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Sure, Jamie thinks it’s a bit weird. Dani’s idea for “getting in the spirit.” An idea she shares over dinner one late November night, bright-eyed and pink-cheeked with all the nervous energy of someone pretending to think of something they clearly feel very strongly about off the top of their head.
But her roommate is a bit of a weirdo. And she loves her all the more for it… not that Dani would know. Dani doesn’t even know Jamie’s gay.
It’s not like she brings girls home. Or, anywhere, for that matter. Even before meeting Dani, hook-ups had started to lose their appeal, and a relationship (with any girl) was never on the table. So Jamie didn’t tell her. Doesn’t tell her. Figures her sexuality is as irrelevant to Dani as it is to her.
Until it isn’t.
----
They do it with a self-timer in the living room. Jamie draws the line at posing for a stranger. And she grumbles the day of, fighting just enough of a smile to keep Dani from panicking. Then it’s her turn to panic when they get down to it: side-hugging — like siblings, except for Jamie burning up under her ugly sweater.
Dani, of course , notices. Jamie says she isn’t used to having her photo taken, which isn’t untrue. Dani offers, not for the first time, to call it off. But, no, Jamie will bear it, try harder to grin.
Turns out she doesn't have to try very hard at all.
----
Dani insists Jamie be the one to decide which photo they go with — “only fair” and all that. But Dani’s favorite is obvious. And the strangest thing?
Jamie’s is too.
----
Dani notices it right away when she comes by after school, determined to help with inventory. And she cracks a smile so radiant Jamie almost spills an entire bag of soil on the floor — right before closing, a full two hours later.
Pitching in at the shop, despite having a full-time job of her own, is the kind of thing Dani would do (has done), anyway — just that good a person. In this case, though, it was thoroughly unnecessary atonement for Jamie’s lack of friends and family. Jamie had briefly considered writing down a fake address, maybe a few. But, well, she does enough “lying” to Dani as it is. And the solution presented itself quite obviously the next morning.
It’s taped to the door to the back room, facing in. Jamie displays it for her own sake, after all, as much as Dani’s. Not that she can’t conjure a mental image of Dani at any given moment (in a completely non-creepy and non-pathetic way). It’s the image of herself that’s elusive. Jamie honestly wouldn’t believe it is her if she didn’t remember…
Remember Dani making her goofiest face yet. That wasn’t preserved in ink because when Dani turned to the camera at the last second, she flashed her fucking perfect smile. While Jamie continued laughing with her head thrown back like a buffoon. Didn’t fall out of frame only on account of Dani’s arms, wrapped tight around her.
----
“Dani, what the fuck?!”
It’s their rule, unspoken, that Jamie never answers the phone in their flat. One — it’s never for her. Two — Dani knows taking customer calls (interacting with customers, in general) is Jamie's least favorite part of her job. An “exhaustive effort” to be more specific. So when the phone rings while Dani’s out one late December evening, getting their Chinese takeaway, Jamie lets it ring. If whoever it is wants to reach Dani that bad, they can call back or leave a message.
Rebecca chooses the latter.
“You and Jamie finally make it official! And you let me know with a fucking Christmas card?!”
Jamie wants… she wants a lot of things.
She’s never met Rebecca properly. Only recognizes her voice because Dani always manages to include Jamie in the calls somehow, even if only to say hello. Except it’s never only hello because Rebecca is quite the talker. Makes Dani seem downright stoic. So they’ve talked on the phone, yes. But never one-on-one, or never with Dani not in the room, at least.
But right now? Jamie wants to whip the phone off the receiver and ask Rebecca what the fuck she means by “finally”? What the fuck she means by “official?” What the fuck… er, okay, that’s pretty much it, actually.
But like… what the fuck?
Jamie also, however, wants to continue eavesdropping — which, does it count as eavesdropping if she would still be able to hear Rebecca from anywhere else in the flat? And, yet, she wants to plug her ears and magically forget what she already heard. She wants to cry, too, absurdly prematurely — for all she knows, Rebecca is way off-base. Last she checked Dani’s straight.
