Work Text:
12:03pm
Ellie: you only have another hour left!
Ellie threw her phone down on her bed, turning back to her guitar. She had a website open on the laptop in front of her, pulled up to the tab that she was trying- and failing to learn. Joel was at work, and she considered herself good enough to be able to figure it out on her own.
Aligning her fingers with the frets, she attempted the riff again. She winced at the noises she produced.
Her phone buzzed again. Oh, well. It was probably best to take a break.
12:05pm
Dina: Yeah, but an hour of hell
Dina: I can’t wait for this woman to get back from her stupid hair appt UGH
Ellie giggled. While she had the day off from her job helping Joel out at the hardware store he owned, Dina was unfortunately stuck nannying a couple of her neighbor’s kids.
12:06pm
Ellie: how long could it possibly take to get a haircut or whatever
12:06pm
Dina: Oh, Ellie.
Dina: Shit. I think one of the kids has gotten into something
Dina: Brb
Ellie sighed, staring her guitar down. Today was supposed to be the day that she woke up bright and early to pick Dina up and take her out for a fun summer day. Well. Not “take her out-” To Ellie’s great disappointment, it wasn’t anything like that. She hadn’t actually told Dina she liked her.
Yet.
But then the neighbor she usually babysits for dropped on her that she had a random hair appointment on that very specific Saturday morning that she had forgotten to tell Dina about and she needed a sitter STAT. And of course Dina couldn’t say no, since she and Ellie were trying to save up for their first college apartment together and income was going to be necessary to fund that.
She was going to get off soon, probably. But still. Ellie had planned this day for months.
The guitar stared her down, the elegant moth on the fretboard seeming to slap her in the face. She glared at it almost cartoonishly before shoving it off of her lap and walking to hang it on its designated wall mount.
12:10pm
Dina: Every television in this house is on. I’m so tired. Lol
12:10pm
Ellie: what??? you can’t be tired!!! i haven’t gotten to take you to the ~spot~ yet
Ellie: the day is still young
12:11 pm
Dina: You have to stop calling it “the spot.” I feel like I’m getting kidnapped
12:11pm
Ellie: :(
Ellie was surprised she hadn’t worn a path into the carpet of her bedroom with the way she was pacing back and forth. She’d already regrettably bitten all her nails down, her poor fingers now aching as she cracked her knuckles nervously.
In hindsight, it actually worked out that Dina babysat today. The neighbors had a pool that she used, so she was already wearing a bathing suit when she went there. Ellie begrudgingly admitted that it would’ve been difficult to ask Dina to wear a swimsuit without at least partially giving away what they were doing.
She needed a distraction.
12:20pm
Ellie: text me when she tells you she’s on the way
12:23pm
Dina: You got it
She needed a distraction. Shoving her phone in the back pocket of her jeans shorts, she bounced down the stairs toward the garage. She’d neglected to clean out her truck for a while, and while Dina had been in it countless times in this last week alone, she wanted everything to be perfect for today.
The truck was a little beauty. It wasn’t much to marvel at but it definitely had its charm- Shimmer was a red Ford F-150 from 1994- practically a relic to Ellie now- that she and Joel had found and had turned into a passion project. They had gotten it running again, and Joel decided it would be a perfect hunk of metal for Ellie to transport herself around in.
Ellie smiled at it, then jumped in and got to work.
It was ironic, actually, how she had gotten the idea for their outing today.
She and Dina had a complicated relationship. It wasn’t actually that complicated, but Ellie and her ever present ability to make things harder than they needed to be (which she also begrudgingly admitted, but never out loud) made it that way. They’d been best friends since Ellie had been a lost freshman in college, wandering around until she bumped into Dina, who happened to be one of her suitemates. They got to talking, realizing they lived only 10 minutes away from each other but had gone to different high schools.
The rest was history. Two years later and somewhere along the way, Ellie accidentally fell in love with her.
Fortunately for Ellie, Dina was a very proud bisexual who was an active member of the LGBT center on campus. Unfortunately for Ellie, she was already dating Ellie’s coworker at the hardware store, Jesse.
