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Staring at her wardrobe, Daisy Doyle’s heart was racing. She had been invited by Toby to come over – just the two of them. Toby was staying in New York for a while, and had rented out a room in an apartment hotel. The two of them had run into each other at some Nebula function, and Toby had been so kind to her, hence the invite. But, in truth, every time Daisy had to interact with Toby she felt a pang of fear.
Given the male-dominated nature of the creator sphere – especially the sort of creators who an aviation and logistics YouTuber would run into – Toby had been their first female guest on Jet Lag. Obviously, all of the Jet Lag crew – herself, Alice, and Astrid – were transgender women, which meant people were hardly bugging them to have another woman on as a guest. But after two seasons of Brian McManus from Real Engineering, the Wendover team had decided it was time for a change.
But Astrid – the dulcet-voiced narrator and creator of Wendover Productions – had always had more of a foot in the creator scene than Daisy the intern did. Toby, who ran an educational maths channel, had been teamed up with Astrid as the four of them raced to the bottom of New Zealand. Given how that season went, the only time Daisy had ever really interacted with Toby was at Cape Reinga, in Auckland, and after the series had ended at Lookout Point.
It wasn’t that Daisy didn’t want to spend time with Toby. Quite the opposite, in fact. Toby had always struck her as a really sweet, kind, and genuine person. She’d liked speaking with her, and there was part of her that wanted to get to know her better. But aside from recording The Layover, there was almost never a time they spoke to each other. Toby was from a different world, and if she was anyone’s friend she was Astrid’s. There was no way Toby would, beyond her surface-level kindness, be interested in being friends with Daisy.
But then she’d seen Toby, and she was nice, and it seemed as if Daisy’s anxieties should have washed away. Instead, they were replaced by new ones. Why was she so excited to meet up with Toby, anyway? Why was she thinking about it all of the time? Clearly, she was probably just thinking about her body. How fucking gross is that? What sort of f–
Daisy needed to figure out what she was wearing, and she didn’t have much time. She grabbed a button-up shirt, emblazoned with news clippings about various spooky creatures like bat boys and wolf demons, and chucked it on over the lightly padded bra she wore. For the bottoms, she decided on a pair of bulky red-orange pinstripe jeans. She thought they matched weirdly, but she didn’t have time to consider it. Any longer and she’d be late for Toby’s.
—
She gently knocked on the front door, which was the colour of muted oak. “Daisy! You made it! It’s so good to see you.” Toby had a wide, beaming smile on her face, and was wearing a floral sundress, coloured in light yellow. Her hair was braided in its trademark style, falling just below the waist.
Her skin, pale in the New York winter, had been brightened by the subtlest touch of foundation. Daisy couldn’t quite tell if Toby had put on any mascara, or if her eyelashes were just that bright. She almost couldn’t stop herself from staring into the other woman’s steel blue eyes.
She gestured for the other girl to enter, closing the door behind her. On one side of the large room was a small kitchen, which looked suspiciously clean, spare for an unclean dish in the sink, with a plastic dining table set up adjacent to it. Six chairs adorned the table, which Daisy reckoned must have been strange for Toby to sit down at all by herself.
The other side seemed to be the living room portion. There was a leather couch, a glass coffee table with some magazines on it that didn’t look like anything Toby would read, and a plasma television.
“There’s not really much here, in case you can’t tell. But I’m just here in New York for a couple of weeks for a Nebula project, so I figured this would do.”
Toby’s eyes turned around to face the leather couch, which had a level of both darkness and cleanliness to it that Daisy found suspicious. How did they keep it that clean and perfect? Surely some little kid or something would be eating food on there, or they’d drop something and stain it, and it’d be–
“Do you wanna sit down?”
“Huh?”
“On the couch?”
“Oh uhhh….sure.” And so she did, and Toby followed her. When she sat down, Daisy noticed that the couch had that squeakiness to it that leather sometimes does. Any movement or friction and the couch would react. She needed to be careful to sit still so that squeaky sound would stop.
And then Daisy realised that they were both silent. Honestly, she wasn’t good at making conversation. That was a lie – sometimes she was, especially with people she didn’t know or people she knew really well. Honestly, in cases like that she could be too good at making conversation. Alice couldn’t get her to shut up half of the time with her silly ribbings and jokes. It’s why the fandom had viewed her as such a fun, happy-go-lucky, carefree sort of person.
