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It starts with a dress, and a song, and a drink that’s a little too strong to still be brunch-appropriate.
Okay, not quite. Really, it starts with Lu being cheated on. For months. For several months, she shared a bed with someone who was lying to her face. It’s quite possible she’ll never be able to trust another man again.
She tells Carla as much at brunch. The blonde is in a gorgeous emerald dress, somehow both understated and over the top at once, her shiny hair falling in loose waves around her face.
“Really, I’m so fucking done with men,” Lu says over the noise of other brunch guests around them, raising her voice to be heard over the speakers blaring that song she’s always found annoying but is weirdly relating to now. Isn’t it ironic? Yeah, it is. It’s really fucking ironic, actually. “I’m never getting tricked by another man again.”
Carla grins at her, her eyebrows lifting into a dubious curve because Lu has definitely said this before. She didn’t mean it then; she does now.
The waiter comes over and sets two porn star martinis down in front of them, and she locks eyes with Carla as they do the shot of prosecco it’s served with rather than pouring it into their drink. There’s plenty of drinking etiquette debate around porn star martinis but the two of them have always believed in treating the prosecco and the martini as two separate drinks.
Then it’s after one, and brunch is over, but Lu is not quite done airing out her frustrations. They went for a rare Saturday brunch — an activity usually reserved for Sundays — so Lu has zero qualms about turning brunch into more drinks. It’s not like she has to work tomorrow.
“My place,” she insists as she hands the waiter her credit card. “We can open that bottle of Moët you-know-who got me for our anniversary.”
Carla laughs, intrigued. “You’re really not even gonna mention him by name anymore?”
He lost that privilege when he committed to the absolutely cliché move of sleeping with his assistant. (The assistant in question can’t be very good at her job if she can’t even make his schedule look believable while she’s carving out time for infidelity, but Lu supposes that’s none of her business.)
They hold hands on their way back to Lu’s apartment around the corner, and Lu makes sure they’re touching as they both try to sit in the hammock she recently purchased for her patio. It’s a tight fit, and they both end up on the floor, laughing as they untangle themselves from each other.
There’s a moment then where Lu feels an overwhelming desire to kiss Carla. The blonde has her head resting on the cold tiled floor, and her dress has moved off her shoulder in their haste to disentangle. Her blonde hair is shiny and smooth in the sun and Lu can see a dusting of freckles on her nose from this angle. She’s never noticed those before.
Instead, Lu springs to her feet and finds the champagne she promised Carla. Swearing off men and having your female best friend be your rebound all in the same day probably isn’t wise.
The idea won’t leave her alone though.
When Carla drunkenly passes out on Lu’s couch before it’s even time for dinner, Lu helps her take the uncomfortable looking dress off before she covers her with a blanket.
She only stares at the V of Carla’s hips for a second longer than appropriate, and she definitely doesn’t brush the outline of her breasts with her hand on purpose when she tugs the blanket up around Carla’s shoulders.
None of those things were pre-mediated.
***
As luck would have it, Lu knows just who to talk to about her little crisis of identity. Rebeka is her friend from grad school, whom she met when they got into a loud shouting match during a seminar discussion. It took them a few weeks of bickering — and fine, maybe a couple of hookups, too — to realize they should probably be friends.
Rebeka is unapologetic about things Lu struggles to accept about herself. She wears clothes just because she likes the way they look, for example, not to impress others. She’s abrasive, direct and eloquent; she’d never let anyone boss her around, and while Lu shares those traits at a surface level, she knows she has a tendency to turn into a codependent mess when she’s in relationships. Most important of all, Rebeka isn’t ashamed to like both men and women. Lu has been grappling with that issue for longer than she can even remember.
(She’s been kissing girls for as long as she can remember, too.)
“You’re saying you think you want to fuck your straight best friend of seventeen years?” Rebe grins at her, and Lu rolls her eyes. Must she be so crass? “Lu, you do realize that sounds like the absolute worst idea ever on paper, right? Give me one reason why this would make sense.”