When Ellie found out, she almost ran to her dorm to call Joel and tell him to terminate Jesse’s employment immediately. But she had found it in herself to be civil, and she found she really liked Jesse as a friend.
Therefore, it had made a complicated relationship. Ellie tried to date other girls, but it just wasn’t the same.
Fortunately for Ellie (and unfortunately for Dina? Though she seemed to have gotten over it fairly immediately) Dina and Jesse had broken up at the beginning of summer, and Jesse had transferred to another college across the state.
Ellie whipped out a plastic garbage bag. She had to clear out a lot of drive thru containers that she and Dina had gone through before she went to pick the other girl up.
Right before he left, Jesse had confronted Ellie about Dina. They’d already broken up- but Jesse had felt like something wasn’t quite right.
That day, he’d ended up becoming the only person she’d ever told about her crush on Dina.
Joel doesn’t count, because he figured it out himself the first time Dina had come to visit.
-
“How the hell did you figure it out?” Ellie said, smacking her hands down on the sales counter.
“It wasn’t hard,” Jesse responded simply, ringing up a customer at the register. “Every time I talked about her you instantly looked like you wanted to gut me.”
Ellie was silent for a second.
“Well. That’s fair I guess.”
“You need to tell her,” he said, handing the customer their change and their brand-new hammer in a brown paper bag that read Miller Hardware.
“What? I could never tell her that, Jesse! I’d lose the one friend I actually have.”
“And what am I?” He laughed.
“Well… You don’t count. You’re abandoning us.”
Jesse grabbed a pen and ripped a small piece of paper off the top of the receipt printer. Clicking it, he began scribbling something down.
“Look, you don’t have to take my advice at all, but I would say to take her here.” He shoved the piece of paper in her direction with two fingers along the counter.
“And what is this? The location of your first date?” She snatched the paper up, eyeing it suspiciously. It was an address for somewhere she didn’t recognize, but she knew was further out in the countryside.
“Ellie, I’m wounded. You think so low of me. I promise I’ve never taken her there. I promise.”
-
Ellie had ended up swearing to Jesse that if she ever womaned-up and decided to reveal herself to Dina, she would go to that place.
The pain of loving Dina had become unbearable sometime mid-last week, and she’d punched the address into her GPS just to see what all the fuss was about.
On her drive back home, she’d decided that today was that day. She’d marked it in the calendar and everything.
Satisfied with the trash she had sequestered into a massive black trash bag, Ellie dumped the mishmash into the huge trash can in the corner of the garage. She wiped her hands on her shorts, looking for what to do next. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a pack of scented air-freshener trees and quickly hung one up off of the rearview mirror. She nodded again to herself.
Ellie ran back up the few stairs to get back inside, through the little laundry room, and into the kitchen to start assembling sandwiches.
She was going to be prepared, dammit.
Some time and a lot of peanut butter later, she had four sandwiches and at least five different snack options to choose from. She assembled them all into a small cooler, hauling it out and slinging it up into the back seat of the truck. She grabbed some towels out of the linen closet on her way out.
Sitting down for a moment at Joel’s garage workbench, Ellie whipped her phone out of her back pocket. Her eyes bulged out for two seconds, and then she sprung into action.
12:59
Dina: She’s on her way
1:07
Dina: Ellie? Lmk if you got this
1:15
Dina: She's home now. I'm free!
-
Ellie merged onto the highway, stepping on the gas. Glimmer couldn’t accelerate too fast. That was the one fault she was still working on- though she didn’t know if she’d ever find a solution.
With her windows rolled down and the hot summer sun coming down onto her skin, she felt for a minute like everything was going to be okay.
-
“Took you long enough to get here,” Dina said, closing the truck door behind her.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Ellie laughed. “There was traffic! Lunch rush!”
“Right, okay,” Dina responded. Ellie rolled her eyes, shifting the transmission into reverse to pull out of the driveway. She didn’t bother setting the GPS on her phone, because she knew exactly where she was going and because she didn’t want to spoil the surprise.
