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Lupe flopped over in her bed, burying her face in her pillow to muffle a frustrated growl. She’d been restless for hours, and now her sheets were all tangled around her legs, and her back hurt from twisting around as she futilely sought sleep. She felt prickly and sensitive, the rub of her pajamas too rough, the light through the window too bright. She was so exhausted that her eyes felt gritty, and she could already tell that her shoulders would be in knots in the morning. She wanted desperately to sleep, but her mind wouldn’t cooperate. Her thoughts kept racing in a spiral of confusion and fear and doubt.
She wasn’t sure of her place on this team, with these people. She didn’t trust them to have her back. Shaw’s apology to the team was something—it was all Lupe would get, at least. And it had helped her get her head back in the game, stop making such a fucking fool of herself. Shaw had got them a shot at the championships. She was good for the team, and Lupe wanted the team to be good. She needed the team to be good. She’d taken her cues from Shaw on the field because that’s what they needed to win. Shaw needed Lupe to believe in her to play her best. The team needed that. Apparently, Lupe needed it too because she’d played better when she was with Shaw, not against her.
So it didn’t hurt, really, to lose the chance she’d had to prove herself. It didn’t hurt, to be punished for someone else’s aggression and left to clean up the mess. To have something she’d worked for, a position she could’ve exceled at, snatched away from her. To be batted down to make room for a white woman to prove herself at Lupe’s expense. Lupe was used to all of that. Used to the blame and the accusations and being stepped on and stepped over. She wouldn’t let it hurt her anymore, she determined.
But somehow it still did. No matter how often it happened, no matter that she knew to expect it. She rolled onto her back, gritted her teeth, and swallowed down the lump in her throat. Her stomach ached, empty and growling. She’d barely picked at her dinner tonight. Everyone was acting like they had moved past it all, but Lupe hadn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t escape the weight of the team’s judgement. Baker Jr.’s easy condemnation of her. Shaw’s condemnation too. Even Jess had blamed her. She’d felt that disapproval heavy in her stomach, and everything she had managed to swallow had tried to choke her on its way down her throat.
Jess though. Jess had blamed Lupe, but she also had listened. She had come to her and asked what was wrong, in her own way, even if she didn’t use so many words about it. And when Lupe had told her, Jess hadn’t dismissed her just because she hadn’t had the same experiences. That had happened to Lupe too often with white queers who thought the bond of their queerness superseded even race. Lupe knew all too well that it didn’t.
But Jess hadn’t been like that. She’d listened, in that singularly focused way of hers. And she had changed. Purposefully aligning herself with Lupe in front of everybody. Drawing Jo into roughhousing with her, inviting Lupe into the team camaraderie she’d been excluded from. Pouring over that phrasebook of hers. Lupe didn’t know where she’d gotten it. It meant something to her that was too big to name, that Jess would make this effort for her. A warm glow deep in her chest, a weight off her shoulders, knowing that she could trust Jess with her back.
Her stomach growled again. She huffed a deep sigh out through her nose and then swung her feet off the bed. If she was going to be awake anyway, she might as well get something in her stomach. It would be easier, without everyone’s eyes on her. She stepped into her slippers and snuck out the door, padding down the stairs.
Turning into the kitchen, she headed for the fridge and then jumped back with a muffled curse, her heart almost hammering out of her chest. Jess was there, in the near black darkness of the kitchen, sitting on the counter next to the fridge. The faint light from the window reflected off her teeth and her hair and the glass in her hands.
“Jesus, Jess, you scared me. What are you just sitting in the dark for?” Waiting for her, it felt like. Summoned by Lupe’s thoughts about her. She’d almost believe it—Jess’s intuition was nearly supernatural. Always keyed into the people she cared about. Sometimes it seemed like she knew what Lupe needed before Lupe knew herself. And then she’d do something about it, quietly, unassuming. Just because she cared, and Lupe needed.
She reached across Jess for the lamp sitting behind her in the corner of the counter and switched it on, dimly illuminating the kitchen. It didn’t feel right to turn the other lights on. Too bright, too much. It would ruin something here, something delicate and fragile, even if Lupe didn’t know what that was.
Jess was backlit by the lamp, but the wall reflected enough light for Lupe to see her clearly now. She hunched forward, elbows propped on wide-spread knees and a glass of milk held loosely in her hands. Her arms and shoulders were exposed in her undershirt and her feet were bare. Thick strands hung loose from her braid, a warm honey-gold in the lamplight. Lupe’s fingers twitched with the desire to tuck that hair behind Jess’s ear, to trail her fingertips down the sharp line of her jaw. Lupe was so close to her, practically between her legs from reaching for the lamp. She could move closer, reach up—tangle her hands in Jess’s hair, pull her head down, and kiss her right here, if she wanted to.