Because that’s how she was around the people she trusted, like Astrid and Alice. She felt silly, joyous, and exuberant. But it was times like this that she felt that it was all just an ill-fitting act, a persona that she’d put on for the camera. Because with Toby, everything was different. She wasn’t enough of a stranger to just strike up random small talk, but she didn’t know her well enough to pretend that some sort of familiarity existed. But she needed to say something, anything.
“How long are you in New York for?”
“Oh, only a few more days. I’ve finished up with most of my filming stuff, so I fly out on Saturday.” Today was a Wednesday. “I wish I’d run into you earlier, it would’ve been cool to see you more! I’ve honestly just been either working my ass off or laying down in this apartment.”
“Yeah, I get that.” She wasn’t sure how to take the other girl’s compliment, but what she was describing sounded a lot like her filming schedules for Jet Lag. It could be exhausting, especially alone.
“What have you been up to?”
“Oh, uh, not much, really. I’ve been pretty busy with work as well.”
“Seen any other friends recently?”
“Other than who?” Daisy had meant that question earnestly. She wasn’t sure if Toby had meant Astrid and Alice who – well, she had a good professional relationship with them, she trusted them, but she wasn’t sure if she’d ever confide in them. She had a sneaking suspicion that the other two merely tolerated her, rather than anything else. She might have wormed her way onto the trip to Alaska, become an intern and then a full-time employee at Wendover, but she knew she couldn’t actually be valued by the people she worked with.
Toby let out a light chuckle. “Well, other than me, I guess.”
“Oh.” It hadn’t occured to Daisy that she could have meant that. “I guess not really? I’ve just been pretty busy, you know.”
“How’s Astrid and everyone at Wendover been, then?”
“They’ve been well.”
“How have you been?”
That was something that Daisy felt like she hadn’t been asked in a long time, or at least not in the way Toby just had. Those words had been said to her, but not in a way that she felt gave her permission to interrogate her default response of insisting that she was fine. The way she sat opposite – Toby’s eyes locked with Daisy’s own, with a keen look on her face mixed with a dash of concern – seemed to suggest that Toby wanted to actually know more about Daisy and her life.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been doing very much lately, if I’m being honest. Work is – it’s a lot, and I spend a lot of time planning for Jet Lag, and away for Jet Lag.”
Toby had a quizzical look on her face. “You’ve haven’t been doing much, but also you’ve been really busy with Jet Lag?”
“Well, yeah, but, I don’t know. I feel very, I guess, unproductive. I know that’s not true, obviously. Sorry, I’m rambling. Could we talk about something else?”
Toby nodded softly. “What do you want to do, then?”
Daisy met her eyes with a blank glare. “What do you mean?”
Toby let out a sigh, which Daisy thought was a sign of frustration. In reality, it was something a bit closer to bemusement. “What do you want to do right now? While you’re here?” Toby let a smile creep across her face, hoping to signal to the other girl a sense of openness and safety.
Daisy paused for a second. “I’m not sure.” A look of uncertainty covered her face for a moment. “Sorry, I know that’s not very helpful. But do you have any suggestions? I’m happy to do whatever you want.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing that you want to do?” Toby hadn’t wanted Daisy to just mindlessly agree to whatever she’d suggested, but the blankness on her face when she had given her choice seemed to suggest that Daisy had a sense of genuine uncertainty and puzzlement about her, as if she had never once considered the question of what she had wanted.
“Nothing comes to mind. Plus, you invited me here. I’m happy if you decide.” Daisy reciprocated Toby’s smile with her own, because she was excited to see what Toby would suggest. And now Toby was the one who was thinking and pondering her responses, as she considered what both she and Daisy might enjoy.
“I could braid your hair, if you wanted.” Daisy looked intently at the other woman’s flowing, light blonde, braided hair that touched the jet black couch they both sat on. Although she couldn’t see her own brown hair at the moment, she projected an image of it to herself – the way it ended just below her shoulders, how it ineptly framed her face, barely managing to project any sort of feminine appeal.
She didn’t like it when her hair was tied up or back, because she thought it made her look even worse, but Daisy was still dissatisfied with the way her hair – which she obstinately refused to cut – lamely tapered out somewhere around her upper back. But she didn’t dislike the idea of it being braided. Toby’s braid had always looked nice.
