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Standing next to the speakers, the bass comes through the floor and into the soles of Ashlyn’s shoes; a nearly soothing deep rumble that would be relaxing if not for Rhianna’s high pitched warble that she can feel in her teeth. The watered down old fashioned in her hand threatens to slip every time the guy next to her attempts to drop low to the ground, mostly just flailing with exuberance and having to desperately latch on to the DJ booth next to him, whether due to lack of coordination or three too many Bud Lights. His left hip keeps nudging back into her, and no matter how many times he slurs an apology, it happens over and over again.
It’s not that she’s having a bad time, exactly. In fact, after coming off of three weeks of training for the upcoming national team tournament, she’s happy to be in actual clothes instead of her kit and cleats. Ashlyn does her best to relax into the music, allow her body to sway in time with the thundering bass, let the whiskey race through her veins and through the ache in her shoulder muscles and through the haze of frustration at the woman dancing across the floor from her.
Ashlyn is unable to deny that she’s incredibly beautiful; deep purple dress hugging every inch of her hard earned form, material bunching at the bend of her hip into her thighs, swiveling side to side in perfect time to the remixed pop song blaring over the speaker system. She’s got her hands on her sides, gliding up the barely there bodice, fingertips teasing the edge of the neckline and the straps and directing the eyes of everyone watching up, up, up to her exquisite jawline. From there it’s a tortuous trip from the peaks of her sharp cheekbones to her eyes, God her eyes. They’re wide and a warm tawny brown and framed with meticulously lacquered lashes and they’re staring at someone else. She’s got her gaze fixed on some asshole wearing an Affliction tee shirt over shitty ripped jeans and Ashlyn hates every inch of him.
It’s been three weeks and Ashlyn can’t remember who she was before she got to camp. It’s only been a short time since she met her and still, it feels like time started over when they first shook hands. She’s never believed in that bullshit of love at first sight or soul mates or fate but Ali Krieger has changed all of that with her stupid smile lines and wide grin and the way her tongue peeks between her teeth because all Ashlyn can do is stare helplessly at her on the field and avert her eyes in the locker room and think about her every second that she isn’t there.
The guy dancing with Ali wraps a possessive hand around her waist and tugs her closer and Ashlyn takes it as her cue to finish her drink and go on a mission for another. As she struggles through the throng of hot, sweaty bodies, trying her hardest to stay far away from Ali’s line of sight, she catches Megan Rapinoe’s eye from the bar. It’s an arduous fifty feet, complicated by arms and elbows and hips and more than a few asses thrown her way, whether purposefully or by design of the small, cramped space. When she comes up to her teammate at last, she rolls her eyes and brings her head down to the edge of the bar in defeat.
“You look like you’re having a blast.” Pinoe quips before hiding behind a sip of her beer.
Ashlyn looks over at her, then around them with her hands up. “I don’t know how I couldn’t. It’s always been a favorite pastime of mine to be crushed by tons of sweaty people dry humping each other while I drink overpriced alcohol and lose fragments of my hearing.”
“I think you’d do better on the hearing if you weren’t glued to the speakers. What, do you think it’s your job to hold them up?”
That earns Pinoe a scowl, but any retaliating remark is cut short by Ashlyn pointing to her drink. “Another one of these please. Don’t worry about sparing my taste buds.” As the bartender nods and turns away, Ashlyn tries her hardest to focus on her: a very attractive blonde that normally she would be into, but all she can think of is brown hair and defined arms and she definitely doesn’t have the same smile and she’d bring her head down on the bar again if she wasn’t worried that she couldn’t gauge the force.
Pinoe arches an eyebrow and reaches over to tap her shoulder. “Seriously, you okay?” Before tonight, Ashlyn was happy to have made fast friends with the forward; an instant bond that was strengthened each day and made invaluable around the many new faces. Now, she realized how much she’d compromised in secret keeping.
When Ashlyn looks up and tries to meet her eyes, Ali distracts her from across the room as she spins to dance with Becky Sauerbrunn and Alex Morgan, who had also agreed for a night out. There is an instant flood of relief when Ashlyn realizes that the Affliction guy has been edged out of the way in favor of the girls, and it must show on her face because Pinoe follows her gaze and it takes about two seconds to let it click into place.
“Krieger?”
Ashlyn immediately snaps her eyes back and before she can even try to come up with a lame excuse, she reads the revelation on Pinoe’s face and she can feel her shoulders deflate with a half-hearted shrug.
“It’s just been three weeks. I keep trying to tell myself that once we’re apart it’ll fade but so far I’m fucked.”
