Chapter Text
“When you think happiness
I hope you think that little black dress
Think of my head on your chest
And my old faded blue jeans”
No one knows that they’re out here, laid side by side in the bed of Jade’s truck. They’re the only ones around for miles. Drove out this far on purpose. And yet…it’s far from silent. An orchestra sounds all around them: the cicadas chirping their calls for mating, bullfrogs singing out an opera. Lightning bugs dot the air, a light show amongst the music. But all Jade cares to hear is her girl’s voice as she regales her with a play-by-play of the dinner her divorced parents made her sit through at the one nice steak house two towns over. All Jade cares to look at are the wide blue eyes she continually brushes that mop of dark hair away from.
Kit lifts her head up from where it had been resting on Jade’s chest, moving this way and that every time she’d made Jade laugh over the telling of some joke Airk made or the pinched look on Sorsha’s face when Madmartigan ordered a beer and said bottle is fine, instead of asking for a glass.
The wrinkled fabric of Kit’s black dress rides up, revealing the creamy white skin of her thigh. Jade’s hand is like a magnet, immediately grabbing hold. She hates that Sorsha makes Kit wear a dress to dinner, but she doesn’t hate how much easier it is to touch that soft, warm skin she loves so much.
“We could run away, you know,” Kit says. Her eyes flit away from Jade’s, but her fingers trace a pattern along the freckles exposed at the collar of Jade’s t-shirt. “We’re eighteen. Nobody need come after us.”
“Your mom would.”
“Yeah,” Kit sighs. They’ve been down this road before. Both ready to get out of the small town that Kit’s family has owned half of for a century and a half. They’ve had half-formed plans for years now, and Jade has been saving up every penny she gets from working weekends and after school at the Hastur farm.
“I’ve been thinking about next week a lot,” Kit whispers. Her fingers stop their dance and grip tight to Jade’s collar as if she’s willing herself to remember that they’re together, they’re real. That next week? When she has to wear that white dress and get introduced to society during the Debutante Ball, Graydon Hastur by her side? That’s not the real her.
The real her is in the back of Jade’s pick-up listening to old-school country music on low, pressed up against freckled skin, lips pillowed against Jade’s.
“What about it?” Jade asks, wrapping her arms tighter around Kit, a reminder that she is here. They are here. Always and forever.
“I was thinking, actually, not just thinking. I’ve decided what I want.”
“What’s that Princess?” She presses a kiss to Kit’s neck.
“I’m going to tell Graydon that he should be Elora’s date.”
“You’re ma’ll blow a gasket if you don’t have a date.”
Then, a mischievous grin spreads across her girl’s brilliant, perfect, unforgettable face. “Well, you got a suit, don’t you?”