Chapter Text
“Alex? Alex Levy?”
Alex inhales, taking a deep breath to repel the sigh that threatens to slip from her throat. Over the years, Alex has become accustomed to being recognized in New York, to snapping quick photos with fans and taking back routes to avoid the paparazzi. But back in her quiet hometown, she was hoping for a week of relative anonymity, counting on the fact that no one would expect to see the Alex Levy wandering through the aisles of a suburban grocery store.
As she turns, Alex plasters on her television smile, all warmth and sunshine, even if it doesn’t quite reach all the way to her eyes—only for it to drop away in shock when she sees the source of the voice. Decades have passed since the last time they saw each other, since the last time Alex came to her own family’s Christmas celebration rather than Jason’s, but there’s no mistaking her old flame. Clad in dark jeans and a red leather jacket, Bradley Jackson is standing before her.
“Wow. It is you. Alex Levy, star of The Morning Show in the flesh,” the brunette quips, “Who would’ve thought?”
Alex feels her cheeks flush pink at the joke. She may be used to fame, but Bradley has always been able to knock her off balance.
“Hi, Bradley.” She leans forward to greet the shorter woman with a one-armed embrace, doing her best to act like it’s perfectly natural to casually hug her ex-girlfriend after all this time.
“Hey,” Bradley acknowledges as they pull apart, offering her a tentative half-smile, “It… it’s good to see you. It’s been a while.”
“It has,” Alex agrees, as if she can’t replay the last time she saw Bradley in her head like the moment had just been yesterday, as if she doesn’t know precisely how long it has been since the last time she laid eyes on the other woman, senior year of college before she moved to New York for good and accepted Jason’s proposal. She backs up against the shelf of cereal with a murmured apology as a man with a shopping cart whisked by. “So, um, what have you been up to?”
“Oh, you know,” Bradley brushes her off with a wave of one hand. “Local news. A little of this, a little of that. Nothing as fancy and important as you.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Alex says. She loves her job, she does, and she more than anyone will defend the importance of morning news, of giving people hope in the face of bleak event after bleak event, in even the fluff pieces inserted between more important segments. But she also knows Bradley—or at least, she did once. She finds it hard to believe anything the other woman ever did could be insignificant, regardless of the scale.
“I’m sorry about the divorce.” Bradley blurts it out without warning or context, with no separation from the stilted pleasantries they’d been exchanging. A split second later, she claps one hand over her mouth, looking vaguely embarrassed.
Alex knows it isn’t funny, but she has to bite back a laugh at the comment and how very Bradley it is. And while she could react politely, somehow, it seems a million times more painful to force herself to go through that particular conversation with her former partner. Instead, she sucks in a sharp breath, pushes away any lingering hurt, and smirks. “Been keeping tabs on me?”
“Please,” Bradley fires back, almost immediately, “You wish. My mom was talking about it.”
“Mmm, sure,” Alex agrees, one corner of her mouth curling up in amusement, “Keep telling yourself that.”
It feels good, somehow, in a way Alex can’t quite articulate, to fall so easily back into bantering with Bradley. If she closed her eyes and changed the subject, she’d be able to pretend they were back in her childhood bedroom all those years ago, pretending to do their homework and teasing each other and—
“Well,” Bradley says, interrupting Alex’s train of thought, “Speaking of my mother, I should get going. She’s expecting me back with the groceries soon, and I don’t want to get a dramatic phone call about how irresponsible and late I am.” She rolls her eyes jokingly, but knowing Bradley’s mother, Alex imagines the brunette is probably serious.
“So should I,” Alex concedes, “Lizzy is expecting me to be back, and I have to pick up dinner.”
“Lizzy… that’s your daughter?” Bradley’s voice is tinged with a hint of something bittersweet, breaking the moment of lightheartedness between them.
“Yeah,” Alex nods, her eyes softening, “She… she’s great.”
Bradley says nothing in response, just shifts her weight from one foot to the other with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“It was… it was really good to see you again,” Alex offers.
“You too,” Bradley says. She turns her cart out of the aisle, heading off towards the checkout area, and then she disappears from sight, gone.
It’s below zero outside, and an aisle of freezers is only a few steps away, but Alex knows full well neither is the cause of the chill running through her body as Bradley leaves. She shakes her head a few times, trying to rid herself of the strange feeling, and pulls out her phone to send Lizzy a quick text. She’s only typed two words when Bradley reappears at the end of the aisle, sans shopping basket.
