She has her tentacles pulled back into a small, high ponytail and she smiles, big and huge as she has her small, monthly conversation.
Marina completely skips the children’s bike and tugs the adult one free. When Pearl appears, she swings her leg over it and hops on with a single complaint. Marina smiles down at her, fond, and places a hand against the small of her back. She feels Pearl relax into the touch, despite the panicked energy that she’s trying to hide, and Marina carefully leans forward to give her directions.
Pearl listens intently and nods every few seconds with a firm move of her head. When Marina is done, Pearl plants her feet on the pedals and leans into the handlebars like a racer. Then, she declares that she’s ready.
Marina gives her a small starting push, just enough to get her moving, and Pearl pumps her feet, once, twice, a full rotation of the pedals that has her whooping in victory. Marina watches with her hands close to her face, her smile widening the further Pearl gets down the track. It might be beginner’s luck—or maybe lover’s luck, considering the past month—but she’s actually doing it—
Then, Pearl tips a little too far and the bikes slides under her, sending her tumbling onto the track. She hisses as she lands but doesn’t make a sound beyond that.
Marina rushes to her, kneels next to her, and grabs her bicep to pull her up. “You okay?”
Pearl grins up at her from under her helmet. “Yeah! Did you see? I got so fuckin’ far, babe!”
Her excitement is infectious, and Marina can’t help but smile back. She pulls Pearl into a quick kiss, a fast smack of lips, but it still leaves Pearl smiling even bigger still, eyes lit up from the inside.
“Well, if that’s what I get when I fall, then let’s go again!”
Marina helps her up, rights the bike, and Pearl hops back on with an exuberance that Marina’s never seen here in Humpback Pump Track. Pearl places her feet, sneakers easily catching traction against them, and she smacks the handlebars.
“Lessgo! I wanna try again!”
Marina chuckles and leans close. “Just be careful,” she breathes, right into Pearl’s ear.
Pearl jumps and jolts. “H-hey! Don’t do that when I’m operating heavy machinery!” She leans down and smacks the handlebars, just to prove how serious this is. “I don’t wanna have an unnecessary accident!”
Marina laughs again. “You got it. Focus on your balance, okay?”
After Pearl’s nod, she pushes again, sending Pearl off. Pearl gets even further this time, but it’s her own feet that end her run. She misses the pedal and her right foot slips, which makes her panic. She falls again, but this time she’s expecting it so she braces and catches herself, lands on her elbow pads instead of her arms, and she’s back on her feet before Marina can get to her.
“Hell yeah, Mar! Did you see?”
“Yeah, I did— Mmph!”
Pearl grabs the collar of Marina’s leather jacket and pulls her down just so she can lay another kiss on her lips. This time, it’s longer, a little deeper, and Marina can feel herself getting sucked in right as Pearl cuts it off.
“Again!” Pearl cries.
Marina can’t help it—she laughs again, this time loud and long. Pearl grabs up the bike and bounces on, doesn’t even wait for Marina to give her a push. Instead, she kicks off on her own.
She goes down about five feet later because she hasn’t managed to figure out how to right herself after kicking off, but she goes down laughing. Marina doesn’t move, just watches her fondly, watches her lay there on her back, breathless, laughing up at the bright lights of the track, one arm across her stomach and the other thrown over her head.
“Hey,” Pearl says, and tilts her head back to look at Marina. “C’mere.”
Marina can’t deny her, especially after three falls in a row, so she does as she’s bid. She kneels, her long skirt pooling around her legs, and Pearl doesn’t move, just stays on the floor.
“I don’t think I can move,” Pearl says. She closes her eyes and turns her head away dramatically. Cheeky. “That last one was too much.”
Marina shakes her head and carefully reaches over to grab Pearl’s face by the chin. She turns her head slowly, carefully. “Oh yeah? Guess we’ll have to do something about that.”
Marina leans, hair falling forward to veil them, and places a soft kiss to Pearl’s lips. It’s nothing more than a brush, but it makes Pearl let out a small, keening noise. As if against her will, she cranes up a little as Marina pulls away, following her.
“Ah, I see...” Marina smiles. “Nefarious.”
“You know what the mags say,” Pearl answers. She closes her eyes again. “I’m rowdy.”
Marina laughs again, loud and straight from her gut, and carefully leans over again. She hovers close enough that she can feel Pearl’s breath. “You know what they say about me?”
“That you’re beautiful?” Pearl’s voice is strained, as if it’s painful for her to talk with Marina so close and so kissable.
“No, I’m feisty.”
Marina closes the distance, seals their lips together, and Pearl lets out that small, keening noise again, this time directly into Marina’s mouth. Marina works her hands around Pearl’s arms as they kiss, as Pearl tries to deepen it by trying interesting and tempting things with her tongue, but Marina is very aware of their surroundings. She doesn’t want things to get too out of hand.
Especially because there’s still so much bike riding to be done.
Carefully, Marina tugs away, just there, and Pearl follows, eager to keep things going. As she pulls back, Marina uses her arms to lift Pearl, to pull her up, until suddenly they’re both sitting up and nose to nose.
Marina disengages when Pearl tries to nip at her lip. “Nuh uh,” she says as they lean their foreheads together, breathing hard. “Not that feisty.”
Pearl’s lips are slightly puckered from the kiss and she pouts them out. “Aww c’mon. Who’s here? It’s just us!”
Marina laughs. “You wish. C’mon, you still have a couple more tries before I’ll let you go for the month.”
Pearl groans. “This is so unfair...”
Marina stands, brushes her clothes of, and holds her hand out. Pearl takes it, despite her objections, and allows herself to be pulled up.
“Tell you what,” Marina says, “you make it further than you did before and we’ll call it done, okay? Then, you can kiss me all you want.”
Pearl grins up at her and practically teleports to the bike. “You got it! You better get ready, Reena! I got a huge kiss coming right for you!”
As she kicks off again, Marina feels her whole body fill up with a comforting warmth—the warmth of love.
Then, predictably, Pearl crashes to the ground, only a few feet from where she started. “Okay!” She cries as she climbs wobbily to her feet. “Do over! That one totally didn’t count!”