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Here's the thing. Taissa really doesn't like the girls on the WHS Soccer Team. Their district is the 'cake eaters' area. Most of them are stuck up and arrogant, as well as dirty players.
Which is why it makes zero fucking sense that Van is talking to one of them at this party.
Van is practically the polar opposite of those girls from WHS. She's probably the sweetest person Tai's ever met. Sure, Van can be a bit of a cunt to someone who deserves it (her and Tai love to rag on dipshit boys 24/7, really), but she's not one for looking down on others for materialistic things. She's not one to tear up another girl's calf just for fun.
Which, again, is why Taissa is leaning against the wall of Lottie's house, glowering across the room at Van and the WHS girl who is currently chatting her up.
(The worst part is that the girl is really pretty. The kind of pretty, though, where she can pretty blatantly flirt with another girl and no one will think anything of it. That's a privilege Tai and Van don't have.)
20 minutes ago, Van was at Tai's side. Everything had been fucking great. Even in a room poisoned with the stench of alcohol and body odor, Van's distinct smell had flooded Taissa's senses. She had felt the other girl's body heat next to her.
This was one of those nights where, if Tai let herself relax and hope a little bit, it felt like they might be veering towards a hookup. The way Van had been looking at her, well, Taissa wasn't blind nor stupid.
Then, Van had disappeared to get more to drink, and for the past 15 minutes, Tai was stuck watching her flirt with some stupid WHS richy bitch.
Maybe 'watching Van flirt' wasn't the exact right word choice. It seemed like Van knew the other girl was coming on to her (she was being so blatantly obvious. Taissa would've felt bad for her if she wasn't plotting her demise), but since Tai couldn't hear a damn thing Van was saying, she had no idea if she was reciprocating the advances. Still. At the very least, she was entertaining them.
The thing was that the lines of friendship had always been messy for Tai and Van. From the minute they'd met, Tai knew that their bond was a bit different than the ones she had with her other friends. Neither of them had ever put a name to it, but it was there. Maybe all it was, was just a deeper understanding they'd always had with each other. An 'I see you' of sorts.
Then they'd hooked up. Not once, not twice. Multiple times. At that point, Taissa figured she couldn't blame the blurred lines on just a deep friendship anymore.
They didn't really talk about it. When it had first happened, it had been an emotional mess. The next few days, Van had trouble looking at Tai when she knew Tai could see her. No substantial conversation was had, but they both knew things were going to be a bit different.
Blame Tai for it, sure, but how was she supposed broach the subject of, 'Hey, I know what you taste like now. What does that mean? By the way, do you have the answers to the trig homework?'
Then it had happened again. And again, and again. Maybe Tai knew that she shouldn't keep at it with Van, that it was a guarantee to crash and burn in the long run. They could never have a real relationship, never kiss in broad daylight the way Taissa would daydream of. But during sex, Tai got to see the most vulnerable version of Van, the version of her that was sappy and nearly romantic and putty in her hands. Tai wouldn't trade that for anything.
All of that's to say that Tai didn't actually have the right to be mad at Van for flirting with someone else. Or, letting someone else flirt with her, whatever. Tai wasn't one for semantics. All she knew was that some pretty WHS soccer player was all over her best friend, and Tai didn't want Van getting wrapped with someone like that. That's the part she cared about. Seriously.
"Lottie. Lottie." Tai had found the hostess in the kitchen, looking either extremely high or extremely bored. "Lot!"
The girl in question slowly turned her head to Taissa, eyes dazed. "What?"
With her red solo cup in hand, Tai extended her finger to point at Van and the girl, their position straight out from the marble island in the kitchen that Lottie was leaning against. "What's that girl's name?"
Lottie creased her eyebrows as she looked down at Tai. "Van."
Taissa rolled her eyes. Definitely high, then. "Not Van, Lottie. The girl she's talking to."
"Oh." A pause, then a look down the hallway, and a shrug. "Why would I know?"
"Because it's your party."
"So?"
"Jesus," Tai bemoaned. "Whatever. Guess I have to do everything myself." Before she can move, Lottie speaks.
"Is this about your thing with Van?" Lottie asks simply.
Tau stares at her. Opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. Like a damn fish. "What the fuck? No." She pauses briefly. "What thing are you talking about, Lottie?"
What could Lottie know? Tai had never told her, and even though Lottie knew that both Tai and Van's interests lied outside the conventional, Taissa didn't know how she would know about their...situation.
"I don't think you have anything to be worried about. Van's been..." Lottie trails off in the middle of her sentence, as if realizing she'd started to spill a secret. She stares back down the hallway, but Tai doesn't follow her gaze and stays fixed on Lottie with a buzzing in her chest.
"Van's been what?" Tai almost feels bad for asking that. She knows Lottie would never violate Van's privacy, and Tai wouldn't want her to. Still, some part of her wants to know every little thing Van's ever thought about her.
Lottie just tilts her head toward Tai with a cheeky little smile. She shrugs.
"What are you even on right now?" Tai asks her incredulously. She guesses she was right: even a stoned Lottie wouldn't go throwing Van's secrets around. "Actually, don't implicate me. Thanks for the...help."
When Tai turns, putting her back towards Lottie, she sees Van, still in that hallway with the WHS girl's arm brushing her elbow.
(If Tai ever wants to touch Van in public, she has to use a cover. To play it off as something else, like her reaching for a water bottle.)