“Strap in, it’s about thirty minutes.”
“Ooh, good thing I brought this.” Dina plopped her backpack onto the seat and started rifling through it.
“What is it?” Ellie rested her arm back over Dina’s headrest, waiting for the cars to clear so she could back out of the driveway onto the fairly busy road. She took a short glance at Dina. Her dark hair was pulled into a wet braid, presumably to protect it from the harsh chlorine of pool water. That was good, she’d already been swimming today. What was a little more?
Dina pulled a jewel case out with a flourish, brandishing her prize.
“Alanis Morissette?” Ellie smirked, squinting at the writing. “Okay.”
“What?” Dina asked. “ Jagged Little Pill is a classic.” Popping the case open, she slid the cassette into the slot. It was a running joke between them that Ellie’s truck could only play cassettes, and Ellie refused to rig it to have anything else. “And it’s from your truck’s own time.”
“Is this the remaster?” Ellie asked, gesturing her finger in circles around the radio. She headed back in the direction of the interstate.
“I don’t think they made cassette versions of the two-thousand fifteen remaster, El,” Dina chided.
“Yeah, yeah, okay.”
Dina settled back into her seat, letting the guitar noises fill up the car. Ellie bounced her left leg, the one that wasn’t actively being used for driving, up and down. Before Dina had hopped into the truck, she had been completely confident again. She had spent days talking to herself in the mirror, convincing herself there was no way Dina didn’t like her back.
She’d even contemplated calling Jesse, but quickly struck that idea down.
Now, her useless piece of shit brain was telling her Dina didn’t even like her as a friend.
She bit her lip, focusing on driving and somehow bringing herself to sing along with Dina when You Oughta Know came on.
Dina’s energy was contagious, and she could never let her sing by herself.
In what felt like no time, Ellie was signaling to make her exit. “Okay, now close your eyes.”
“Isn’t it a little late for me to close my eyes? I already know where we are.”
“Um. No you don’t,” Ellie said. “You might know what city we’re in, but you don’t know exactly where we are. Or where we’re going.”
“Fine,” Dina agreed, shutting her eyes. “But how are you going to know if I peek?”
“I’m using the honor system,” Ellie said, resting her hand for a split second on Dina’s knee before ripping it away like it had burned. Ellie started, but Dina didn’t seem to notice or care.
Ellie couldn’t tell if that was a good sign.
Seven minutes and two songs later, Ellie was pulling into a dirt parking lot off of an old and poorly-maintained backroad. No one else was parked, so she counted her lucky stars.
“Okay, this is going to be hard, but can you try to keep your eyes closed?” She shifted the truck into park, turning toward Dina.
“For how long?” Dina smiled, eyes closed, and Ellie found it contagious.
“Just a minute. I’ll help you out and lead you to where we’re going.” Dina sighed, but made no further protest. Ellie hopped down out of the driver’s seat, taking a minute to grab the cooler and towels out of the back seat, before jogging over to open the passenger door.
“Easy does it,” she said quietly, offering her hand to help Dina exit the truck. It was more like a graceful jump out, as she couldn’t see where to step. “Okay, now just stay with me.”
Ellie held Dina’s hand, wondering how many times she was going to get to do that again after today. She led her into the treeline, where a small path led. Her converse were perfect for trudging through the dirt and sticks, but she felt bad for Dina in her sandals. After a minute, they emerged from the trees.
“Okay, you can open your eyes,” Ellie said, dropping Dina’s hand reluctantly.
“Oh, Ellie,” Dina breathed. She knew exactly where they were, but had never seen it from this angle.
They were at the biggest lake around, an incredibly popular place to swim and boat. It was often littered with docks and families, but Ellie- or Jesse, rather- had managed to find a much more secluded area with no signs of modern civilization. The water seemed to be impossibly blue, and reflected the green of the mountains that rose up around them. The sun was out in full force, but the air wasn’t too hot near the water. A sandy bank rose up to meet them at the tree line, and Dina almost immediately shucked her shoes to get her toes in it.
