Chapter Text
Tobin doesn’t like going to parties. She actually isn’t very clear how she wound up squished in the back seat of Ashlyn’s Jeep Wrangler; Pinoe on one side loudly singing along with the ‘pop goes punk’ album Ash was blasting through her phone, Moe on the other side complaining about the song, and Ali with her feet on the dashboard in the front.
“When can I go home?” She asks in the break between songs.
Ash turns around and rolls her eyes at her. “We haven’t even gotten there yet!”
“The road!” Ali smacks her shoulder.
Ash mouths a ‘sorry’ at her and grabs her hand to press a kiss between her knuckles. Ali’s irritation seems to melt instantly. Tobin absorbs it instead.
“I just want to set expectations,” she grumbles too low to hear as another song kicks in.
Ali, ever the protector, turns down the music. Ash and Pinoe complain almost as loud in the sudden silence.
“I know you don’t like parties, Tobs, but -“
“C’mon!” Pinoe hooks her arm around Tobin’s neck and pulls her down, since Pinoe is a solid two inches shorter than her even sitting. “It’s our senior year. We’re young. We’re full of life. We’re single!”
“Hey!” Ali scowls at her, whether for being interrupted or for calling them single Tobin’s not sure.
“Present front seat company excluded,” Pinoe corrects herself with a mischievous grin.
“I know it’s not your scene,” Ali tries again, louder, with a silencing look at Pinoe, who still has Tobin pinned under her arm. “But consider this your once-a-year concession. If you really aren’t having fun a couple hours in we’ll leave, ok?”
Ali’s smile is soft and coaxing, and her voice is calm in a way that reminds her why a drunk Ashlyn once called Ali her safe harbor in a storm. She silences both Pinoe and Moe arguing that they are certainly NOT leaving that early with just a purse of her lips and Tobin sighs. She manages to wiggle her way out from underneath Pinoe’s arm. Everyone is looking at her expectantly now so she runs her hand nervously through her hair until it settles back into place.
“Ok,” she says. Moe’s whoop is so loud that she almost can’t get the rest of the words out. “But you gotta promise.”
Pinoe is banging her hands against the window when she says she promises, Moe doesn’t answer at all, and Ash only promises when Ali pokes her hard in the ribs, so Tobin resigns herself to a long night.
She doesn’t remember who Ashlyn said was throwing the party. Whoever it was they have a nice house. Well, PREVIOUSLY had a nice house.
Tobin‘d lost Moepinoe, as they’d insisted on being called before they got to the house, not even ten minutes in. She’s seen them a handful of times since then. Pinoe had been aggressively flirting with a girl with long dark hair and Moe had met up with some of the other girls from the soccer team - the last time she’d seen Moe it had been in a group of girls with Sonnett encouraging her to do a shot of something.
It’s not that she doesn’t like parties. It’s just that she...ok, yeah, sure, she doesn’t like parties.
The thing is she doesn’t quite understand what the appeal is. It’s a lot of people very close together, drinking enough to make themselves sick, playing music loud enough to deafen someone standing too close to the speakers. Anyone dancing in the living room is doing so partially clothed and sweaty. You can’t TALK to anyone over the noise let alone think, and there’s always the possibility of a disgruntled neighbor calling the cops.
She’s a cup and a half into watery beer and already itching to leave. It’s nearly midnight - a full hour and a half past the time in which Ali said they’d leave if Tobin wasn’t having fun - and here she was decidedly NOT having fun with Ali and Ashlyn nowhere in sight.
She can see the backyard from her spot perched sitting on top of the counter in the kitchen. The sliding glass door is open, letting in the only cool air around, and there seems to be significantly less people out there. Tobin texts Ali that she’s going outside, but considering the fact that she’s pretty sure the two of them are smack in the middle of the gyrating crowd of dancers she doesn’t expect it to be received any time soon.
Sonny waves at her as she passes by, but it’s a casual backhanded sort of wave. She seems way more interested in the girl she’s talking to. Tobin’s never seen her before - her face full of freckles, like constellations, would be hard to forget.
Tobin’s right that the backyard is less crowded. It seems to just be a bunch of the guy’s rugby team around the fire pit, drinking and smoking something and occasionally shooting lighter fluid into the flames to make them spit and dance. They’re still obnoxious - they don’t know how to lower their voices at all and they’re laughing really loud - but they’re manageable.