She didn’t want to. Obviously. Because Jess was her friend, and that would be weird. Friends could hug and roughhouse and even smooch each other’s faces, but they didn’t kiss in dimly lit kitchens. They didn’t dream about each other at night. Jess was too important for Lupe to be thinking about her like this. Kissing was for girls in storage closets and bars and back-alleys. Not for someone like Jess. Lupe’s teammate, her brother, her comrade-in-arms. Jess belonged by Lupe’s side, not under her mouth or beneath her fingers.
She took a step back, leaning an elbow against the counter as Jess answered her.
“Couldn’t sleep. Got some milk.” She looked down at Lupe with a small furrow between her eyebrows, and Lupe wondered what had kept her up tonight. What was Jess worrying about? The team loved her. Everybody loved Jess. It was natural. Jess was magnetic, for all her glowers and her gruffness. Even if she was the sorest loser Lupe had ever met, she was a team player, on and off the field. The way she took that strike in the last game to give Esti a chance to steal. Always at the ready with her matches when Ana or Greta was lighting up a cigarette. Buying Esti her favorite candies, listening to Maybelle talk about her beaus, quietly fixing jammed windows and creaking doors. Jess was always there for everyone, even in ways people didn’t notice.
Lupe noticed, though. Now, for instance, she noticed the droplets of milk clinging to the fine hairs above Jess’s lip.
“Does milk help you sleep?” Lupe asked. Usually it just gave her a stomachache.
“Dave used to give it to me sometimes. When I couldn’t sleep.”
“Dave. That’s the oldest brother, right?” Jess nodded.
“He would do it a lot, after Mom died. I kind of had nightmares, and Dad was too wrecked to really notice anything.”
Jess’s jaw worked a little, but she looked right at Lupe, didn’t shy away from her or try and hide the impact of the truth she was sharing. Lupe treasured these little pieces of Jess. Every time she gave up a tidbit of her life, Lupe held onto it tight. She wanted to know everything there was to know about her. Jess had mentioned her mom only once before. Lupe had known she was dead, but Jess rarely talked how anything affected her. It was an honor, really, for Jess to trust her with this. Especially after everything that had happened. She moved forward, so her ribs pressed gently against Jess’s knee. Just letting Jess know that she was there.
She wanted to know more though. She always wanted more, when it came to Jess.
“So, what has you up tonight, then?” she asked.
Jess broke her gaze, and Lupe could’ve cursed herself. She had pushed too far, presumed too much. Jess didn’t want to confide in her like this. Lupe started to pull away, but the pressure from Jess’s knee increased, and she stopped. Jess turned back to look at her again.
“I was thinking,” she said, her voice soft and a little rough, “about you, actually.” There was a crease between her brows and a pinched tightness to her lips. “I should’ve had you, Lupe. Had your back. And I didn’t. I let you down.”
This time Lupe broke the eye contact, swallowing hard and dropping her gaze, tracing the pattern on the floor with the toe of her slipper. She took a breath, trying to settle the nervous bubbling in her stomach at Jess’s words, at her sincerity. Her care and regard for Lupe. She looked back up, meeting those soft, earnest eyes, almost grey in the lamplight.
“I know you have it now,” she said. “I trust you with it.”
It was Jess’s turn to swallow, her jaw flexing as she did.
“Okay,” she said, with a rasp in her voice and relief in her eyes. “Okay, then.” She pressed her knee gently against Lupe’s ribs again, and a small thrill ran through Lupe at the gesture. The warmth, the pressure of it. Jess being near. Jess having her back.
Jess cleared her throat. “So. What are you here for, anyway?”
Lupe chewed on the inside of her lip. “I uh. Couldn’t sleep. Thought maybe I was hungry.” She glanced at the fridge, but she could still feel Jess’s eyes on her. Seeing her. Seeing through her, really.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner.”
“I wasn’t hungry.” But she knew Jess knew better.
“Gonna get a snack then? Maybe try some milk?”
“I’ll leave the milk to you, hermano. Thought I’d get a cheese and apple sandwich, I think. Something a little more involved than that peanut butter on bread situation you love so much.”
Jess jammed her fingers into Lupe’s ribs.
“Hey, don’t knock the peanut butter sandwich. It’s easy and satisfying, what more do you want.”
Lupe batted Jess’s hand away, laughing, but stifled the sound as quickly as she could. She didn’t want to disturb the quiet of the house. Didn’t want to break this bubble she was in here with Jess.
“Easy and satisfying, I bet all the girls love that attitude.”
Jess’s grin was wide and hungry, and she dragged her eyes down Lupe’s body like she meant something by it. Lupe knew she didn’t, but it sent a pulse of desire through her anyway.
“The way I hear it, neither of us has gotten any complaints.”
Lupe snorted and tore herself away from the heat of Jess’s gaze. She opened the fridge and pulled out an apple, tossing it over the door to where Jess sat on the counter. She didn’t bother to watch—she knew Jess would catch it easy.
“Can you slice that for me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jess said. “Can you make me one too?”