“This is beautiful!” Dina laughed, turning back to look at Ellie, who stood sheepishly with a cooler hanging off one arm and a handful of old beach towels stored under the other. Ellie was grateful for her sunglasses at that moment, because she was probably blushing really hard.
“How did you find this?” Dina asked as Ellie came closer.
“Oh, you know. Just through my magical ways,” she played off.
“Do you think it’s okay if we, y’know, get in?”
“Oh, totally. I already checked online and everything,” Ellie reassured her.
“You came very prepared,” Dina said.
Prepared. Why did that ring a bell in Ellie’s brain?
“Sunscreen!” Ellie smacked her forehead with her palm. “I forgot fucking sunscreen! ” She felt immensely stupid, having put so much thought and preparation into this moment just to forget something so menial.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dina said, softly placing a hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “I have some in my bag. I’ll go back and get it, okay?” She ran off as Ellie nodded.
Turning back to the lake, Ellie spread out two long beach towels a good few feet from it, throwing the extras down into a pile further from the water. For just in case.
Dina came running back through the trees, hands filled with what Ellie realized was Banana Boat kids sunscreen.
Seeing the look on Ellie’s face, Dina said, “Don’t say anything. I like how it smells and it’s the only thing I can use on the kids I babysit.” Ellie shrugged, taking the bottles from Dina’s hands.
Dina grabbed at the bottom of her tank top, moving to rip it off. Ellie blushed even harder than before. They’d been swimming together before, but it caught her off guard every time. Once Dina was undressed to her one-piece (aka the most modest thing she could wear to babysit a couple of six-year-olds, as per the parent’s request) she accepted the sunscreen back from Ellie and started spraying herself down.
Ellie was less of a fan of traditional women’s swimsuits, and stripped down to a black sports bra. She was already wearing her swim trunks as shorts, so she just pulled off her converse and chucked them unceremoniously at her towel.
“Here, I’ll help you. Arms up please,” Dina said, pointing the Banana Boat at Ellie. She graciously obliged with a sigh, putting her arms up in the air to be sprayed down. “You know if I let you do this you’d miss half your body.”
“I know,” Ellie said. “Are you hungry? I packed food. I don’t know how much you’ve had to eat today, so I packed a lot.”
“Eh, I kind of just want to jump in the water.”
“You aren’t tired of swimming yet?”
“Swimming with the kids isn’t really swimming. It’s just having a splash war for two hours with occasional popsicle breaks.” The girls both laughed at that.
Ellie figured that was good. She probably should wait until they’re done swimming to come clean to Dina about why she’d really brought her here. She took her sunglasses off, not wanting to lose them to the water.
She also considered for a second that she should just wait until they’re on the way home. That way she saves herself an awkward thirty minute ride on the interstate if things go south.
But they weren’t going to go south. She was sure of it. She had to be. Or else she’d lose the most important person in her life.
Lost in her own thoughts, Ellie snapped back to reality to Dina pulling her by the hand into the water.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming!” Dina didn’t let go of her hand until they were well and truly into the water.
“Oh my god, it’s freezing!” Dina said, yet still waded further into the lake.
“Ugh, it is.”
“Let’s not go out too far,” Dina said, squatting down so she was more submerged.
“Sure,” Ellie said softly, accepting Dina as her voice of reason.
“What’s wrong?” Dina said, her brows furrowing. She stood back up again and faced Ellie.
Ellie wanted to tell her that everything and nothing was wrong. It was wrong that they weren’t officially together, but it was right that they were together at this moment. The nerves in her stomach were wrong to stop her from telling Dina how she felt, but they were right in that they signified that everything in her life was about to change.
“Nothing,” she settled on saying, “It’s just..” She trailed off, skimming her fingers over the surface of the water.
“What?” Dina leaned closer
“Hmm.” Ellie said contemplatively, before acting on sheer impulse and shoving Dina backwards into the water.
