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“I still don’t think this is a good idea.” Taissa shook her head disapprovingly as she scanned the empty parking lot from the driver’s seat of her car.
“You worry too much,” Van replied, pulling an Altoids tin from the pocket of her cargo shorts. “School’s been out for hours, the entire parking lot is empty, and I made sure we were the last ones out of the locker room.” She popped open the tin and pulled a small joint and a lighter from it before returning it to her pocket. Noticing Tai’s gaze still trained on the asphalt, she rolled her eyes and lifted the joint to rest between her lips. “Tai, relax,” she mumbled. “I brought something to take the edge off.” At the sound of the lighter flicking, Taissa snapped her head to the passenger seat and grimaced.
“Van, what the fuck? Is that pot?” Tai’s eyes nearly popped out of her skull. “We can’t smoke in here! My mom will have a conniption if she smells it. Where did you even get that?” After a shared look, Tai felt stupid for asking.
“Natalie,” they answered simultaneously.
“Of course,” Tai admitted, breaking their eye contact to roll hers and turn back towards the lot. She was starting to wonder what she was still doing there. “Look, I don't need that stuff. Let’s just do this and get out of here.”
“Wow, we really need to work on your dirty talk,” Van joked sarcastically. She received a light slap on the arm from Tai for this but nothing more. “Tai, c’mon,” Van said, plucking the joint back out of her mouth to better argue her case. “We can crack the windows and douse the car in perfume afterward. Your mom won’t even know.” She still wasn’t budging. Van reached out and gently guided Tai’s focus back to the passenger seat. “I know how hard you’ve been working on the field lately. You deserve a break.” She offered the joint to Tai with a soft smile to make it go down easier. Tai’s eyes dropped down to the olive branch and back up to the girl she admittedly couldn’t help falling for and felt her resolve break. But there was still one problem.
“I-” she started before averting her gaze to the cloth roof of the car sheepishly. For once in her life, Van was quiet, not wanting to jeopardize her rare opportunity to corrupt Taissa Turner. After briefly closing her eyes in hesitation, Tai steeled her face and decided to get it over with. “I don’t know how,” she begrudgingly confessed. Taissa Turner is talented at many things. Admitting ignorance isn’t one of them. Van’s eyebrows twitched in surprise.
“What? Really?” Van questioned impishly. Tai’s eyes narrowed in warning. She definitely wasn’t about to say it again. “Well,” Van mused, looking down at the joint still pinched between her fingers. “What if I teach you?” Glancing back up at Tai, she received a look of intrigue, which slowly turned into consideration. With a final stolen peek at the lot, Van got her answer.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Van couldn’t believe her luck. Tai nodded her confirmation and sat up straight, ready to learn. Van excitedly offered her the joint once more and rolled down her window. This time, Tai slowly accepted it, as though it were a live grenade. She had seen enough TV to know how to lift it to her lips. Once it was in its rightful place, Van began coaching her through it. “Okay, when I light it, just take a slow, deep breath, hold it for a second, and then let it out.” She could see the nerves on Tai’s face and smiled. “You’ll do great.” With a nod of consent from Tai, Van flicked the lighter and lifted it to the end of the measly joint Nat gave her. Van had had a hunch that Tai wouldn’t exactly be enthused at her proposition, so she asked Nat for a “sample size,” knowing it would be an easier pill for Tai to swallow.
Tai followed all of Van’s steps:
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Cough.
Cough again.
Erupt into a coughing fit and then...
Float.
Once she managed to regain her bearings, Tai sunk back into her seat and took a couple of slow blinks as she took in her surroundings as if for the first time. Van looked on with her signature smirk, taking the joint from Tai’s hand and bringing it to her lips.
“Not bad, rookie,” she joked, taking a puff of her own. “How do you feel?”
“Funny…” Tai replied, a slow smile forming while her eyes began to droop. Van chuckled, her own eyes getting redder as the car filled with smoke.
“Yeah, it tends to do that.” They laughed together for a while, both at the joke and at the sheer absurdity of their situation. Here they were, hiding their relationship (for lack of a better word) from their friends, their families, and themselves by sneaking around and making excuses, all so that they could fool around in the backs of cars and underneath bleachers. It was ridiculous, but to them, at that moment, it was everything.
After a while, Tai found herself studying Van like never before. She was looking at her as though through a microscope. She individually admired each and every freckle and almost lost herself in Van’s eyes. Slowly, though, Tai’s eyes fell to Van’s lips, and from that point on, Tai couldn’t think of anything or anyone else. Van inevitably caught this and started sporting a shit-eating grin.
“Do I have something on my face?” Van quipped.
“Shut up,” Tai retorted, closing the distance between them and pressing her lips to Van’s. She felt tingly and dizzy in the best possible way, and, with Van’s hand coming to rest on her thigh, it was as if she was on two drugs at once.