“Hey, I don’t know how long you’re in town, but maybe while you’re here, we could, uh, go get a drink or something...” Her voice trails off at the end, a little hesitant.
“I’d like that.”
Bradley is halfway out the front door, her bag slung over one shoulder and her coat zipped halfway, when her mother interrupts her, calling out from the edge of the kitchen.
“Bradley! Where are you going?”
Irritated, Bradley holds back a sign, opting for a more diplomatic response after the last few days of arguing. “I’m having dinner with… a friend.”
“With who? Since when do you go for dinner with friends?” her mother asks, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
“I’m a grown woman. I can go for dinner with a friend without you interrogating me about it.”
“It’s not an interrogation. I’m just asking.”
“It’s Alex. Alex Levy.” She’s hoping this will appease her mother. The older woman has always liked Alex, thanks to Alex’s ability to keep her mouth shut and smile prettily in front of an audience. Bradley thinks, with a twinge of amusement, that those exact qualities are likely what have made Alex so successful in the field of morning television— a straight path from charming parents and teachers to winning over America.
“Oh, I didn’t know she was in town.” Her mother offers her a half-smile, clearly pleased by this development. Of course, her mother wouldn’t be so fond of Alex if she knew the truth about their relationship. “Maybe she can put you in touch with some of those TV people she works with, give you a little career boost.”
“I haven’t seen her since we were in college, Mom. I’m not going to use her to get a job. And I need to get going.”
“Hold on. I need to talk to you first.”
“Can it wait?” Bradley glances down at her phone, checking the time. She can probably still avoid being late, so long as she leaves now and doesn’t hit any bad patches of traffic. Alex has always been big on punctuality.
“No,” her mother says, abrupt, “I want you to go get your brother tomorrow.”
Not this again. They’ve discussed this a million times, Bradley trying to explain why they can’t just pull Hal out of rehab because her mother wants him home for Christmas, trying to explain why the whole endeavor is necessary in the first place.
She doesn’t have time to deal with this. Of course Bradley wishes Hal could be home for the holidays. Of course she wishes she didn’t have to put up with her mother alone, tiptoeing around the house trying to avoid causing a blowout fight too early into the vacation. Of course she wants to see her baby brother.
But he needs to be in rehab, and quite frankly, Bradley doubts it would do Hal any good to be in this house again. What they want isn’t important, Hal’s safety is important. Her brother staying alive is important. “Mom, he’s in rehab, and he’s there for a reason. I can’t just ‘go get him.’”
“Jesus, Bradley, he’s fine. Stop being so dramatic.”
“He’s not fine. He’s an addict, Mom. You can’t bring him home just because you don’t want to be alone, or because you’re sad that he’s not here for Christmas.”
“He just went through a rough spot,” her mother protests, her volume increasing, like she’s desperate to convince herself that her words are true.
“He is an addict, and I moved mountains to get him into that place. I’m not fucking picking him up tomorrow, and neither are you. And I have dinner plans, so I have to go.”
Bradley rushes out the door before her mother can say anything more, slamming it shut behind her with a satisfying thud. Digging through her coat pocket, she fishes out the keys to the truck, all but yanking the door open before she climbs in. Inside the car, she cranks up the heat, slumping back against the headrest of the driver’s seat.
This war with her mother has been constant, ever since Bradley walked through the front door two days ago. She doubts it would have been any better had she opted out of spending the holiday season with her altogether, but she’s really starting to wish she had taken the angry phone calls and passive-aggressive texts that would have resulted over coming home.
Sandy Jackson just doesn’t get it; she never has. She never bothered to parent them when they were actually children, and now Bradley and Hal have aged into adults, she only ever bothers with them when she’s feeling lonely or when she needs something, regardless of the fact that they have their own fucking issues to deal with—issues that are probably her fault in the first place.
All Bradley wants to do tonight is have dinner with her ex-girlfriend, which might well be a terrible idea because Alex looked more unfairly gorgeous than ever in the cereal aisle of their hometown grocery store, her hair falling freely in loose waves, her blue eyes bright and warm.
But terrible idea or not, they have plans, and Bradley can admit to herself that she really, really wants to see Alex again, so she pushes thoughts of her mother and her brother and all of their dysfunction to the back of her mind and backs out of the driveway.