Pinoe swivels on her barstool to get a lengthy look and when she turns back, her head is tilted to the side. “Honestly, I can’t blame you. Purple is really her color.”
“Jesus, anything is her color,” Ashlyn starts and before she can relay her belief that a tattered Hefty bag would look stunning wrapped around her muscular shape, deliverance comes in the form of a freshly made drink and she sets her mind on the task of enjoying as much whiskey as safely possible.
Pinoe takes another slow draw from her beer and gestures behind her. “It’s just been since camp started then? I mean, I could see you guys got close fast, but that’s pretty typical when training like this.” Ashlyn gives a morose nod in response before going back to nursing her glass.
“Crushes are the worst.” Off this, there’s a kind look from Pinoe, unable to know truly what to say, only feeling the camaraderie of three weeks of constant proximity and the trope of lesbians and straight girls. Everything is there and still, Ashlyn can only nod with the threat of speaking out of turn overwhelming her and keeping her mouth shut.
There’s a pregnant silence between them as Ashlyn pretends not to sneak glances over the top of her glass and Pinoe, in turn, pretends not to notice. When the DJ starts to transition to the next song, the consensus from the floor is not one of appreciation and there’s an exodus to the bar. Ashlyn tries in vain to collect her change from the slick bar while fumbling to drop some bills into the tip jar, wasting the few moments available for an escape. Then Ali is there, all breathless giggles and heat coming from her body, chest heaving with effort and rubbing the tops of her thighs while groaning.
“I swear, you guys are too flexible for me. I can’t get that low anymore.” Like it’s nothing, and to her it is, Ali’s hand brushes Ashlyn’s forearm as she leans forward to try to get the bartender’s attention. It’s a fleeting second but Ashlyn’s pulse leaps and her sip turns into a gulp instead.
Becky’s hands on her shoulders are a welcome distraction, along with Alex squeaking in between her and Pinoe. Ashlyn’s head leans back and she knocks against her chest, “What? We’ve been training all of these weeks and you guys can’t even dance for more than five minutes at a time?”
The three of them laugh but Alex includes a nudge of her elbow into Ashlyn’s ribs. “It’s actually been about twenty, thanks. Besides, I didn’t see you out there.”
When Ali’s eyes cut over to meet Ashlyn’s, the latter is embarrassed to realize she actually stops breathing for a moment, catching up with a hitch. It shouldn’t affect me this much, you shouldn’t affect me this much, she thinks, hoping against hope that maybe it’ll stop right there and they can just be friends and she won’t pine away for her when they go their separate ways in a few weeks.
But she’s so fucking close right now. Even in the dim club lighting she can make out the light freckles over the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks when the strobe lights flicker their way and Ali’s eyes are locked on to hers and they’re so wonderfully bright and vibrant and her lashes go on for miles and her stupid face was crafted by God’s hands in the image of an angel and –
Wait, why does she look confused?
“S-sorry, what did you say?” Ashlyn stammers when Pinoe nudges her in the calf.
Ali just smiles wider, “I said ‘Yeah, I couldn’t help but notice you two being bumps on the log’.”
Again, Pinoe comes to save the day, “It’s our job to make sure no one weird comes around you guys. Special job, assigned specifically to us. If we were to engage in the dancing, well … It would be compromising the mission.”
Becky rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I think it’s really that you two aren’t interested in being shown up. If your post is to prevent creeps, you’ve been falling down on the job. I still feel handprints on me and poor Kriegs had to work extra hard to get the Ed Hardy reject away from her.”
With a small thrill, Ashlyn perks up. “It looked pretty cozy over there from HQ.”
“If your idea of cozy is getting a contact high from too much CK Eternity then sure, we were like two puppies cuddling for a nap,” Ali says with a deep eye roll.
Alex snorts, “That guy was seriously gross. I don’t know how he didn’t think we’d catch on to the fact that his two hands were reaching for two different asses.”
There’s only a quick flash of a devilish grin before Pinoe chimes in with a heavy clap on Ashlyn’s shoulder, “You know … I could stay here and man the battle station if you wanted to go, you know, undercover.” There’s a lilt on the last word and Ashlyn’s cheeks are burning but she keeps her face in a solid mask, refusing to betray the embarrassed heat rising from her chest.
Becky and Alex immediately start tapping on her shoulders and arms while Ali works on paying for her incoming drink. “Yeah! Come on! You look super bored here.”
Ashlyn shoots Pinoe a fuck off and die glare before starting to shake her head, “You know, I took a hard dive earlier in goal and you know, my leg is killing me.”
But Alex is already giving her own headshake and starting to tug on her shirtsleeves, “We’re not buying that horseshit for a second. Besides, that wasn’t a dive so much as a flop. And if you were gonna use it to complain about later, you probably should’ve at least made the save.”