“Sure,” Lupe said, her head still in the fridge. She heard Jess jump down from her perch, landing light and quiet as Lupe pulled out the cheese and mustard before shutting the door and opening up the breadbox. She moved behind Jess to get a bread knife from the block, placing a hand on her back to warn her of her presence and then drew up short. Jess was wielding a chef’s knife with precision. Her hold was firm but relaxed, and Lupe might’ve watched her hands forever. The knife rocked with an easy motion in her strong, sure grip, and she kept her fingertips tucked safely away as she chopped in the dim light. That was the problem, though. She was chopping, her pieces chunky and uneven. Lupe’s mother wouldn’t have used them for applesauce. With one hand still on Jess’s back, she reached out with the other and touched the back of her arm. Gently, but not lightly. She didn’t want to startle a knife wielding Jess.
“What are you doing?” Jess put down the knife and turned toward Lupe. Lupe dropped her hands, and Jess was so close to her. The light from the lamp threw her face into stark relief, her jaw and nose cast long shadows. Her eyes were in darkness, but Lupe could still see as she raised a questioning eyebrow.
“You asked me to cut up the apple. I’m cutting up the apple.”
“I asked you to slice the apple. You want chunks that big in your sandwich, be my guest. I’ll do my own.” She reached out to pick up the knife, but Jess grabbed her wrist before she could, and Lupe paused. Jess touched so freely, with a carelessness and enthusiasm that always managed to take Lupe aback, even as it pleased and warmed and thrilled her. The pressure of Jess’s hand made her breath come that much shorter, and a tingle ran down her spine. A smile tugged at the corner of Jess’s mouth, and Lupe wondered if Jess could feel the uptick in Lupe’s pulse through her fingertips.
“I want to do it for you, Lupe. Just show me how to do it right.” Her voice was soft, and one finger brushed gently back and forth over the sensitive skin of the inside of Lupe’s wrist. Lupe shivered. What did Jess mean, looking at her like that, her eyes bright and earnest, even in the darkness? Why was she still holding her wrist?
“Okay, I’ll show you. But I kind of need my slicing hand. For, you know. Slicing.” She was pleased by how steady her voice came out, but Jess didn’t let go. Instead, she turned back to the cutting board and pulled Lupe’s arm along with her. She moved in, even closer, so Lupe’s arms were bracketing her body, Jess fully crowding into Lupe’s space. It could be Jess’s space, for all Lupe cared. Everything of hers could be Jess’s.
“I want to do it,” Jess said, as she dropped Lupe’s wrist and picked up the knife, “and I want you to show me how.” She took the uncut half of the apple and turned over her shoulder toward Lupe. “So? Show me.” Her eyes met Lupe’s, an invitation and a challenge. Slowly, cautiously, Lupe slotted her body firmly against Jess’s side and grasped her hand where it gripped the knife. Her fingers slotted into place around Jess’s own. She started to guide Jess’s hand upward and then paused.
“The angle isn’t right,” she said, and she slid in closer behind Jess, tilting her head to tuck her chin against her shoulder. She reached around her waist to rest her free hand on Jess’s where she held the apple, before asking, “This okay?”
Jess nodded, and Lupe was so close to her that Jess’s face brushed against the side of her head. Lupe swallowed hard, her throat working against the pressure of Jess’s shoulder under her chin. She settled her hand over Jess’s on the apple, making sure both of their fingers were tucked out of the way before lifting the knife with their joined hands. Carefully, cautious of the awkwardness of this position, Lupe took their hands and started to slice.
“We want thin pieces for this so the sandwiches are manageable,” she said, first slicing off a round with the core and trimming the sides before laying the remainder flat, “but not so thin that you miss the crunch.” She guided Jess’s hands, rocking the knife back and forth, and their slices fell to the board straight and even.
Lupe felt a little giddy at the control Jess was giving her. Letting Lupe hold her and mold her movements and show her how she wanted things done. The trust it took, to let Lupe wield a knife with her hands. The willingness—the eagerness—to learn what Lupe wanted.
They neared the far edge of the apple, and Lupe slowed, taking care of Jess’s precious hands beneath her own. They finished cutting.
The last slice was too small for sandwiches. Lupe gave Jess’s hands a gentle squeeze and released the one holding the knife. She picked up the last slice, hesitating a moment before holding it up to Jess’s lips.
“Perks of cooking. You get to eat as you go.”
Lupe couldn’t see Jess’s face, but her lips were soft against Lupe’s skin as she accepted the apple, and her tongue brushed the pads of her fingers for a moment, licking a dribble of juice clean. She could hear her crunch the apple. She could hear her swallow it down.
She wondered what Jess would taste like if Lupe pulled her head around and kissed her. How much would be the apple, or the milk even, and how much would be pure Jess. What those soft lips would feel like against her own, what tricks Jess might know with that clever tongue. Desire coursed through her as she thought about how it might be to hold Jess, to kiss her and taste her and know her. There was a tightness in her throat and her chest and her core, a fierce ache of wanting. She wondered if Jess would melt, soft under her hands and lips, or if she’d kiss hard and fierce and bruising.