In the lobby of the hotel, Alex tugs her black peacoat over her shoulders, glancing at her reflection in the crystal-framed mirror that hangs on one wall. She deliberates over reapplying her lipstick, and for a moment, it flickers through her mind that perhaps she shouldn’t be quite this concerned with her appearance. After all, she’s just going for a casual dinner with an old friend—or so she keeps telling herself.
With one last deep breath, she tucks a loose strand of hair behind one ear and pushes the door open. She’s met with a blast of cold air, a few swirling flakes of snow lit up against the dark night sky.
“Hey!” Bradley’s voice sounds through the rolled-down window of a red pickup truck, and Alex spies her waving from the driveway. Her cheeks are flushed slightly pink under the scarf and leather jacket she’s wearing, and Alex is hit by the sudden reminder of why this is not in any way a casual dinner with an old friend.
Alex lifts one hand in greeting, making her way through the dusting of snow on the ground to climb into the passenger sweat of the car.
“Thank you for coming to get me,” Alex says, offering up a small smile, “I don’t drive in the city, and especially with the snow, there’s a strong chance that attempting to meet you downtown would have ended badly.”
Bradley snorts as she pulls out of the parking lot. “Please, Alex, this is barely snow. You’ve been away for way too long if you’re scared of driving in this.”
They both fall silent at that. Bradley clearly hadn’t meant them to be, but the words were loaded nonetheless. Alex has been away for too long, and not just because of the snow. She had left after graduation without looking back, not for anything and not for anyone.
She's immensely proud of the career and life she has built for herself, and failed marriage aside, she wouldn’t trade her daughter for the world. But sometimes she has to stop and ponder the what ifs in her life—she wonders if Bradley ever does the same. She wonders what the lingering questions in the other woman’s life are.
“It does snow in New York, you know,” Alex says, breaking the pause, “It’s just that my driver usually takes me everywhere.”
“Of course you have a driver,” Bradley says, shaking her head with amusement. She pauses for a moment to make the sharp left that will take them to the main road. “What else? Does someone usually carry your purse? Hold an umbrella over your head to make sure your hair stays in place? Because I didn’t call anyone for that.”
“Well, that won’t do,” she says, keeping her face perfectly straight, “I suppose we’ll have to turn around now.”
Bradley makes a show of eyeing her side mirrors and the empty road ahead of them, like she’s going to pivot in the middle of the street, and though Alex knows that thanks to her family history, Bradley is above all else a careful driver who would never actually make the reckless turn, she still smiles at the gesture clearly meant for her benefit.
“So, you’re staying in a hotel,” Bradley notes. It isn’t a question, but Alex can sense her curiosity, the light probe in the statement.
She lifts one shoulder. “My mom has other relatives in the guest rooms. And… honestly, I wanted to be able to escape.”
“I get that,” Bradley says, with a tight smile.
They fall silent after that, neither quite sure if they can ask anything more. The remainder of the drive down is quiet, but relatively short, and as they round a corner, a glimmer of lights come into view, strung around a series of barren trees that line the main streets of downtown. The brick buildings and their decorative windows are achingly familiar, like Alex has stumbled into a memory, an unchanging relic of the past. One traffic light and they pass her favorite high school study spot, the coffee shop she used to frequent, several restaurants that haven’t changed in the years since she last visited.
Bradley pulls into a parking spot outside a diner that Alex remembers all too well. The neon sign outside is dim and faded from the years of use, but it looks precisely the same in every other aspect, right down to the advertisements in the window that Alex is certain no one has bothered to change since before she was born.
“I cannot believe this place is still around.”
“Of course it is,” Bradley says, with a grin, “Some things never change. You up for a little walk down memory lane?”
It takes until after they’ve sat down and ordered for Alex to stop compulsively scanning the bar for lurking photographers and watchful eyes—years have passed since she was last able to go out whilst maintaining any semblance of anonymity. The logical part of her brain knows that no paparazzi care enough to follow her to the small town where she grew up, and that everyone else in the dingy restaurant is most likely too preoccupied or drunk to pay any attention to the morning news anchor in their midst, but her lingering paranoia tends to win out.
They’re perched in a corner booth, Bradley’s arm slung over the top of the booth, waiting for their meals to arrive, when Bradley finally brings up the elephant in the room. “So… The Morning Show, huh?”
Alex tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before she responds, already a little defensive. She thinks some part of her has been waiting for this all along. “Let me guess? You think it’s frivolous and silly and not ‘real’ journalism?”
“Alex, I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t,” Bradley presses on. “Really. I wasn’t.”