Ashlyn mimes a soft punch and a scandalized expression before she feels Ali’s hand slide over hers. “Really, come on! It’ll be fun.” And when they make eye contact again, there’s something else there that Ashlyn can’t really put her finger on. In an instant, she’s running through all of their interactions over the last three weeks, trying to find out if there was another instance of their hands touching. Hugs and shoulder bumps and the occasional sportsmanlike pop on the ass but this is the first time their fingers have been this close together and Ashlyn’s are full of live wires and there’s a crackle of something.
From her right, Pinoe and Becky are talking back and forth and Becky releases a peel of laughter that grabs Ali’s attention and when their eye contact breaks, Ashlyn is a little relieved. “What’s so funny?” she asks, a bit too late and Ali is biting the edge of a grin, looking at the two at the end.
“Pinoe says that you’re quite the move buster in the hotel hallways. Apparently there have been dance offs? How have we missed this?” And for the umpteenth time in the last few minutes, Ashlyn is desperately reconsidering their friendship because at this point, she half expects her to tell Ali that all she wants is to go back to the hotel and go at it like rabbits.
“I wouldn’t say it was a dance off. That would imply that the competition was equal.” Becky and Alex laugh together, and Ashlyn feels an echo of natural confidence around girls; never one to shy away or not nail the punch line, which is part of what’s making Ali so confounding. Typically, her style is to charm and dazzle and go in swiftly for the kill, never straying into dickhead territory and choosy in regards to whom she chases but also with a very low failure rate.
“Then by all means, why don’t you go out there and demonstrate your skills for them?” The song in the background is changing and the DJ must really have a hard on for Rhianna because the tiny space is reverberating Oh na na, what’s my name? and there are squeals of joy and appreciation and the floor is filling up as quickly as it emptied.
Alex and Becky start running off and call behind them: “Come on!” Ali is downing her vodka tonic quickly to her left, tapping on Ashlyn’s forearm. When she emerges from her fourth swallow, she jerks her head after them, “Yeah, come on! You can use those big keeper arms to knock away the skeeves.” She doesn’t wait for a reply and instead their eye contact lingers once more before her gait turns into more of a shake and then she’s back with the other two.
A few moments pass while Ashlyn drains her glass, and Pinoe hits her shoulder with the back of her hand. “I don’t know if you caught that eye fucking, but I did and you’re not seriously still sitting here are you?”
Ashlyn forces a scoff but she’s still considering the eye contact and that tangible something that is currently snaking around her head, heating up the tips of her ears and sending a warm flush down the back of her neck and maybe it was really something. “But she’s straight. At best, absolute best case scenario, it’s an experimentation itch she wants to scratch.”
The song is continuing and it’s only taken about thirty seconds for more douche bag replicas to come out of the woodwork and make their way over to the girls. Any second, Ashlyn expects to see Ali give in and dance, but instead she gets closer to Alex and Becky, occasionally casting her eyes vaguely in the direction of the bar, not meeting Ashlyn’s eyes but each time there’s the ghost of a smirk and she swears that the pivot in her hips is a bit more pronounced.
Pinoe hasn’t missed a beat and she brings her glass down to the bar with a significant clink. “If that’s experimentation, consider yourself a fucking scientist and go for the … you know … hypotenuse or whatever.”
Ashlyn grins, eyes still locked on Ali, “Hypothesis? This is why you’re a football player and not an astrophysicist.” When she turns to get another drink, her earlier confidence ebbing, Pinoe knocks her hand down.
“If you order another drink, I’m pouring it on your lap and going over there myself.”
A small voice in her ear is urging her on, replaying Ali’s hip swirls over and over with flashes of their eye contact and the feeling of her fingers on the back of Ashlyn’s hand and whispering Even if it is just for fun, isn’t it better than nothing? and the other voice, the one of reason and debate is babbling on, something about the ache of loss but Ashlyn is turning on her barstool and standing before she can talk herself out of it. The final push forward comes from Ali’s direct look over and a slight pause in her rhythm, her electric smile rousing confidence to return with a roar and Ashlyn is crossing the floor, not sure of anything but that she can’t let this go.
Playing it safe, she slides up to the three of them as the fourth side of a formation: Alex to her left, Becky on her right and Ali’s knees knock into hers a bit when she shimmies down low for a few moments, hands sliding down to the tops of her thighs and Ashlyn is transfixed. Together they all sway and move together, mostly just enjoying the song and this is really great, even if she never gets to touch Ali because it feels like the night could go on forever like one of those movie clichés.