Lu pokes at a few bites of salad with her fork angrily, then finds a piece of chicken and stabs that, too. “She may not be entirely straight.”
“May not...”
“... is not.”
That gets her a curious look from Rebeka, who seems intrigued now.
“And you know this because...”
This part is delicate. She’s never told anyone about it, not even her journal back when she used to be into journaling. (That’s how young she was when all of this started up...) If she says it out loud, it’ll be real, and it’ll make everything so much more complicated.
“We used to—,” she makes a gesture with her hands to save herself the embarrassment of having to say it. “No one ever knew, and we never really talked about it, and then I moved to New York for undergrad.”
Phew. There it is. Now someone other than the two of them knows the truth. It feels freeing, even if it’s hardly a secret that still holds a lot of opportunity for scandal, seeing as she and Carla haven’t ended up in bed together in almost a decade.
“Only one way to find out, then.” Rebeka takes a sip of her beer.
Lu purses her lips. She’d hardly call this advice helpful.
***
Work is a fucking mess right now because she was stupid enough to follow in her father’s footsteps and give diplomacy a try. Turns out it’s a safe, boring job most years, and a total fucking mess when Mexico happens to decide to break the Geneva convention and deny asylum to very legitimate asylum seekers. She obviously does not agree with that decision, but sadly personal opinion takes a backseat to professional ambitions.
Lu works in the PR department, meaning she isn’t involved in the day to day stuff that happens at the embassy in Madrid; instead she deals with ongoing media crises all around Europe. It’s a real blast. It’s amazing to have to go on the record and defend stupid decisions politicians she would never in a million years vote for deemed necessary.
When Carla texts her to go for dinner, she’s still at the office, even though it’s almost seven. Lu hesitates. It’s been a couple of days since their little impromptu sleepover, and she isn’t sure she’s ready to take Rebeka’s advice.
But hell, she’s had a fucking day — she definitely deserves a nice dinner and some company. She isn’t sure she’s in the mood for eating out, though, so she texts Carla about ordering in and smiles when the blonde instantly replies with stop reading my mind — that’s cute.
Carla’s downtown loft is like everything else about her — carefully curated and charming as fuck. Lu has spent a lot of time here over the years, and yet every time she’s over she finds new things to marvel at. Maybe the constant redecorating says more about her friend than she’d like to let on. Maybe Carla is restless, too.
They’re both turning thirty next month. That kind of feels surreal to think about. Carla has her feet pulled up under her, a bowl of Chinese food in her lap as she faces Lu on the couch.
“We’re fucking ancient,” she jokes, stretching out her foot to poke Lu’s thigh. “I don’t think there’s any way to save us now.”
She’s alluding to the obvious fact that both of them are about to be thirty and continue to be unwed, with no real prospects for marriage. Lu can’t even remember the last time Carla really dated anyone; it can’t be of much importance to her. That’s just fine with Lu because she’s never really liked any of Carla’s boyfriends after Polo. Most of them were a little too possessive, wanted all of Carla for themselves and hardly let her see friends. Maybe Lu just hated having to share her.
“Well, you remember our pact, right?” Lu doesn’t know what makes her say it. It’s foolish and childish, and will leave her feeling hopeful for something she knows will not materialize.
Across from her the blonde winks, then says, “You know I’d never turn you down,” and Lu struggles to breathe for a second.
She’s just joking, she tells herself. Joking about the silly little pact they made at nineteen or twenty, after both of their high school relationships had finally ended with very little fanfare and they drunkenly worried about ending up alone. They’d been in her loft bedroom in New York, both drunk on each other and the terrible wine they’d gotten from the deli around the corner, and it had made sense then.
Even now, Lu wouldn’t mind marrying Carla for the sake of it. It hardly seems like settling to her when she spends most of her waking moments worrying about the blonde, anyway.
Carla must notice how Lu has checked out of the conversation because she gets up to find some wine, just says, “You look like you could use some Pinot,” and leaves Lu to watch her walk out of the room.