Alex raises one eyebrow, unimpressed by her denial. Bradley has never been a particularly good liar.
“Okay, fine, maybe I think it’s a little fluffy, and that you’re capable of more. But that doesn’t mean it’s not impressive.”
“Well, thank you for that,” Alex says, with a tight-lipped smile. She lifts her glass to take a sip of water, hard ice clashing against her teeth.
“My mom watches, like, all the time,” Bradley continues.
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment, coming from you.”
“Yeah, maybe not,” she admits, “I get a lot of little digs about how that could’ve been me. Rich and famous and whatever”
“Ugh, I’m sorry,” Alex winces. She’s well aware of how insufferable endless nagging from family members can be, thanks to her lovely mother and the distant relatives who have swarmed into town for the holidays.
“It’s not your fault,” Bradley says, lifting one shoulder to shrug it off, “But anyways. What are your big holiday plans?”
“Nothing, really… I only have Lizzy until Christmas Eve. Then she’s flying back to New York to spend the holiday with Jason’s family, so it’s just my mom and me,” Alex says, hoping against all odds that Bradley will miss the quiver in her voice.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Alex. That… that sucks.”
“Yeah, well…” Alex trails off, “It’s what she wanted, and who can blame her? He has the picture perfect family, and I have this fucking mess.”
She waves vaguely, at nothing in particular, to indicate the disaster that is her parents. Her father couldn’t even be bothered to stay in town while she’s here, and it wouldn’t bother her, considering she’s been deliberately avoiding his company for years, except that she watched the way Lizzy’s face fell when he told her. And these days, she can barely be in the same room with her mother for an hour without losing her mind. So far, her holiday conversation has consisted of constant digs, about Jason or Alex’s job or whatever else she can think to criticize.
“Besides, I have a very nice bottle of wine to keep me company.”
“Well, if it helps, I get it. Hal isn’t around, and my mom has been in a mood about it all week, so my plans are pretty much limited to ordering takeout and trying to avoid provoking her.”
Alex doesn’t miss the way Bradley skirts around Hal’s whereabouts, vague enough to keep her guessing, nor does she miss the reference to her mother’s plight. But from the expression on her face, Alex can tell Bradley has no interest in divulging any further information, and Alex isn’t in the mood to push her on it.
“I guess that’s family,” Alex says instead, shaking her head. It almost feels good to be able to say these things without having to explain the entire story of their brutal divorce, for the person sitting opposite her to just understand what she means. It’s been a long time since she was around anyone who knew her full family history, since she was around anyone who she trusted with her full family history, since she could just talk to someone without the fear that they would leak it to some tabloid or use it to make her look bad.
“Don’t I know it,” Bradley mutters.
Before she can respond, their waitress emerges from the kitchen, tray in one hand. Alex shifts in her seat, her back a little straighter and her smile a little brighter, public image back in place. She serves up a salad for Alex—a change from her usual at this diner, back in the day, but she’s not seventeen anymore—and a burger for Bradley, leaving after a quick round of thank yous.
They take their first few bites in silence, the conversation stalling out—they’ve covered all the basics, careers and the mundane details of life, and even talked about their shitty families. And now Alex isn’t quite sure what else to ask, what else to say. There was a time when she could read Bradley Jackson like a book, when she knew every thought that ran through her mind, but they were kids, then, entirely different people.
Alex feels like she’s lived a hundred lives and been a hundred people since the last time she came home for the holidays.
But there is one thing that’s always worked.
Reaching across the table, Alex snags one of Bradley’s fries, dipping it in ketchup before she pops it into her mouth with a grin.
“No. Oh my God, no,” Bradley protests, “This? Still? No. You need to order your own fries, because you do not get to order a fucking salad and then eat all of mine.”
“But they taste so much better when I steal them from you,” Alex shrugs, grabbing another from the bowl.
“They’re exactly the same thing,” Bradley deadpans, unimpressed.
“Are they really?”
Bradley rolls her eyes, but Alex can see a hint of amusement behind the gesture of annoyance, the warmth behind the facade. “Fine,” the brunette sighs, “I probably can’t finish them by myself, anyways.”
“That’s what I thought.”
By the time they arrive back at the hotel, a layer of snow has built up on the roads, cemented in place beneath the tracks of Bradley’s truck, and she and Alex have arrived back at a comfortable understanding, trading jokes and stories like no time has passed since they last said goodbye. It’s a little frightening how easy it is to fall back under Alex’s spell—but as she pulls up to the sliding doors that lead to the hotel lobby, Bradley can’t quite bring herself to care.