“Hey!” Dina shouted after resurfacing, water dripping down her face and over her- Well. Ellie didn’t need to think about that right now.
Ellie burst out laughing, clutching her stomach and leaning backward. “You should’ve seen your face! You were all- augh!!!” She continued laughing.
Maybe not the best way to get the girl of your dreams to like you back.
Dina scowled, though the small upward tug of her lips was a sign she wasn’t actually upset. She shoved a wave of water over in Ellie’s direction.
“What happened to wanting to swim instead of having a splash war?” Ellie asked, walking closer.
“Well then come swim with me! You started it.”
“Really mature,” Ellie responded, but dropped into the water and took a few strokes, going further out though still staying where her feet could touch the bottom.
“I know.” Dina said lightly, following Ellie. She dipped under the surface again, reemerging and smoothing her hair back. She swam back under again.
This time she popped back up about a food away from Ellie.
“Hey,” Ellie breathed, allowing her arms to tread water around her. She could still touch with her toes, but she was enjoying the flow of being in the water.
“Hey,” Dina answered. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“Of course,” Ellie responded, swallowing. Dina was really, really close. Was she getting closer?
“I’m glad I get to spend this afternoon with you,” Dina smiled.
“Me too,” Ellie intelligently responded.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You just did.” Dina rolled her eyes at the other girl.
“Will you forgive me if I’m completely misreading the situation here?”
Ellie blinked, not understanding. “What?”
And then Dina was certainly getting closer, her eyes closing. What was happening?
Ellie went rock solid in the water as Dina’s hand came to the back of her neck, and then her lips came to meet Ellie’s. They were warm and soft, and Ellie had been kissed before, but never as soft and slowly as this.
It was like the world stopped. She swore her heart stopped and restarted in her chest, and the gentle ebb and flow of the water became still. She couldn’t feel the dirt at the bottom of the lake on her feet anymore.
Then, like a miracle, reality came slamming back down upon her. She practically lunged forward into Dina, smashing their lips together harder than she should’ve. It was wet and harsh, but they fit together in the exact way Ellie had always thought they would.
Ellie’s hands found her way into Dina’s hair, and she felt herself begin to sink under the water. They separated, beginning to tread water. Ellie gasped for breath.
“What the fuck?” She asked incredulously.
“What? You didn’t like it? You kissed me back,” Dina said, wiping droplets off of her face.
“I mean, yeah, I liked it, but- What-” Dina cut Ellie off, kissing her shortly again. Her lips lingered around Ellie’s for a moment before she pulled away again.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Ellie’s eyes were as wide as saucers. She wasn’t asking it to be mean, but rather because she literally couldn’t understand what was going on.
Dina laughed a little, and the way the sun hit her skin made Ellie swoon.
“Because I want to.”
Something clicked for Ellie. But…
“Wait. Before you do it again. Are you doing it because you just think it would be fun to kiss me, or because you want to be with me? Because honestly, I want to be with you, and I don’t think I’ll be able to take it if you-” Ellie rambled.
“I want to be with you.” Dina interrupted simply.
“Oh.” Ellie said. She stared at the water for a moment. “Can we do it again?”
-
Once again merging off of the highway, Ellie now rested her hand firmly on Dina’s thigh.
“It’s not funny! I’ve had this planned for weeks and you went and ruined my plan!” Ellie exclaimed.
“Ruined? You think I ruined today?” Dina joked.
“Well, no, but you did ruin my plan. You have to admit that.”
“Okay, okay, I am sorry. I didn’t know that was your plan, though.” Dina rested back against the headrest, looking gently over at Ellie.
“It’s okay, I guess. I forgive you.”
Ellie laced her fingers through Dina’s, pulling her hand up to kiss it.
“Wait,” Dina said. “You’re going in the wrong direction to drop me off at home.”
“You think I’m taking you home? We’re going to tell Joel you’re staying the night.” Dina laughed again.
-
Later that night, Joel texted Jesse to let him know he owed him $20.