But she’d never know. Jess wasn’t like that, not for her. Lupe didn’t need her to be. Jess had her back. Jess was her team. That’s what she needed. She cleared her throat and let go of the apple and Jess’s hand, stepping to the side and pulling the bread knife out of the block.
“So, there you go. Slicing. You’ll be a pro in no time.” Jess shifted, leaning back against the side of the counter and watching Lupe. Lupe felt hot under her gaze, like Jess was measuring her. Appraising her. She didn’t know what for.
She moved back to the bread box and sawed off four pieces, as neat and as even as their apple slices. Lupe had steady hands under pressure. She shut the box and brought the bread and the cheese and the mustard over to the cutting board. Jess had retaken her seat on the counter, a perfectly reasonable distance away from where Lupe worked. She wasn’t too close. It didn’t make Lupe’s heart beat quicker or her stomach tighten, to lean over Jess to put two pieces of the bread in the toaster. To have Jess at her elbow as she sliced the cheese. This was normal. She was normal. Jess was always up in everybody’s space anyway. Lupe wasn’t special.
The toaster popped, and Jess reached behind her and retrieved the bread, trading it to Lupe for the two remaining slices. Lupe assembled the first sandwich, spreading the mustard and layering the cheese and apple, and then held it out to Jess. Jess took it and gave her the rest of the toast. Lupe watched her out of the corner of her eyes as she built her own sandwich. Jess held hers in her hands, waiting for Lupe to be ready before she started eating.
Lupe finished and pushed the cutting board toward the sink. She hopped up on the counter too, her knee knocking into Jess’s. Jess turned a little, leaning up against the fridge to face Lupe more fully. She took a bite, stuffing her mouth and dropping crumbs all over her undershirt.
“It’s good,” she said, holding the remainder up, as if Lupe might need reminding about what, exactly, Jess was talking about. Talking around, actually. There was a great chunk of sandwich wadded in her cheek as she spoke. “You were right about the apples. Crunch, but not too much crunch.”
Lupe glowed at the praise and hid her pleased smile with a bite of her own sandwich. Jess was right. Perfect crunch. The sweetness of the apple contrasting the sharpness of the cheese, rounded out by the tang of the mustard. Solid bread to filling ratio. They made a good team.
They ate mostly in silence, Jess wolfing hers down with single-minded focus. Lupe ate hers quickly too, but she couldn’t match Jess for sheer fervor. Jess ate like she did everything else, putting her whole body into it. Both hands gripped the sandwich, and she hunched forward with each bite, bringing her mouth to the food instead of the other way around. She finished before Lupe, and Lupe could feel Jess watching her finish, one leg bent and resting on the handle of the cabinet below her, supporting her elbow as she leaned in toward Lupe.
“It’s not okay,” she said suddenly, and Lupe froze with the bite of sandwich in her mouth, her brain whirring. What wasn’t okay? Jess hadn’t liked the sandwich after all? Had Lupe managed to fuck up something else, something she didn’t even realize was at play? Or maybe Jess knew that Lupe had been thinking about kissing her, knew that Lupe was trampling recklessly all over the boundaries of their friendship, violating their brotherhood with her stupid desire and overactive imagination.
“What’s not okay?” she asked, choking down her mouthful and forcing the question out around the lump in her throat.
“The team wasn’t fair to you, none of us. And I know, now, that it’s always going to be different for you. Always going to be harder. I get it, and I’m sorry I didn’t get it before.” Lupe nodded. This didn’t seem that different from what Jess had said earlier. She thought they’d closed it, twice over now. Why was Jess still worried about it?
Jess gave her a small smile in return, but it didn’t last long. The set of her lips grew pinched, her jaw flexing. “But they don’t want to shut you out, anymore, Lu.” She stared hard at Lupe, and Lupe thought about how she’d closed herself off at dinner, how she still felt like an outsider and an outcast with the team. She knew Jess knew what she was thinking too. “You don’t have to give them a chance. They don’t deserve it. But you could give yourself one, hermano.”
Lupe felt the weight of the word. She remembered how Jess drew the entire team into the toast after the last game before turning around with all their attention on her and raising her bottle to Lupe. Calling her brother in Lupe’s first language. Reaching across the gap that divided them and showing everybody that she stood with Lupe.
Jess got people in a way Lupe didn’t. Sure, there were parts of Lupe’s life, of her world, that Jess would never experience, things she’d never really know for herself. But Jess watched people, and she understood them. She studied them and learned them, and if she said that Lupe should give herself a chance with the team, give the team another chance, then she probably should. Jess was smarter than she was about these things.
She nodded, eyes still locked with Jess’s. The movement felt heavy, weighty. Not just an acknowledgement but a vow.
“Okay. I’ll try.” Jess nodded back, a slow, pleased smile unfurling across her face. She leaned back against the fridge, at ease again, her limbs in their natural state, loose and languid, somehow relaxed and yet ready for motion at any moment. Lupe finished her sandwich, watching Jess watch her as she did.