There’s no way she’s imagining the tension in the air. She’s spent too many years wallowing in it to mistake it for something else now. It’s almost daunting to think Carla might be feeling similarly on edge.
Two or three glasses of excellent wine later, they’ve moved from Carla’s couch to her balcony, enjoying the spectacular views of Madrid as their shoulders brush with every lift of their arms for another sip.
Lu is struggling with the realization that Carla is coming onto her. She keeps finding excuses to touch her, and when Lu’s glass is finally empty, Carla takes it from her and lets her fingers linger on Lu’s wrist. It’s not subtle, which is for the best because subtlety tends to be lost on Lu.
Neither of them is brave enough to take things further. It’s funny, honestly, how much easier this part was at sixteen. Now she’s got life experience and a whole laundry list of past decisions she regrets and she’d rather overthink things than have to add Carla’s name to that list.
At the first sign of the night chill setting in, Lu mumbles something incoherent about having an early day tomorrow, and Carla looks bummed, but must clearly figure it’s easiest to just grin and bear it.
She hugs her goodbye at the door and tells herself she must’ve imagined the way Carla’s eyes kept flicking to her lips like she was daring her to brush them with her own.
***
“I need a gay lifeline,” she tells Rebeka after a substantial amount of chitchat for a Thursday night dinner. Best to come right out with it.
“I’m bi,” is all Rebe says, and yeah, okay, same difference. Lu rolls her eyes at her friend and waits for her to offer her help. “You are, too, in case you hadn’t noticed, so can’t you just give yourself a pep talk?”
“That’s lovely, really.” She should’ve expected the teasing. “Thanks for your support.”
Under the table at the restaurant they’re sitting in, Rebeka kicks Lu’s shin in what she knows is meant to be an affectionate way. The girl loves using violence in lieu of real caring acts.
“Is this about Blondie?”
Lu doesn’t feel the need to dignify that jab with a response. (Of course this is about Carla.)
“She wants us to go away for the weekend. We’re gonna celebrate our birthdays at one of the family wineries.”
Rebeka literally snorts out a laugh and Lu knows, no matter what’s about to follow, she’ll feel mortified any second now. Her fault for trying to bring this up.
“Keep your nails short and definitely don’t forget to wax,” Rebe says, casual, her fingers playing with the label on her beer bottle. “She definitely wants to fuck you.”
And okay, Lu hates when Rebeka gets crass, but that’s the validation she was looking for. She looks up at her, an exasperated grin on her face and says, “Right? I think so, too.”
“Who the fuck invites their platonic best friend on fucking wine tasting weekends,” Rebeka says, then chuckles. “Maybe I’m just not straight enough to see the appeal.”
Lu shrugs, smiling at the memory. “We used to go all the time when we were younger.”
“You mean when you were fucking on the regular.”
If she slaps Rebeka’s arm a little harder than strictly necessary, it’s not her fault.
(She’s got a point, though.)
***
Quite frankly, Lu doesn’t know how to act around Carla now that her silly little schoolgirl crush is back in full force.
Wine helps. There’s more than enough of that to go around at the beautiful Galician vineyard they end up at, and today was a sunny June day, so the sunset over the valley is quite a sight. Carla’s got an arm around Lu (oh my god) and is twirling a strand of blonde hair around her finger absentmindedly as they finish the last bit of the bottle in silence.
She’s never gonna get used to how Carla can just be casually affectionate with her without a hint of second-guessing or awkwardness. Lu longs to be that smooth.
Finally, the blonde glances at Lu, a small smile on her face. “Do you remember our trip to this place when we were seventeen?”
She racks her brain for the memory, but it doesn’t quite line up. She thought— well, now that she looks around, she does recognize the beautiful white brick exterior of the house, the sunset views from the bench they’re perched on, the... the barn they used to have sleepovers in whenever they came here with Carla’s parents.
Is she alluding to... is she trying to remind Lu of that?
Two can play at this game. Lu giggles confidently, even though she’s not feeling confident at all. “God, I swear I can still feel the hay digging into my back now.”