“Sure, if you’d be happy to!”
“Great! I’ll go get some hairties.” With a bounce in her step that made the leather couch squeak, Toby headed off to her temporary bedroom, and returned with three plain black hairties. “Probably a bit overkill, but you can never be too prepared!” Daisy was pleased that Toby seemed so excited to braid her hair. “Do you have any preference for what sort of braid you want, Daisy?”
“Uhhhhhh…” The question might as well have been asked in a foreign language. She had no idea what sorts of braids there were. “Not really? You can decide, if you’d like. I’m not too fussed.”
The woman pondered for a moment. “How about a French braid? It’s pretty similar to the one I’ve got now, except the hair’s crossed over instead of under.” Daisy nodded her head. She still wasn’t entirely sure what a French braid would look like on her, but she had no idea what any braid would look like on her so she didn’t see much difference.
Toby sat down on the opposite edge of the couch to Daisy, the noisy material reacting as she did so. She gestured to her lap for the other girl to sit down. But Daisy simply stared at her, with a slight sense of confusion and uncertainty in her eye.
“Do you want to come sit in my lap so I can braid your hair?” Daisy wasn’t certain how to respond to Toby’s proposition, and stammered for a moment. “Or you can sit in a chair, if you’d feel more comfortable. I don’t mind either way.”
“No, no, I mean – whatever you’d prefer. I can sit in a chair if you’d like, I just don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. But whatever works best for you.”
“Daisy, there’s nothing you could do right now to make me uncomfortable, so please just be honest with me. What would you prefer?”
And so Daisy thought about for a moment. She thought it would be selfish to take the first option that Toby had offered, because there was a part of her that truly did want to be physically close to Toby. But she didn’t want to feel like she was using Toby’s presence for her own pleasure, or turning this situation into something it wasn’t. But Toby had asked her what she had wanted, and so Daisy felt like she owed her honesty. “I think I’d like it if I could sit on your lap.”
“Great!” Daisy sheepishly stood up and moved across to where Toby sat, placing herself on Toby’s thighs. Toby placed her hands on Daisy’s shoulders to pull her in slightly closer, so that her hair was close enough. The two women were of similar height, meaning that, sat on her lap, Daisy appeared slightly taller. “Is this comfortable for you, Daisy?”
She nodded her head, then realised that Toby might have difficulty seeing that, so she mumbled out a verbal affirmation.
“I’m just going to run my fingers through your hair so I can smooth it out a little bit. Let me know if you want me to stop, okay?”
“Okay.” Daisy hated the glint of excitement she felt when Toby had said “run my fingers through your hair”, and almost hoped, completely irrationally, that Toby hadn’t been able to sense that feeling while she was sat on her lap. Daisy needed to get it out of her head that anything romantic or even flirty was going on here, she thought. She just needed to relax and not be weird for once.
Toby placed her left hand on Daisy’s shoulder, her finger brushing up against the woman’s neck, and used her other hand to sweep through Daisy’s hair. Daisy could feel it now – at first, she wasn’t quite certain if it was simply the cold air of the room and the thin button-up shirt she’d worn, but she could feel the hairs on her arms standing on end.
“Okay, I’m going to start the braid now. If it’s too tight or anything, just let me know.” Toby lifted her hand off of Daisy’s shoulder as she ponytailed Daisy’s hair, splitting it up into three sections, and begun the braid by applying the first hairtie. The sensation of it all – the slight squeaking of the couch as Toby’s hands moved back and forth, the pull that Daisy could feel resonating to her scalp, and just the fact that she was seated in Toby’s lap, inches away from a full embrace – threatened to overwhelm the poor girl.
All the while, Toby braided in slow movements, moving carefully but intently. She was mainly focused in the specifics of what she was doing. After all, she did something similar to herself most days. But she found herself taking the time to observe – or more accurately, stare – at the view of Daisy that she had. Her hair was soft and pliable, and its brunette sheen almost seemed to glisten as she tossed around the strands. Toby even found herself catching glimpses of the nape of the other girl’s neck.
“Your hair’s really pretty, Daisy. It’s quite braidable.” Daisy didn’t want to visibly react, for fear of alarming the other girl. But she was taken aback by her kindness, and perhaps even by the slightest u–-Nope. She couldn’t think like that. Nothing like that, or even close to that, was happening right now.