But has she… checked? Has she done anything other than assume since Dani almost married a man?
Mostly, Jamie wants to spontaneously combust. Wouldn’t that be the real Christmas miracle?
Naturally, with her shit luck, what happens is she misses the entire rest of the message, lost in her daze, except for Rebecca’s sign-off.
“... been holding onto it for months! So you better call me when you get it! Okay? Love you, bye!”
----
In hindsight, it’s hysterical (literally) how Jamie thinks hiding in her room will solve anything. But she knows Dani will know something’s up. And she hasn’t the faintest idea how she would explain away… losing her mind. So she hides, says she’s tired. Doesn’t come out until the next morning. Early.
But Dani's already up, curled up on the couch with her coffee and muting the TV.
“Feeling better?”
It’s not accusatory, is the thing. Which makes it so much worse.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, thanks.”
Dani doesn’t look away. Jamie clears her throat.
“Just, uh, long week, ya know?”
Dani nods. She’s been so busy with the end of term she’s been coming by the shop just as Jamie’s locking up. And so Jamie has had a long week — hadn’t quite realized how much her mood is lifted (or not) by Dani’s “surprise” visits. Dani, who looks like she wants to keep talking. But doesn’t say anything at first. So Jamie busies herself at the stove as usual.
“Oh.”
Is filling the -
“Dani, what the fuck?!”
Jamie still doesn’t hear the full message. Dani manages to send the machine flying on “fucking.” At which point, Jamie turns around, kettle spilling out in the sink. An answering machine breaking apart against a wall is about as loud as you would think. Not that Jamie has ever had a reason to think about it. Let alone that Dani would be the one to cost them their security deposit.
That Dani would ever look at her with a face this flushed… which, on the face of it — it shouldn’t be a good sign. Dani looks absolutely mortified.
But not horrified. And there is a difference. Jamie knows it very well. It’s why she stopped outing herself in the first place. Because for someone who doesn’t give a fuck about what other people think… she does. And Dani Clayton is far, far beyond “people.”
But Dani Clayton does not look horrified. She is biting her lip — an anxious habit Jamie picked up on the day Dani walked into her shop nine months ago; the reason she made Dani laugh for the first time. But Jamie knows by now that Dani does it for other reasons, too.
She does it when she’s concentrating — on her markings, on cooking, on Go Fish. She does it when she’s tired but doesn’t want to fall asleep — or get in her own bed. She does it when Jamie gets a scrape or a bug bite or a mild concussion — Dani’s fault, technically, for walking out of her room in a tank top and underwear last summer (unaware, in her defense, that Jamie hadn’t left yet, distracted by a flickering light).
She also does it — most often, by Jamie’s count — when she’s trying to reign in a smile. Usually because Jamie has done something daft: like cut up the strands of tinsel and tied them to the branches in little bows (axed the tree herself, but fuck if she knows how to “trim” it). Other times, though, it’s more sheepish — embarrassed but also…
“Radio Shack?”
It’s the only thing Jamie can think to say. To regain any semblance of normalcy. And it works. Dani breathes out a laugh.
Doesn’t bite her lip again.
----
“I sent one to my mom. A - a card.”
They’re eating dinner on the couch — chicken piccata and linguine, Jamie’s favorite. New answering machine installed, which Dani has been glancing at — glancing around Jamie, sat next to the side table — like she’s expecting it to blink. At the moment, though, Dani’s staring at the largely untouched plate in her own lap. Jamie’s not sure what to do.
“She doesn’t - ” Dani laughs, more bitter than awkward. Jamie’s hands clench against her silverware. “She doesn’t even have my new number. Our number.”
Dani looks up (looks over), smiling so softly Jamie can’t breathe.
“I didn’t - ” Dani shakes her head, looking down again. “I don’t think she - that she deserves to know you.”