Carla’s eyes narrow, and then she moves to the left a little, scooting away from Lu. Wait, what? That’s not the reaction Lu was hoping for. She instantly misses having her close.
(Why is she being so fucking lame about all of this? Lu is sure if Rebeka was here, she’d tell her to just get a fucking grip and kiss Carla already. She needs to channel her inner badass.)
“Lu,” Carla says, licking her lips a little. It seems like she wants to have an actual conversation about... something. God, Lu really doesn’t want that. “Do we...”
Carla sounds nervous. Lu is giddy with the realization of it; that’s a little bit of an ego boost. Carla is always so composed and self-assured, it’s intoxicating to think she feels this rattled by Lu.
It’s probably a little cruel, but she kind of wants to hear her say it. “What is it?”
Over the years she’s gotten good at being disappointed when Carla chickens out at the last minute. She’s bracing for it now, can practically see it coming. It’s fine, Lu tells herself, they’ll figure this out eventually.
Except then the blonde is kissing her. Maybe eventually is now.
They haven’t kissed in what feels like a century, but it still feels familiar and new at once. Carla’s lips are certain on hers, there’s a confident pressure to the way she’s parting Lu’s lips with her tongue, and Lu has no illusions about holding back. She’s been wanting to do this for too long.
When Carla finally pulls her up by the hand so they can make their way inside, Lu giggles.
“What is it?” Carla asks, practically dragging Lu towards the house.
“Can we please sleep in an actual bed this time? My back can’t handle hitting the literal hay again.”
Carla laughs at that terrible pun, then pulls open the front door and ushers Lu inside.
“Who said anything about sleeping?” she says, and Lu thinks she might just die from anticipation.
***
The next morning is the weirdest part, probably.
Lu knows how this usually goes, and she hasn’t really allowed herself to think that might’ve changed over the years. She remembers how this used to end. Carla would wake up and get dressed and act like nothing ever happened, and then there’d be another party that allowed them to get tipsy enough on whatever liquor to blame their next illicit encounter on the alcohol.
But that doesn’t happen. Instead, Lu watches Carla slowly come back into the world of the living and cuddle up to her. Even when she feels Carla’s hair brushing against her shoulder as the blonde lets out a content hum, she still expects her to pull away once the sleepy haze wears off.
She doesn’t. After a few more minutes of cuddling, Carla sits up and grins at Lu, pulling the sheets up around her shoulders like she’s feeling a little shy. Then her grin turns bashful and she blinks a little faster than usual, details Lu only picks up on because she’s been watching Carla intently for the past seventeen years.
“Wanna make me breakfast?”
Lu snorts. “I see you’re done trying to woo me.”
Carla lets the sheets slip off her shoulder, then smirks at Lu and leans in for a kiss, and yeah, ok, consider her wooed.
She’ll even make her breakfast after.
***
If Lu is being honest with herself, the only reason she never introduced Rebeka and Carla is that she was afraid they’d hit it off and date each other. Yes, she gets territorial, and no, she isn’t ashamed to admit it. The two of them are blunt in different ways, and she kind of instinctively knew they’d get along, but the awkwardness of having slept with both of them kept her from merging her two friend groups.
That sort of seems like a non-issue now.
When she texts Rebe a selfie of her and Carla kissing as they pose in front of the vineyard, she knows her friend will insist on finally meeting the blonde, but she’s too lovestruck to care. She sends her the picture in spite of all the teasing she’s bound to be on the receiving end of any minute now.
This is her way of celebrating the fact that Carla actually, legitimately encouraged her to take a picture of the two of them in a compromising position. She kind of needs to share that with someone who will get it; waiting almost twenty-four hours to do so was hard enough.
They only got back to Madrid last night, and then both decided to take an extra day off so they could spend Monday together, and while Lu has loved all this one-on-one time with Carla, she needs to show her off in front of someone she knows to make this real. If they can act like a couple in front of Rebeka, this will officially be a thing, and Lu will be able to stop trying to come up with reasons why this will end like all their other secret, clandestine hookups.