“I don’t think my hair’s ever been called braidable before.”
Toby giggled. “Well, it’s very braidable. And soft. It’s got a nice colour to it, too.”
Daisy could feel it again – the goosebumps spreading across her arms, a light trembling rising within her. She didn’t want to feel like this. She just wanted to enjoy the company of her friend Toby. “Thank you for braiding my hair, by the way. I really appreciate it.”
“Aw, it’s no problem. You’ve got really nice hair, anyway. I think the braid’s just about done, as it so happens.” She affixed the second and final hairtie, and let go of Daisy’s hair. Toby reached forward to clasp the woman’s palm, bringing her hand backwards to touch the braid. Daisy clearly wasn’t expecting her to do that, but her wrist was helpfully pliable when grabbed by Toby. “Do you like it?”
“Most people would just bring a mirror to show me how my braid looked.”
Toby scoffed. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring my hand mirror to New York City, Daisy. God.”
“It feels nice, though. I think.”
“Well, I can tell you that from the view I have it looks lovely. But a lot of other things look lovely from this view, as well.”
“Like what?” For once, Daisy wasn’t being deliberately stupid or trying to make a joke. She was genuinely confused.
Toby let out another giggle. “I’m sure you can figure it out.” She placed the tips of her right fingers on the edge of Daisy’s back, and it was only then that Daisy finally realised what she meant. She could feel her heart pumping in her chest, the shivers spreading throughout her body. It was all too much for her. She wanted to pull back, to run away – but Daisy had found herself frozen, not wanting to betray the intensity of her emotions or upset Toby, so she stayed put like a deer in headlights. And there was silence for a few moments, until Toby broke it.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah.” Despite her best intentions, Daisy’s flat, monotone response suggested otherwise.
“Are you sure? You seem kind of nervous.”
Daisy was silent again, but then stood up, lifting herself from Toby’s lap and causing the couch to abruptly squeak. “I’m sorry. I think I should go.”
The surprise in Toby’s face was self-evident. “Are you sure? Is there anything I can do to help?” And in that moment, Daisy felt like there wasn’t, like all she needed was to get as far away from Toby as humanly possible, so she could be free of the pit in her stomach that seemed to riddle her whenever she was around this other woman, but then Toby said something unexpected. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
This paused Daisy’s haste for a moment. In a soft tone of voice – almost a whisper – she stopped in her tracks and responded. “What would you have done to make me feel uncomfortable?”
“I probably shouldn’t have been flirting with you as much as I was. I mean, I don’t know – you’re really pretty, and I thought you might have been into me as well, but clearly that’s not true, so, I’m sorry.”
Daisy looked back to the couch. God, how could she have been so stupid? She couldn’t quite piece together everything that had happened, but she thought she should at least try. She walked back over to the leather couch and sat down opposite Toby, the couch making a loud noise as she did so.
“Don’t be sorry. I – I don’t really know what to say, but you shouldn’t be sorry. I was really worried, I think, because I just was getting really stressed that you were flirting with me, but I think because I didn’t recognise it as flirting? Like, I think I just thought you were being nice, and then I felt, I guess, like it was a romantic thing? And then I felt bad for assuming it was a romantic thing? And then I just kept feeling worse. And…”
Daisy couldn’t stop rambling. It was honestly kind of adorable. Toby had the slightest sense of nervousness about the whole situation, but was mainly relieved that she hadn’t grievously misread Daisy or creeped her out. So she reached forward and hugged the other girl, letting Daisy’s face rest on her shoulder. Softly, she whispered to Daisy that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, and that this was okay if they both wanted it to be. Toby could feel Daisy trembling in her arms, tears almost welling up in her eyes. It had clearly been a long time since she had been this close to someone.
Toby held Daisy for a couple of minutes until she pulled back, wanting to assess the emotions of the woman she embraced. Daisy certainly seemed more relaxed and at ease than the nervous, anxiety-ridden face that Toby had seen when she tried to leave. Toby had gone to say something, but was caught off-guard when Daisy spoke first.
“Thank you. That felt really nice.” Daisy’s face was coloured a shade of light pink, with her new braid bobbing down behind her shoulder. “I don’t know what you’d like to do next, but thank you for being so understanding.”