“Well, I guess this is it,” Alex says, tugging the zipper of her coat upwards, “Thank you… thank you for dinner.”
“You’re the one who paid,” Bradley says, raising a questioning eyebrow. Alex flushes at the reminder of how she had slipped her credit card to the waitress before Bradley had the chance to offer to split the bill.
“Right. Yes. I mean, thank you for having dinner with me. It was… it was really nice.” Alex’s smile is a little tentative, a little more hesitant and controlled than the bright ones she’s been offering all night.
“Likewise,” Bradley says, after a brief hesitation. Part of her wants to say something more, but a larger part knows that this, one dinner, one night living in the past is as far as she and Alex can go.
But then, the words spilling out quickly, Alex continues. “And thank you for… for never spilling about me to some tabloid or ‘journalist’ trying to make a living off of gossip about my personal life,” she says, making air quotes with her hands.
“What?” Bradley asks, a little baffled.
“A lot of people would have. A lot of people have,” Alex says, closing her eyes for a brief moment, “And there’s… a lot of shit about me, and about my family, that you know. That only you know.”
“Alex, I would never do that. You don’t have to thank me for doing the bare minimum.”
“Well, you’re a better person than I am. Better than most people, really.” Alex gives her a half-smile, tinged with a wistfulness that makes Bradley want to lean in and kiss her—and where did that come from? God, she needs to get a hold of herself. If Bradley didn’t know better, if she didn’t know that Alex does this naturally with everyone, she might think the other woman was flirting with her, but all of that is ancient history.
“I have no idea who you’ve been spending your time with lately,” she says, shaking her head as she tries to snap herself out of the strange moment she’s fallen into, “But trust me when I say I’m not.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Alex says, a teasing glimmer in her eye, “I seem to remember you having a very strong moral compass… even if it was paired with a flair for the dramatic.”
“No. No, no, no, I know exactly where you’re going with this, and I do not need to hear it again.”
“I think you do.”
Bradley just shakes her head in response, a hint embarrassed at the mere memory of herself in high school—and more than a hint embarrassed when she thinks about all the passion, all the fire, all the beliefs that were still burning bright the last time she really knew Alex. She knows the other woman is hardly the same person she was, once upon a time, but Alex has everything she ever wanted, doesn’t she? And Bradley… Bradley has this. A fucked up family, a job that doesn’t respect her enough to let her do any real work, and apparently, some latent feelings for her ex-girlfriend.
“Anyways,” Alex says, when she doesn’t get anything more out of Bradley, “I promise to shut up about that once and for all if you come in and have a drink with me.”
“What?”
“The hotel bar is mediocre at best, but a bar is a bar. And I’m not in the mood to drink alone.” Alex widens her eyes as she makes the request, not quite pleading, but almost.
And Bradley should have realized by now that she’s hopeless at saying no to Alex Levy, but hell if this isn’t yet another reminder.
“Okay, fine, I’m in.”
“We’re closing up,” the hotel bartender says, a little before midnight. He pushes a wet rag along the counter, avoiding the spot where Alex and Bradley have laid their drinks, the only two patrons still seated. “One last round?”
“I think I’m done,” Alex says, “Unless you want something else, Brad?”
“I’m good if you are.”
The bartender shrugs. “Your loss,” he says, heading over to clean off the side tables.
Alex isn’t drunk—a little tipsy at most, and she can tell that Bradley isn’t drunk, either. But she can’t help but think about Bradley in high school, spilling the story of her father and the car, her voice breaking despite all her best efforts.
“I’m not sure you should drive home,” Alex says, biting her lip as she makes the offer, “Especially not alone. Do you… do you want to spend the night here?”
“Oh, I see how it is. This was all just a ploy to get me in your bed again, wasn’t it, Levy?”
“Oh, most definitely not. We have a pull-out couch in our suite,” she smirks, “It’s a little creaky, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Well, Alex, I would love nothing more than to spend the night on your couch.”
“Good,” Alex says, draining the last of her drink, “Because I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”
“So bossy,” Bradley says, shaking her head, “What ever happened to good, old-fashioned small town hospitality?”
Alex swats at her with one hand, but there’s amusement glimmering in her eyes. “The concept doesn’t exist in New York, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Bradley echoes. She finishes off her own drink, reaching into her purse and coming up with a small black wallet. A moment later, she frowns. “Do you have any cash for a tip? I’m all out.”
