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“You’re laughing at me, aren’t you.”
“I—what?” said Nicole, breathless and bewildered. Waverly had pulled away from her so quickly that it took her a moment to realize that their lips were no longer pressed together, and another moment to realize that she had, in fact, been chuckling softly in the back of her throat. “No, I wasn’t laughing at you. Why would I be?”
“It’s just…” Waverly bit her bottom lip, still slightly swollen from the kiss, and Nicole had to fight hard to keep her attention on what Waverly was saying. “I don’t have a confidence problem or anything—“
“Don’t I know it,” said Nicole, grinning. “One might even call you brazen.”
Waverly smiled back, recalling that memorable afternoon on Nedley’s couch. “Damn straight, Officer Haught, that speech was some of my best work! But Nicole,” she reached up to stroke Nicole’s cheek as she spoke, “the other part, the part about not knowing how to do this, that part is still true. I don’t want to feel like I’m amusing you, you know? I want to make you feel the way you make me feel, and you make me feel like—“ she gestured wordlessly, attempting to paint a picture with her hands of the feelings she couldn’t quite quantify, yet.
“Hey,” said Nicole softly, pulling Waverly towards her to kiss the top of her head before tucking it under her chin, a habit she had quickly formed once she realized how their height disparity allowed Waverly to fit perfectly into the space against her chest. “You are one of the funniest, wittiest people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and ‘amusing’ is still the last word I would use to describe how I feel about you.” She pulled away, still holding Waverly gently by the shoulders, and shrugged. “My daddy used to joke when I was little, he’d say sometimes I would smile so much and so widely that the smile just couldn’t bear to stay quiet. I’m not laughing at you I’m just—“ she paused, searching in vain for the right word before settling on the distinctly inadequate “—happy.“
“Well if that’s all it was…” Waverly murmured, moving Nicole’s hands from her shoulders to her waist before leaning in once again. Nicole barely registered a flicker of movement on the floor by her bedroom door before closing her eyes, trying to put everything into the kiss that she couldn’t fit into her explanation.
The second kiss was also woefully short-lived, broken once again by Waverly, who stiffened, bit Nicole’s lip hard and then shrieked, leaping bodily into Nicole’s arms. “What the FU—oh.”
Nicole followed her gaze and locked eyes with none other than her cat, who seemed to be looking at her with even more disdain than usual. Waverly extricated herself carefully from Nicole’s arms, and Nicole reluctantly put her down. “I--I felt something brush against my leg, I guess I’ve been more jumpy than usual late—are you ok?”
“Mhmm.” Nicole could feel her face turning red from the effort of not bursting into tears of laughter. Waverly, who regularly threatened her more handsy customers at Shorty’s with a shotgun, scared out of her wits by a deadly brush with danger…in the form of a cat…
But they had only just finished discussing Waverly’s worry that Nicole was laughing at her and, sure, this wasn’t exactly the same situation, but Nicole was determined to show Waverly how unamusing she found her. “Never better,” Nicole managed to choke out.
Waverly seemed to catch on threw up her hands, exasperated. “Oh for goodness’ sake,” she sighed, “Your face is the same color as your hair. Nicole, I jumped into your arms because of a goddamn cat. For Christ’s sake just laugh already!”
The words had barely left her lips before Nicole doubled over, laughing so hard she almost lost her balance. “Not…laughing…at you,” she wheezed, “Promise!”
“Mhm, whatever you say, Haught Stuff,” grumbled Waverly, giving the cat the finger while Nicole continued to cackle.