Really, she just doesn’t want it to be a secret this time.
Rebeka is on her best behavior when they meet her for drinks at the shitty dive bar around the corner from Carla’s place. She makes it through an entire drink without making a crude joke or remarking on the obvious little hickey on Lu’s neck, and Lu feels an irrational amount of gratitude for that.
Then she smirks at Lu, and okay, it was nice while it lasted. Rebeka addresses Carla and grins. “So a romantic vineyard getaway for her birthday, huh? Way to sweep this one off her feet.”
Well. She’ll have to rethink that whole gratitude spiel. Lu kicks Rebe under the table, but Carla doesn’t look fazed. She’s still got a hand on Lu’s thigh to play with the frayed ends of her jeans shorts.
“I feel like she’s a little too cynical to appreciate romance,” Carla eyes her warily as if to search her face for clues. “Thankfully I made her see reason.”
There’s nothing more frustrating than having two people talk about her like she isn’t even there. She isn’t actually pissed, but she’s too competitive to let this go.
She turns to Carla and rolls her eyes. “Please. You’re the one who needed an elaborate trip to make this happen. I would’ve just kissed you weeks ago at brunch.”
The blonde smirks, her brow raised in question. “But you didn’t.”
Across from them, Rebe is watching their exchange with a fond smile on her face. It’s enough to make Lu feel giddy with excitement. Call her naive, but she’s got a feeling they might actually go for it this time.
It’s almost enough to make her forget what she and Carla were bickering about.
“I was trying to respect your boundaries.”
“You really think I fell asleep on your couch and let you undress me because I had boundaries that needed respecting?”
Lu hasn’t thought of it like that. Is she naive? Slow? No. She’s careful. She wanted to make sure they wouldn’t fuck this up again. She doesn’t think anyone can blame her for that.
“I see why you two get along,” Rebeka chimes in, then adds, “Helps that you’re both fucking hot, too.”
Carla leans over and kisses her, just a quick brush of lips, and Lu completely forgets what she was thinking about. She instantly forgets what they’ve even been talking about for the past fifteen minutes.
This has been in the making for years — she’s pretty sure she deserves a day or two to bask in the feeling of Carla being comfortable with PDA.
She gulps down the rest of her wine. She’ll toast to that.
***
Normally she’d be the last person to bring up labels when things are going well, but this is Carla, and she’s been burned before. As much as Lu thinks things are different this time around, the teenage trauma runs deep, so she kind of needs this — some sort of reassurance in the form of overrated boxes to put their new relationship in.
It’s kind of weird that they haven’t talked about it. Three weeks on from their little weekend getaway, they’ve settled into a little bit of a routine. Lu doesn’t like that word — routine — because it makes it sound like she’s gotten used to spending her evenings after work watching stupid reality TV with Carla while they cuddle, taking walks around Madrid on humid summer evenings, waking up to Carla’s nimble arms wrapped around her waist.
They’re in bed one Saturday morning, slightly hungover from drinks with some of their high school friends the night before, and Lu figures maybe that’s what makes her bring it up. Having Carla hold her hand and cuddle with her all night while both of their ex-boyfriends were in the room should be an indication of just how serious Carla is about all this, right?
“Hey,” she says, trying for subtle, when really that’s so not a natural thing to say to the naked woman currently waking up in your arms. Carla just turns around and buries her face against Lu’s neck. It’s easier to ask when she doesn’t have to look her in the eye. “Am I your girlfriend?”
Carla laughs against her neck, then leans back to grin at her. “Are you seriously waking me up to have this conversation?”
Yes, yes she is. Besides, Carla was basically awake anyway. “Maybe.”
The blonde leans over and kisses her softly, then says, “Fucking obviously,” and adjusts her pillow so she can close her eyes again. “Now let me get some more sleep.”
Lu doesn’t think twice about wrapping an arm around her waist and letting her own eyes fall shut.