Opening her own wallet, Alex flips through her money. Two fifties, a few hundreds. She folds one of the larger bills between her fingers, dropping it beside her empty glass. “There we go.”
Bradley raises one eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything more as Alex gathers up her jacket and gets to her feet.
“Well? Shall we?”
“Let’s go.”
They make their way to the elevator quietly, the lobby barren at this hour—which Alex supposes shouldn’t surprise her, considering that most normal people in her hometown are probably with their families for the holidays, not doing everything in their power to avoid spending time at home. Of course, it’s been a very long time since Alex has been anything close to normal.
When Alex swipes her key on the top floor suite her assistant booked for her trip home, she finds the lights in the room already switched off, her daughter’s door closed. She ducks her head in for a moment to find Lizzy fast asleep, silent save for soft breathing. Her daughter looks younger like this, the kind of peace on her face that Alex rarely sees in her turbulent waking moments, dark hair splayed out across her pillow. Squeezing her eyes shut to fight back the emotions that are threatening to break through, she leaves the room behind, gesturing for Bradley to come in from the hallway.
“Lizzy is out already,” she murmurs, “Let me see if they have some blankets in the closet for you to use.”
“I’m actually not that tired,” Bradley says, “So… no hurry.”
“This is the latest I’ve been awake in… years, probably,” Alex muses, half to herself, “But neither am I, for some reason.”
The comment makes Bradley chuckle, and when Alex turns to her, a little confused, she elaborates. “It’s funny… you were never really a morning person, back in the day.”
“I wasn’t,” she admits, “But I’ve had more than a decade of practice. Come on, I’ll get us some tea or something.”
Ten minutes later, Alex is leaned up against the headboard of her bed, cradling her warm mug between her hands as she listens to Bradley recount a recent tale from her station from where she’s perched at the foot of the bed. She can’t really say that she’s paying attention to the twists and turns of the independent investigation that Bradley conducted when no one else would bother with the story, interesting as it might be—no, Alex has found herself watching Bradley instead, the way her ocean blue eyes are lit up with the kind of burning passion Alex herself hasn’t felt in years.
And no, it hasn’t slipped Alex’s mind that even after all this time, Bradley Jackson is still unbelievably attractive, her maroon leather jacket slipping off one of her shoulders as she gestures.
“And I guess that’s that,” Bradley laughs, wrapping up her story, “Sorry, I might have gotten a little carried away there.”
“No, no,” Alex says, waving one hand, “I enjoyed it. I haven’t… I haven’t had the chance to do anything like that in years.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
The two of them fall quiet again, Alex feeling a rush of warmth run through her as Bradley’s eyes meet hers, despite the cool temperatures outside. When she glances out the window, there are a few snowflakes speckling the dark sky, glistening as they fall past her hotel room.
It’s much darker and much quieter here than it could ever be in New York, the kind of stillness that doesn’t come in the city that never sleeps—the kind of stillness that makes all too much space for the thoughts she would prefer to block out with noise, space for pondering about life and her decisions and all the roads she chose not to take. Especially when one of her biggest questions, the one what if she always comes back to, is sitting just across her bed, with a tenderness that Alex hasn’t felt directed at her in such a long time written all across her face.
Then again, there are other ways to avoid thinking.
Alex closes the distance between them, sweeping blonde locks out of her face before she leans in to brush her lips against Bradley’s. The kiss is gentle, nothing to get lost in, but the brief second of contact is enough to bring back feelings that Alex had buried a long time ago, feelings that being home had already started to stir up, feelings that Bradley Jackson has always been able to elicit from her.
A moment later, she remembers herself, pulling back abruptly. “Fuck,” Alex murmurs, “I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask if you’re seeing anyone… are you…”
“Alex,” Bradley cuts her off, “Do you think I would be in your hotel room at half past midnight if I were seeing someone?”
“Well… no, probably not.”
“Exactly. And this? This is okay. Better than okay, really.”
This time around, Bradley is the one who leans in. When their lips touch, for the second time, the kiss is anything but gentle as Bradley curls one hand around the back of Alex’s neck, deepening the kiss until they both topple backwards against the soft cushioning of the bed behind them.