She was dusting the crumbs off her hands when Jess bumped their knees together and grinned at her. Lupe grinned too and retaliated with a gentle kick to the shin. It couldn’t have felt like anything, from her slippered foot, but Jess kicked back, and then they were both shoving and kicking. Jess locked one of her legs around Lupe’s and braced the other against the cabinet beneath her, giving a sharp tug and pulling Lupe off the counter. She caught herself on her free leg and yanked back. Jess slid down easily, falling onto Lupe with their legs still tangled together, twisting to press Lupe against the counter behind her so the two of them didn’t collapse to the ground.
Jess’s face was right in front of hers. Their noses brushed as Jess stumbled closer, planting her leg squarely between Lupe’s thighs, trying to catch her balance. Her arms bracketed Lupe, one resting on her hip and one bracing against the counter at her side. Lupe could see all of Jess, even in the dim lamp light. Her pale eyelashes and her faint freckles and the ring of darker blue around the brilliance of her irises. Her lips, pink and full and slightly parted. She could feel Jess’s breath against her cheek, and her blood rushed hot, and her core tightened. Her pulse was pounding at the crease of her thigh, right near where Jess’s hand rested, right where her thigh pressed between Lupe’s legs. Her breathing was quick and shallow. Jess’s body pressed against hers, almost the full weight of it, and for some reason she didn’t seem like she wanted to move. Her pupils were huge in the dim light, and her eyes kept dropping to Lupe’s mouth—fuck was Lupe doing something stupid with her mouth? She was, she was chewing on her lip like an idiot. She stopped. Jess still hadn’t moved.
Probably she was just comfortable like this. Jess loved physical affection. She didn’t know—God, Lupe hoped she didn’t know—that being touched like this made Lupe want to lean up and kiss her, draw that full, soft lower lip into her mouth and graze it gently with her teeth as she breathed Jess in. Tangle her hands in Jess’s hair and pull her close and press against her until Lupe could dissolve into her completely.
Jess didn’t know that Lupe wanted her like that. She couldn’t possibly know, and she never would if Lupe had anything to say about it. Jess would never know how stupid Lupe was, how careless. Because Lupe knew—she knew—that Jess didn’t feel the same way about her, and Lupe was never ever going to risk what they had. It was too precious, too valuable.
Jess had rapidly become the most important person in Lupe’s life. The most stable relationship she’d ever had. It meant something she couldn’t name, couldn’t contextualize, to have Jess by her side and at her back. Her brother, her hermano, her partner-in-crime. What they had was better, deeper, more whole and more meaningful than anything she’d had with any of the girls she’d ever kissed. Even the few she’d thought she’d loved. And she’d driven all of them away, too needy or too stupid and always, always too much, when what she’d felt then didn’t even begin to measure up to what she felt now.
Nothing, no one compared to Jess, and here was Lupe with her foolish desires wanting to mess that all up. She’d drive Jess away too. Her throat was tight, her eyes stinging from the shame of it. It felt ridiculous, to be out of control of herself like this. She worked so hard to keep herself steady. Not too angry, not too loud, not too transgressive. She worked so hard, and she was constantly failing. Losing her temper and getting in fights and wasting this one shot that she had at a passion she could live for. Failing, over and over, no matter how much she tried.
She couldn’t fail at this though. She wouldn’t let herself. She’d do whatever it took, to keep Jess on her side. Even if it meant pushing her away. Just a little. Just enough that Lupe could breathe and get a fucking grip of herself. Keep her stupid impulses under control and safeguard their friendship. She had to. She couldn’t lose it.
Jess was still there, looking at her, but Lupe’s vision was blurry, and her blood was rushing in her ears. She twisted against Jess’s hand on her hip and pulled out of the shelter of Jess’s arms. She’d left a jacket on the hook earlier, and she snagged her box of cigarettes and her lighter, stowing them in the breast pocket of her pajama top. She muttered something about needing a smoke before ducking out the kitchen door, leaving Jess there, leaning against the counter, alone.
On the back stoop, Lupe took in a deep breath of the cool night air, trying to replace the hot arousal and anxiety burning through her body. There was an awful, buzzing energy in her limbs, and she tried to dispel it, shaking out her hands until they felt like rubber. She lit up a cigarette and took a long, slow drag, forcing her lungs to cooperate on her terms and not their own. Obviously, they couldn’t be trusted since looking at Jess had made her feel like all the oxygen left her brain. When they started to burn, thick and heavy, she let the smoke out. It curled and billowed and blew away, almost luminescent in the moonlight. It was nearly full tonight. Lupe took another drag and exhaled, aiming at the moon’s face this time, and watched the smoke dance and dissipate.
This was good. There was space out here. She sat down on the stairs of the stoop a little too hard, letting the thunk of her tailbone against the step help ground her in her body. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. The air was still but cool on her face, in her lungs. She could smell the grass in the yard and the glove oil seeped into the wood where Maybelle had spilled it earlier. There were crickets chirping, and a car rumbled in the distance.