There’s a porch swing to her right. She makes a beeline for it and curls up, knees to her chest. Air pods in her ears and the latest stats from the premier league on her phone and she can almost pretend the party isn’t happening.
For about ten minutes.
Two figures split off from the fire and wander more towards Tobin. It’s not a very big yard, though, and eventually their voices get loud enough that every few words filter through her music.
“...and...what do...WHY would you even-“
And, well, Tobin’s a naturally curious person. She slips one air pod out stealthily.
“Why would you even to show up if it wasn’t to see me?”
She knows the guy talking. He plays for the rugby team. Derek or Donovan or...something with a D. He’s handsome enough if you’re into that sort of thing (which Tobin is definitely not), tall with dark hair. He’s standing with his back to Tobin so he’s blocking who he’s talking to, but that doesn’t stop her from hearing them.
“Because the world doesn’t cater to you, Declan!” Right, Declan, that was it. “I’m friends with Julie and it’s Zach’s house and Kelley wanted to come. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but not every decision I make revolves around whether my ex-boyfriend will be there.”
He scoffs and moves to the side. Declan is mediocre at best but the girl he’s talking to...
God, the girl.
Tobin swears her heart stops beating for three full seconds. She’s hands down the most beautiful girl Tobin’s ever seen in her life, bar absolutely none, magazines and instagram posts be damned. Tobin can’t stop herself from staring - at the way her dark hair falls across her shoulders, the curve of her nose, the way the firelight brushes over her soft brown skin, the pout of her lips...
Her eyes flick to the side and catch Tobin in the act of having a gay epiphany. Tobin bites her lip, hard, and wrenches her eyes away so quickly she thinks she might have pulled something in her neck.
“I thought maybe you might have changed your mind...” She can tell Declan is trying to be soft and imploring. She’s not sure it’s working.
“I haven’t. It’s been three months. Why won’t you accept I’ve made my decision?” Nope, it’s not working.
“Yeah, it’s been three months!” He rolls his eyes and shrugs and Tobin loses any sympathy that might have started to build. “The summer’s over now. You should have gotten it out of your system.”
Logically, it’s not any quieter than before. But in the sudden silence that follows that sentence Tobin swears she can hear the tiny screams of Declan’s chances of getting back together with his ex-girlfriend as they die. Even the rowdy rugby boys at the fire are shushing each other to pay attention.
Every line in the girl’s body speaks to anger as she rounds on him, but her shoulders twitch and hunch forward in a way that makes Tobin want to get up and stand in front of her.
“Gotten it out of my system?” The girl repeats back to him and, oh, Tobin’s been on the end of a girl repeating a sentence back to her before. It’s never worked out well for her. “Gotten what out of my system, exactly?”
“C’mon, Chris, you know. The whole thing,” he waves his hand vaguely. “The whole bi thing.”
The disbelieving stare the girl - Chris? - levels at him is enough to make anyone freeze in their tracks. Tobin ducks her head closer down to her knees. Suddenly she doesn’t want to be here for this conversation. She abruptly feels like she’s intruding on something.
“The whole...the whole bi THING,” Chris bites out at him. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? We are not...we’re not having this conversation right now.”
“Why not? It’s just us and the guys,” Declan shrugs. “And geek squad over there.”
Tobin almost wants to leave, but at this point that’ll just draw even more attention. The girl’s eyes flick back over to her again and stay for longer this time. They’re some sort of light color - Tobin can’t see them very clearly in the dim lights of the porch and the fire.
“I literally don’t know what I ever saw in you,” Chris says to him. “I came out to you because I trusted you and what, you think it’s just a phase or something?”
“Do you know how embarrassing it is?” Declan hisses at her. They’re far enough away that his buddies can’t hear but, unfortunately, close enough to Tobin that SHE can. “They think I turned you gay or something.”
“Yes, because my sexuality is ALL about you. It’s ok if I want to put on a show at parties but if I actually like girls then it’s different, right?”
“I mean, well...” he flounders for a response. Tobin hides a smile. “Yeah, it is!”
“Okay, then.” Tobin is looking very intently at the laces of her Converse and therefore doesn’t notice that Chris is getting closer until she sees the toes of the girl’s boots in her periphery. When Tobin looks up, she’s close enough that she can see how long her lashes are and how very green her eyes are. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Tobin says back. It comes out a little more high-pitched than she wanted.