Jamie can’t do a goddamn thing.
“But then I - I realized that not sending her one. Was just another way of letting her control me.”
With a sigh (that sounds almost chipper), Dani leans back, turns the volume up on the TV and twirls her pasta.
----
Jamie gets a cold for Christmas.
Two days before, to be exact. Which is almost more fitting. Jamie’s misfortunes have always come early.
So, fortuitously, she did the arrangements early. The pre-ordered ones, anyway. Henry will have to sort out the rest. He is the manager, even if Jamie puts in twice as many hours. Dani said she would call the shop… and the school — skip her last day before break, miss the party she’s been planning all month. Not to mention the faculty one tonight that she already bought a dress for.
“Jay, you have a 103 fever. I’m not leaving you alone.”
“I’m not alone. I have tea.”
“Okay.”
Jamie remembers thinking she’d won as Dani brushed damp curls off her face.
----
It’s dark when Jamie wakes, cocooned in a blanket on the couch. She would’ve holed up in her room, but it doesn’t have a TV. And since Dani was determined to keep her company, she’d figured the least she could do was let her.
Jamie wakes because has to pee — Dani’s fault for keeping her hydrated — which means she also has to move. It seems only logical to break out of her cocoon like a butterfly. And fly she does. Off the couch and onto something that goes “oof!” So she does the next logical thing.
She screams.
----
When Jamie wakes again, on Christmas Eve, she’s in her bed, feeling a little more like a human person. And drooling on someone’s T-shirt.
“Easy. Easy, it’s just me.”
An echo of last night. Dani still doesn’t seem to understand the words are a contradiction.
“How are you feeling?”
Dani, reclined partially against the headboard, is cradling the back of Jamie’s head with her right hand, feeling Jamie’s forehead and cheeks with the back of her left hand — as if this is an entirely normal thing for her to be doing.
Admittedly, it’s not the first time they’ve shared the bed. Dani also likes to read at night and claims the lighting’s better in Jamie’s room, even though Dani’s side is the one without a lamp. Jamie’s offered to switch, but Dani says the “indirect” lighting is what makes it better.
It is, however, the first time they’ve slept in it together — tangled together. So Jamie can’t formulate an answer for Dani. A verbal one, that is.
“Oh… here.”
Jamie can tell, as she takes the tissues, that Dani is trying not to giggle — a gracious reaction if there ever was one. So she only groans harder as she rolls off Dani and blows her nose.
“I think your fever’s gone down.” Jamie would strongly beg to differ. “We should still check it, though.”
There it is again. Jamie hadn’t realized before yesterday how often Dani says it. Not possessively, but like… like Dani has her back. Which, as it so happens, Dani is now rubbing.
“I’ve been a lot worse than sneezed on, you know.”
No…
“Teacher, remember?”
Right. Right. Dani is a teacher. A saint who got thrown up on twice in one day last month: twins. A caregiver by nature, who would tend to a perfect stranger.
“Sorry.”
“For what?”
Jamie clears her throat, has a medical reason to for once.
“Party.” She hears a sigh, but huffs harder herself. “Christ, parties.”
Jamie still hasn’t seen the dress. Dani had wanted to keep it a surprise. So Jamie, as her plus-one, had opted to do the same, rather spurred on by Dani’s shamelessly hypocritical pouting.
“Jamie.” Jamie throws the tissues on the floor and scrubs her face. “Jamie.”
Dani’s hand is on her shoulder, firmly gentle as her tone. But Jamie instantly regrets rolling onto her back. Dani’s lying on her side now, holding her head up with her other arm, and gazing down at Jamie with a little smirk.
“There will be other parties.”
Dani presses her free hand to Jamie’s sternum, fingertips grazing sweaty cotton.
“But you’re almost 30.”