A sense of relief shot across Toby’s body, and she smiled back at Daisy. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I don’t want to rush into anything right now, I don’t think…but I would really like to kiss you. Are you okay with that, Daisy?”
She nodded, almost too quickly. “I feel like it’s probably a good idea to take things slow.” Toby had already seen how nervous Daisy could get at times. “But I think I’d like it if you kissed me.”
Toby nodded to telegraph her acceptance. She looked at Daisy intently, into her off-blue jade eyes, and saw a quiver of anticipation on the other woman’s face. She placed her hand onto Daisy’s shoulder, and moved in closer so that their lips could touch. Toby watched as Daisy’s eyes closed in preparation, as Daisy’s face tilted ever-so-slightly. She could tell that Daisy wanted this so badly, moreso than she had dared to let on. It was a tantalising thought for Toby.
And finally, she met Daisy’s face with a kiss, moving softly and slowly but intently. Toby used her hands to grip the brunette closer, in a way she could tell Daisy enjoyed. She tugged slightly at the French braid she had so intricately crafted moments ago, and let herself be captivated by Daisy’s soft murmurs into her mouth.
Toby pushed herself deeper into the kiss, first nipping at the bottom of Daisy’s soft pink lips and then letting her tongue push past her teeth to reach the inside of Daisy’s lips. It took the other girl a moment to respond, but soon the two of them locked tongues, and the sensation drove Toby to lean further forward, pushing Daisy’s body further onto the couch that, much like the woman she was kissing, was sensitive to every little movement she made.
After what felt like forever, she pulled back from Daisy’s lips, wanting to examine her face. Daisy’s breathing was heavy – certainly heavier than Toby’s, despite the fact she hadn’t been doing nearly as much. Her adorable blueish eyes were wide and surrounded by a flushed face, anchored by a smile emerging as her lips processed Toby’s absence.
A stray strand of hair, which Toby had either managed to miss when braiding or which had come undone as the two had kissed, sat gently on Daisy’s cheek. Loosening her grip slightly, Toby moved her hand to tuck the errant strand behind Daisy’s ear, giving her a small peck on the cheek as she did so. Toby saw how Daisy’s face had lit up when she had done that, and it was arguably maybe the prettiest thing in the world.
Toby let her go then, still maintaining a closeness in physical contact but ending their kiss. She wanted to wait for Daisy to say something, but as it became clear by the look on her face that she was still processing it all, Toby spoke up first.
“I really liked that. You’re really beautiful.”
Daisy blushed deeper when that last word left Toby’s mouth. She didn’t quite have an adequate verbal response, so instead she moved herself closer to Toby, almost nuzzling her head against the blonde’s shoulders. “Thank you. I liked that a lot as well.”
Toby moved her hand to pet the side of Daisy’s face. “I’m glad. It was really fun and you were really cute.”
“Thank you for being understanding, by the way. I know I was being a bit weird earlier.”
Toby angled Daisy up slightly, so that the two of them could make eye contact. “Hey. I want you to know that you weren’t doing anything weird, I promise. There’s nothing you’ve ever done to make me feel weird or uncomfortable, Daisy. I know this might seem forward, but I really like you.”
Daisy let herself smile. “I really like you too. Thank you.” She returned herself to the position where she felt most comfortable – laying on Toby’s shoulder, as Toby’s hand moved across her face in soft strokes yet again.
“I know I’m not in New York for that much longer, but I’d like to see you again if you’d want. We could call it a date.”
Daisy’s eyes looked upwards. “Would you really like to do that?”
“If you’re okay with it. I’m free this Friday.”
“I could do Friday night.”
“Awesome. I’ll see you again in two days, then.” Toby sat the other girl up again, hoping to use the seriousness of eye contact to make a genuinely silly point. “But just a word of warning. I held myself back today, but I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my hands off you if we see each other again. You should be ready for that.”
Daisy couldn’t restrain herself from letting out a big dumb grin. “I’ll be sure to wear a dress that makes you just want to rip it off by the end of the night, I promise.”
“Good. I look forward to it.” Toby gave the back of Daisy’s head a lighthearted scratch, and locked her in an embrace again. They still had some time left today, and even if they weren’t going to kiss again, Toby liked the way that Daisy felt in her arms – and she could tell by the look of contentness and calm on Daisy’s face that neither of them were in any rush to part ways.