“Do you mind if I do something?”
“Um,” Tobin clears her throat so she can speak in her normal, lower tone, and not in a way that sounds like she’s a teenage boy just hitting puberty. “Sure.”
Consent granted, Chris puts a soft finger under Tobin’s chin to guide it up. “Great,” she says with a grin, before she kisses her.
No one is more surprised than Tobin is with herself when she pushes herself up with one arm and leans into the kiss. Her lips are soft and warm under Tobin’s, and a little sticky with whatever lip gloss she has on. Heart pounding in her ears, audience forgotten, Tobin pulls away for the briefest moment only to press in harder, her lips a little firmer, and the girl makes a noise between a hum and a whine in the back of her throat. It’s not a bad sound - it actually sounds kind of pleased. Her lips part a little and Tobin takes it as an invitation to capture her bottom lip and pull. Chris makes the sound again, this time a little louder, and lifts a hand to the back of Tobin’s neck.
Chris pulls away but her hand stays on Tobin’s neck. Her eyes, so light just a moment ago, are now a dark verdant green as she looks at Tobin.
“Dude, what the fuck,” Declan says, in a way that would have ruined the moment if Tobin’s soul was still grounded on Earth, which it 100% was NOT after that kiss.
“I - um -“ she knows she speaks English, she’s spoken English for eighteen years, but you wouldn’t know that from how few English words are swirling around in her head that aren’t ‘do that again please’.
She really wants to defend herself against the angry, narrowed-eyed glare being thrown at her by Declan the rugby player but she can’t, because Chris has moved her hand to the side of Tobin’s neck and her thumb is now brushing against the corner of Tobin’s jaw and it’s VERY distracting. She doesn’t know quite what she’s feeling right now - warm, definitely, and tingly from where the warm thumb keeps ghosting over the thin skin by her jaw.
She knows Chris can feel the way her pulse is racing, because she gives Tobin a smirk that’s just this side of smug, and it would be desperately attractive at any other time.
It’s not the kiss that’s making her heart go crazy, though. Well...not just the kiss. She can feel the way her blood is rushing through her veins, the way it pounds at her wrists and her throat like it’s trying to break free from her body. The space on the porch, already small, feels as if it’s closing in on her. Every eye turned towards them burrows under her skin and sticks there. Her foot taps against the ground, desperate for a soccer ball underneath it, the only way she’s ever been calm with eyes on her.
“Did you do that to prove a point?” Declan demands.
Chris turns to answer him and Tobin takes the chance to step away. The motion of her hand dropping through the now-empty air makes Chris turn back, surprised, and something must show on her face because she steps closer and puts her hand on Tobin’s arm.
“Hey...”
“Everything good?”
Tobin’s head shoots up to look at the door. Ali and Ash are hovering like two halves of the same mom friend. Ash squares her shoulders as she looks between everyone suspiciously.
Ali catches Tobin’s eye and wiggles her phone in the air. “Got your text. Still want to head out?”
“Yes, please,” Tobin mumbles. The chance of escape is like a shot of clear air through her lungs. She doesn’t make eye contact with anyone by the fire and purposefully avoids looking at Declan as she goes to move towards her friends.
Chris’s hand tightens on Tobin’s arm and it’s enough to stop her. Suddenly she’s in Tobin’s space again. She presses a soft kiss to Tobin’s cheek that lingers for a moment.
Tobin’s blush is so abrupt and hot that the brush of her lips feels cool against her skin.
“Thanks, geek squad,” Chris whispers to her.
“Welcome,” she mutters back.
She has to walk directly by Declan when she leaves and she can feel his glare like a living thing as she passes by him - something heavy and pressing.
Ash snags her with a friendly arm around her shoulders the minute she’s close enough. Ali is still in full mama bear mode, eyeing Chris with curiosity and Declan with open hostility, having apparently decided she didn’t like the look he was giving Tobin.
“It’s been real, y’all,” Ash says with an eye roll at the whole group.
Someone by the fire calls out, “You missed the drama, Harris!” Ashlyn gives him a backwards wave as she steers Tobin towards the back gate and the side yard that’ll take them to her jeep. There’s a lengthy delayed moment before Ali follows them.