Almost on cue, Alex spins to Ashlyn’s front while Becky aligns with her from behind and the three of them are in tandem as Ali flits between, shoulders against backs and chests, hands in her hair and then grasping onto them, bodies drifting together and apart. Ashlyn’s hands maintain a molecular distance from Alex’s hips ahead of her, more just as a buffer, and Becky’s got her forearms slung over her shoulders, a bit less balance and comically rubbing against the rivets on Ashlyn’s back pockets.
It doesn’t take very long for them to fall mostly out of sync, especially with Ali bouncing against each in turn. Ashlyn feels she’s more to blame as she feels compelled to match her rhythm instead of the two she’s touching and then they’re all laughing together, deep from their chests and Alex is gone first, grabbing onto Becky’s hand and they take turns spinning each other, moving away.
Ashlyn’s laughter hasn’t fully died and then Ali is coming closer and with intent, eyes locking onto hers again and she’s really gotta fucking stop that but then her hands grab onto Ashlyn’s and she spins herself around, melding her back into Ashlyn’s chest and her ass is nestled between hipbones and their hands are thrust to the sides and Ashlyn is prepared to unlink their fingers, but Ali just gets a better hold. Their rhythm becomes staccato when adrenaline collides with arousal and fear, but Ali gives a long, languid hip roll backwards and Ashlyn instinctively pushes hers forward and the resulting friction sends heat low in her belly.
Everyone around them is gone in an instant; they’re the only two left alive in the world and Ashlyn would give any and everything she’s ever owned for this to go on for just one more precious second. They build a good rhythm and pace together, hips alternating and rolling and pressing and each time there’s a longer rock into each other as before, their fingers tighten and Ali brings them in on the third time, holding them against her hips. Then her hands are gone, grabbing onto Ashlyn’s forearms and the pads of Ashlyn’s fingers are in the dips of her pelvis, and the delicious feeling is sending her heart hammering in her ribcage.
As Drake joins in with Rhianna, the two of them are still fused together and Ashlyn’s eyes are falling closed and there is no shred of self preservation in sight because she’ll give Ali whatever she asks for; she’ll fall to her feet and it’s not below her to beg for just one. One kiss, one embrace, one time, just one and I can deal with it later because this is so fucking good. Her head falls forward onto Ali’s shoulder and when she feels Ali’s head rest against her own, that something comes back and asks if this is what friends do, if this is what alcohol does.
While she wonders if she knows the answer to those or even if she wants to, their hips are still sliding together and Ashlyn’s fingers are now her palms and Ali’s hips already feel so familiar in her hands. Ali’s own have slid up and up and then they’re gone only to reappear up on Ashlyn’s biceps, rubbing and grasping and her ass grinds back harder, eliciting the first low groan from Ashlyn’s mouth and their heads are so close that it’s directly into Ali’s ear, there’s no way she didn’t hear it.
She can’t feel ashamed, won’t because God if she could, she’d write an ode to the delightful pulse of Ali’s waist and anyway, she thinks it was appreciated because she can just make out a soft laugh before Ali drops a few inches, swirling on Ashlyn’s frame, her hands still climbing and taking a backwards hold onto her strong shoulders. On the way back up, she brings her hands forward and the loss is rewarded with a deeper roll into Ashlyn’s lap, Ali’s back arched off of her but shoulders coming back to compensate.
Ashlyn grips with her fingers and the heels of her palms and rocks forward to mimic everything she’s dreamt of doing to her, with her, for what’s almost been a month and anyone watching them would think they’re practically fucking and Jesus get a room and Ashlyn couldn’t care any less than she does because this is good and right and pure and her hands can’t stay where they are and they move up to the tight plane of Ali’s stomach, holding on for dear life. It’s been the length of a three-minute song and everything has changed in the twenty or so steps she took from the barstool. Holy shit the barstool and she looks up to see Pinoe with a wholly bemused face. Ashlyn drops her head to Ali’s shoulder again, laughing because there’s nothing else to be done.
“What’s so funny?” Ali murmurs, mouth close to her ear, slowing her hips slightly; perhaps she’s also aware of their verge on explicit behavior.
Ashlyn doesn’t quite know what to say, how to say it succinctly so they can continue dancing, if you can call it that, but also wanting to give a voice to whatever it is they’re doing. "I just … the girls. I mean, we’re right here in the open and … I mean whatever, whatever this … I-"
Then, Ali moves away and there’s a sharp pang in Ashlyn’s chest – shouldn’t have fucking said anything but also wanting to give her the space she desires and this is what you were asking for. Before she can think that it was absolutely worth it though, Ali is threading her arms up and around the back of Ashlyn’s neck, now face to face and a few inches away. She smiles and her eyes are sparkling amber; they trail down to watch Ashlyn’s mouth and Ashlyn can taste the vodka in the air between them.