Tai’s lips were the softest Van had ever kissed and tasted like cherry cola lip balm. She adjusted the angle and deepened the kiss, gently sucking Tai’s bottom lip into her mouth and tentatively licking it. With a soft moan in response, Tai let her in, opening her lips to meet Van’s tongue with her own. Van’s fingers crawled closer to the hemline of Tai’s skirt.
Craving more, Tai let her teeth rest on Van’s lower lip and gave it a slight tug. Not rough enough to hurt, but just enough to tease. Judging by the way Van’s eyes darkened, it worked. Just as she was about to wrap her arms around Van, she was halted in place.
“Wait,” Van interjected. With words no longer needed, she reached to the side of her seat and pulled the lever that was waiting for her there. Slowly, she leaned back, never breaking Tai’s eye contact. Once fully reclined, she wiggled her pointer finger at Tai, encouraging her to do the same. Tai followed suit before leaning across the center console, eager to continue what they started. It was messy and awkward but comfortable. They were used to this: Stealing small moments with each other in privacy. Shaking off the expectations that were forced upon them and stretching their true selves’ wings in an environment of mutually assured destruction. This was what they risked expulsion and disownment for, and it was so worth it.
Van deftly reached across the seat and grabbed Tai’s thigh again, this time her fingers landing just under the hem of her skirt. Wrapping her fingers around Tai’s leg, she tugged it closer with desperation. Tai pulled back from the kiss to see if she understood Van’s intentions correctly. When she was met with a daring quirk of an eyebrow, she smiled, bit her lip, and started kicking her shoes off.
Ben finally finished putting away all of the equipment the team had used during practice. Usually, he wasn’t alone in this, but today, the other staff members had all called out sick, and he was stuck babysitting the gang of teenage girls by himself. This meant that set up and tear down took longer than usual, and that, by this point, he was even more eager to get home. He hurriedly grabbed his bicycle helmet from under his small desk and strapped it to his head as he left the building, intending to walk towards the bike rack. He hesitated, though, noticing a lone car in the back of the otherwise empty parking lot. It piqued his curiosity since he thought he’d surely be the last one to leave, but his desperation for relaxation outweighed whatever interest he had in the car, and he continued his journey to his bike.
“Ignore it, Ben,” he thought to himself. “It’s probably nothing. You have no obligation to check it out. Just go home.” Unfortunately, as soon as he touched his handlebars, an unmistakable odor made his nose twitch. He looked back towards the car and, this time, noticed the wisps of smoke coming from the passenger window. Knowing that he could no longer justify ignoring the car’s presence, he threw his head back with a sigh and a curse. He begrudgingly lowered his leg from where it was poised to mount the bike and began to follow his nose to the source of the offensive smell. As he got closer, he could tell that the car windows were fogged. Clearly, cracking the window hadn’t accomplished much for whoever’s bright idea that was. Rolling his eyes, he continued on his path toward the driver’s side door.
Straddling Van’s lap in the passenger seat, Tai guided Van’s hands to her hips without breaking their kiss. She planted her own hands in Van’s hair and started a slow grind on her lap, causing Van’s nipples to harden beneath her shirt at the feeling of Tai’s body writhing on top of her. Dry humping was a recent addition of theirs, unlocked two weeks ago when Tai wore her hair a certain way that Van couldn’t possibly have been expected to resist.
It was Van’s turn to moan, pulling Tai’s hips against her and letting her fingers squeeze the top of her ass through her skirt. Unlike the half-finished joint that was currently swimming in the bottom of her water bottle, Van was on fire. Tai still smelled like shampoo from her post-practice shower, and Van started imagining the day that she’d be able to join her in one of those. Desperate for more of Tai, Van started slowly raising her hands up Tai’s frame, taking her shirt with them. They parted their lips only for the second that it was absolutely necessary, and the shirt was lost to the backseat.
Getting an idea, Tai let a hand travel from Van’s scalp down to her broad chest, steadying herself before slowly letting it fall lower and lower until the tips of her fingers kissed the button on Van’s shorts. A gasp broke their lips apart, causing Tai to wonder if she was moving too fast. She started to pull back from Van’s lips so that she could ask but didn’t get very far. Van simply nodded and pulled Tai back to her lips with a needy yank to the front of her sports bra. With Van’s encouragement, Tai began clumsily working the button open, only taking a quick peek to find the zipper before undoing that as well. She got the sudden urge to see Van’s reaction, so she dragged her lips from Van’s and met her lust-filled eyes. It was then that she hesitated, gently pushing her hand into Van’s pants but opting to stick to the outside of Van’s boxers for now. Even through her drug-induced haze, she knew this wasn’t the right time to go that far for the first time. Not yet. Still, she found what she was looking for. The warm evidence of Van’s arousal was seeping through the soft, thin material and now coating Tai’s fingertips. They both hummed at the contact before reconnecting their lips and resuming their rhythm. Tai started rubbing the pads of her fingers against the wet spot. She barely knew what she was doing, but Van seemed to like it anyway. With a burst of confidence, Tai started to kiss her way across Van’s jawline and down her neck.