Just as Ashlyn jokingly shoved her through the open gate Tobin glances back. Declan has stormed off to his friends but Chris is still watching them and even from a distance Tobin can tell how soft she looks in that moment - the way she’s standing with her thumbs hooked into her back pockets and how her head is tilted just a little - and Tobin is struck with the abrupt urge to turn around and grab her hand, tug her after them and explain everything to her friends once Chris is in the car with them.
Before that idea has fully formed, the freckled girl Sonny had been talking to barrels out of the house and nearly knocks Chris over. She’s talking a mile a minute and she makes Chris laugh when she throws what Tobin can only assume is an empty can at Declan’s back.
“So...” Ash scrambles to turn the music down when it starts to blast the moment she turns her Jeep on.
“Yeah, so.” Ali turns as much as the seatbelt will allow.
Tobin sinks down into the seat. If it was possible to meld into the fabric of a ten year old car she would have done so. As it was she tried. “Don’t ‘so’ at me,” she grumbles at them.
They glance at each other and Tobin feels a spike of annoyance and longing at their easy, casual communication without words. “And stop doing that.”
“We’re not doing anything,” Ali says. She looks so innocent, all wide eyes and smile full of bright teeth, that if Tobin didn’t know better she would have believed her.
“You’re doing that thing where you talk about me without talking about me.” Tobin turns away from them and looks out the window. “Also, did we just abandon Moepinoe?”
“Linds is giving them a ride home. They didn’t want to leave yet.”
The rush of guilt makes her sit up straight. “I should have called an Uber!” She looks at them, at the way the street lights cast shadows across their faces and their hands intertwined over the center console, and her guilt triples. “I’m sorry, you guys should go back.”
“Nah,” Ash gets to a red light and throws an easy grin over her shoulder at Tobin. “Party was boring anyway. Wanna come over and play FIFA?”
“I freaked for a second. You don’t need to babysit me,” Tobin says.
“Oh, did you? I hadn’t noticed.” Ash isn’t a good liar but Tobin appreciates the effort.
“It’s not babysitting if I want to watch you kick Ashlyn’s ass in high definition,” Ali says. “Hey!” She laughs when Ashlyn lets go of her hand to pinch her in the thigh. She unbuckles and climbs into the back seat to escape her girlfriend. “Hi Tobs.”
Tobin giggles. “Hi.” She lifts up her arm so Ali can cuddle into her side. She giggles harder when Ashlyn makes an offended face in the rear view mirror.
“Alrighty Miss Steal-Your-Girl back there. Yes FIFA or no FIFA?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
Ali laughs again and plants a loud, smacking kiss on Tobin’s cheek. “For the record?” She waits until she has Tobin’s attention. “She was REALLY pretty.”
Tobin huffs and rolls her eyes, and pretends that her heart doesn’t speed up.
She rolls over once, twice, three times - adjusts her spot on Ashlyn’s futon and lifts herself up onto her elbows to punch the pillow into a new shape.
“Please sleep,” Ashlyn’s voice breaks the quiet of the night abruptly. “I beg you.”
Tobin locks her arms in place, like if she holds still Ash will go back to sleep. “I’m not awake,” she says after several long moments.
“Very convincing.”
If Tobin squints across the room she can see the shapes of Ali and Ashlyn curled up in Ash’s bed, highlighted by the moonlight coming in through Ashlyn’s blinds. “Go back to sleep, Ash. I’ll be alright.”
The pillow smells like soap and laundry when she rolls and buries her face into the pillowcase. She can’t stop her brain from rushing along - remembering the party, Declan’s anger like a weapon, the glint of green eyes and the feel of her lips pressing softly against the prettiest girl in the world.
Something nudges her shoulder and rolls onto the floor. When she looks over it’s a soccer ball. Ash is sitting up in bed and Ali is already standing and tugging her hair into a bun.
“Wha...”
“You coming?” Ali asks. She ties off her messy bun with a twist of her wrist and a smile. “It’s no fun defending a goal no one is shooting at.”
Being friends with the two of them for so long, she knows not to argue when they’ve made up their mind about something. That’s how she finds herself in Ashlyn’s backyard at nearly three in the morning, grass wet with dew, laughing and slipping as Ali tangles their feet together and tugs at her shoulders in a blatantly illegal attempt to steal the ball.
“Red card!” Tobin says between bouts of laughter.