She took a drag on the cigarette, let the smoke sit in her lungs until she’d cough if she held her breath a moment longer. It was all going to be okay. With Jess. She’d get herself under control. She’d remember how to be normal. Jess had proven she’d be patient with her. She’d let Lupe have this, this time and this space that she needed to renew the equilibrium between them. Lupe would wrestle her treacherous desire back under her skin, lock it down the recesses of her brain, and then things would be okay again.
The kitchen door opened and closed behind her. She twisted on the step, pressing her back against the slats of the railing, and there was Jess. She’d put on Lupe’s jacket over her undershirt, and her hands were shoved deep in the pockets. She looked a little apprehensive. So was Lupe. She felt better, calmer, more in control, but she thought she’d have more time to shut down her brain’s ridiculous fantasies. She hadn’t thought Jess would follow her out here, that she’d be confronted with her presence so immediately.
Jess came over and plopped down on the step below Lupe. She sat with her usual ease, one leg propped up beside her and the other sprawled out on the steps below her, a forearm resting on her bent knee. She could’ve touched Lupe as she walked by, clapped a hand on her back or nudged her shoulder with her knee. She could’ve sat so their legs were pressed together or their arms brushed. Even now, she could’ve leaned her knee outwards and pressed it against Lupe’s shin.
She hadn’t. She didn’t. And that settled it for Lupe. She’d made the right choice, leaving. She had clearly been too much for Jess tonight. Jess wanted some space, and Lupe would give it to her.
Jess reached her hand out for Lupe’s cigarette, but she stopped short of plucking it from her mouth. Lupe took in one last breath before handing it over. Jess took a long drag and let the smoke blow out of her nose with a deep exhalation. She took another and then made a face.
“I don’t know why you like these,” she said, and Lupe rolled her eyes. This was a reoccurring sentiment about her Chesterfields. “They’re too strong. And they burn too fast.” She gestured at Lupe with the cigarette, which was indeed burned almost all the way down. Lupe took out another as she responded.
“Your Pall Malls are cheap as shit. They taste like dank cardboard.” It was what Lupe said every time. She put the cigarette in her mouth and the box back in her pocket. She was reaching for her lighter when there was a crackle and a burst of brightness in front of her face. Jess had freed her hands, dangling the cigarette loose out of the corner of her mouth, and tucked her legs in to lean forward and offer Lupe a match. The fire bathed her face in warm light, emphasizing her sharp cheekbones, the fullness of her mouth, open in concentration, and the bright blue of her eyes, two flames reflected in them.
Lupe felt a little lost looking at her, and it took Jess cocking an impatient eyebrow for Lupe to lean in. Jess cupped her hand beneath as Lupe touched the cigarette to the flame, protecting Lupe from any stray ash. She did that for the girls at Vi’s sometimes. Ever a gentleman. It made Lupe feel warm and soft, when Jess cared for her like this. Lupe lit up, still watching the fire dancing in Jess’s eyes. Jess waved out the match and tossed it to the step below her, stepping on it to make sure it was snuffed out. The warm light vanished.
Lupe blinked, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. That was too close and too much again. She swung her legs around, squaring herself off, gazing out at the yard. Not looking at Jess.
She saw something pale moving slowly through the grass, and she leaned forward to see better, squinting. It was a possum, probably hoping to loot the neighbor’s victory garden. Lupe watched as it ambled across. They were slow creatures, possums. Couldn’t run away from anything, so instead they just dropped and played dead. She’d seen it once when she’d been a kid. A neighbor’s dog had come after one, and it had just flopped over with its tongue hanging out. The dog nosed at it and whined at the smell before running off, but Lupe had watched for almost an hour before the possum got back up again. Effective technique. Lupe wished she could do that sometimes. Just lie down and wait until all her problems went away. Instead of having to just stand there and take it with a sick feeling in her stomach while Baker Jr. yelled at her and Bev berated her, she could’ve just dropped right there until they left her alone.
Playing dead didn’t work on people though. On possum hunts they counted on it. They’d throw rocks or send dogs, and when the possum sulled up, they’d drop it in a sack and take it home and cook it. Drivers didn’t notice. Didn’t care. Some tender hearts might brake or swerve—Lupe wondered if Jess braked for animals. She could picture Jess yelling at cars honking behind her as she held up traffic for a little row of ducks crossing the road. Or Canadian geese maybe. Fluffy little goslings, waddling in a row.
Most people weren’t like that though. Most of the time, if a possum tried to play dead at a car it just got run over. The driver didn’t see or didn’t care or couldn’t course correct. She’d seen plenty dead—actually dead, crushed and bleeding—by the roadside when she’d still been in Texas. They’d tried this thing that was supposed to work, that had always worked, a method of protection they’d perfected as a species. This time, it didn’t work. This time, it got them killed. They did exactly what they were supposed to do and got run right over for their troubles.