When Bradley wakes to silk hotel sheets, caramel hair splayed across her pillow, and Alex’s long limbs tangled with hers, her first instinct is to run. Her first instinct is to scramble for her clothes and slip out the door before she’s forced to confront what she and Alex have done—before she has to admit how good and comfortable it had felt to slip back into their own patterns, into easy banter and unspoken understanding and the soft sensation of Alex’s lips on hers.
But before she has the chance, the woman beside her rolls over, blue eyes blinking open. It’s clear that Alex is still half asleep as she murmurs a good morning with a soft smile, pushing her tousled hair out of her face.
“Morning,” Bradley says, pulling herself into an upright position. She shivers as the comforters slip off her bare shoulders, glancing around for the clothing they had hastily discarded last night.
“You’re in a rush,” Alex says, her voice still a little hoarse with sleep, “Somewhere important to be?”
Bradley hesitates for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I just… I figured I should sneak out of here before your daughter wakes up.”
Alex makes a small noise of amusement. “That’s cute. Lizzy hasn’t willingly been awake before noon in years.”
“Oh. Okay,” Bradley says, her convenient excuse to cut and run vanishing before her eyes.
“Stay for breakfast,” Alex offers, “I’ll order room service. I would offer to cook, but I don’t think anyone wants that.”
“Alex… I… last night was…” Bradley squeezes her eyes shut, “Last night was a mistake. I would like to have breakfast with you, I really would, but we can’t do this.”
Bradley watches hurt flash across Alex’s eyes, followed in quick succession by a cool detachment, her face steeled against emotion.
“Well. If that’s how you feel, maybe you should just go.” Her voice is tinged with something almost like hurt, only just noticeable. Alex’s poker face is good, honed over what Bradley suspects are years of practice—but anyone who really knows her, anyone really bothering to pay attention would be able to see the tiny cracks in her facade. Years have passed, but Alex still has the same tells.
“Alex. Wait. I didn’t mean it… I didn’t mean it like that.”
Alex raises one perfectly arched brow, her face still icy as she looks for clarification, for a reason not to kick Bradley out of her hotel room once and for all. Clarity, though, is something that Bradley can’t provide, not when she herself still hasn’t quite managed to pinpoint what’s bothering her.
In the light of day, everything seems so much more real, so much less like a whirlwind fantasy, so much less like stepping into the hazy edges of a memory. In the light of day, Bradley can’t pretend that it won’t hurt when this ends.
Bradley has never had a relationship last more than a few months. She’s never wanted anyone for more than a few months; she gets bored, or she gets restless, or she finds out the person isn’t who she thought they were. But all of that means Bradley is never the one who gets her heart broken.
She leaves before she can get left.
Except with Alex. Because apparently, even after decades, the hold that Alex Levy has over her is unbreakable. Alex is the one who left, first for college and then for New York. Alex is going to leave again, to go back to the glimmering lights of New York City and her glamorous job and her real life, while Bradley stays here, trying desperately to hold the fucked up pieces of her family together, reporting on insignificant local news stories.
And Bradley isn’t sure if she can watch Alex walk away again.
“You’re leaving in, what, a week? I have a life here, and you have a life in New York, and we both know that this can’t last.”
Bradley watches Alex’s facade melt away in real time, fading from stone to a rare softness.
“I know,” Alex admits, drumming her fingers against the cushioned headboard of her king bed, “I think some part of me knew that last night—I think some part of me knew that when you first called my name at the grocery store.”
“But?”
She shrugs. “I guess I missed you. I didn’t think coming back here would stir up so many old feelings.”
“You did also just get divorced.”
Alex rolls her eyes, but there’s a certain fondness there. “Trust me when I say Jason has nothing to do with this. With us.” She gestures between them with one hand.
“Anyways. The point is that we know this isn’t going to work… that it isn’t going to last.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to last. I’m not asking you for that, Bradley.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“Can’t we just… pretend we don’t know how this ends?”
Bradley knows exactly how this ends. She’s replayed it over and over in her mind a million times. But Alex’s eyes are wide, her expression tinged with hope and anticipation and the kind of vulnerability she would never let the rest of the world see under her perfect facade, and Bradley thinks that maybe all the hurt in the world would be worth it, just to see Alex Levy look at her like that.
She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. When she reopens them, she leans over, lifting her face to just the right height before she closes the distance between them to press her lips to Alex’s. Alex inhales, a little gasp of surprise, like she wasn’t expecting Bradley to actually say yes. But she gets over it quickly, quickly enough to run her fingers through Bradley’s hair and melt into her.