It’s meant to be a joke, albeit not her wittiest. The thing is, though — being both flustered and congested, Jamie winds up sounding like a concerned child. Dani blinks, then promptly bows her head, bumping Jamie’s forehead with her own. Jamie can feel the bright peal of laughter on her skin. And even though her whole body aches, even as she tenses instinctively… she feels herself laughing, too.
It’s not the relief she would’ve expected when Dani leans up again after a moment — still ruffling her hair, though.
“Feeling up to a blueberry bagel?”
Jamie just stares back, then grins slowly. As if it’s a revelation that Dani knows her go-to order at A Batter Place.
“Be right back.”
In reality, a revelation comes in the form of Dani leaning down again and pressing her lips to Jamie’s forehead.
Then, after more than a moment, bolting up and flitting away. Before returning a few minutes later with the thermometer — looking rather like she’s the one who needs it — and another “be right back.”
----
“Hey, sorry, they’re closing at noon. So it was pretty hec- oh.”
Dani’s reaction seems promising, particularly her extended silence. Until she bites back an amused smile.
“Retail immunotherapy, huh?”
The only saving grace in heaving herself off the kitchen counter is having a slight head start on Dani.
“Jamie?”
And yet, Dani manages to power walk over before Jamie can close the door all the way.
“Don’t wait for me. To eat.”
She doesn’t look up — can’t show her own face or face the hurt on Dani’s — but she’s not going to slam the door either.
“’M still pretty tired, turns out.”
It’s another agonizing moment before Dani steps back.
“O-okay. Let me - let me know if there’s anything - ”
“I will.”
But she doesn’t. Doesn’t say that she’d been rather hoping for some help with the zipper.
----
Dani’s not in the living room when Jamie’s hunger overtakes her pride, and the reprieve from having to explain herself is - well, it’s worse. Jamie can’t stop wondering as she lazily butters her toasted bagel over the counter if Dani caught on in the intervening hour or so… and is now hiding herself out of second-hand embarrassment — has left the flat entirely, even.
It wouldn’t be a very Dani thing to do. Not without leaving a note. But then, Jamie has never tried to come onto her roommate before, has she? So she supposes there’s a first time for -
Fuck.
Brain still pretty foggy, she’d turned at the sound automatically, thoughtlessly. And now her knife is clattering on linoleum.
Dani is stepping out of their bathroom in a long-sleeve dark green velvet dress — puffy at her shoulders, cinched at her waist, fitted along her thighs — and silver stilettos. Her hair is pulled back and up, save for a few strands loosely curled. What appear to be snowmen are dangling from her ears. The blue hibiscus pendant (a dried petal preserved in resin) is hanging from Dani’s neck — as it has been every day since Jamie gave it to Dani for her 29th birthday three months ago.
“Hi.”
Like always, Dani’s the first to speak, though she’s standing a good five feet away still — hands wringing, bottom lip (redder than usual) partially pulled back by a hint of white. And Jamie is the first to clear her throat.
“What’s this then? Preven’ative retail im-imo - shit, what was it again?”
Dani’s laughing, which Jamie supposes was the goal. But then she trails off and -
“I’m sorry.”
Oh?
“I - I wasn’t - I didn’t mean…” She sighs, shaking her head, but then steps closer. “It’s just that I’ve, umm, gotten my hopes up - ” Waves a hand. “Before?”
She’s leaning against the opposite counter now, biting her lip again. Looking at Jamie almost expectantly.
“Before…”
It’s not the right thing to say, apparently.
“Dani?”
Because the outcome — it’s not one she’s ever wanted: Dani hunched over (though still taller in the heels), burying her face in her hands, shaking, breath catching…
Letting Jamie gently pry her hands away from her… tearless -
----
“Thank - ”
It’s the first time, Jamie’s certain, that she’s ever interrupted Dani. But it’s also the first time Jamie’s ever come to after passing out after being kissed by Dani, so.
But, for the second time this morning, she feels Dani’s hand on her sternum. Pressing down on a new, though sweatier by the second, T-shirt.
“Sorry.”