People didn’t care about possums. They barely cared about other people. They’d run right over you to get where they wanted to go, and most of them wouldn’t even feel bad about it. Lupe took another drag of her cigarette, and the heat of the smoke filled her lungs. It burned in her chest, like anger and resentment and shame.
She breathed it out. She heard a gentle exhalation beside her and turned. Jess’s smoke mingled with Lupe’s own as she leaned forward to snuff out the smoldering remnants of her cigarette. She was right there, mere inches from Lupe, and Jess cared about people. She cared about her friends and her team and her community. She cared about baby ducks and goslings and probably possums too.
There was something serene, even sacred, about Jess bathed in moonlight. Her pale skin seemed to glow, and her hair shone silver, falling out of her disheveled braid with large sections hanging loose. Lupe could see the ghostly smattering of her freckles, the faint shadow of her eyelashes across her cheekbones. Those eyelashes flicked up, and Jess was looking at Lupe looking at her. Her eyes were bright but colorless in the night. Her mouth was open, that clever, tempting, glorious mouth, and Jess was the kind of person who stopped traffic for baby goslings, and Lupe wanted her. She didn’t want to lie down and curl up and wait out the fight with her desire anymore. She wanted Jess.
Slowly, her heart pounding away somewhere in the region of her throat, she snuffed out her cigarette on the porch beside Jess’s. Then, she wasn’t moving slowly anymore, and she twisted in toward Jess, almost falling into her as she dropped to her knees on the step below her, squarely between her legs. Jess blinked up at her as she cupped her face in her hands, and Lupe gave her a second, but she didn’t move away. Lupe leaned in and finally closed the gap between them.
Jess’s lips were slightly chapped and just as warm and soft against her own as she had ever imagined they would be. She wanted to live in this moment forever, cradling Jess’s face in hands, breathing her in, suspended in the realization of all her desires—but then Jess made a noise, low in her throat, and Lupe jolted back into reality, releasing Jess and breaking the kiss. Was Jess okay? Fuck, maybe she hadn’t even wanted this at all. Lupe thought she had given her enough time to say no, to push Lupe away or shut it down, but maybe she’d been moving too fast, charging thoughtlessly forward. Maybe she had ruined everything.
She started to pull back, started to spiral out of control again, but before she could move, Jess caught her by the back of the neck and pressed their foreheads together. Her other hand was at Lupe’s waist, her thumb rubbing slow circles on the bottom of her ribcage. Lupe dropped her hands from where they hovered in the air, and she gripped Jess’s shoulders.
“I’ve been wanting you to do that all night. For weeks, really.” Jess’s voice was soft and sweet and a little thick. The air carrying her words puffed gently against Lupe’s lips, and Lupe just breathed her in deep, bewildered and delighted, Jess’s words spinning in her head and Jess’s hands on her body and Jess’s breath in her lungs.
Finally, she managed to ask, “Why didn’t you do it yourself then?”
Jess tilted her head back to look at Lupe and tightened her grip on her neck. Her eyes were soft and intense, and Lupe remembered the burning glow of the match’s fire reflecting in them. Her gaze now was searing but open and earnest, and Lupe felt like she was getting a glimpse of Jess’s very soul.
“I want whatever you want from me. Everything. Anything. I’ll take whatever you’ll give me, Lupe García.”
Lupe could’ve melted at that. At the gift it was. She made some kind of noise, a cross between a sob and a laugh tearing its way out of her throat, and Jess pulled her closer.
“I’ve been trying to let you know,” Jess continued. “That I want to, if you want to. I thought you might do it tonight, but then you ran out on me.” Jess cupped Lupe’s jaw and looked deep in her eyes, serious, sincere. “It’s okay if you don’t want to, Lupe. Whatever you want, I want.”
She almost couldn’t believe it, but it was impossible to doubt the warmth, the weight, the sincerity of Jess’s words. She took Jess’s head in her hands, running her thumbs across the edge of that glorious jaw, and now it was her turn to make sure Jess knew she was serious.
“I want you. I want all of you.” Jess’s face lit up, and Lupe surged forward, kissing her again, deeper this time, and Jess was kissing her back, still holding Lupe by the nape of the neck and wrapping her arm tight around her waist. Lupe shifted her weight to stay balanced on her knees with the force of Jess against her, the rough wood of the stairs digging in even through her pajama pants. Jess tasted like apples and Lupe’s cigarettes, and Lupe buried her hands in the remnants of Jess’s braid to tilt her head up and pull her closer. She needed her closer, as close as she could possibly be. She’d melt herself into Jess if she could.
Jess groaned into Lupe’s mouth as she tugged, and Lupe tightened her grip, wanting Jess to press harder against her. Jess retaliated with a quick nip to Lupe’s lower lip, sinking her teeth in. The sharp burst of pain made Lupe shudder, something hot and electrifying coiling in her core. Jess kissed like she played ball—fierce, passionate, throwing her whole body into every move she made. Even with kissing, she played to win. Lupe might let her, sometimes, but she wasn’t going to make it easy.