“I don’t see anything wrong.” Ash is sitting in between their makeshift goalposts, not even pretending to guard the goal. She’s making a grass chain instead.
Tobin backheel kicks the ball away from Ali and chases it down. Ash isn’t quick enough to leap to her feet before it goes curling through the garbage cans and hits the fence acting as the back of their goal. Tobin stretches out her arms and runs in a circle to celebrate. Ali shoves her when she flies too close and Ashlyn jogs to go get the ball.
“Tell us about the girl,” Ash prompts. She stands and turns the ball in her hands for a moment before she rolls it back towards Tobin.
Tobin traps it underneath her sneaker. Her laughter fades a little but her smile stays.
“She’s perfect,” she says. She’s fully aware of the dumb dreamy look she probably has on her face. “She’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”
Ali’s fake offended gasp makes her chuckle.
Ash is laughing too when she jogs over and plants a kiss against Ali’s forehead. “Don’t worry, babe, you’re the prettiest girl I’VE ever seen.”
“So does the second prettiest girl in the world have a name?” Ali hooks her fingers on to the bottom of Ashlyn’s shirt to keep her from pulling away and Tobin rolls her eyes at her friends.
“Chris.” Just the name has her lips tingling in memory.
Ash huffs out a laugh, probably because Tobin’s gone all faraway and starry-eyed again. “Short for...Christine? Crystal?”
Her stomach drops a little at the reminder of just how much she doesn’t know about the girl. “I’m not sure.”
“Weren’t you talking to her?” Ali asks with a frown.
“Not really? She was kinda in an argument with her ex. He was being sort of biphobic so she...” Tobin’s blush could power several states.
Ashlyn, clearly sensing a good story, leans forward, mouth stretched in a wide grin. “She??”
“She kissed me,” Tobin mumbles. She rubs at the back of her neck when Ashlyn bursts into laughter.
“What a fucking power move.” Ali is grinning as her girlfriend leans against her and laughs into her shoulder. “Are you gonna see her again?”
Tobin sighs and trudges over to the side of the yard. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Ash tug Ali over to sit with her. “I want to but...I mean you saw her. I’m a six at best. I’m an introvert, I get overwhelmed around people and the only thing I’ve ever been good at it soccer. I - OW!”
“You done?” Ashlyn grabs the ball from where it rolled to after it hit Tobin in the head.
“Why’d you hit me?” Tobin whines.
“Because you’re a fucking awesome person and a goddamn delight.” Ali sits down on her lap and ruffles her hair. Ash wraps an arm around her side. “And we’re gonna find your girl, don’t worry.”
“Ash, please tell me you’re not.”
“Not gonna do what, Tobs?” Ashlyn is grinning again - a grin Tobin’s seen every day of her life just before she gets in trouble for something.
“You’re not gonna tell the team.”
“Would I do that?”
“Tobs! Did you really make out with Declan Maguire’s girlfriend??”
Tobin’s only halfway through her breakfast burrito. It’s too early in the morning for Emily Sonnett to be launching herself into the seat across from her with an unholy amount of energy and asking her questions. Especially when she’s followed by at least half of their usual starters.
She takes her time swallowing and even casually sips at her orange juice before answering. Sonnett waits patiently for all of fifteen seconds before her leg starts to bounce up and down.
“She’s his ex-girlfriend,” she says finally. “And Ash said she wouldn’t tell you guys.”
The table explodes into noise. Everyone’s trying to talk over each other.
“WHAT?!”
“That is NOT the part of the story I EXPECTED YOU TO CORRECT!!”
“ALI AND ASH KNEW?!”
“Wait, wait,” Tobin ducks her head forward to make eye contact with Lindsey. “If Ash didn’t say anything then how do you guys know?”
Lindsey’s shaking her head at her. “He’s been complaining about it all weekend to his rugby buddies.”
“Great,” Tobin mutters into her hands. But she can’t bring herself to regret it happened. Not when she closes her eyes and sees green eyes and a soft smile behind them.
“So are you gonna see her again?” Moe, sweet and quiet Moe, who is the only one who isn’t yelling at Tobin at some decibel.
“Ash says I should but I don’t know.”
“Well, decide.” Tobin whips her head around to look at Pinoe, who’s holding her phone up with a wicked glint in her eyes. “Cause homegirl is looking for you.”