They’re still in the kitchen. Jamie’s sprawled on the floor — save for her upper body, resting in Dani’s lap — ruefully easing her grip on the collar of Dani’s dress. Dani doesn’t look particularly upset, though.
“For God’s sake, Jamie, don’t a- ” She’s beaming, giggling. “I kissed you first.”
“True.”
Jamie can’t help her smirk. Or help noting the way Dani’s eyes darken.
“I’m gay, by the way.”
----
“Should I move out?”
With Jamie still on the mend, it’s been a pretty low-key Christmas. Probably would’ve been regardless, having only each other’s presents to unwrap. Dani not (yet) having received anything from her students given her absence, and Rebecca’s mysterious package still on the way.
Low-key but not uneventful, the exchange of gifts involving a fair bit of crying. And making out. Speaking of which...
“Reckon the contagion ship has sailed, yeah?”
Jamie chuckles to herself as she carefully slides the mugs, swirling with some abomination called Swiss Miss, off the counter and starts making her way to Dani, who’s curled up on the couch rewinding Jamie’s VHS of Die Hard. She hadn’t taken Dani for a fan of the gratuitously violent, profanity-laced action caper, let alone a proponent of it being a Christmas movie.
But her roommate is a bit of a weirdo. And she loves her all the more for it
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Jamie’s only a few feet away when she freezes, processing and nearly sloshing the steaming liquid on her fists.
“Shoot!” Dani shoots up, taking the mugs from her and putting them down on the coffee table before turning back. “Sorry, I...”
Jamie is not crying. The tears are still in her eyes until Dani’s arms wrap around her.
“I’m sorry! I’m not - not breaking up or anything, okay? I’m really, really not! It’s - the opposite.”
Dani’s clarification makes no more sense to Jamie than what she originally said. But the sincerity in her voice is unmistakable. When they pull back, Jamie tries to wipe her face discreetly, as if she’s scratching an itch. But Dani’s hands are waiting, squeezing Jamie’s the moment she lowers them and not letting go.
“It’s just we - we moved in together pretty fast, you know?”
Jamie does. Dani had wanted to move out of her hostel but couldn’t find an affordable one-bedroom.
“And I know you…”
Jamie had never not felt out of place in her studio, despite her many attempts to convince herself she preferred living alone.
“That space is important to you.”
Oh?
“And I don’t, umm - want you to feel like - that you can’t ask for it. Or aren’t entitled to it.”
The closest Jamie has ever come to snapping at Dani was six months ago. She was nervous, of course, never having voluntarily lived with a stranger before. Though even then, she didn’t consider Dani to be one — which only made it more anxiety-inducing, the thought of fucking things up and losing the friendship they’d built: the most positive relationship Jamie had ever had. But…
She’d made up her mind, said as much. And yet, in the two weeks leading up to and including moving day, she lost count of the number of times that Dani asked if she was “sure.” She honestly probably would’ve lost it, blown it right there and then, if Dani hadn’t suggested she run down to a bakery around the corner. See about their lunch offerings.
“I love you.”
Dani’s nightly routine — practiced up to and including two nights ago — was knocking on Jamie’s door, being invited to “come in,” then standing in the doorway with her novel until Jamie repeated herself. Jamie had found it rather more endearing than aggravating — if also more perplexing, at the time.
“And I want to do whatever makes you comfortable.”
Dani chuckles, almost incredulously.
“Otherwise, what am I doing?”
What neither of them do that night is see Bruce Willis shirtless.
----
Dani does not move out.
She spoons Jamie every night in their bed. Dani’s, technically. Because they keep their rooms — to recharge or decompress alone as needed. Which was pretty much how they’d used them all along.
Really, the only noticeable change in their second annual Christmas card is Dani hugging Jamie and a throw pillow: Rebecca’s gift from the year prior. The recipients, now including the O’Mara’s, will only see the backside: white, unassuming.
The front, facing Dani’s chest, is stitched with three little words:
“I’m a lesbian”