She shoved Jess against the stairs behind her, and Jess fell back easily. Lupe followed, hot and eager and never breaking their kiss. She straddled Jess’s hips, pinning her to the step, running her hand along Jess’s strong jaw, her long neck. She tried to shove her jacket off Jess’s shoulders—and it did something to her, Jess wearing her jacket, Jess knowing that whatever Lupe had was hers, because Lupe would give Jess anything, and she wanted her to know that.
Jess broke off the kiss, laughing, her bright eyes sparkling, and pulled the jacket off, leaving it pinned between her body and the stoop. Lupe was too impatient to wait for her to finish. She started kissing the newly exposed skin where Jess’s neck met her shoulder, tasting her sweat and her soap and her essence, and Jess thunked her head against the steps with a strangled moan. Lupe smiled in pride and pleasure. Her hands sought out Jess’s arms and shoulders, the solid swell of her bicep and the jut of her clavicle, hungry for every inch of Jess she could touch.
Jess’s own hands were busy, stroking down Lupe’s sides and then under the hem of her pajama top, and Lupe could’ve leapt out of her body at the sensation of Jess’s hands on the bare skin of her back. The touch of Jess’s trailing fingers was almost searing, and goosebumps rose in their wake. She could feel her arousal building, an anticipatory tension at the base of her spine, leaving her breathless and shaky and wanting.
She bit into Jess’s neck with a groan and ground her hips down against her, desperate for pressure or friction or something to satiate the desire pooling in her gut. Jess’s hips bucked up to meet hers, and she slid one hand all the way up Lupe’s back, rucking up her shirt as she pulled her close, lilting her head to further expose her throat. Tenderness welled up in Lupe at the vulnerability of the motion, and she almost ached with the preciousness of the trust Jess gave her. She traced the long arching line of Jess’s neck, the skin smooth and delicate beneath her fingers. She would do anything, to be worthy of that trust. To be the person Jess turned to, the one who protected her as passionately as she protected others, who held her as tightly as she deserved.
Jess swallowed hard against the gentle pressure of Lupe’s fingers, and the sight of her throat bobbing had Lupe biting back a moan. She kissed the hollow just above Jess’s collarbone and lingered a moment, taking in the sharp scent of her soap and the lingering musk of glove leather, before moving her attentions upward, kissing and nipping her way to her jaw and along its strong edge. Jess dug her short nails into Lupe’s shoulder as she groaned and pressed Lupe closer to her, and the pressure and the heat and the friction were almost too much—Lupe had to break away to catch her ragged breath.
As soon as she pulled back, though, Jess’s mouth was on hers, and suddenly Lupe didn’t care if she never breathed again. She just wanted Jess, as much of her as she could get, and she fumbled with the hem of Jess’s undershirt, trying to pull it up and off her without moving away from her a single inch. It wasn’t working, and she growled into Jess’s mouth, hot and frustrated. Jess pulled away from her, laughing in a breathy way that was more of a sigh, really, and Lupe tried to chase after her with a whimper that would’ve mortified her if she hadn’t been aching for Jess with the entirety of her being.
Jess caught her head in her hands, cradling her face, and spoke softly.
“Hey. It’s okay. I just think—” but Lupe didn’t want to think, and she tried to catch Jess’s lips with hers. Jess leaned out of the way, laughing again, and held Lupe at bay with gentle hands. “Sweetheart,” she said, stroking her thumbs along Lupe’s cheekbones, and the tenderness in her voice and her eyes and her touch was overwhelming. “Sweetheart, I don’t want to stop. I just think we should move, maybe.”
Oh. That made sense. They were sheltered somewhat by the darkness and the hour, but they were still out in the open. Lupe hadn’t been this careless since she was fourteen and stupid and new to kissing girls at all. She sat back on her heels, pulling Jess up with her by fistfuls of her shirt.
“Okay,” she said. “You’re right. Okay.” Her brain was spinning, trying to find a place they could expect privacy. Both their rooms were out, obviously, and she didn’t want to struggle to keep as quiet as they’d need to in one of the bathrooms. Anywhere on the ground floor was still too exposed. She needed to fucking think of something because if she didn’t, she might end up fucking Jess right here and damn the consequences.
The shed. Far enough from the house for them to be a little noisy. It was crowded, but there was still enough space to work with. She and Jess had both done more with less. She’d put money on it.
“The shed,” she said, stumbling to her feet, still dragging Jess with her by the shirt. “Now. No one will hear us.” She started toward it, but Jess caught her by the shoulder and turned her back to face her. She cupped Lupe’s jaw and gave her one more kiss, hot and hard and so full of promise that Lupe’s blood burned at the thought of what was in store for them.
“The shed, then,” agreed Jess, with a heavy rasp in her voice that made Lupe feel smug even as it sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine. Jess ran her thumb across Lupe’s bottom lip. “And then I’ll give you what you want.”
Lupe wanted it all. Forever. But they could start with this.