“Sorry. It’s easier to hear you this way,” Ali explains but there’s the ghost of a wink and their hips are applying their same rhythm to the new configuration. Ashlyn’s knee slides between Ali’s piecing their bodies together, if possible tighter than before. But now, their movements aren’t quite as deep, nor as elicit and it’s more of them just really seeing each other.
“No I’m just wondering if you’re okay with, you know, the three of them seeing what’s going on. Not that – not that anything is going on but …” Ashlyn is tripping over her words again and Ali brings her mouth to her ear, her cheek warm and soft and distracting.
“If you think there’s nothing going on, I’m not really sure what else I could do to show you that something is… I mean, nothing I can really, legally do here.”
There’s nothing to say, nothing that Ashlyn has the ability to say. At once there is ice from her head to her toes but also scorching, piercing heat just everywhere. Her mouth is gawping like a fish out of water and she wants so badly to deliver a smooth one liner and play it cool but her hands and arms want to pick Ali up off her feet, wrap them together and find the nearest locking room. There are a thousand thoughts jockeying for importance and what does this mean? Friends, straight, temporary, just for tonight; my heart is too involved already.
Ali’s pulled back and is getting the biggest kick out of watching the emotions broadcast themselves over Ashlyn’s features, peeking around to both Alex and Becky who have moved over to Pinoe. The three of them are sharing conspiratorial whispers and she’s so glad she barely had to say anything to them before they knew to leave the two of them together because really everyone can see it but Ashlyn, we totally knew you were into her.
“Ali … I… I want to—“
“Yeah, I want to, too. So you call the cab and I’ll tell the girls we’re bailing right?” Ali’s eagerness is so wonderful to Ashlyn’s ears and she should just say yes already but she shakes her head clear and their bodies are almost stationary, having slowed to the slightest sway.
“No, I mean. Look,” she pauses to look around and realizes that if this is really going to happen, it can’t be sloppy, “Okay, follow me real quick.” Then, she’s leading Ali to a far corner of the room, as far away from the mass of people as possible. Ali’s hand is twined in hers, her other holding Ashlyn’s upper arm and really, they could just keep going out the door, that’s what cell phones were invented for but they stop in a relatively quieter spot. Still, their heads are angled together to really hear and she smells so amazing and all of Ashlyn’s willpower goes into not having their first kiss be in the dark corner of a seedy Philadelphia nightclub.
The way Ali is looking at her is plucking each heartstring in succession. “So, what’s up?” It’s cute and conversational and might have been from earlier in the week except for the fact that their hands are still linked and Ali’s thumb is rubbing against the side of Ashlyn’s wrist.
“Al. I don’t want this to be … You know, don’t get me wrong, if this happens at all I’m through the fucking roof, I swear to God. But I didn’t know that you – that I’m something, someone you’d be into this way.” Ashlyn puts conviction and feeling into the words, not sure what she’s the most scared of hearing.
But Ali’s giving her a quirky grin and there’s a small flood of relief, “If you’re asking if you’d be my first girl, I’m sorry to say I can’t give you that. I’d be happy to make it up to you though in any way that I could.”
Yes, definite relief and intrigue and excitement and more of that warm, deep, throbbing pang sliding on a string between Ashlyn’s knees and her abdomen. “Well, I have a hundred follow up comments to that but,” and there’s a beat while she considers carefully what to say, “this isn’t – I’m not asking what this is or where it’s going, but I want to be sure and I want you to be sure.”
There’s a small furrow in Ali’s brow and Ashlyn would cross her fingers if it didn’t mean separating their hands. She thinks for a few moments and then looks into Ashlyn’s eyes with a calm assurance. “It took me all of two days to know that this is what I’d want with you, to be perfectly honest. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen afterwards but I can give you a good idea of my plans for the next few hours.”
As much as Ashlyn wants to be dutifully virtuous, she’s got a line and Ali has blown past it. There will be no further need to gauge her willingness. It’s with an incredible amount of self-control that she’s not jumping to click her heels. “So, I’ll call the cab and you tell the girls we’re bailing.”
There’s the blinding smile that sent a torpedo through her world, including the lines around her mouth and her tongue sliding between her teeth and only one thought echoes; this will either end terribly or it won’t end at all. The thought comes and goes like lightning and it won’t enter Ashlyn’s head again until the next day when they’re laying in bed together, awake and talking and forgetting all about schedules and roommates and only looking forward to the next minute, the next question, the next answer, because now those are the only things that are worth waiting for.