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„Grace, what is that?!”
Grace likes to think she doesn’t startle too badly. The noise she makes only sounds vaguely like a yelp, and she only almost drops everything she is holding. Her heart jumps into her throat and starts hammering like she ran a marathon, but hey. Her heart has taken worse abuse in the past few weeks; it’s fine.
So instead of dropping everything, which would have been quite noisy and embarrassing, she turns around and tries to look like she totally expected Freddie to be home at this hour, and wasn’t doing anything that required her to be gone.
“Heyy, Fred! Nothing; absolutely nothing; what is what?”
Freddie’s left eyebrow rises in a way that indicates Grace’s masterful deflection didn’t work. She points: “That. What you are holding. In your hands.”
“Oh. Well- I went shopping.”
Not technically a lie. Grace is terrible with lies. She’s also terrible at not turning into a soft mess when her girlfriend (girlfriend!) watches her with this much focussed attention. Even if that attention is mostly suspicion right now. Which somehow still looks distractingly cute on her. Something about those dark eyes and perfectly curious eyebrows just does it for Grace; sue her.
Speaking of, the eyebrow in question is now in danger of disappearing permanently into Freddie’s hairline. “You hate shopping,” she states slowly.
“Yes, I do, exactly!” Grace gratefully jumps at the opportunity. “And this was actually pretty embarrassing to buy, so I’ll just put it away and we don’t have to talk about it anymore, yeah? Anyway, wow, you look great,” she adds. Which is perfectly true (when isn’t it?), but mainly she needs to distract Freddie so she can save this situation somehow.
“Embarrassing, you say?” Freddie’s eyes light up, and Grace really should have known this was going to backfire. Before she can properly curse herself, Freddie is by her side to sneak a glance at the front of the boxes Grace is holding. In a feat of acrobatics truly worthy of her name for once, Grace just manages to flip them face-down on the carpet. Thankfully the other sides of the boxes are just nondescript cardboard. There’s an audible metallic clang, which she fervently hopes wasn’t harmful to the contents.
“Grace!”
“Freddie!” Grace returns, just as petulantly.
Freddie crosses her arms. For a moment, Grace swears she sees a flicker of gold in those dark eyes. “Grace. Do I need to make you break into song and dance, or are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Grace tries to come up with a response to that, but before she has a chance, Freddie has already backed off and started to sputter: “Not that I would actually! Do that. Cuz I respect your privacy and would never intrude upon it like that. You know that, right?”
“Yes, Fred,” Grace hurries to reassure her. Gods, she loves this woman. Her present angle of Freddie from where Grace is hunched protectively over the boxes is not helping matters. Has she always been this tall or is that another Idol effect?
“Sorry, I’ll stop. Your shopping, your business.” Freddie sends her a shy little smile, with just a hint of mischief still lurking in the corners. “You know I’d never judge you for anything though, right? Can’t blame a gal for being curious if you act so mysterious.”
Grace sighs in resignation. At this point the surprise is completely ruined anyway. Freddie is smart; she’ll piece together exactly what is inside the boxes from the clues eventually.
It’s probably better if Grace reveals it now, so Freddie doesn’t feel obligated to act surprised on the day, right?
“Here.” She flips one of the boxes upright again so Freddie can read it, which Freddie immediately pounces on, of course. She’s always been considerate and respectful, but above all, she is curious. That last trait never completely eclipsed or overwrote the others, but only because Freddie worked at it. It’s always bubbling right under her surface, only barely quenched by books and knowledge and stories.
It also may be what Grace loves most about her. Or maybe it’s the way her eyes narrow and then widen in surprise once she realizes what she’s looking at. Or the flush that comes over her face once excitement drives away the surprise.
Honestly, there are so many things. Grace is pretty certain she’ll discover many more things to love about Freddie, if she’s lucky. And she doesn’t really want to waste time figuring out her favourite; not when all of them kind of are.
Her present situation began with a much simpler question: What do you get a Goddess for her birthday?
“A drum kit. You bought a drum kit?!” Freddie exclaims.
Grace gives an affirming nod. “The rest is still downstairs in the van.”
Excitement rolls off Freddie in waves, finding its outlet in her taking Grace’s arm and squeezing to bruise: “You want to take up drumming?!”
“No!” Grace can’t help but laugh. Freddie tried to get her into it exactly once, before they both acknowledged Grace was better off sticking to singing. But of course she would make that assumption now. Freddie is still too often the last person Freddie thinks of.
Well, Grace is determined to change that, at least in some small ways.
“Then what…?…Oh!” Freddie’s gaze snaps back up to Grace, as the penny drops. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Happy early birthday, Freddster.” Grace offers an embarrassed smile. “I also bought a bunch of Monday Blue stickers to put on it,” she adds. “You know, even though I think they are pretty…”
She never does get to explain what that band is, in her opinion. All words flee her head the second Freddie touches her face and pulls her in for an urgent kiss.
Which, Grace will not complain about. Not ever. Why would she, when she can lean in and kiss the girl of her dreams back, instead? She has to tilt her head up to do it, which she vaguely remembers being annoyed by in previous relationships. Now it feels perfect. It’s Freddie, and she’s soft and gentle and firm; how couldn’t it? With hindsight, Grace supposes there was a reason why those other kisses felt so wrong.
“How did you know?” Freddie whispers once they part long enough for words.
“Because I’m brilliant. Your last set wasn’t exactly subtle about its aging, either. If I hear you hit the wrong note multiple times in a song, I know it can’t have been your fault.”
“Flatterer. This is…wow. Thank you, Grace. Really. But that looks super expensive; you really shouldn’t have.”
“Uh, yes I should,” Grace begs to disagree. “One, you deserve it. Two, we finally have some money, thanks to a few godly sponsors. And three, I figured it was an appropriate offering for, you know, the Muse’s first tour! Now that you’re the goddess of music, your drum solos are gonna be killer.”
Freddie elbows her in response: “Excuse me, what were my drum solos before, in your eyes?! Background noise?”
“Never.”
“Because it sure sounded like you knocked my previously boring mortal musical abilities just now.”
“No! You are doing all the knocking! I just meant, think of the effects that you can add to it now. All the new notes you can hit. Your musical abilities were obviously without parallel before, but you still only had two hands and feet.”
“That…” Freddie starts, stops, and stares. It’s fascinating to watch her go from playful indignation straight to astonishment. “Huh. I didn’t even think about that. Wow. You think I can, like, add an entire bongo and cymbal choir while I’m playing my own set?!”
“It’s interesting that that is the first thing your mind goes to, but sure,” Grace laughs, and she takes Freddie’s hand. Doing that deliberately and without pretence now is new. The spark and the rush of warmth when they touch are not. “I don’t see why not. You can do anything you set your mind to.”
“We-eelll.” Freddie waves vaguely and tugs at her hat in that way that she hopes hides her blush. It doesn’t. “Anything musical, at least.”
“Nope. Anything. Gods and idols have nothing to do with that, that’s literally just you Farishta.”
Freddie groans through her beaming smile. “Gods, Grace, you’re such a sap.”
Grace leans up, grinning. “And you love me for it.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Wow, is that still surreal to hear. It doesn’t help how Freddie says it; full of reverence, like the worship-relationship goes the other way around. It certainly doesn’t help the butterflies in Grace’s stomach. She’ll never fully get used to that.
So she leans up on the tips of her toes and kisses her smiling girlfriend again, because only practice makes perfect.