If Lottie says something in response, Tai doesn't register it, because she's already walking right over to Van and the girl she's apparently damn near obsessed with.
Van tracks her movement about halfway down the hallway. Her gaze moves away from the girl and onto Tai, and that feels like a win.
When Tai reaches them, she does her very best to separate them as much as possible. Which she does by nearly hip checking Rich Girl out of the way. "Sorry," Tai says, voice laced with sarcasm as she looks back to a confused Van. "Can we talk?"
Tai would be lying if she said she didn't like that Van's focus was completely on her. "Um," Van swallows, "yeah." She shifts even further away from the girl she'd been so caught up in, teetering a bit, seemingly waiting for Tai to make her move.
(Tai also likes the way Van will follow her wherever, just like she does now. Not another word to the girl she was talking to. Van just follows Tai, and it sends a light buzz up Tai's spine.)
It's difficult to find an empty bedroom at a house party, especially one as big as Lottie's. Too many people don't lock doors behind them, and Tai doesn't want to take a chance on a doorknob to find a dick out inside.
At the end of an upstairs hallway is a bedroom with an ajar door. Tai ushers Van in front of her, but both of them pause when Van's in front of her. Her eyes are locked on Tai's lips, and their bodies are close enough that Tai could just lean in, but this is Wiskayok, and they both know better than that. Tai checks the hallway before following Van into the room.
They're on the same page as soon as they enter the room. That's the thing about their situation that they have going on; they might never actually talk about it, but after everything, it's like they've formed some telepathic connection.
Whenever Tai gets Van pressed up against her like this, where their bodies are close enough to feel like one, she gets a sense of urgency lit through her bones. A feeling that if she doesn't move quick enough, Van will disappear.
(Part of Tai knows Van would never leave her. Another part of her knows what their lives are like, and that sometimes the fear can take over.)
Tai quickly has Van backed into a wall. It's a routine that they've fallen into. No matter who initiates it, Tai ends up taking the lead. At first, it was more of a give and take, a push and pull. By now, though, Tai knows that Van likes to be manhandled a little bit.
Taissa can never shake the implications of all that out of her head. Van is her best friend, has been for ages, but Tai knows her on a completely different level. Knows how to make her tick and squirm.
Van is pulling back suddenly as she fixes Tai with a concerned look. "You okay there, lady? You're kind of zoning out on me."
Tai doesn't dignify that with a response. She's pressed against Van's mouth again, bracketing her hips with her thighs. She laughs when Van groans. "Do you really want to talk right now?"
"Well, I mean," Van squirms from her position trapped between Tai and the wall. "That's what you said you wanted to do."
"Don't we have our code?"
(Tai really doesn't want to talk about the reason she started the scene tonight in the first place. It almost feels stupid now, to think that she was ever worried about Van with some random girl.
Then she thinks back to a rich bitch being able to brush up against Van in the hallway of some stupid house party, and she's pissed again.)
"I can tell you're thinking about something, Tai," is Van's answer. "Right-" she taps Tai's forehead, "- in there."
It's almost depressing how Van makes the most lame gestures cute. "Thanks for clarifying."
Van tilts her head and throws her arms around Tai's neck. "C'mon."
What's the most subtle way for Tai to tell Van that even entertaining the prospect of Van being with someone else makes her feel sick?
"Who were you even talking to, down there?"
Van's face slowly forms from confusion to a shit eating grin. "Oh?"
Tai tightens her jaw and rolls her eyes. "She seemed pretty interested in you."
"Oh, you two would get along great then."
Tai swats her arm, and Van laughs. "Yeah, I don't really think so."
"What did Maria do you to, Tai?"
Tai dives right into it this time. "Are you hooking up with other people?"
Van looks her dead in the eyes and laughs. Fully laughs, without a hint of irony. When she lifts her chin up and sees Tai's face, she hardens. "Do you have an understanding of the size of Wiskayok's lesbian population, Tai?"
"Maria was a WHS girl. Maybe you expanded your horizons."
"You think I hooked up with her?" Van chokes out. "She's kind of an asshole, Tai."
"Well, so am I, but that never stopped you." Van is the one to roll her eyes this time, but she smiles. "If she's an asshole, why were you even talking to her?"
Van looks at Tai, still grinning. She shrugs. "What can I say? You're hot when you're jealous."
Yes, Taissa told herself it was about the fact that the WHS girl's soccer team were dicks (which still rang true.) Van spoke about it, though, like Taissa's jealousy was her plea for attention.
Tai can feel Van's eyes on her face as she looks down. Van's body is still close to here and Van's arms are still around her. It's comfortable. Despite everything, she feels safe there. She wonders if Van knows the actual layers of her 'jealousy,' wonders if Van cares that way too.
(When Tai thinks about it alone at night, she knows Van does. She'd be clueless to not notice it. But it feels easier to ponder over whether Van could ever love her back than to deal with the disparity of knowing they could never actually have anything real. Not in Wiskayok.)
Tai feels Van's arms slide from her neck to around her waist. "Hey. I, for one, am not going to be hooking up with anyone else. For the foreseeable future." A pause. "For the obvious reasons. But, you know. There's more to it."
Tai doesn't need to say anything back. Van gets it. Still. "Guess I'm stuck with you, too."
Better for them both to know they're not alone.