“Fuck, Tai,” Van panted. With her head thrown back and eyes closed in ecstasy, Van didn’t see the man walking up to the driver’s side window.
Ben arrived at the car, eager to get this over with. However, when he bent down to scold who he assumed would be some of the delinquents who sat at Natalie’s lunch table, his annoyed expression turned to shock as he was met with two people he never expected to see: Taissa Turner and Vanessa Palmer. And not only were two of his best players surrounded by smoke, but they were vigorously making out in the passenger seat. Before he could fully comprehend what he was looking at, Van opened her eyes and met his gaze.
“Fuck, Tai!” Van repeated, with much more urgency this time around, as she opened her eyes to see their coach watching them from the driver’s side window. Lost in concentration, Tai continued sucking color onto Van’s neck.
“Mm, you like that?” she mumbled with a smirk, blissfully unaware of their audience. Without breaking eye contact with her coach, Van took a confused Tai by the shoulders and put a couple inches of space between them before taking her by the jaw and physically turning her head towards the window.
“Fuck!” Tai echoed, frozen in shock as she sobered up in a hurry. Van glanced down at the arm that was still wrist deep in her shorts and yanked it out herself since it seemed that Tai was clearly too petrified to move.
Finally regaining control of his own body, Ben stood back up and averted his eyes, desperately looking for anything else to focus them on while he worked out how to best approach the situation.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed, realizing things just got a lot more complicated. As he stood there hoping a solution (or at least something sharp and heavy) would fall on him, the car started slightly shaking, as if it too was uncomfortable to be part of the situation. In reality, he assumed it was because it was harboring two girls who were attempting to fight their highs and make themselves look somewhat presentable. He eventually concluded that he now had no choice but to intervene, as awkward as it would be. Once the car had ceased its shuddering, Ben reluctantly raised his hand and knocked on the window. It began to roll down with matching hesitation, more and more smoke billowing out of it as it went. Raising an eyebrow, Ben had to admit to himself that if he wasn’t so upset, he’d be somewhat impressed.
“Can I help you?” Tai asked once she had cleared her throat. Her upper half now loosely clad in an oversized zip-up hoodie hastily snatched from somewhere in the back seat, Tai’s hands were now planted firmly on the steering wheel, and her eyes stared straight through the windshield, as if trying to counteract the fact that she was still out of breath, droopy-eyed, and half-dressed.
“Uh yeah,” the coach scoffed, evidently not convinced. “You wanna tell me what the hell you two are doing out here?”
“Yeah, you first, perv!” Van shouted from the passenger seat, arms crossed in a mix of defiance and annoyance at the interruption. This earned her a stern look and another slap on the arm from Tai, who didn’t want to get into more trouble than they were already in.
“Uh, I work here, genius,” Ben replied, frankly. There was no beating around the bush anymore. “Do you guys know how stupid this is?” Tai felt the guilt eating at her. She had to say something.
“Coach Scott, we’re so sorr-” she began apologizing.
"I could have you arrested for drug possession on school grounds,” Ben interrupted. At the mention of this, Taissa looked to Van in fear. “And I’m pretty sure some of that fell under the ‘lewd conduct’ portion of the student handbook.” Van looked at Tai, embarrassed that she had roped her into this. The girls hung their heads in shame, mentally preparing themselves for whatever was going to happen next. “That being said,” Ben continued with a sigh, “I know what it’s like to hide.” He watched the girls exchange a look of curiosity but didn’t let them dwell on it for too long. “Plus, with the way the team has been playing this season, we might actually have a shot at going to nationals this year, and we can’t do it without you two, so...” The girls met their coach’s gaze. Was he saying what they thought he was saying? “How about we just…keep this between us?” After a shared look of incredulity, the girls began frantically thanking the coach.
“Coach Scott, thank you so much!” Tai praised.
“Holy shit, coach, we owe you BIG time,” Van added.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ben dismissed, standing up once again. “Just get out of here and don’t let me catch you again, or I’ll have no choice but to report you.” The girls nodded eagerly, watching as Ben turned and walked back towards the bike rack. With him finally a safe distance away, the girls relaxed into their seats.
“Holy shit,” Tai said, running her hands through her thick, curly hair to calm herself down. “That was way too lucky.”
“Yeah,” Van agreed. “That could have been MUCH more embarrassing.” The girls heard their coach shout one last addition as he walked away.
“Van, your fly is down!”